They always say money makes the world go around, which kind of suggests that it comes to a stop whenever somebody refuses to pay.
But while that’s not necessarily true for the world at large, it can be true for our own little parts of it. Because unless somebody has a brilliant contingency plan for when people decide to stiff them, we’ll often find that we can’t move forward until we have an exhausting argument about what money is supposed to go to whom.
Of course, anyone who’s ever disputed a credit card charge can tell you that it’s not always the one who refuses to pay who’s the bad guy. Because if nobody told us we’d be holding the bag or even what we were paying for, it’s perfectly reasonable for us to not want to be taken advantage of.
And that’s the situation one woman faced when her husband’s celebration suddenly turned sour.
Before she got into her story, the woman wanted to make it clear that she and her husband keep their finances separate.
As she explained in a Reddit post , this has largely worked out for them in the three years of their marriage, but it’s also brought about some cases where her husband has tried to get her to pay for him.
But she said she only does this when she wants to do something nice for him like invite him out to dinner and that any time he’s paid for her, she paid him back.
Recently, her husband received a major bonus at work, so he invited the woman and his family out to celebrate.
And despite the fact that he picked the restaurant and planned the evening, it seemed there was one part of it he was counting on her for.
As she said, “When it was time to pay the bill, he told me to ‘take care of it.’ I said why? It’s his celebration not mine but he insisted I pay and he’ll explain later.”
But since he was suggesting that she pay for his and his whole family’s meals, she refused.
He tried to frame this as the woman being bitter about his bonus and apparently assumed that she would have wanted to cover the whole bill because she was happy for him.
Eventually, he admitted that he hadn’t actually received his bonus yet and that he “might consider” paying her back later. Again, she held firm and only paid for what she ate and drank.
In her words, “Him and his family started talking about how inappropriate I was acting, I took my purse and went home afterwards cause there was so much commotion.”
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Since this decision led to hours of repeated calls from his mom and a massive argument when he got home, the woman wondered if she was in the wrong.
But not only did the Reddit community she reached out to agree that it was unreasonable to expect her to pay for everything, but they suspected he knew that too.
As one user said , “He wanted to put her on the spot so that she would feel that she had to pay. He did this publicly thinking that she wouldn’t be able to say no. She said no. Good for her. This was premeditated manipulation.”
Many people were shocked that he tried this at all.
“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,” one commenter wrote , “He said the celebration was for his bonus. He invited everyone to eat out. Both if these, especially combined, imply that he’s going to pay. He purposely set you up, and then he got his family in on it.”
There were some trying to encourage this woman to leave, fast.
To a comment where she revealed that she’s 27, her husband’s 33, and they’ve been married for three years, someone replied , “RUN. I honestly thought you guys were early twenties. A 33-year-old who overspends, makes you pay for him to treat his family, then ‘might pay you back’ etc. F no. This guy is BAD NEWS.”
And some people were just plain confused.
Like this person, who wrote , “This whole thing is bonkers. I have a lot of questions about a married couple splitting the check but someone inviting the whole family out to dinner to celebrate a BONUS is crazy. Promotion, yes. Bonus, no. Unless that bonus was $25,000 this is so juvenile.”
Overall, this wife got the support she needed to know she was not in the wrong here.
h/t: Reddit | Valley-Mountains3453
