Woman breadwinner refuses to pay for SAHM wife's cigarettes, wife claims abuse.
When this woman is angry with her wife, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for not buying cigarettes for my wife who is SAHM?'
Me (F) and my wife, Jessi (F) had our daughter 2 years ago. Jessi is a smoker, she doesn't smoke a lot, but she consumes 2/3 a day.
She wanted to be the one who got pregnant and I told her that she couldn't smoke at any point in the pregnancy and only after our baby stopped breastfeeding, she could start consuming again. She agreed.
I'm against smoking, I don't smoke, but it doesn't bother me that much other people smoke and to my delight, Jessi was never a person who smelled like cigarettes despite being a smoker.
The reason I'm against it's that my father died of lung cancer and guess what, he smoked.When our daughter was born, I managed to stay at home for 1 year and 3 months, because it hit the pandemic and home office, so we could both take care of it.
Jessi also took advantage of the home office (same company, I'm in a higher position).
When our company asked for employees to come back from the home office, we decided that we didn't want to put her in child-care yet and we decided together that I would come back and she would quit to stay at home all the time.
Currently, we have a fair division of tasks at home, when I get home from work I take care of our daughter so she can rest and 2 days a week, part time, I work at home so as not to overload (I know she stays overwhelmed, but I try to help).
Recently, our daughter weaned and Jessi came to talk to me that she wanted to finally start smoking again, I said that I wouldn't pay for them, but I pay for everything.
I even proposed to rearrange my schedule in case she wanted to do some freelancer (she's also a designer), but I wouldn't give her the money. The cigarettes are my limit.
She was annoyed saying that we agreed on her being SAHM and that I would provide financially for the family, including her expenses and I am going behind our agreed (I never paid/would pay for a cigarette of hers and she has known this for years).
She's still mad at me, saying I'm using being the breadwinner to not let her smoke and forcing her to look for another way to earn money to buy something she wants.
I don't know if I'm wrong, but cigarettes are a choice and a bad addiction, I don't feel comfortable paying for it, given my family history. AITA?
Here's what Reddit had to say.
mbminx writes:
YTA. I hear what you are saying...but does she have no access to money if you don't personally approve every transaction? That's what it sounds like, and that's abusive. Why does she have no money of her own to spend on whatever she wants?
I get that you're the one earning money, but she should still be allowed a certain amount of 'discretionary spending'.
I believe in some places it's actually illegal to have a spouse at-home without any access to money. Again, that's financial abuse.
princessabu writes:
Nta. Most of you so obviously don’t know what financial abuse is. Would you be saying the same thing if the wife wanted meth? Or money to gamble? How about if wife was an alcoholic and wanted to drink their money away?
Op has given her wife the option to fund the habit herself by rearranging her schedule so her wife can work. That is not abuse.