Woman Asks if She’s Wrong to Be Angry at Her Husband for Wanting Her to Stop Her Expensive Hobby

I would think that people would want to support their partners in hobbies that are good for them…but what do I know…?

Check out this story from the “Am I the A**hole?” page on Reddit and see if you think this woman has a right to be angry about what her husband is trying to do when it comes to one of her pastimes.

AITA for being mad that my husband is trying to financially edge me out of my “expensive hobby”?

“The back story: My husband and I have always had joint accounts and up until last year when our 3rd child was born, we made about the same amount of money.

We made the decision that I would leave my FT job and work PRN so we could avoid the costs of daycare. This has cut my income in half. In addition, last year my husband started running a successful eBay store. He opened a separate account that I have no access to at all, and he started taking extra money from his paychecks each week and depositing it into that account as well.

He uses that money on whatever he wants. I manage our finances, budget and pay all of our bills. I don’t have a separate personal account so all of “my” money is poured into our mutual accounts and he can see all of my spending. I keep spreadsheets that he has full access to but never looks at. We have savings and basically no debt aside from a mortgage and my students loans.

And now: I am a very active jiu jitsu competitor and go to tournaments frequently. I would probably call bjj an “expensive hobby”. The last few weeks several entry fees came due at once totaling close to $600. I have always cleared with him that I am going to do a certain tournament before I sign up and then I build the fees into the budget, this was no different. And other than jiu jitsu I don’t really spend money on anything else.

He texted me while I was at work yesterday saying, “Not really happy about your excessive spending recently. I think you should get your own account with an allowance to pay for this stuff.” This was shocking to me because this has never been a problem until yesterday and I’ve never spent so much money on bjj that we can’t save or pay our bills. Then he told me that he bought a car a few weeks ago with his personal funds.

I feel like he is trying to control me and financially edge me out of my hobby that he knows I love. I can give myself an allowance out of each of my paychecks but I make a lot less money than him and pretty much all of it goes to bills so it would take me longer to save for each tournament and I would have to do way fewer per year.

If I want to do jiu jitsu, I have to rely financially on him to do so, and again, it’s never been a problem until yesterday because up until last year I made just as much money as him. Our mutual decision for me to leave my job only affects my paycheck. He can spend money on whatever he wants (like a car) without any oversight or accountability because he has his eBay store that he makes ? money from each month (he never tells me but I’d say it’s prob about $1000/mo).

Anyway, it started a big fight. He said he doesn’t have to rely on me financially for his hobbies so I shouldn’t have to rely on him financially for mine, that our mutual money should go to bills and the kids only.

Who’s the AH?”