My Wife Is Accusing Me Of Financial Abuse After Cutting Off Her Takeout Habit r/Relationships

[00:00:01] Hey Waffle Gang, I do hope you are well. My name is Mark and today we're checking out some more Reddit Stories. And if you do love a Reddit Story, why not consider in a like, that subscribe and maybe that cheeky little notification bell too. And let's crack on with today's first story. Much love guys.

[00:00:21] Now, our first story comes from CarefulCredit4645 and says, am I the arsehole here for completely cutting off my wife from our finances because she wouldn't stop ordering takeout. I'm 41 years old and male. My wife is 39 years old. My wife doesn't work due to a minor disability. It's not as if she cannot work, but she complains of discomfort and exhaustion all the time. The discussion over her working basically ended five years ago.

[00:00:51] And I've completely given up on the prospect of her ever having a job again. Seeing as she doesn't even come close to qualifying for disability and brings in no income. We currently live entirely off my salary. I do not mind financially supporting her, but my wife's spending habits have gradually become more and more reckless. It began with her ordering takeout twice a week. And then that escalated into three times a week. And now she's ordering takeout nearly every day.

[00:01:20] This is all despite our fridge being stocked constantly. I do the shopping and I make sure to even keep our freezer full of things she would only have to microwave. Last month was a particularly heavy one for her. She spent $1,176 on delivery apps alone. We cannot afford this. There were several days that she ordered twice. I may have reacted harshly, but on Friday, I pulled money out of our savings.

[00:01:49] Completely paid off the card and then cancelled it. I then removed all the money from our joint account and funneled it into my own account. Apparently, my wife learned this when she tried to call the company. She tried to call the company who explained the card had been cancelled. She texted me asking what had happened and I responded that she was cut off.

[00:02:08] Well, when I walked in the door that evening, my wife was lying on the floor dramatically saying that she had low blood sugar. I told her she could eat any of the food we have in our fridge or freezer. I also noticed that she took the garbage out probably for the first time in a decade. I'm surprised she even knew where the outdoor bin was. I can only assume she was disposing of the evidence of what she ate as she was pretending to have not eaten.

[00:02:33] But I honestly don't care enough to dig through the garbage to find it. She was furious at me all weekend. It was what I did over the top. Over a thousand dollars a month on takeout. That seems like a huge amount to spend. I'm trying to think how I could get up to that amount buying takeout. I just converted that to pounds and then sort of divided it about my average local pizza place. It might not be pizza, but I just did it just for shits and giggles basically.

[00:03:02] And that'd be like one every day for the month. That's 30 pizzas I could order with a couple of cheeky sides to go with it every day. Obviously, a very serious discussion needs to be had in your relationship. While spending this amount per month is absolutely huge. It also feels like there's a lot more going on in the background at the same time. Maybe that's just me, but first commenter says not the arsehole. $1,176 on takeout. That's a half a month's wages for me.

[00:03:32] No, this needs to stop and the manipulation with the blood sugar thing is beyond overdramatic and the fact that she took the garbage after years of not doing it proves she knows what she is doing. Another commenter says not the arsehole. Wow, your wife spent close to my food, fuel, entertainment, clothing budget for the month just on takeout. She needs to get a job part-time at minimum. Why are you still married? Opie comes in nine days later and says,

[00:03:59] Nine days ago, I made a post about how my unemployed wife had spent $1,176 on delivery apps in just a month. This is egregiously outside of what we can afford to spend on takeout. And since she didn't seem willing to stop, I cancelled our credit card and moved the money from our joint account into my own. For the following few days, my wife kept talking about how I was financially abusing her.

[00:04:22] She threw several tantrums despite apparently being severely malnourished, threatened violence, threw a bunch of the food we had in the fridge away to try and strong arm me into letting her get takeout, and even tried to guess my bank account password a bunch of times. Sorry, my password isn't Taco Bell 123. That last one was how I learned if you try to guess someone's bank account password enough times, the bank will send them an automated email. But last Friday, the complaints and threats stopped.

[00:04:53] She seemed mostly back to normal. I figured she'd given up. That was until today, which was garbage day. When I took the last bag out before taking the bin down to the curb, I discovered half a dozen fast food bags and other takeout containers in it. My wife wasn't supposed to have access to money. I had no idea how she was affording the food. I confronted her about it, and for her, she denied everything. I had to bring all of her fast food garbage in to get her ass to fess up. She had taken out a loan.

[00:05:23] Now, I thought she'd borrowed money from a friend or a family member, but she had taken out one of those predatory payday loans. Before you ask, no, I had no idea how she was approved. Within the next hour, I froze my credit. I then drove her to the payday loan place, where I paid the loan off in cash. I wouldn't have to dip further into my savings to pay the rent. I suppose in a certain way, cutting her off was successful. She didn't order takeout anymore. She just drove to the restaurants to pick up her food,

[00:05:53] for the low, low price of $20 for every $100 she borrowed, or $60 in fees in total. In addition, I told her that we would be getting divorced. So yeah, my marriage is over. I don't even know what alimony laws in my state are like, but I assume she'll happily live in a cardboard box under a bridge if Uber Eats will bring her food there. Yeah, I kind of feel like I saw that coming. I thought it was going to be another credit card of some point, is what I thought initially. But one of those payday loans, oof.

[00:06:23] I've seen some crazy ass percentages on those things. And it definitely felt like, and as always, this isn't an excuse, just trying to find the reasons. It felt like some kind of like either addiction or mental health issue going on. To want that takeaway that much. A commenter said to Opie, I think divorce is the best course of action here. She needs professional help, but that's not your problem anymore. I'm glad you took steps to protect yourself financially. Sadly, there is just fundamentally something wrong with her

[00:06:53] and soon she'll self-destruct, starting with a divorce. Opie replies saying, when I paid off the payday loan, I decided that would be the last thing I ever did for her. It was far more than she deserved. My sister has been addicted to heroin for over 20 years. I haven't talked to her in about a decade, but this was the kind of shit that she would pull. I remember how she and her loser boyfriend would steal shit from my room to porn so they could buy more drugs. And I honestly wouldn't put it past my wife at this point

[00:07:21] to start selling my things so she could buy more. Oh dear, here we go. I get to butcher this one once again. Chipotle? Chipotle? I'm sorry. I'm just so furious. As I worked every day, my wife sat around ordering takeout and living like a queen. And when the almost gravy train stopped, she decided to imperil our financial future for more food. And my God, she's gotten so fat. She's basically waddling around like a penguin now.

[00:07:49] But what really fucking pisses me off is that after taking out that payday loan, instead of putting it into a new account to order takeout, she went to the restaurant drive-thrus. It was almost as if, stretch it to last as long as possible. Which wasn't an issue when it was money that I earned. She knew that the payday loan was probably a one-time Hail Mary, so she actually, in her own twisted little way, tried to exercise financial responsibility. People in the last post yelled at me for not communicating.

[00:08:18] We'd thought about this dozens of times. Every time the credit card bill rolled in, I would tell her she needed to stop, that we were losing everything because of her habit. I told her again, and again, and again, but she didn't give a shit. She needed more of that garbage. I honestly don't give a fuck. If she's depressed, I don't care. If she's agoraphobic, which I doubt, I don't care. She has never shown even the slightest bit of remorse. Eventually, even my sister with a heroin-addled brain

[00:08:46] apologized for stealing my GameCube. My wife couldn't even do that. She's a lazy piece of shit faking a disability, and people were blaming me as if that absolved her of all wrongdoing. If it makes me an arsehole, fine. I'm not fucking up the rest of my life because some dim-witted sloth with a disability can only muster up the energy to get off her arse when it involves food she bought with money that someone else earned. Another commenter says, I'm sorry to read this update, OP. Given that she risked tanking her credit

[00:09:16] for something as dumb as a payday loan, it seems like this might be about more than takeout and could indicate a deeper emotional problem for her. I hope that she addresses it before her life unravels and that you find some peace after the separation. OP says, I honestly don't even care about her anymore. I'm actually kind of happy about the payday loan. You see, I read through every comment in the last post, all of them, and I tried to understand her feelings. People kept telling me that she had mental health issues or that she needed therapy.

[00:09:45] I did my best to understand and I was actually going to start giving her $300 of prepaid credit card spending money every month as was suggested. Could we typically afford $300 a month on her takeout? Not really, no. But it would have been something for her to look forward to. Now all I can think of is that with her issues, she was allowed to be self-centered as she wanted. But when it was going to be my turn to have something for myself, my work boots have a giant hole in them and I've duct taped clothes twice.

[00:10:14] And that $1,176 would have bought me the best work boots out there. So I have people wagging a finger at me in the last post. You're an arsehole for how you treat her for a disability. Fuck her disability. Fuck her and fuck the people who said this was somehow all my fault. But I'm sure the same people will show up with some delusional fantasy about her having a wonderful post-breakup glow-up or something. And that was OP's last post on the matter.

[00:10:42] But now I'm going to turn this one to you guys. What do you guys make of this situation? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. And let's move on to another story. Now, our next story comes from the Wedding Shaming subreddit from Caroline Sir who says, My sister-in-law invited my parents-in-law to my wedding. My fiance, Charles and I have been together for six years. We were getting married in the end of November.

[00:11:10] He's the most warm-hearted, loving and caring man I have ever met. I love him with all my heart and he is the most important person in my life. He has a very restrained relationship with his parents since childhood. He moved out of his childhood house when he was 16 because he wanted to make his decisions in life and get educated. His parents have never been there for him. Not even when he was 19. He is today 32. He got cancer and was very sick. They never visited him in hospital or was there for him.

[00:11:40] They've always been taking care of his sister, the golden child. After some years of struggling and fighting cancer, he started his own company and it became a successful business. Six years ago, he bought my parents' neighbor's house. My parents liked him from the start. I met him for the first time in that autumn and we fell in love from the first day we met. So I quit my job in the city, moved to the countryside and got a new job here. Everything has and still is great between us.

[00:12:10] My parents love him and it's kind of the son they never had. My fiancé loves spending time with my dad, fishing and hunting and enjoying their company together and learning new things in life. During the six years, I have never met his parents. He has explained to me and my parents that he doesn't want them in his life because they are toxic. Some stories from his childhood he has been telling me. Even to my father, he has spoken about his childhood.

[00:12:36] I talk with my parents about it and they just told me to respect Charles and let him deal with this issue because it's not up to me to decide. My sister-in-law, I actually like her. But Charles tells me I'm naive and she's not a good person and will do everything in her power to gain power over me and she just wants to get something out of it. Well, we have planned our wedding and it's not a big wedding. It's our choice and we'll be around 50 guests and my parents have insisted that they will pay for their only daughter and child's wedding.

[00:13:04] The wedding is set in six weeks' time. Everything is booked. The venue, meals, free bar and everything is done. We invited my sister and Lauren's husbands and their kids to our wedding. Some of Charles' cousins and his grandparents on his father's side that he has very good connections with and they are just lovely. Yesterday, Charles got a text from his mother. She was overwhelmed with joy. She and Charles' father was invited and she texts him so happy she was

[00:13:31] because his sister had been visiting them and told them that they were invited. I was home and Charles arrives home from work furious and angry. I've never seen him so upset and he was shouting loud. Not on me, but about the situation. My parents who were in their garden could hear and they went over to see if everything was okay. He was so angry at his sister and his parents and then dropped some other stories from his childhood that made my parents' mouths wide open.

[00:14:00] I started to cry about what he told me. We spoke all evening and I can't remember when we fell asleep. Today, I withdrew my sister-in-law's invitation to our wedding and I told her to text her parents and tell them they're not invited. She called me immediately and told me that I was selfish and arrogant and an awful person. I had to understand that she did this to build a bridge and new relationship for Charles and his parents. I told her that she has no right to interfere in my fiancé's relationship with his parents

[00:14:28] and this is something between Charles and his parents. I just told her bye. After this, I got some horrible text messages from Charles' extended family that they are not even invited in our marriage. Charles is still upset about it and told me today this is the reason why I didn't want you to get involved in my toxic family. Now Charles feels that the wedding, which should be a happy day for us, is destroyed and he wants to cancel our wedding and just go to my mother's parents who live in Europe and get a small wedding there.

[00:14:57] He just wants to stay away from all his family except for 6-7 family members who he has a very good and respectful relationship with. I told him that I don't want to go to Europe because then we have lost. Then we escape. I want to have my wedding here but he's afraid that his toxic family will meet up and ruin our wedding that day. I'm very sad for Charles. My parents don't know what good they can do for him and me. Maybe I should just go ahead and cancel our wedding here and get married in an embassy in Europe.

[00:15:27] Idols at Cranky says I think you're feeling bad and maybe defensive because he warned you to stay away from his sister. You didn't really get it and it turns out he was right. Plus everything for the wedding is set and you don't want to change all your lovely plans and probably lose money too. That's understandable. But the reality is now that the wedding is spoiled for him and has become a source of anger and anxiety. That's not what a wedding should be. So, what to do? You have a lot of options. You can just simply do as he asks.

[00:15:56] Or you could change the date of the wedding, keep everything else the same, not tell anyone from the toxic family and go ahead. You could do as someone else suggested and have security at the venue, turn away anyone not on your list. You could change the wedding date and venue, not go to another country. It could be that with a little time, he'll feel differently and want to go ahead with your original plans. But none of this is the most important thing. What's most important now is for you to stop thinking about the wedding for the time being and think about your marriage.

[00:16:25] You need to let your fiance know that you're on his side, that you support him, that you never really understood how terrible these people were and you're sorry about that. You need to put your love as a couple front and center and the wedding on the back burner. Give him time to calm down and recalibrate and put his focus back on his love for you and the family you're creating together and off his toxic relatives. If that means you have to cancel the wedding for now, then do it. The decades you hope to spend together, happily married, are far more important than the wedding day.

[00:16:55] Eat This Shit quotes the section and says, what's most important now is for you to stop thinking about the wedding for the time being and think about your marriage. Then says this, so many people forget that it's not about the dress and the party, but about the life after that. I agree with the rest of this as well. Give your future husband some time to cool down and talk things through. Go through your options, from security at the venue to eloping altogether and everything in between. There's still time. You two need to get on the same page

[00:17:24] and you shouldn't let your guilt trick you into thinking about winning and losing. You can go through with the wedding as planned, but as it stands now, it seems like that you'll lose your relationship eventually. If you don't show him you understand his anger and frustrations, this ordeal will be the first couple of bricks that are build resentment. Another commenter says, yes, they can elope in Europe if they want and then when everything is cooled down, they can have their party and ceremony at home with their family and the ones from his family that they like. Opie says, thank you very much for your message. Yes,

[00:17:53] focus on our marriage and this is what we're going to do. There will be a wedding in Norway. The best solution for Charles and me. Best wishes. Opie then comes in with her update and says, I really thank each and every one of you for all the messages. I've read them all many times and I appreciate everyone who's been writing messages to me. So thank you all for the input and good advice. It's been a very busy day. Charles went to work and I had the day off. Charles eventually arrived back home in lunch break and we went to our parents. We talked about it

[00:18:23] and I showed my mother this post and she read all the comments too. We did cancel the wedding, not our marriage. Venues and everything. My mother explained to the catering what has happened and why this happened. They all understood and the venue was cancelled free of charge. The catering was also fantastic and we just lost our deposit and that's not the end of the world. It's been a busy morning and afternoon. My mother called my grandparents in Norway. We are all going there. Charles is just happy and he called his best man and his wife and his grandparents

[00:18:52] and asked if they could all go and they accepted the invitation for Norway. My parents will pay for their tickets and accommodation for their five days stay in Norway. All 15 of us will be together from the Boston area who will travel to Tromsø from the wedding there. My grandparents in Norway are over thrilled that they will arrange for the dinner and everything there. My maid of honor is super excited that we will have it in Norway so she doesn't need to travel. Charles is best man and his wife are so happy for this solution.

[00:19:22] So it will just take around 10 days to get our marriage papers in order. A little different from a marriage in USA. I've apologized to Charles so many times now and today. He just told me to stop apologizing and move forward and this is not going to destroy our life together. I did a terrible mistake but we seriously believe that his sister in one way or another had changed. Charles had blamed himself today that he didn't say no when I asked him to invite his sister. But this is all on me because I seriously didn't understand. I've blocked all his family

[00:19:52] on my phone and social media and so has he and my parents too. I'm thankful for all your messages. I know I wrote it when I was very heated up and some words might have been expressed in a different way. I'll get my dream man and my dream wedding and even my dream dress that belonged to my mother and it hasn't been used since 1988. It's all about our marriage. Someone wrote in a post and I totally agree. Marriage plus US equals our future. Thank you again for all your good advice. For all your input.

[00:20:21] Best from Caroline. Caroline. I'm glad things worked out for them in the end and they're going to get the wedding that they deserve without the toxic relatives in their life. We've seen absolute unbred, absolute horror stories regarding this kind of thing before. But what do you guys make of this situation? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. Now just a huge thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting involved in today's stories. Your love, your support, your time always means the absolute world to me.

[00:20:51] So thank you so, so much and hopefully I'll see you in the next one. Take care and much love.