People on Reddit are very sensitive to situations in which one party stays home and the other one makes all of the money.
By that I mean, they are wary of people who think making the money means they get to control everyone’s access to it.
OP’s wife has a close (possibly enabling) relationship with her younger sister.
My wife(25F) of 5 years has a sister(20F). She’s somewhat disabled, and while this may sound contradictory she has a condition which makes working difficult but not entirely impossible unless she is under stress (neurological condition, loses muscle control, makes her hit/throw stuff, fall over).
I have no problem with her sister. She is sweet and nice to have around, my wife loves her more than anything. She basically raised her and stepped in when her parents wouldn’t or couldn’t.
This has led to a relationship closer to mother daughter. My wife would constantly be paying for stuff for her sister, and this made sense to me when she was a minor and was doing much worse health wise.
When his wife was working, it was her business.
Recently though this has increasingly been getting under my skin. I am the sole provider for my household right now since my wife was pregnant, and only gave birth recently.
We’d spend a lot to buy her sister gifts for holidays, which she would never return the favor – even with something cheap with thought (or no thought) put into them.
We’d always take her out to events or dinner and pay for her every time. She would never even pick up the bill for herself.
Again, wasn’t entirely an issue until she became an adult – and now I’m fed up with it.
She expects my sister to do things like pay for her to go to the doctor, or invites us out to lunch and then expects us to pay.
She doesn’t even schedule her own appointments, my wife takes her wherever she asks even if she has the ability to do it herself and we live 45 minutes away.
She always talks about how she’s freelancing and is making money, but then somehow has no money whenever she needs or wants anything.
I did not have an issue with this either really. I thought my wife was being a pushover, but it’s ultimately her money.
Now, he’s willing to revoke her access to their joint accounts if she won’t stop.
Until recently. Now she’s spending my money on her and it’s really getting me angry. I want to spend my money on my daughter but we’re spending money on this financially irresponsible leech.
I explained this to my wife in a much nicer way, but we ended up in a fight where I called her sister some pretty messed up things.
I ended the conversation by telling her I would take away her access to our joint bank account until she contributes again if she doesn’t tell her sister to grow up and that she is not her mother, and she is no longer a child.
She cannot be dependent on people forever. I think it’s an important lesson for her to learn. If she doesn’t learn it, she can get back to work and continue supporting her until shes 40 with her own money. Not mine.
This is leading to some pretty big arguments.
She honestly thinks this is an end of the world situation, I think it’s quite clear this is for the better. I think she’s scared of hurting her sister but at this point shes crippling her by allowing her to do nothing.
EDIT : I should have worded it better in my post. I just meant having the debit card and using our money on her sister.
Not taking away all her access to money but setting a limit, or giving her cash so she cant just get suckered into paying for stuff.
A lot of the criticism still stands despite this but I want to clarify I’m not taking away her access to all the money entirely.
I also understand the comments about my wife being a homemaker means she is putting in equal work so my money is her money, but we are on a single income and we can barely afford our family’s needs.
I cant give her half my salary so she can spend half of that on her sister. A majority of it goes to keeping us paycheck to paycheck right now.
Does Reddit think his actions are valid? Let’s hear them out!
The top comment says everyone needs to work on something here.
This person thinks the top commenter is being too pedantic.
While this commenter says he’s saying it wrong but he’s not wrong.
They say they definitely sound like a young couple.
Overall, folks say there isn’t enough info.
I definitely think this is a hard one to call.
I doubt OP has told us the whole story, but you never know.
If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.
