Money can cause some serious problems in a relationship. That's why it's so important to speak to your partner about money and make sure you're on the same page before problems arise.
One diligent wife did just that and still found herself in the middle of a mess. She took to Reddit to ask if she was in the wrong for kicking her husband off their joint bank account.
She explained that she and her husband have had a system in place for their finances for some time. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that a problem presented itself. She noticed he was paying for business lunches with the card for their joint bank account. She asked him about it and he gave her a reasonable enough response for her to leave it alone for a while.
It wasn't long until she discovered he was still using the card. She confronted him and he accused her of being controlling. He also said that as the person making more money, he should get to use it as he chooses. That's when she told him he had a week to replace the money or get kicked off the card. He was surprised and indignant when she followed through.
A woman took to Reddit to figure out if she had mishandled a situation between herself and her husband. The two were arguing after she kicked him off of their joint bank account. The couple had a working system in place.
"My husband and I have our own personal savings and checking accounts that we use for our personal purchases like lunches/dinners out, clothes," she explained.
"Then we have a joint account we both contribute to equally for household expenses like mortgage, car insurance, and utility bills. We each have a card tied to this joint account that we can use for household repairs/maintenance. We agreed that if we needed to use funds in the joint account for personal purchases, it should only be for an emergency and we would put back everything we took with our next paycheck."
But the last few weeks have brought some surprising changes. So naturally, she asked questions.
"The last month I have noticed that my husband has been using the joint account for eating out while he is at work and he is not putting back what he has spent," she explained. "I asked him about it and he told me that his card for his personal checking account was lost, but the bank was sending him a new one and he would put back everything he used. I agreed and said that was fine, just take what you need."
That bought him some time, but two weeks came and went and he was still doing it.
"Two weeks ago I noticed that money was still going out of the joint account for lunches at work and not being put back into the account," she noted. "So I confronted him and asked about his replacement card and when he was going to put the money back that he has used. He told me he has the card but just forgot."
"I told him that was not a good excuse and he needs to put back what he has spent because it wasn't fair," she leveled. "He told me that it was his money too, and he can use it how he wants. He said I was being controlling and demanding."
She was understandably annoyed at how he was acting and gave him a week to make things right.
"I told him that he had one week to put the money back into the joint account or I was going to the bank to remove him and when bills were due he could pay me with a check or do a wire transfer into the account because I could no longer trust him," she said. "I told him that we both agreed that the joint account was not to be used for personal purchases and that buying lunch for him and his coworkers is a personal expense that should be coming from his personal account."
That week came and went and he had not made the deposit into the joint account.
"It is now one week, and he has not put back what he has taken, so I called the bank and removed him from the account and canceled his card. He just called me up yelling because he went to order pizza and his card was declined," she said.
"I told him that I said I was going to take him off of the account for not repaying what he took and I did. He is now saying I have embarrassed him in front of his coworkers and that I am being financially controlling," she noted.
Then, he took it way too far.
"He said that since he makes more than I do, he should be able to spend whatever he wants however he wants. I told him that was fine, he just won't have access to the money that I contribute from my smaller paycheck because I would prefer to stand by our original agreement."
The woman was looking for reassurance that she'd handled the situation well, and she found it in spades. A lot of people expressed concern about her husband's behavior and the larger implications of how he's acting.
"I suspect something more may be going on than just money. How long have you had this particular financial arrangement? Perhaps he doesn't have much in his personal account anymore — is he willing to share bank statements with you?" asked one commenter.
"He could be attempting to hide the loss of a job, money being spent on an affair or sex services, gambling addiction … who knows. But it really seems like something else is going on and he needs to come clean."
His spending raised a lot of flags for a lot of people.
"You didn't embarrass him in front of his coworkers–he embarrassed himself by breaking an agreement, thinking he could string you along indefinitely," another commenter wrote. "I don't buy that he lost his card for a second. My guess is his personal account is zero (or near it) and he still wants to play big spender."
There were a few people sticking up for her husband.
"I know I'm going to get downvoted for this but I think it's an important point to express," one person wrote. "I think it was inappropriate of you to kick him out of what is supposed to be a joint account, yes he started it by misusing the account but you booting him from it is equally inappropriate. Think about if the tables were turned and you did something he disagreed with, he shouldn't be able to then ban you from using something because it happens to be in his name primarily."
"If your argument is that you were unhappy with him using the joint account and wanted to protect your money that's in the account then you must also recognize that the other half of that money is his, so you are shutting him out of his own money, again, that's pretty inappropriate behavior," the commenter reasoned.
“You need to have a discussion with him about your financial situation and get to the bottom of why his behavior has changed, you should not, however, be holding hostage an account that you both have equally contributed to.”
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