After a husband refused to pay for the meals of his wife’s friends, in what amounted to a bill of over $700, he said on Reddit that his wife and her friends berated him and called him ‘broke.’
The couple –24-four-year-old newlyweds – dined at an expensive steakhouse with a few of his wife’s old pals from high school, catching up with each other. At the end of the meal, the wife slid the bill over to the husband telling him, “The man should always pay for the wife and her friends.” Uncomfortable, the husband refused, and her friends laughed and made fun of him.
Reddit users assured him that by no means was he in the wrong, with many stating that his wife’s actions were not only “sexist” but an example of poor communication.
The husband posted his story to the “Am I The ***hole” Reddit forum, saying: “For a celebration my wife decided to go to an expensive steak house.”
After they finished the meal, his wife handed him the bill. The total added up to over $700. She told him that he should pay because he’s a man. The husband wrote, “I laugh awkwardly saying why. She says because I’m the man. I tell her that the only other person I would pay for would be you and me.”
Her high school friends weren’t impressed, and they made fun of him, calling him “a broke husband.” He then said that he put two $100 bills down to pay for his and his wife’s share of the meal and stood up and left to go home, not in the mood to withstand the mean comments.
“My wife gets home and starts screaming at me,” he continued to write. “Saying I made her feel embarrassed. How she promised her friends I’d pay. And that her friends made fun for her on the ride home for marrying a man who can’t pay the bill.”
In light of the screaming, the husband decided to “pack a bag” and head to a friend’s house to spend the night, to de-escalate the situation. After confiding in his parents and friends, they told him he “should have just [paid the bill].” He asked the Reddit forum if he overreacted to the situation.
“She’s such an ***hole,” commented one user, while another wrote: “Your wife should have talked to you about it before telling her friends you’d pay, not assume.”
“The audacity,” someone else remarked. “It sounds to me like your wife doesn’t want a spouse, she wants a sugar daddy, who will treat her and her friends … Seek marriage counseling, or a divorce if this is frequent behavior.” Another added, “This is so sexist of her yuck.”
In an update, the husband responded to comments asking if his wife had acted this way before, to which he replied that “she never has.” The only other time she screamed at him was “when [he] didn’t buy her mom food” when the pair first began to date in their Junior year of high school. Of that moment, he said: “It was the first time she ever screamed at me like that. Instead of escalating it, I just left.” He also noted that when they usually argue, it’s never a “screaming match.”
He also acknowledged that he wasn’t completely in the right, as he didn’t leave enough money to cover their meal including tip, and should have left at least “another $50-75.”
