Man tells SAHM wife; 'I'm cutting your spending money, you're out of CONTROL.' AITA? UPDATED

When this man is upset with his wife, he asks the internet:

"AITA for wanting to cut my wife's spending money (mine too) to hire help?"

I am 29m and my wife is 28f, we have 2 kids (5m and 3m) and planning on 3rd kid.

I work 70-80h on avarage and my wife is SAHM, I make really good money even for USA standards and we live in europe in a country where cost of living is way lower.

Argument me and my wife are having is that I keep telling my wife I don't have time to iron my clothes etc and since she is SAHM, she should do it, but I know that having 2 kids makes her job as hard as mine...

so I offered to get us nanny or help for our house, but It would mean both of our spending money would be cut by around 10-15%.

I manage all of our finances and we get same spending money after investing and savings, but my wife is angry that I would cut her spending money too. She's out of control.

I don't have time to do things around house, I am trying to help my father retire since he is turning 70 next year and he helped me a lot (bought me first apartment when I was a student where my wife lived too during uni)

I dont help him financally, I am just slowly taking over his company as well (I have 2 brothers, but only 1 works there and I am only one qualified to actually take over according to my brothers)...

that means I pretty much have 2 jobs, thats why i work so much, but it also means we have a lot of spending money. (around 6.5-7.5k euros each month)

Note that spending money is different than money for paying everything like groceries and things for kids, we have separate accounts for that, my wife is really into designer brands etc, and spends all of her money on clothes shopping usually...

she think I should only cut my own spending money if I want to hire nanny or help, I disagree and think we should both have our spending money cut...

I got call from my SIL and she said I am being controlling by wanting to cut my wife's spending money, so I am starting to be honestly doubt myself, because I don't want to financially abuse my wife (my mother used to do that to me) AITA?

Before we give you OP's udpates, let's take a look at some of the top responses:

fineryt writes:

After reading your post and all the comments, firmly NTA. You each get equal spending money, you provide your wife $120k to spend purely on fun (not groceries or bills or anything necessary).

On top of this, you work 80 hours a week to provide for your wife’s lavish spending habits and to set your kids up for life.

And on top of all this, you spend your part of the fun money to take your wife out on dates and to pay for her and her family to go on trips. What the actual f?

Your wife doesn’t want to take on ironing your clothes, and instead of pushing her to do so you offer a solution where you both go in on a professional to take care of the house and the clothes.

This reduces her work burden and gives both of you extra time to interact with your kids and each other. This is a perfectly reasonable solution.

She doesn’t like that solution. Fine, so what would another perfectly fair and reasonable solution be? How about you stop paying for every night out and trips for her and her family?

Tell her she will have to pay for her side or at least her family on these trips- considering you both have the exact same amount of money to spend. I’m sure she’ll unreasonably see that as unfair.

Because the truth is, while your wife is spending her money on herself, you’re spending a good chuck of your fun money on her and her family. You’re the one being financially abused here.

breeeet writes:

ESH work it out if only for the kids please. You all know theres slack you need to pick up respectively and this needs a cut and dry decision made

freaaay writes:

NTA. Your wife is a sahm, looking after the kids, house, chores etc is a sahm's 'job'. Without you working 70-80hrs a week, her spending money would be a whole lot less!

I was a sahm with 2 young children, 1 disabled, and still did all the house stuff as well as looking after kids and sometimes upto 3 hospital appointments a week! And my hubby went to work, and I didn't have spending money! Everything went on the house/bills/ or for the kids!

She doesn't know she's born! And expects help! You are trying to be a good husband by working long hours to provide, but I'm sorry, your wife needs to be told she steps up or she has to help pay for a nanny out of her spending money!

crimeee writes:

YTA, you are expecting your wife to do personal chores for you above and beyond household chores of parenting and the house. (Ironing shirts is definitely a *you* chore, it happens outside your work hours and is directly related to preparing you for your work day)

You only suggested a nanny or home help specifically because she didn't want to cover your personal chores, so why should she make a financial sacrifice for that?

All that extra work you do to support your father's retirement is also your choice, but it massively increases her workload too -- 70-80 hours a week supervising small children without any help from partner or hired worker is a HUGE undertaking.

It sounds like you have plenty of money in investments and savings. How did it not occur to you that you might want to invest some of that money you're earning in giving your wife a break BEFORE she refused to iron your shirts?

athew writes:

YTA. Does she actually want the help? Did she refuse to iron your shirts? You make a lot of assumptions in your post.

Like if she's fine being a SAHM and doing chores and such, then why should she, in essence, pay for help she doesn't want?

And if it's just about needing shirts ironed, well, you have the money for a laundry service, bud. You don't need a full time nanny for that.

archeryoh writes:

NAH. It makes sense if you want help around the house for her to contribute, but she does not seem to find the same value in it that you do.

I also don't think you are planning this out properly. If the main thing right now is your clothes, why not send out to a dry cleaning service?? They will clean, press and depending on the company even deliver back to your home.

And I can't see that costing so much. Where I live in the states my dry cleaning is never more than $30 a month (maybe 2 to 3 items per week) If you wear a lot of professional clothing, like dress suits and shirts I could see that being as much as $100-200 a month.

There are so many affordable services out there, I don't think hiring a PERSON as your employee in your home is the right move. It will place a lot of legal responsibility on you.

Go through a company where the person is employed by them. And consider breaking up what you need into different services. A maid who comes twice a month, a grocery delivery for the weeks that are too busy, etc.

That way you are only paying for services as you use them, not for an on call staff who you have to pay, even when you don't need them.

fathe6 writes:

NTA. NGL you wife has a sweeeet setup right now given she has a massive designer budget, dates and vacations paid for, and split chores. Not surprised she doesn't want to change the status quo

OP, have you considered adjusting the household budget to include another category NOT aligned with you/your wife? A 'household expenses' category that would fund home repairs, vacations, EXTRA HELP, and the like.

It would still necessitate a cut from both spending funds, but it'll be a helluva lot harder for your wife to justify opposing (why she feels she does not need to contribute to expenses you both benefit from/would benefit from).

And now, OP's update:

So... I am not gonna lie this is surprising update, I've taken few days off before Christmas with my wife so we can spend 2 days without kids and family craziness.

I had convo with 1 guy here on private and I realized that my wife doesn't usually behave like this, so I asked her about it, what is actually going on etc.

Turns out for past few months my wife was giving money to her sister, to help her move out from her boyfriend whom I never really liked if I am gonna be honest and never knew why, well it turns out he is abusive, and as it turns out my SIL is pregnant.

At least now I know what I had bad feeling about him other than him trying to borrow money from me constantly.

If you wonder why she didn't tell me this, since obviously we have means to help her, it's because I helped her SIL with some of her debt in a past and I told her family I don't want to be used as piggy bank (I invested in my BIL plumbing business)...

my wife knew that this situation would be different, but her sister didn't want to ask me for money (not sure where does her sister think my wife gets her money from, but I digress).

I can say it here freely, since my SIL bf doesn't use reddit and after what she told me about it, I've hired a PI and we have moved her to our house (she already had a room) and we are gonna help her with getting her own apartment in January.

When it comes to main topic, we are hiring some help and starting to look into getting nanny for weekends (we changed some things in our budget since we are ahead in most of our goals)

Also some people had some things to say about my wife, while sure it sounded ridiculous that my wife didn't want to lose her designer clothes money and comments were mostly respectful, I had some nasty private messages about my wife not deserving money she gets, her being freeloader etc.

It was her decision to be SAHM, but she also had great future in finance ahead of her, so she is not a slacker, one of the reasons I love her is how hard working she always was.

She is also great teacher to our child, our 5yo is so ahead in math without her pressuring him hard it's honestly amazing, I saw her teach him and making it fun which I honestly don't know she does, because he enjoys it.

Ah also adding it last second here: I talked my SIL and before I even mentioned it she herself told me she is sorry about the financial abuse comment, she was just scared about situation she is in, which is understandable.

Readers continued to weigh in on OP's update:

polish54 writes:

I think this posts are interesting because it shows how hard it is for us to relate to someone that earns a lot more than we do.

People judging Wife for buying designer clothes and bags, for example. If they make a lot of money and that's what she wants to spend her money with, then it's ok and none of our business.

It doesn't matter that in our budget an expense like that would be ridiculous, for her it isn't because it is within her means.

The biggest issue wasn't how much she was spending in whatever she wanted to spend, it was her out of proportion reaction to the possibility of decreasing her spending money.

OOP made it clear in the second post that this is completely out of character for her, and found out what the reason was - it wasn't because she wanted to buy an expensive bag, it was because she wanted to help her abused pregnant sister.

I am glad it got resolved in a positive way. I am glad sister has help.