Submitted by ThrowRA_1111111111 t3_10qbuea in relationship_advice
TLDR: my wife expects me to subsidize her lifestyle. A lifestyle she can't afford on her own salary.
Story: A couple of months ago I was laid off, as is many people in tech, and I took some time to take care of my family (mom and grandma) and reset.
For context around financials: I (used to) make $250k a year and she makes $80k a year. Bc of this big discrepancy in pay we don't split things in the household 50/50. I pay 75% and she pays 25% of the monthly expenses. I also fully support my mother financially (who doesn't work) and I have a lot of student loan debt that I am paying off.. both of these are not responsibilities she has with her family and she has $0 in student loan debt.
Since I make a good amount of money I am able to afford things like a luxury apartment (our one bedroom apartment is over $3,000 a month) and buy her nice things. In the past I've purchased for her a trip to cancun (with a five star all inclusive resort), two canada goose jackets, and a whole bunch of shit. Of which I don't expect anything in return, gift giving is my love language.
We have a mutual friend, and she's also a former coworker of mine, who is in her mid 40s. When I last saw her she told me to get a job at Uber or dog sit just to get some money into the house. I was livid... what made her think we were having financial hardships? I later realize it's bc my wife has been telling her that since I got laid off she has had more stress financially that wasn't there before.
She has mentioned several times that she would rather not work, has threatened to quit her job without having one to go to, and rather me make all the money and she not work. So I confront her about this conversation with our mutual friend and she said "it's not my fault that's how she interprets what I said"... excuse me? Why would she make it seem like i stopped contributing when I'm digging into my savings account while unemployed to pay for things.
Since being laid off, there's only been 1 change in our house finances: we have a joint credit card that I stopped using so everything on that card are her own costs. She later admits that she needs me to work so she can afford the lifestyle she's used to.
I make more than my parents and older sister combined. They don't even own a car, much less property. I worked my ass off to get to where I am. On the other hand, her mom retired in her 40s, owns two separate $2-3m apartments, and is set. We talked about finances so many times and I always tell her that she needs to work bc the 25% is a whole lot more than 0%.
I don't know what to do. I am leaning divorce bc we've been married for 5 years and it's not getting into her thick skull that I need her to keep working. Has anyone else had something similar to this happen to them? What am i to expect moving forward? Are there other red flags i'm not seeing?
MckittenMan t1_j6p6wz2 wrote
Dam. I would be considering it myself tbh.
I don't care about any of the other details besides this:
>She has mentioned several times that she would rather not work, has threatened to quit her job without having one to go to, and rather force me to make all the money while she doesn't work.
You want a partnership, equal marriage. You're not looking to give handouts and freerides. And the way she is coming off, sounds like she's looking for a freeride.
Its like, entitlement instead of appreciation.
And I understand how you feel insulted by the co-workers comment. Like woe to me, my partner expects me to work, we're struggling so much, he doesn't pamper me anymore, my life is so hard.
If you're seriously considering a divorce. Please talk to a lawyer to gain a better perspective and start preparing for it, setting yourself up to win on some BS:
>Under the federal Divorce Act, spousal support is most likely to be paid when there is a big difference between the spouses' incomes after they separate. However, this is not always the case. A court may decide that the spouse with the lower income is not entitled to support
And you want to set yourself up to win on that point. Give yourself the biggest head start you can, once you have everything in order (do everything the lawyer says), serve the papers.