'AITA for being mad that my wife removes her wedding ring to get free drinks when she goes out?' BIG UPDATE
AITA for being upset with my wife for going out clubbing with her girlfriends, but she leaves her ring at home so she can get “free drinks”?
Here's the original post:
Wife has been going out clubbing with friends every Friday night for awhile now. Just recently saw that she left her ring at home tonight. I texted her telling she left it at home tonight, and she responded telling me it’s so she can get free drinks from guys.
Wouldn’t this mean she’s flirting with other guys so she can get free drinks from them? Not sure how to feel about this or how to reply. Will telling her I feel uncomfortable open a can of worms?
What do you think? AITA? Or is he totally justified in being uncomfortable about this?
Here's what tp commenters had to say:
DJdos_cero said:
NTA. In any way. If she's pulling that stunt, you have every right to confront her and be absolutely livid. That's not fair or okay to you.
blackenedmessiah said:
NTA she's doing something you're not comfortable with. Talk it out & see what happens.
hawsman2 said:
NTA. So free drinks... I'm a guy, so I don't have first hand experience, but I'd say if you're an attractive girl actively trolling guys for free drinks, you'd get maybe, what, 4 drinks? More if you lead on just one guy, but I want to stay optimistic and presume she's shutting down the guys after they buy her 1 drink.
So 4 drinks... 20-25 bucks approx? Your wife thinks it's totally acceptable to disrespect you and to disrespect your marriage, to flirt and accept the advances of other men while being in a committed relationship... for 25 dollars?
Why is she inviting that level of hassle into her life for such a paltry sum of money? If such a system existed, you'd figure she'd happily PAY 25 dollars to NOT have guys drunkenly hit on her while out with her friends.
Even if my numbers are totally wrong... it's booze. We're talking about overpriced, poorly mixed, hastily drank booze. Can we stop kidding ourselves that her excuse for this behavior isn't totally lame?
She's not running a profit here. It's not like she can take shots home with her and share with you. She's saying she's doing this to get drunk... you can get drunk pretty fucking cheap at home. They play better music at home too.
My suspicion: It's not about the money for her. It's not about the drinks. She either likes male attention, likes competing with her friends for that male attention, or is self-conscious about not being able to get male attention. This is a bad situation my dude. Shut that down. Your wife is an a$$h@le.
And [deleted] said:
NTA. That's a bullsh!t excuse and we all know it.
meeile said:
NTA. She’s pretending to be single to get free stuff which is pretty gray zone for cheating. It sounds like she might not have known your stance on it though so I would just let her know you don’t like it.
Verdict: NTA.
He later shared this pretty major update:
as I got a lot of feedback about how to handle the situation. Thanks a lot for all of that. It was an unexpected and overwhelming response and I went through as many as I could. I know it’s been a few months, but I needed time to think and talk with my wife about the whole thing.
It’s been brought to my attention that I may have not been the best husband. We both have many flaws, and have been far from perfect in this relationship, and it turns out we both have terrible communication skills.
Long story short, when she came home that night we talked -well, argued- about it. The argument led to me walking out to go stay at my brother’s house for two nights. My brother, who is also married, suggested marriage counseling to see if we can get any suspicions or issues out in the open easier, so I called her, recommended it, and we had a session booked for the following week.
Yes, she admitted during counseling that she did occasionally make out with other guys when going out drinking with friends. On her behalf, her issue was that she felt I was not prioritizing her enough. That I wasn’t giving her enough time.
Also that I never bothered that ask what she wanted from me. She has been considering a divorce for about a year now, so this might be what our relationship would ultimately come to.
I’m purposefully leaving out a lot of personal information as I don’t really like sharing everything, but all I have to say is that this past year for us hasn’t exactly been the best for us. This might be the most time we have spent talking every day for a while- discussing divorce plans, where we plan to go, who’s keeping what, etc.
We don’t hate each other. We both realized we are drifting apart, sooner than we realized. But we aren’t really motivated enough to keep ourselves together. This might be for the best. If I hadn’t posted anything about the ring situation and approached it head on, I probably would have been in even more of a mess.
Thanks guys.
tl;dr: We went to marriage counseling. She admitted she made out with other guys. I don’t prioritize her enough. We are getting a divorce.