'AITA for telling my wife we can't afford to go out on her birthday because she has no job.'

"AITA for telling my wife we can’t afford to go out on her birthday when she lost her job a month ago?"

djkeone writes:

I’ve been struggling with the blowback from this incident for the past month. My wife had a pretty well-paying job in chip fabrication and was let go unexpectedly a few weeks before her birthday. We had just purchased a car for her commute and took out a $15k loan a month prior.

We have around $7k in credit card debt, much of which is from purchases she made going out to eat and shopping online. I make pretty good money, but my work is not consistent, and some months are better than others.

I’ve learned how to save for the slow times and budget accordingly. With our income suddenly cut in half and a bunch of new consumer debt, I started to have serious concerns about my ability to pay all our expenses.

On her birthday, she wanted to go to an antiques mall and go shopping and then go out for drinks and dinner. I told her we should consider doing something low-cost and be frugal, given our finances, and maybe not buy more stuff we didn’t need and couldn’t afford. I said we could do whatever she wanted, but just to consider the long term and try to be responsible.

I thought we could just spend the day together and didn’t have to go buy stuff to celebrate and honestly didn’t think it was going to cause her birthday to be ruined, but I was wrong. It has been a month, and she still hasn’t forgiven me for “shooting down” her plan.

She said I need to make it up to her, and I’ve tried several times and apologized profusely. I thought it would blow over, but now there is a distance between us, and she told me she doesn’t think I care for her. AITA?

Here are the top comments:

MyToothEnts says:

My partner and I went through a really rough financial patch a while back. We didn’t exchange gifts for any birthdays or holidays for about 2 years. We still celebrated each and every one, and have great memories from those times together.

But we understood our financial responsibilities and didn’t blow rent money on fancy birthday presents. Because we’re adults. NTA, your wife needs a massive reality check. She needs to understand that grown ups don’t do things they can’t afford, and she doesn’t have any money right now.

altergeeko says:

Ehh, I think, like a lot of people, she is just bad with money. She has $7k in credit card debit. Her spending habits have been bad for a while. I used to have bad financial habits, never in debt, but it's really hard to overcome even when you know it's a problem.

Old_Caterpillar_2624 says:

Should have gifted her a couple of job applications.

Graphite57 says:

All of the things she wants are fully available the week after she gets a job and clocks her first pay packet.

What do you think?