Yet, lurking in the shadows of this harmony is the wife’s sister, trapped in a cycle of poor choices and financial desperation. Her refusal to face reality and reliance on deceitful schemes threatens to unravel the stability the couple has worked so hard to maintain, casting a painful dilemma into the heart of their quiet life.
I 39M have been married to my wife 36F for twelve years. We have no children, but we do have a cat and a dog who we consider to be our children.
My wife has a sister “M” 37F who has made very poor financial choices and is now heavily in debt. She refuses to get a job and instead jumps from on MLM or get rich quick scam to the next, sponging off of relatives to make ends meet.
Both me and my wife work full-time. We each have separate accounts that we use for our “fun” money for hobbies or whatever we want. We earn almost the same amount of money, with me being a little higher, so I contribute 60% and she contributes 40% to make things fair and also so we each have about the same amount of “fun money.” We also have a joint checking and savings account that we use for the household bills and household emergency fund (like when the water heater flooded the basement in the middle of the night).
Both of us have access to the joint accounts, and if we need to use it, it is never an issue, so long as we make sure to tell the other that we used funds from those accounts.
As I was going through the statements for our joint household account, I noticed that there was approximately $2,000.00 missing from the joint savings account. I noticed that they were all Venmo transfers to her sister.
When my wife came home from work I asked what this was about, and she told me that her sister needed money to start her own business. My wife sat me down and explained to me that her sister joined yet another freaking pyramid scheme, this time selling fake nails and makeup.
My wife said that she has the potential to earn six figures a month and if that was true. My wife also said that she too was going to join her sister selling these products and if she made enough would quit her job and sell them full-time with her sister.
I told my wife that she either needs to get that money back from her sister or I would open a new account for my share of the household expenses and transfer it to that account when it was time to pay bills.
My wife is upset with me and does not understand why I am being so unsupportive. I told my wife that not only did she take money and not tell me about it, she invested it into something without even considering how I would feel about it.
A SIL called me last night and said that I was a raging AH and a control freak and that I was stopping my wife from using her full potential. I told my SIL that I would support my wife in anything she chooses to do, as long as it would not cause financial harm to our family.
My wife and SIL are both pissed at me and now I feel like an ass. AITA for telling my wife to get the money back?
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) is facing a conflict rooted in financial trust and differing views on supporting family members. The OP feels betrayed because a significant amount of shared marital savings was used without consultation to fund a new business venture for his sister-in-law, especially given the sister-in-law’s history of poor financial decisions. His wife, conversely, feels unsupported and believes she has the right to assist her sister’s potential success, even proposing quitting her job to join the scheme.
The central question for consideration is where the boundary of financial autonomy lies within a marriage, specifically regarding shared emergency/household funds. Is the OP justified in imposing strict conditions (demanding the money back) to protect the shared financial security, or is the wife entitled to use a portion of the shared assets to support her family’s aspirations, even if those aspirations appear risky?
Here’s how people reacted:
My husband’s sister is crap when it comes to money. Car repossessions, payday loans…it got worse after their dad died because generally speaking money went mostly to his sister. (We also don’t have children. She had one daughter and is divorced.)
My husband hates payday lenders and was willing to pay off his sister’s debt if she followed some rules and he taught her money management. it was over $4k. At the time, we weren’t married but had lived together for nearly 15 years and while we each had our own money, he called me out of respect because this would affect both of us. We’re married now and we have one joint account we pay out of, too. No way neither one of us would just give someone else thousands of dollars without consulting the other person. It’s “our” money, both of us need to buy in to that large of an expenditure.
Also, your SIL isn’t about to do a thing. She’s being held up by family members and has no incentive to get a real job. MLMs are scams. Separate your money until your wife replaces the money she took from the both of you.
(If you’re curious how things ended with my story above, I supported my husband (then long term partner at the time) if he wanted to give her the money, (it was his money) but I also proposed to him the idea that *someone* in his family *finally* let his sister financially fall. She *needs* that to learn money management. I had a period in my life where I literally had to get so broke that I had to change my ways. The problem was she had a daughter. And won’t someone think of the children???? I flat out told him, “So? My mother was a single mother and people stopped giving her money even though she had me as a child. They literally let us be out on the street.” It was seriously my incentive to do something for myself. I also mentioned to him that someone like that doesn’t care about money management. She’d take his money and not bother to pay it back. I also reminded him of a bounced check of hers he was still holding. In the end, he didn’t give her the money, but their mother stepped in. Ugh. There’s more but that’s beyond the scope of this post. Some people just *need* to financially fall.)
Your wife has proven herself to be irresponsible and quite frankly, stupid, when it comes to money and she has terrible judgement. I wouldn’t trust her with my money after pulling something so underhanded and for such a bad reason. But good luck sorting that mess out.
If OPs wife wanted to shore up her sister (God knows why, as they say past performance is the best indicator of future behaviour and giving money to the sister is as good as pouring it down the drain) she should have used her own money, certainly not joint finances.
The missus knew what the response would be, which is why she didn’t discuss pillaging the emergency fund with the hubby.
I’d never have any joint money again, too right I’d open my own account. In fact this kind of behaviour is a deal-breaker for me. It’s not just the theft of joint money, the missus has just shown she can’t be trusted.
The fact that it was for a pyramid scheme is a separate but also important issue. I’m surprised that your wife, after seeing her sister fall for so many scams, would suddenly decide to follow her for this one. Has anything significant happened to her recently? Anyway, it absolutely needs to be addressed or she could very well blow through all of your money just like her sister did.
But you know you’re not getting that money back.
Your wife seems to be getting sucked into the MLM void. They are very good at targeting women and encouraging them to cut off the ‘haters’ who can’t/won’t support them in their “girl boss” endeavour.
Taking $2000 out of the joint account is not ok. That’s a significant amount of money and should be dissussed before being spent. You’ll need to tread carefully with your wife though. If she’s been sucked in too far to the MLM life, it’ll be very hard for her to break out.
I’d separate accounts. Your wife is intent on joining a pyramid scheme and will end up losing thousands (statistically this is the most likely outcome of pyramid schemes/MLMs). Protect your assets before that happens.
Edit: I would also make it clear to your wife that any money spent on her harebrained pyramid scheme needs to come out of her fun money, not the household bills money.
You have a boundary/respect issue with regard to the money, for sure, but I also think you’ve got much bigger hurdles ahead if your wife really believes this stuff.