A pregnant woman and her boyfriend are both being criticized over a situation where, despite money being tight, cash keeps disappearing.
The woman, u/RozaliaSky, shared her side of the story to the popular Reddit forum u/AmITheA**hole, earning 5,100 upvotes and 900 comments in seven hours for her post, “[Am I the A**hole] for freezing my boyfriend’s card?”
The original poster (OP) explains that though her boyfriend now makes “decent money,” he grew up poor, and is currently the only member of his family with stable income. His 23-year-old sister, however, is a “leech,” the OP says, and is “irresponsible [and] totally anti work.”
The sister and u/RozaliaSky haven’t gotten along since the COVID pandemic. The OP says she let her move in to her apartment, but when she and her boyfriend went on a weekend camping trip, the sister threw a party and “trashed the place.”
“Of course my boyfriend took her side but he didn’t have any say in it – it was my apartment. Nowadays she is straight up rude to me, she’s always saying ‘can’t wait till he breaks up with you’, she puts his whole family against me,” u/RozaliaSky wrote.
The OP’s boyfriend also gave his sister his bank account information, and she regularly uses his card to pay for things. However, u/RozaliaSky is now pregnant, and she and her boyfriend had to tighten the belt. She wasn’t able to work due to her health—and after looking at the budget, she discovered she’d been paying about 70 percent of their shared expenses.
They agreed that he should pay more, bringing the split closer to 50/50; but in order to get the extra money, he has to work lots of overtime. She says he “basically lives at work now.” Since he’s been so busy, it’s been up to the OP to make the nursery, but he did give her his bank account information so he can help pay for it.
But when she tried to use his bank card to buy nursery supplies, it was declined. When she logged into his bank account, it turned out that his sister had taken more than $3,000 in a week. When she brought it up with her boyfriend, though, while he was “annoyed with his sister,” he asked his girlfriend to hold on until the next paycheck. However, when that money rolled in, the OP saw it immediately start to dwindle as his sister started buying things again.
To keep the money in his account, she put a freeze on his bank card, and only would unfreeze it to buy baby things. Though her boyfriend didn’t notice initially, he discovered the change in status to his card when his sister called crying, saying that she couldn’t afford food. When he told her to use his card, she said it didn’t work—leading him to discover that u/RozaliaSky froze the account.
The two had a huge fight about this. She said that since he works all the time, she didn’t see him in order to have a conversation about it, and if she hadn’t frozen the account, he would have run out of money. She also told him to “think about his own kid” instead of “sponsoring the life of a brat.”
“I told him I don’t want a husband who leaves me to do everything on my own without any help because he has to work for someone who never worked a day in her life. He told me then he would never be a husband of I told him if he wants to see my selfish side then I want him to give me back all the money I spent on him, even though he earns more than me, because I would like to go on a shopping spree like his sister does all the time. He called me pathetic and hasn’t spoken to me since,” u/RozaliaSky wrote.
The story of a man’s sister who cleans out his bank account despite that he’s about to be a new dad has the internet debating.
iStock/Getty Images
Money woes have prevented many a relationship—and it’s the no. 1 cause of stress, according to CNBC. But if it’s a case where one partner is responsible and the other is bad with money, it’s important to have a way to come together, Brides magazine says. The first step is to discuss each others’ financial goals—in this case, saving up for the new baby coming.
Brides also recommends role play, because the partner bad with money might not realize how it’s harming people.
“How would they feel if you were lying about money?” Priya Malani, co-founder of wealth management company Stash Wealth, told the magazine. “You both work really hard for it and by putting them in your shoes, they may think twice about their actions. If they don’t….you might need to consider if they are neglecting you in other aspects of the relationship. “
That said, Malani and Brides point out it’s important to sympathize with the partner bad with money. It can help to take classes or otherwise educate oneself about money. And if things get really bad—it may be time to bring in a third party, like a financial planner, to be the “bad guy” when it comes to saying “no” to spending, Brides says.
Newsweek has done a number of stories about money troubles ruining relationships. One man revealed how he had to avoid his mother on payday, lest she force him to pay all her bills. In another, an uncle was praised for giving $1,000 to his 17-year-old nephew when he discovered how the teen’s parents were treating him as an unpaid babysitter, even keeping him from taking a summer job. And in a third story, a man demanded his cousin give him her emergency fund when he got his girlfriend pregnant.
Though Redditors were particularly harsh on the OP’s boyfriend, she also faced criticism for how she handled things.
“[Everyone Sucks Here]. Get away from this person and claim child support. Why would you procreate with a man like this?” u/Melmoth_Milton wrote in the top-rated comment with 14,600 upvotes.
“Yeah, he’s married to his sister and doesn’t sound like he had any intentions to marry you. Like said above, definitely go for child support. You’ll get it because he never will go without a job to support his sister. Ridiculous,” u/Please_Do_Share agreed. “[Not the A**hole]”
“Its obvious that the BF doesn’t care about OP nor his child at all since he only works to provide for his sister and calls OP selfish for not doing the same,” u/Careful-Listen2277 wrote. “Unfortunately, OP doesn’t understand that since she wants to not only have a child with him, but also marry him, and will only fully understand the situation when she’s completely broke and lose everything.
“OP needs to start focusing on changing her child (diapers) instead of a grown man who could care less about her,” they added. “[Everyone Sucks Here]”
“[Everyone Sucks Here] it’s not that you’re wrong for protecting your or your boyfriend’s financial interests but you CAN’T go around freezing his card without telling him first. That is a huge overreach,” u/Nuttonbutton wrote. “Op you need to just leave him. Change the locks and kick him out. Drag him through the coals for child support. Things will not get better if he can’t see your side of things right now.”
“[Everyone Sucks Here]. How sad for your boyfriend that all of the women in his life are controlling this. Yes, it sucks that his sister takes advantage the way that she does. But it also sucks to freeze his card behind his back without having a conversation about your concerns,” u/NUT-me-SHELL wrote.
Newsweek reached out to u/RozaliaSky for comment.
Comments are closed.