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Husband draws line on family handouts after years of wife’s relatives mocking his now successful career. AITA?

Husband draws line on family handouts after years of wife’s relatives mocking his now successful career. AITA?

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"AITA for no longer giving support to my wife's family after I became successful with my own company after they talked down about me?"

My (early-30's) wife (mid-20's) grew up in a fairly poor enviroment. Her grandpa had money, but her mom didn't and her sister doesn't. My wife has an incredibly strong work ethic (she's probably moreso defined as a workaholic).

When I first met her, I was in trucking, making about 50k-70k/year. Since then I developed a niche for a speciality marketing field and became very good at it. All my friends encouraged me to go into business for myself with a marketing company.

My wife was fully supportive of this, even after we discussed the financial difficulties we would have for the first year or so due to a l limited budget. I made sure she knew that some months, I may not get a check from the business (my salary is paid monthly).

Her family, however, were not. They accused me of neglecting my family, being lazy, not wanting to work, etc. They would constantly be bringing up the fact that I "didn't have a job" because I was always home (working remote).

She would defend me, but they would ignore it and continue to call me lazy and a "deadbeat" for putting my daughter in daycare while I worked from home. I was still driving a truck part-time to have steady, reliable income.

But, it was only half of what I was making on a good week. In the last year however, I have grown my income from my business beyond what I was making in trucking, and have very little overhead.

Since we cut costs back when I first started, we realized a lot of things we were paying for, we could do without or found other alternatives and we never really added those expenses back so it's like we have significantly more money now. I still drive a semi occasionally for a friend who owns his truck (mainly to keep my CDL active and stay knowledgable in the industry as a fallback).

Her family has taken note, and they are constantly asking to go out to eat with us, hang out with us, etc then get mad when I never pay for the meals, the outing, the vacation, etc (aside from my part of the tab, obviously). Looking back, I understand why they never had money, they were living well beyond their means, but if it makes them happy then it is what it is.

I let my wife do whatever she wants with her money (which sometimes includes buying stuff for her family, which I support her doing with her money if that's how she wants to spend it).

But, I make sure that she knows I don't want a dime of my money going to her family since they were very unsupportive of what made us our money and would go as far as to talk down about me for doing what lead to our money.

Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:

You are are not obligated to play nice just because they want your money. I would, however, play nice if I wanted my partner to be happy. You can be polite without giving them anything. ESPECIALLY if they haven't apologized. I'm going with NTA.

(OP)

My wife is definitely happy. She is content with our arrangement and has never complained about it, but recently her family has been putting pressure on her to make me "loosen up" and be part of the family more.

(OP)

My wife is definitely happy. She is content with our arrangement and has never complained about it, but recently her family has been putting pressure on her to make me "loosen up" and be part of the family more.

UXEGbm7tMy (OP)

She's fine with it. Occasionally if I know there is something she really wants to get for her family I'll compromise and pick up a bill or two on her side that she normally pays so she has some extra money to spend on them.

NTA. They were not just unsupportive but also outright hostile while you were putting in effort to build a decent business. They put you down and did not trust you. And now they want you to "be part of the family."

You WERE part of the family and they literally kicked you out with their behaviour. They are not even apologising, they are simply hoping to get a free ride and trying to play the family-card to get access to your finances.

screwyouguys4351

You don’t have any obligation to give them a dime. Even my husband and I get on well with our families, and no one has the expectation that we pay for them for anything.

Outside of Christmas and birthdays I don’t feel like there’s ever a need to spend excess money on someone. (The exception to this is my BIL who we usually pay for because he is so much younger than us and is set up to inherit everything of ours anyway.)

NTA - but don't take it out on any kids. I had an uncle who was in a similar situation to you and wouldn't pay for anything for anyone who put him down and that trickled down to their kids.

Ex. He'd off to take all the teens out for ice cream and not pay for theirs. It put a damper on his daughter's relationship with her cousins and his relationship with his nieces and nephews.

(OP)

I definitely don't. The kids and teens I take out all the time for events, pay for their sports gear, etc.

NTA. Interesting that your wife still wants to engage with her family given the disrespect to you. Not criticising her but they were incredibly rude with their comments. Not something I would have let them away with personally.

So, what do you think about this one? If you could give the OP any advice here, what would you tell them?

Sources: Reddit
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