There are good reasons to combine finances with your partner and good reasons to keep them separate, but no matter which way you go about it, you hopefully never want to be in the situation that one woman on Reddit found herself in at a dinner to celebrate her husband. Without checking in beforehand, her husband told her to pay for everything — his meal, her meal, and dinner for his whole family. But was she really so wrong for refusing to pay after he assumed she’d just go along with his plan?
The Original Poster and her husband have never combined their finances.
For their entire three-year marriage, they’ve kept things separate, she explained. In the past, she's noticed that her husband will sometimes try to get her to pay for more than her fair share, but overall their system has worked well.
“I do it only when I want to do a nice thing for him, say invite him to a restaurant,” she explained in her post on Reddit's AITA forum.
Recently, her husband got a bonus at work and wanted to go out and celebrate.
He invited his whole family to dinner too.
“He picked the restaurant, meals, drinks etc.,” she explained. “I naturally thought he was going to pay for all that since, it's his happy celebration. But it turns out I was wrong because when it was time to pay the bill, he told me to ‘take care of it.’”
The OP asked him why he thought she should pay for everything, and he “insisted” that she pay “and he'll explain later.”
The OP refused and wanted to know why in the world she should be expected to foot the bill.
“He said that while yes, he is the one who got [the] bonus, he assumed I'd want to celebrate that and offer to cover the bill,” she recalled.
The OP told him that was ridiculous, but he shot back that she should be happy for him “instead of being visibly bitter.”
“He then said he's yet to receive his bonus and begged that I take care of the bill now and he ‘might’ consider paying me back later,” she added.
Again the OP refused to pony up the cash for everyone. She paid for just her meal and left.
“Him and his family started talking about how inappropriate I was acting,” she recalled. “I took my purse and went home afterwards cause there was so much commotion when they started arguing who's going to cover the bill.”
Her husband’s mom “spam called” the OP for hours, and when they got home her husband told her “I spoiled his celebration and joy because I'm feeling bitter, especially considering I had enough money to cover the bill right there and then,” she wrote.
The OP told him that it wasn’t her “obligation” to pay for his meal, especially because it was his idea to go out.
“He argued that if the roles were reversed and I got a bonus, he'd celebrate me and my achievements and pay for the ‘damn’ meals after taking me and my family out,” she recalled. “I casually said ‘well, that's just you not me.’”
That comment made her husband even angrier, and he told her he had it with her “juvenile antics and that he won't ever forget the scene I made at the restaurant in front of his family,” she added. “Been upset with me for days now.”
Overwhelmingly, the comments section thought the OP had nothing to feel bad about.
“It's common knowledge that you do not invite people to dinner and then expect them to pay for everyone else. You don't trap your spouse in awkward situations like that, either," wrote one person. "He said the celebration was for his bonus. He invited everyone to eat out. Both [of] these, especially combined, imply that he's going to pay. He purposely set you up, and then he got his family in on it."
"[Not the asshole] You guys have separate finances, he didn't ask you beforehand. This was wildly tacky and presumptuous of him," another commenter agreed. "The 'maybe I'll pay you back' really sealed it for me. What a tool."
"Maybe I'm the crazy one, but the person getting the bonus should treat others if they want a celebration," someone else wrote.
"If he got a bonus why couldn’t he pay?" another commenter wondered. "Especially since y’all have this rule where y’all pay for yourselves already. He just didn’t want to spend the extra money on a celebration he planned. Like damn dude if you don’t want to pay don’t plan a celebration dinner."
Some other people thought she should have just paid for the party.
“[You're the A–hole] do you even like your husband?" one commenter wondered.
"Is this for real? Why on earth wouldn't you pay for this and talk with your husband later instead of making a scene at the restaurant?" another commenter agreed. "Exactly what kind of 'marriage' is? I'm more generous with acquaintances than you are with your husband."
The OP ended up showing her husband the comment section — and it didn't go well.
In an update to her post, she wrote that he "lost it" on her.
"I accept my judgment but he won't, he said and I quote 'these people have no idea' and said that I should've mentioned that I make more money than him (not that much and I don't think it justifies it) and that he had paid the bill for me in the past when I forgot my wallet but I did pay him back so," she shared.
"He's pretty p—ed right though he kept laughing sarcastically when reading some of the comments, he just walked out of the kitchen to take a phone call and said he'll be back," she added. "I'm still here with the dog waiting to see how this goes. I'll update if there's any new info."
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