'My husband accused me of "financial abuse" for asking if he had $$ for ice cream.' AITA? UPDATED 2X

"AITA for asking my husband if he has money for ice cream?"

This past year has been really hard on my husband. He hates his job, is having a difficult time trying to see his son, and a lot of debt has stacked up form reckless spending trying to make him feel better. We recently started to combine financials as well as having separate ones. This was done so i could manage our money and pull us out of debt again. This has been working great till the other night.

My husband and I where at my moms for dinner and as when started to pack up to leave he asked if we could get Dairy Queen. I asked him if he had money for Dairy Queen. I will add the only reason I asked is because each time we get payed we both take out spending money.

On this pay cycle he took 200$ and I took 40$. Well he didn’t have money for ice cream and I didn’t want to spend the house hold money because it was going to dip into bills. My mom gave us 10$ and we went on our way. In the car he “decided” he didn’t want ice cream and we ended up getting popsicles at the store later. I thought all was good til last night.

He stated that I not only embarrassed him in front of my mom but that I was being financially abusive and he would no longer let me handle the money and I would have to give him an itemized list of bills if I wanted money to pay them. I apologize for embarrassing him and said my intention was not to abuse him but to help him think about his spending habits.

I pointed out he took 200$ for spending money and I had 40$. I still have 32$ and he already went through 200$. He said most of that went to paying people back for money he had borrowed so it doesn’t count.

We still haven’t came to a new plan on how to handle money and I’m thinking about saying at my mom's tonight so he has time to think. I hope he is just overwhelmed with life and not realizing he upset in general. So, am I the @$$hole for asking my husband if he had money for ice cream?

What do you think? AITA? Was this "financial abuse" or is she just being reasonable in trying to keep tabs on their finances? This is what top commenters had to say:

realkowalskianalysis said:

NTA, but fundamentally if you're husband doesn't see a problem with his spending habits there is a bigger concern here. There's no point trying to show him how to handle his money if he doesn't think there's an issue with the way he's handling his finances. You're a wife, not a mother - you can't micromanage your adult partner if they are insistent on being reckless.

Flaky-Ad-3265 said:

Why do women put up with having to babysit their husbands?

soog0704 said:

NTA, but I'm echoing concerns about your husband's understanding of his financial habits. He is going to drag you down like an anchor in the sea if he can't get a grip, OP.

mtlmn951 said:

NTA he's the one who wanted the ice cream so you shouldn't be expected to pay for it

And sugaristoosweet said:

NTA- You certainly could’ve handled it more gracefully by not asking in front of your mother, but you’re right to exercise financial caution. My partner was in bad financial shape before we met and is currently pulling himself out of it. And the money he spent to pay people back absolutely counts if he’s paying them back for things he bought for himself.

Updates:

First, I want to say thank you to everybody commenting on this it’s really helping me figure out how to deal with the situation better. A few things I would like to add both my husband and I work full-time but my husband hasn’t made it to a full week of work in months he typically misses half to three days every week so we’re pretty even on the money we’re bringing into the household right now.

I would also like to add that I am autistic and so is my mother so I often miss social cues and I have realized and I did apologize to him and then originally came up and then it was wrong of me to say that in front of my mom sometimes I just don’t know until I fuck it up that I did something wrong because I suck at peopling.

The last thing I would like to add and I don’t mean to sound petty by this we have already spent 100$ oh no ice cream for this month.

He has an addictive personality and we’ve been working on that so I know a couple of bucks doesn’t seem like a lot, but when a quarter of a grocery budget if not more goes the ice cream I was expecting him to use his own personal spending money that was given to him at payday when we divided it.

Second update:

We both went to work this morning. We spend most of the day texting each other YouTube links about conflict resolution to prepare to talk. When we got home we started with talking about things we enjoy about each other. Then we talk about how we both handle the issue badly.

The solution we can to is we are going back to completely separating finances. When it comes to bills we share we will decide who will be responsible to making sure that bill is payed in a timely manner. We are also going to factor in how much we make vs domestic duties and make sure we are fair with it on both sides. If one cover more bills the other will do more house duties.

We haven’t do the math on it yet, but have started a chore plan. I have family coming over for the next few days so we are going to wait till they are gone and take a day to make a full plan, and also talk about life and stuff to be on the same page again.

Part of our talk will be potentially getting a financial consultant so a 3rd party can help. Getting him a new job as soon as possible will be on the agenda, he applied for 2 today. I also want to pick up more hours at work so that I can build up a back up fund.

As I stated earlier I work 2 jobs, one is a 9 to 5 type and the other is a small business I manage on my owe that is just hitting consistent profit. The 9 to 5 is what I’m going to start investing more time into for the short term, so I have back up savings he can’t touch.

He did admit he was harsh with the abuse comment. He was financially abused in the past and he panicked and try to set a boundary in his mind, but realized it was emotional. We will handle shared issues together, and the rest is on our own. I gave him all the info on his student loan and medical bills and told him he will need to be responsible for making sure those get payed.

This is going to be what we do for now, and I did bring up in the future, if we have kids we will redo this. I told him that I will not be a SAHM and home school out kids like we planned without major changes being made to this. I will not go into a situation I have not safety net.

He said he under stood and we would deal with it when it can up. He also said that if I do got SAHM one day that he wants to do a post-nub to make sure that I’m not fucked over and to make sure we make the best choices for our future kids in case things go south.

He was a teen parent and bad choices where made on both sides. He has a great relationship wit his son long distance, but the ability to go see him is wrapped up in relationships drama on the baby mamas side. Her current partner will not let he speak with any of the dads of her 3 kids. So it is very import to him to make fair agreements if the worse happens so we can do what is right for our potential kids.

Huge thanks to everyone that commented helpful advice. Form counseling, scripts for social interactions. I came her to under this better and I truly free like you guys helped me with that. Sorry I couldn’t get to all the comments I didn’t thing it would get this big.