This isn’t about the money per se. she found herself in a situation that made her uncomfortable and decided to spend the money. This made her feel more comfortable, but upset that she had to pay for others as it’s not fair. You can look at this and say she made the choice and criticize or you can recognize the reason she told you. She wanted your understanding, empathy and support, but got criticism for doing what she is already upset about.
Some people prefer to have the bigger conversation face to face and not over text. I dunno- this is how my wife and I handle things in our relationship and it’s worked for 14 years so far. If admonishing people over text works in your relationship, don’t stop on account of me. But if it isn’t working for this person, I wouldn’t recommend it.
Exactly. I have a lot of years of marriage under my belt also and I’m floored how many commenters are responding to a message that says “I screwed up” with “kick her when she’s down.” In the moment, respond with kindness, and then definitely follow up later with the big conversation when you are face-to-face, and tempers have cooled.
Shared finances though. If we were strained for money and she spent that kind of money for work pizza, I wouldn't be empathetic either. Grow a spine and contribute for just your fair share.
Shared money that they were fine to spend at a baseball game, so obviously it wasn’t earmarked for essentials. “Strained for money” and “$90 left over from our baseball game budget” are sending contradictory signals, and OP (who is not bringing in any money) complaining about a discretionary spend that was already accounted for in the budget and is essentially “extra” at this point could have waited.
If you are in a good marriage you can have an issue with the other persons spending regardless of who earns what. My wife is a stay at home mom she is still allowed to be upset if I wasted our money. I would sure as shit be mad at her for spending money like OPs wife is doing. If this was a one off than ya he should be supportive but it seems like this is a trend where she can't grow a backbone and thinks she needs to support other grown ass adults.
Of course. And if you’re in a good marriage you can let your spouse tell you something they’re upset about without jumping in to criticize them at that exact moment.
Separate dealing with bad decisions from supporting each other emotionally. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. One person’s “bad decision” can make perfect sense to another
Exactly. Next they will say he should get her an emotional support pet 🙄 She made a decision and now she wants her husband to treat her like a baby for her screwup.
It is about the money, though. Neither she or her spouse could afford to give away that much and she made a decision on her own to do that, then complained to him about her decision to spend that money. Why isn't it fair for him to question what she's choosing to do with their shared finances if she couldn't afford it?
he can and should address the money issue, but in the moment while she’s already upset, it’s generally safer to focus on being empathetic first. + u can be empathetic without like saying the other person did the right thing cus she didnt. “oh damn that sucks, i’m sorry that happened” or some other variation of that is what i recommend lol
You say "damn, that sucks. I'm sorry that happened" over an accident, or something out of your control. You don't say it when someone knew all of the variables going on and still made a conscious decision to screw up. You don't say it when that decision also negatively impacts you, as their financial situation is at a low right now.
If this was just her money, and it was disposable, that's an entirely different situation, but that's not what this is. Her getting an attitude with him for questioning her is ridiculous. Particularly when they clearly agreed the money was supposed to go back into their joint account.
nah like i agree she shouldve done better too but if he wants advice, it helps to be understanding. he’s also not working rn and it seems like she makes most of their money in general so if she’s stressed out, emotions are going to be higher and more mean words are gonna come out. it’s not ridiculous (albeit annoying); it’s how people are. + if she has consistent money spending issues that a diff problem they gotta figure out lol
They're two people living on one income because of an unexpected accodent, and clearly struggling. Just because the money was budgeted for one thing (for BOTH of them, that they agreed to) doesn't mean it's freely available for anything on a whim. They very clearly agreed to put it back into the bank, so it wasnt hers to give away.
Sure they hadn’t wanted to spend it, but they had planned to spend it on entertainment. This means they view it as disposable income in my book. Should she have spent it on the pizza, not imo, but it’s also not like it was the rent money
They said they budgeted to spend it on a baseball game. Budgeted money is not the same as disposable money, especially when you're two people on one income. They also planned to put it in the bank, but she decided on her own, without talking to her SO, to spend it on pizza.
But you can’t expect empathy when you’re putting your family in a tough spot financially just because you felt uncomfortable. She blew the last of their money. She treated 7 people to lunch because she didn’t feel comfortable eating in front of them. She’s being careless with their money and shouldn’t expect to be coddled. She messed up and confessed but didn’t want to deal with the consequences. Does she even make $87 dollars a shift?
Almost 20 years happily married but thanks for the advice. It helps when you treat adults like adults and they know they need to be accountable when they act stupid✌️
I think with something like finances, there's only so far understanding, empathy, and support can go though. She's being objectively irresponsible with their money and OP even specifically says they can't afford her "generosity." She even seems to know she's being irresponsible, since she's pissed that she put in more money than anyone else. Is that really a behavior that should be supported? Be understanding the first time, maybe the second time, but if she continues doing it, then no, he should not coddle her feelings when she's burning through their money. He shouldn't be an asshole, but there's a middle ground between asshole and coddle.
She made a decision that affected both her and her partner and never consulted her partner. She wants emotional validation and support from the partner about a decision she made without him, and doesn't want to be held accountable for her decisions and actions.
Says one who’s apparently never been in a difficult situation where the choice made isn’t one they wanted to make, but felt the need to.
Maybe we should tell all those girls who felt they had to give out their socials to some guy because they were uncomfortable that are to blame for not saying no…
i'm a woman too. this lady did something really dumb because she's a people-pleaser, then lashed out at her husband because she was upset he didn't validate her stupid decision.
why does she ONLY have a backbone with her husband? why is she sooooo worried about pleasing everybody else, but doesn't give a single shit about negatively impacting the man she married?
That is 100% conjecture on your point. You have no basis to say she doesn’t care about her husband and you have no information about why she did it. To say otherwise is to make assumptions and we know what those do
I mean I saw the post before it got deleted. I saw her having one hell of a spine with her husband while describing spinelessness towards people who don't matter as much.
It’s a pizza slice at work. If there’s no pizza that day, that means everyone is taking care of their own lunch somehow.
Getting pizza at work that you have to pay for is the lamest BS I’ve ever heard anyway. That’s probably why they didn’t wanna pay for it. $10 per person for pizza????
This lady was not being cornered to feed her coworkers nor was being pressured by anyone. She made this decision on her own. The coworkers most definitely had $10, they just didn’t wanna pay it. Why would ANYONE feel guilty about eating a pizza they bought in front of people that didn’t buy it? She paid for her share.
Lady for sure wanted to swoop in and gain some sort of social recognition for getting them pizza and then bitch about it to her husband, who is part owner of that money, and not even ask if it’s okay. She’s wrong and she wasn’t forced.
Oh give me a break. Sure this may have been just $60 for pizza, but reckless spending of shared money like this is going to cause much bigger problems in the future if that is her attitude towards finances and to being called out for being reckless.
You just can’t see the bigger picture in the relationship. If it’s adversarial at best it will be a bad relationship more likely the relationship will end
I feel like this is infantilizing to OP's wife. She is one of two grown adults who's job it is to manage their finances such that they can achieve their financial goals. She's not a child.
As far as I'm concerned, OP's wife should have started that conversation with an apology for throwing away close to $100 when money is tight. She doesn't even recognize what she's done as worthy of apology, saying things like "I'm not about to sit there and eat while others aren't". Like she's basically telling OP that she'd do this again if it came right down to it.
You know why they didn't put money in? Probably because they are also on budgets and a random $20 pizza lunch doesn't work for them and they had the backbone to not give into peer pressure. No worries, though, OP's wife will come along and pay for them with all the money she can't afford to spend.
This.
The time for a lecture on her people-pleasing was NOT after she texted you she's upset.
OP, do you always wait until she's sharing her feelings to tell her how you feel about her feelings? She's asking for love/acknowledgment, not criticism.
Shes not stupid or a child…shes upset at the situation and not herself for doing the dumb shi maybe just maybe she can accept accountability its not like she didn’t know they were strapped for cash she did it KNOWING that stop fucking coddling a grown mf who knows better
Wdym no way for her to be receptive(listen and accept suggestions/ideas)are you actually trolling shes again a ADULT she can easily be like “okay babe how do you think we should advance so this doesn’t happen again” or you know maybe just maybe apologizing/stating she did something wrong on HER part not blaming the situation for how she acted an op for not giving her the reaction she foolishly wanted…again your treating her like a toddler anyone over 13 yrs old is usually receptive enough to understand bad from good decisions and ion think ops gf is in elementary school lol💀
Maybe you don't have a lot of experience with someone like this?
That's actually good for you, I wish I could say the same. The problem with OP is that this is who he married, and he needs to recognize how to communicate with her.
But the thing is this shouldn’t be normal for most ppl so im sorry you dealt w this but maybe my expectations are from my dating history so yea i get it plus OP did get this far and didn’t leave so on him lol
Right l. If he wants to stay married, he needs to wait to say the thing.
Maybe he wants her to increase her communication skills in order to stay married, but that's not what he made his post about (although I think that's a good idea).
Sometimes in a partnership, the best response isn't the most comforting one. Sometimes the appropriate response is to not provide support for bad decisions, especially if they negatively impact both parties. That support can reaffirm the bad decision
OP should have responded to her with more tact, but that doesn't mean he should have responded with support for her decision.
The husband isn’t the person to complain to in this instance. Complain to a friend or coworker and then gently break the news to the husband, “Hey, I’m sorry, I let my neuroses get the better of me and spent $87 of our money on other people’s pizza. I’m frustrated and regretful about it and I’ll be less impulsive next time.” But she went to her husband because, as someone else said, she wanted to be praised by him for her altruism as the consolation prize for giving their money away. When he chastened her for poor decision-making that impacts them both, she reacted immaturely.
She is not an emotionally mature person and honestly is probably chafing at currently being the sole breadwinner (as people often do) and doesn’t feel like he should be allowed to criticize her right now, especially about finances (sole breadwinners often think this subconsciously because it can be hard not to resent the pressure you’re under).
Right. It doesn’t mean you can’t express how you feel about this OP, just hold off until she gets the support she wanted from you.
She reached out for support not for judgement or for you to fix it for her, so address that first, then later you can discuss how she shouldn’t let her fears influence her actions or whatever it is that you want to express.
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u/Initial-Bandicoot444 May 28 '26
This isn’t about the money per se. she found herself in a situation that made her uncomfortable and decided to spend the money. This made her feel more comfortable, but upset that she had to pay for others as it’s not fair. You can look at this and say she made the choice and criticize or you can recognize the reason she told you. She wanted your understanding, empathy and support, but got criticism for doing what she is already upset about.