A woman was outraged to learn that her husband had used their joint bank account to pay for her $8,000 engagement ring.
She took to Reddit’s “Am I The A**hole” thread to ask if she was wrong for demanding he return the ring since it was bought with their shared money. The story sparked a heated debate among readers.
“My 30-year-old husband and I have been married for just under three months and have been having a huge argument about my engagement ring,” she wrote on Reddit.
“We got married one month into him proposing to me. It wasn’t a fancy wedding and we had our honeymoon right after we signed the papers at the courthouse. He gave me a diamond engagement ring that’s close to $8K – a two-carat lab diamond.”
She explained that because they are saving for a home, he didn’t have the funds available, so he put the ring on a payment plan.
“I found out after we married and merged our finances that he has been withdrawing funds from our joint account (we make roughly the same) to finance this ring,” she added.
‘I was just taken aback and honestly put off by the fact he is making me pay for a GIFT he gave to me. We have been having some arguments lately and he feels that ring is a wedding expense and it’s only fair that I contribute towards it too, and that as a woman of this day I shouldn’t hesitate to be an equal partner. I call bulls**t and shared my thoughts on this whole thing.”
The woman openly shared her frustrations about the situation.
“First, you don’t make the recipient of a gift pay for the damned gift. An engagement ring is considered a gift in most modern societies even today and I don’t care if you disagree with that it’s just what the cultural expectations are and we never discussed if he had any issues with that,” she continued.
“MAYBE if he was an adult enough, I would’ve had a discussion about how it makes him feel and see if his values about tradition align with mine.”
The woman also mentioned that she deliberately contributed to two payments, which means she’s now a co-owner of the ring. She wouldn’t have agreed to the purchase if she had known her husband would expect her to help pay for it. Both partners need to agree on big purchases like this.
“Owning a house or a car jointly requires two “yeses” and I wouldn’t certainly have said yes to jointly owning a ring he was SUPPOSED to give to me as a gift,” she said.
“So I can retroactively decide now I never wanted to own it and have been demanding that my husband returns the ring to the store if paying for the ring hurts his pocket so much.”
The wife clarified further, saying, “I’ve always wanted a nice ring, and I’m not going to apologize. We never had a proper wedding celebration, and I felt I deserved a high-quality piece to symbolize our love.”
However, her fiancé knew what she wanted, and they could have discussed it to see if they both agreed. Instead, he secretly used their money to pay for the ring, which she didn’t know about.
“This caused him to flare up, and he berated me for being sexist towards him. I put my foot down not because I can’t afford it or I refuse to financially contribute or give my husband a nice gift, but my husband’s sheer stubbornness and tackiness about wanting me to pay is what pisses me off,” she wrote.
“I don’t mind splurging for him, but this whole situation has left a very bad taste in my mouth.”
She concluded her post by asking, “He expects me to apologize to him because I called his actions tacky and decisions scammy and in bad faith. Am I the a**hole?”
The Reddit post quickly filled with comments as readers engaged in a passionate debate.
“YTA. Being married, if it came out of the joint account, or not, you would have been paying for it. You are a team now. You should be mad that he bought a ring the two of you can’t afford,” one wrote.
“NTA. Return both the ring and the husband,” a second said.
“NTA. Rethink this relationship with both financial and communication issues three months in,” said another.
What are your thoughts on this story? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Reddit
