AITAH? Husband accused me of “financial infidelity”
A woman, who has been in a long-term marriage, is accused by her husband of “financial infidelity” after using her personal savings from their agreed-upon “fun money” to purchase a $5,000 gaming setup. They have separate accounts for individual expenses, but her husband is upset that she accumulated this much without telling him.
He now wants her to return the items and limit the amount they can save individually. She feels punished for being more frugal and wonders if she’s in the wrong for not being more transparent about her spending.
AITAH? Husband accused me of “financial infidelity”
Husband (33M) and (33f) have been married for 10 years, together since college. Since starting out we have made financial security a priority and have been able to achieve that, albeit with some good luck along the way. We both have good jobs (paying close to 200K each). Student loans were paid off within a few years (both went to state schools with some scholarships so didn’t have a lot of debt to begin with), we live in a house I inherited from my grandmother (no mortgage), and don’t have any credit card debt. We max out our 401(k)s and currently have 18 months of expenses in our emergency fund and are still adding to it. Our cars are both paid off and should be good for another 5+ years and we don’t have any credit card debt.
We manage our finances in a hybrid manner – joint accounts for bills and savings, and separate accounts for our “fun” money (we each get a pretty generous monthly allotment). The fun money is strictly for our individual expenses (hobbies, clothes, outings with friends, etc.) and NOT for things like date nights, vacations, or larger joint purchases like household appliances and repairs which come out of our joint account. We also agreed that if either of us gets any bonuses (or has any side hustle income) those will go into our individual fun money accounts, unless the funds are needed for a larger expense such as a major home repair.
In terms of the “fun” money, my husband is much more of a spender than I am due to expensive hobbies (in particular golf and collecting sports memorabilia, and he’s also more into designer clothes), which is fine – it’s his fun money! On the other hand, my hobbies are a lot less expensive (running/working out, reading, baking). In general I’m more introverted and a great time for me is tea with a friend at one of our homes, with homemade pastries.
I have also been getting back into gaming lately after setting it aside for much of the past decade while building my career. After realizing I had more than enough in my fun money account, I decided to overhaul my gaming setup and got myself a new PC, desk and gaming chair (total cost of about $5,000).
However, upon hearing about the purchase, my husband is furious. He says he had no idea I had saved so much money and that I should have consulted him before spending $5K. I asked what difference it made if it was my own accrued fun money and not our joint funds, and he insisted that my accumulating this amount, without telling him, was a form of financial infidelity. He says he lost trust in me and doesn’t know what else I might be hiding. He is demanding that I return the items I purchased and deposit most of the funds to our joint account. He wants to make a new rule that fun money accounts can’t accumulate more than $2K and that any excess goes back to the joint account (a rule that would obviously favor him as a person who spends most of his allotment each month instead of saving up for anything bigger).
I feel like I am being punished for being more of a day-to-day saver than spender. It wouldn’t occur to me to demand to know how much my husband has in his fun money account or to try to micromanage what he spends it on. I wasn’t hiding anything deliberately – he never asked about it until after I made the purchases. Still, maybe I should have been more transparent about my plans. So AITAH?
Miscellaneous Info: Husband and I each have our own office/hobby room in the house so it’s not like the gaming setup was going in a space he uses. I don’t usually game when my husband is home unless he’s already busy doing something else – my biggest block of gaming time is typically when he’s off playing golf. Also, I run 40-50 miles a week so it’s not like I am generally sedentary. I can’t think of a good reason why he would object to me gaming or having a nice gaming setup in my own space in the house.
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Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Voeglein says:
The fact she has the house should have been enough for him to realize she doesn’t need him. My money would have been on “he cannot manage his money without guidance and is jealous that his wife can afford nice things that he can’t”
FrankenGretchen says:
He’s afraid. You having all that money saved up gives you options. Men get scared when they think things are ‘equal’ and discover that, in fact, their partner is in a more advantageous or self-determining position.l than they thought. Not saying he’s doing anything you’d want to drop him for but he’s insecure that you ‘could’ drop him. That’s a flag.
It was your money. You keep it. You keep the things you buy with it. I’d personally be considering moving my $ to an account he can’t touch. Definitely you don’t have to surrender any of your fun money. That’s a flag, too.
The other cringe with this is his being pissed about how you spend your time when he’s not around. Why does it matter? What’s he afraid of? Another flag.
LadySavings says:
I’m actually the bill payer/money manager for the household and check all of our accounts pretty much daily including retirement/investment accounts. No missing money or unexplained withdrawals to date. He admits that he’s not great with money so defers to my budgeting preferences. I’m the one who insisted that we live extremely frugally for several years in order to pay off our student loans and start accumulating savings and I’m the one who insists that we save nearly half of our take-home income now (on top of maxing out 401(k) contributions).
He would probably spend a lot more if we didn’t have this budget in place, but the current budget gives him plenty of money to enjoy his hobbies while we continue to save for retirement and otherwise accumulate wealth.
Aer0uAntG3alach says:
I will bet he’s spent way more than that regularly and now he’s looking for money. This behavior is making me very nervous for you. I worked for a divorce lawyer and my immediate assumption is he’s hiding something, whether it’s a side piece or a drug habit. That he went straight to anger and demands is a bad sign, a giant red flag.
Do not let him near your money. Keep a close watch on the joint account. Make sure he doesn’t have access to your phone, tablet, computer, watch. Don’t let him guilt you into turning anything over to him. No info. Nothing. Change your passwords and keep them secure. If all your accounts are with the same bank, seriously consider moving yours. Make a trip to the bank and make clear that no one is to have access but you. No phone transfers. No wire transfers. Put an alert on your accounts for any withdrawal and for any purchase.
The house is yours. He might have some claim to a tiny bit of it if he paid for renovations or purchased appliances, helped pay the taxes on it.
I know this sounds bleak, but I’ve seen too many women blindsided and losing money and property.
You deserve better
LadySavings says:
Thank you so much, these recommendations are really helpful. I do indeed take the lead on the household budgeting and much of the other emotional labor and household duties. I don’t mind as his job is longer hours and more stress than mine even though we make about the same amount, and the whole point is for both of us to be happy and function well as a team instead of demanding an exact 50/50 split.
I am certainly going to follow up to suggest we start couples counseling so we can get on the same page (hopefully) about finances and other expectations. How he reacts to that in itself will be quite telling.
Grouchy-150 says:
This needs more attention than it’s getting in my opinion. My EX did this. He hid secret credit cards and a lien on the house. When all was said and done and we divorced I got nothing and he’s currently homeless. Check out his finances if you can to make sure nothing hinky is going on. You really can’t be too safe in this day and age.
EDIT to add NTA
LadySavings says:
Exactly, I want to spend precisely zero time haggling over small spending decisions. I don’t want anyone criticizing me for buying a new video game or fancy extracts for my baking projects. Not as long as we have enough discretionary money to cover those things. And I don’t want to spend any of my mental bandwidth on worrying/caring about what my husband wants to spend his money on, as long as it is within our agreed-upon budget.
LadySavings says:
My understanding is “financial infidelity” refers to keeping financial secrets in a way that negatively impacts the relationship. Such as: racking up large debts and hiding them; hiding assets (to avoid dividing things fairly in a divorce settlement); keeping secret bank accounts in a way that takes away from marital assets (such as diverting what should be joint money to pay for affairs/addictions), that sort of thing. I don’t think it usually pertains to keeping a small amount of privacy around personal purchases within agreed-upon discretionary spending limits.
In relationships, navigating financial boundaries can be tricky, especially when personal savings are involved. Is it fair to impose restrictions on personal spending or savings? What would you do in this situation? Share your thoughts in the comments!
