Emily Duprie
Marriage is a partnership in which you do your best to help your partner, because it in turn will benefit you both. Too often do marriages fail because one partner pulls far more weight than the other, whether it be emotionally, physically, or financially. Being married requires a lot of humility and patience, and if you lack these two qualities, you’re bound to end up as an entitled a-hole.
In a recent Reddit post, one upset and entitled husband questioned if he was in the wrong for being upset that his wife was asking for some spending money, after she bought them a house and two brand new cars. As if enough hasn’t been said already, read his side of the story below, along with some of the top comments!
OP asked Reddit: “AITA for not wanting to pay for my wife’s spending money?”
Before the birth of our daughter, my wife and I both worked full time in low-middle earning jobs with my wife earning a bit more than I but not by much. My wife returned to work out of necessity when our daughter was 3 months old. Her mental health became pretty bad and she has a minor disability that makes work life a little hard and she found it a bit worse after having our daughter but we had to do what we had to do.
My wife’s nan who sort of raised her and was her only family passed away sadly when our daughter was 6 months old. My wife inherited everything she owned. It was a big inheritance. Not enough for us both to immediately retire but a lot. Enough for us to buy a decent house outright, a new car each and to put some away for a comfortable retirement.
OP’s wife was generous enough to use HER inheritance on valuable assets that benefited the couple as a whole.
Shortly after her nan died, my wife stopped working and became a stay at home mom. Partially due to grief and struggles at her job, and a bit because she always would have preferred to stay home with our daughter. Thing is though, I’d rather not work and be a stay at home dad too but I’ve been sucking it up because we still need an income to get by.
Here’s where OP started to slip…
My wife spoke with me recently about how to budget so we can live off just my income (she’d been dipping into savings to pull her weight but that’s all tied up in investments now). I said if I’m the one who has to work (and I’d rather not) I don’t think I should have to spend my money funding her hobbies and spending money. If she chooses not to work then she can buy clothes at the charity shop instead of new and get a friend to cut her hair for free etc. Or she can get a job working a night shift or start an online business or something to fund her spending money.
Real smooth OP. A gym membership is way more valuable than two brand new cars and a house. Here comes the entitlement…
I don’t see why I should have to pay for stuff like her sewing materials and gym membership since I don’t benefit from them and they’re not my responsibility. I’m happy to pay for stuff for our daughter seeing as she’s my responsibility so I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here. I work 36 hours a week and I already pay for the bills and food. She said that’s not fair if I get to enjoy my gym membership and hobbies like video games but the difference is I’m paying for them with my money. My wife said her inheritance was worth more than if she spent her whole life working and without that, both of us would be working anyway and having higher expenses from paying a mortgage and car loans so I should count that as her contribution and share my money with her.
AITA?
OP’s expectations are laughable, let’s see what commentators had to say about his behavior:
