Reddit Stories - Spouse ASSIGNED me a $1,000 MONTHLY budget to EXAMINE if I am only

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #budgeting #marriage #financialmanagement #communicationSummary: My spouse ASSIGNED me a $1,000 MONTHLY budget to EXAMINE if I am only spending within limits. Struggling to adhere, I seek advice on Reddit. Am I in the wrong?Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, spouse, budget, monthly, examine, spending, limits, advice, relationships, marriage, financialmanagement, communication, adviceforum, personalbudget, financialadvice, relationshipadviceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse assigned me a $1,000 monthly budget to examine if I am only interested in money because his parent persuaded him, despite our 12-year relationship during which I have never shown a materialistic attitude, been irresponsible with money. So here's the situation. My husband Jake and I have been together since college. We met freshman year, dated through school, got married right after graduation. Pretty standard stuff.

He's always been close with his family, especially his mom Linda. She's one of those women who still does his laundry when we visit and calls him every single day. I thought it was weird but whatever, family is family. About six months ago, Jake's best friend Marcus went through this absolutely brutal divorce. His wife Emma had been a stay-at-home mom for like five years, and apparently she took him to the cleaners. the house, half his 401k, alimony for three years, the whole deal. Marcus was living in his brother's basement for two months because he couldn't afford his own place. Jake was really shaken up by it because Marcus had always talked about how Emma was so sweet and loving, and then boom, she's hiring

some shark lawyer and taking everything. Around the same time, I'd been talking to Jake about maybe not going back to work after we have kids. I make decent money, about $52,000 a year. Jake makes $94,000, so we're comfortable but not rich or anything. We live in a pretty average suburb outside Denver, have a small three-bedroom house we bought two years ago. Normal people stuff. The thing is, I grew up in a house where my mom worked full-time and my dad worked full-time, and honestly it was chaos.

My brother, sister, and I were latchkey kids from age eight onwards. We ate a lot of frozen dinners and I basically raised myself. I don't want that for our kids. I want to be there for school pickups and soccer practice and all that stuff my parents missed because they were both grinding 50-hour work weeks. So I brought this up to Jake one evening. We were watching Netflix, some true crime documentary, and I just mentioned it. I said something like, you know, when we have kids, I've been thinking I might want to stay

home with them. His response was pretty lukewarm. He said we'd need to crunch the numbers and see if we could afford it. on one income. Fair enough. But then he went and told his mom about it. And apparently Linda had some strong opinions. She called me the next day, which never happens, she always calls Jake, and asked if we could have lunch. I figured she wanted to talk about planning Jake's birthday party or something normal. Linda works as a dental hygienist and has been at the same practice for like 15 years. She's always been polite to me but never particularly warm.

The lunch started normal enough, we ordered our food, talked about the weather, asked about each other's jobs. Then she just launched into it. She said she was concerned about my sudden interest in not working. She asked if I was sure I wasn't just looking for an easy way out of adult responsibilities. She brought up Emma and Marcus's situation and said she hoped I wasn't planning to take advantage of Jake's good nature and generous income. I was honestly shocked.

I told her that wasn't the case at all, that I wanted to be present for our future children, not freeload off Jake. She gave me this look like she didn't believe me at all. Then she said something like, well, Emma said the same things to Marcus, and look how that turned out. The lunch was awkward as hell after that. We barely spoke for the rest of it. I went home and told Jake what happened, expecting him to be mad at his mom for overstepping. Instead, he got quiet and said maybe his mom had a point about being careful. Over the next few weeks, Linda kept bringing it up. Every time we visited, she'd make little comments.

Like when Jake mentioned wanting to renovate the bathroom, she'd say, well, you'll need to save extra money if you're going to be the only one working soon. Or when I talked about something happening at my job, she'd say, oh, you still have a job. I thought you were planning to quit. It was constant. And Jake wasn't shutting it down. He'd just changed the subject or laugh it off. But he never told her to stop.

I could see him getting more and more paranoid about the whole thing. The breaking point came about three weeks ago. Jake sat me down after dinner and said he'd been thinking about what his mom and Marcus's situation, and he wanted to be proactive about protecting himself financially. He said if I was serious about not working, then I should be able to manage our household expenses on a reasonable budget. Then he told me he was going to give me $1,000 a month to cover groceries, household supplies, gas for my car, my personal expenses, everything except the mortgage and

utilities. He said this would help me learn to budget properly and prove that I could manage money responsibly before we made any major decisions about me staying home. I asked him what he meant by prove myself and he said exactly what it sounds like. He wants to see if I can stick to a budget without going crazy with spending like Emma apparently did. He said if I could handle the $1,000 a month for six months, then maybe we could talk about me staying home when we have kids. The thing is, $1,000 a month is not that much money. Our normal grocery bill is around $400 to $500 a month. My car payment is $280. Insurance for my car

is $95. That leaves me with maybe $200 to $300 for gas, toiletries, clothes, and personal stuff, eating out, everything else. It's doable but tight. We've been together for 12 years. We have joint bank accounts. I've never been irresponsible with money. The most expensive thing I've bought in the last year was a $200 winter coat, and I asked him about it first even though it was our money. I asked Jake if he really thought I was the kind of person who would use him for money and then leave him high and dry. He said he didn't want to think that, but Marcus didn't think Emma would do it either, and better safe than sorry. His mom has been calling this whole thing smart financial planning. She told Jake she was proud of him for thinking ahead and not

being naive like Marcus. She keeps making comments about how modern women don't understand the value of money because everything gets handed to them. I've been on this allowance system for three weeks now and I hate everything about it. Jake deposits $1,000 into a separate checking account on the first of the month, and that's what I'm supposed to use. He checks the account balance sometimes and asks what I spent money on if there's a big purchase. Last week I bought $60 worth of cleaning supplies at Target because we were out of literally everything. Jake saw the charge and asked why I spent so much at Target.

I had to show him the receipt and explain each item. It felt like being a teenager asking my parents for lunch money. My friends think this whole thing is insane. My sister says Jake is being controlling and I should put my foot down. But I don't know if I'm overreacting. Maybe Linda has a point about being careful. Marcus really did get screwed over and Jake watched his best friend lose everything. I can understand why that would make him paranoid.

But at the same time, I'm not Emma. Jake knows me better than anyone. We've been through college together, started our careers together, bought a house together. Why doesn't our history count for anything? I guess I'm asking if this is normal behavior from a husband who's scared of getting divorced, or if Jake is being unreasonable, should I just stick it out for the six months to prove my point, or is this a bigger problem? The weird part is that everything else in our relationship is fine.

We still watch movies together, have good conversations, the physical stuff is normal. But this money thing is like a dark cloud over everything. I feel like he's testing me constantly, waiting for me to mess up so he can say, see, I was right to be careful. I just want to know if other people think this is salvageable or if Jake has already decided he doesn't trust me and this is just the beginning of the end. Update 1, thanks to everyone who commented on my original post. The responses were pretty split between run and try to work it out, but reading all your perspectives helped me figure out what I actually wanted to do. So I've been on the $1,000 allowance for

about two months now. It's been exactly as frustrating as you'd expect. I've actually managed to stay under budget most months, which apparently surprised Jake. Last month I only spent $940, and the month before that was $1,020 but only because I had to buy new tires after I got a nail in one. Jake has been tracking every expense. Not just the big stuff, literally everything. He asked me why I spent $12 at CVS and I had to explain. explain I bought tampons in Advil. He questioned a $25 charge at the grocery store that was higher than usual, and I had to tell him I bought the good toilet paper instead of the scratchy cheap stuff his mom recommended. Speaking of Linda, she's been checking in with Jake

regularly about how I'm managing my budget. She asked him last week if I'd learned my lesson yet about spending money. She also suggested that maybe I should get a part-time job to contribute something instead of just taking handouts. That conversation happened when we were over there for dinner. Linda made pot roast, which is usually pretty good, but the whole meal was tense. She kept making comments about how nice it must be to not have to worry about earning money. At one point she said Emma used to love shopping too, before she took Marcus for everything he had. I finally snapped and said I wasn't Emma, and I wasn't planning to divorce Jake and take his money.

She said that's exactly what Emma would have said and then changed the subject. Jake didn't say anything during this exchange. Just kept eating his pot roast like nothing happened. The ride home was silent until I asked Jake if he was planning to defend me to his mother ever, or if I was just supposed to take her accusations forever. He said his mom was just looking out for him and I shouldn't take it personally. I asked how exactly I was supposed to take it, and he said maybe if I proved I could be responsible with money.

his mom would back off. That's when I realized this whole thing isn't really about money or budgets or Emma and Marcus. It's about the fact that Jake doesn't respect me enough to tell his mother to stay out of our marriage. He'd rather put me through this humiliating allowance system than have one uncomfortable conversation with Linda. I decided to test something. I've been keeping detailed records of every purchase I make with the allowance money. Receeds for everything, notes about what I bought and why. Real detailed stuff. Last Tuesday, I presented Jake with a full spreadsheet of my spending over the past two months,

categorized by type of expense, with averages and everything. I showed him that I'd been under budget both months and that I'd actually been more careful with money than usual because of the restrictions. I asked him if this was enough proof that I wasn't a gold digger planning to take all his money. I asked if we could go back to our normal joint account system and start seriously talking about me staying home with future kids. Jake looked at the spreadsheet for a while and then said he thought I was taking this too seriously. He said the allowance wasn't meant to be a punishment, just a way to make sure we

were both comfortable with our financial situation before making big decisions. I asked him what specifically would need to happen for him to be comfortable with me staying home. Like, what was the actual goal here? He couldn't give me a straight answer. Just said we should keep doing what we're doing for a while longer and see how it goes. I've started looking into apartments. Not because I've decided to leave necessarily, but because I want to know what my options are.

A decent one-bedroom in our area runs about $1,400 to $1,600 a month. I could afford it on my salary if I was careful, but it would be tight. I also talked to my sister Emmy, yes, she has the same name as Marcus's ex-wife, so we'll call her Emmy. She said I could stay with her and her husband for a while if I needed to. They have a guest room and wouldn't charge me rent as long as I helped with utilities and groceries. I haven't made any decisions yet.

Part of me thinks maybe I should try couples counseling before I do anything drastic. But another part of me is wondering what exactly I'd be trying to save. A marriage where my husband thinks I'm a potential gold digger? A relationship where his mother gets to treat me like a child who can't be trusted with money? I did get some clarity on the Marcus and Emma situation, though. I ran into Marcus last week and we ended up talking for a few minutes. Turns out the story Jake and Linda have been telling isn't completely accurate.

Marcus told me that Emma did take him for a lot in the divorce, but it wasn't like she was secretly planning it for years. They'd been having problems for a long time. He was working crazy hours, she was home alone with two small kids, they barely talked anymore. Emma asked him to go to counseling multiple times and he kept putting it off because he was busy with work. The divorce was definitely expensive for Marcus, but it sounds like Emma was entitled to half their assets because that's how divorce works, especially when one spouse has been

out of the workforce taking care of kids. Marcus seems sad about it but not bitter toward Emma specifically. More just sad that their marriage fell apart. This made me wonder what other details Jake and Linda might have gotten wrong, or what they might have chosen to focus on when they tell the story. Anyway, I'm planning to bring up counseling with Jake this weekend. If he's willing to work on this with a neutral third party, maybe we can figure out if this marriage is worth saving. If he thinks I'm being unreasonable for wanting couples therapy, then I'll know where he really stands. Update 2, the counseling conversation did not go well. I brought it up on Saturday morning. We were having covered.

and reading the news on our phones, pretty relaxed morning. I said something like I think we should try couples counseling to work through this money situation. Jake looked up from his phone and asked why I thought we needed counseling when we could just work it out ourselves. I explained that we've been working it out ourselves for three months now and we weren't getting anywhere. I was still on the allowance, his mom was still making comments, and we still hadn't resolved the original issue about me potentially staying home with kids. Jake said he's didn't see what a counselor could tell us that we didn't already know. He said the system we had was working fine and I was getting good at budgeting. I pointed out that wasn't really the

point. The point was that he didn't trust me with our money even though I'd never given him a reason not to. That's when he got defensive. He said it wasn't about trust, it was about being smart with money. He brought up Marcus again and said he wasn't going to make the same mistakes his friend made by being too trusting. I asked him if he thought I was the same kind of person as Emma, and he said he didn't know because people change when money is involved. I asked him what exactly Emma had done that was so terrible. He started to repeat the same story about her taking everything in the divorce, but I told him I'd talked to Marcus and gotten a different perspective. Jake got quiet and asked what Marcus had said. I explained that Marcus had told me they'd had

marriage problems for years, that Emma had asked for counseling multiple times, and that the divorce settlement was pretty standard for a situation where one spouse had been out of the workforce. I said it sounded like their marriage failed for normal reasons. Not because Emma was secretly a gold digger. Jake didn't like this at all. He said Marcus was probably just trying to save face and not admit he'd been taken advantage of. He said I was being naive if I believed that Emma hadn't planned the whole thing. When I asked what evidence he had that Emma had planned anything, he couldn't give me specifics. The conversation went in circles for about an hour.

Jake kept saying we didn't need counseling, I kept saying we clearly couldn't solve this on our own. Finally, he said if I wanted to waste money on therapy, that was my choice, but he wasn't going to participate. I said fine, I'd go by myself then. He laughed and asked what I planned to pay for it with, since therapy isn't in my $1,000 monthly budget. That comment really pissed me off. I told him I'd use my own money for my actual job. He said that wasn't how our budget worked now. This turned into a much bigger fight. I pointed out that I still work full-time and earn my own salary, and he couldn't control how I spent my paychecks. He said if I wasn't going to stick to the budget we'd agreed on, then the whole system was pointless. I said we hadn't agreed on any.

anything, he'd imposed this system on me and I'd gone along with it to keep the peace. He said if I had such a problem with it, maybe I should think about whether this marriage was working for me. That stopped me cold. He said it so casually, like he'd been thinking about it for a while. I asked him if he wanted me to leave, and he said he didn't want me to leave. But he also wasn't going to apologize for protecting himself financially. The rest of the weekend was tense as hell. We barely spoke to each other. Monday morning he left for work without saying goodbye. I made an appointment with a therapist for myself. She's been practicing for about 15 years. The appointment is next Thursday. I'm paying for it with my own money from my own checking account, and I don't

care what Jake thinks about it. I also did something else. I opened my own savings account at a different bank. I've been putting $500 from each paycheck into it for the past month. It's not much, but it makes me feel better to know I have some money that Jake doesn't know about and can't question me about. Jake has been acting weird since our fight. Not mean or anything, just distant. He comes home from work, we eat dinner together, watch TV, go to bed. But there's no real conversation. It feels like we're roommates who happen to share a bed. Last night he asked me if I was happy in our marriage. I asked him the same question back.

He said he'd been happy until all this money stuff started causing problems. I said the money stuff was causing problems because he didn't trust me, not because I was doing anything wrong. He said maybe we just had different ideas about what marriage should look like. I asked him what he meant, and he said he thought marriage was about being practical and protecting yourself, while I seemed to think it was about blind trust and sharing everything. I told him I thought marriage was about being a team and having each other's backs, especially when outside people tried to interfere. He asked if I was talking about his mom, and I said yes, I was definitely talking about his mom. Jake said his mom had been married for 35

years and knew what she was talking about. I pointed out that Linda had been making nasty comments about me for years and he'd never once defended me. He said his mom wasn't wasn't being nasty, just realistic. We went to bed without resolving anything. This morning he left early for work again. I've been thinking about what he said about having different ideas about marriage. Maybe he's right. Maybe I do think marriage should be about trust and teamwork, and maybe he thinks it should be about protecting yourself from your own spouse. Those seem like pretty incompatible worldviews. My sister Emmy thinks I should just leave. She says Jake has shown me who he is and I should believe him.

My friend Jess thinks I should stick it out a little longer and see if therapy helps me figure out what I want. I don't know what I think yet. Update 3. Three weeks ago, something happened that really drove this home for me. My car started making a weird noise and I took it to the mechanic. Turned out I needed new brake pads and the repair was going to cost $320. I didn't have that much left in my allowance account. It was the end of the month and I'd already spent most of the $1,000 on normal stuff. I called Jake at work to ask about using our joint account for the repair.

He asked why I hadn't budgeted for car maintenance. I explained that brake pads aren't really something you can budget for, they wear out when they wear out. He said I should have been setting aside money each month for potential car repairs. I pointed out that $1,000 a month doesn't really leave room to set aside money for emergencies when I'm already covering groceries, gas, personal expenses, and everything else. He said maybe I needed to make better choices about what I was buying. I ended up having to ask my sister to lend me the money for the break repair.

Jake was not happy when he found out. He said if I couldn't manage my budget without asking family for loans, then clearly the system wasn't working. I said the system wasn't working because $1,000 a month wasn't enough to cover everything plus unexpected expenses. He said if I wanted more money, I could get a second job. I reminded him that I already have a full-time job and make more than enough money to cover the car repair. I just couldn't access my own money because of his arbitrary budget rules. That fight lasted for days. Jake kept saying I was being irresponsible and proving his mom's point about my attitude toward money. I kept saying he was being controlling and unreasonable.

We went to bed angry multiple nights in a row. Linda made things worse, obviously. When Jake told her about the break repair situation, she said it was a perfect example of why women can't be trusted to manage money on their own. She said if I couldn't handle a simple budget, there was no way I should be staying home with kids in the future. Jake repeated this conversation to me almost word for word. He didn't seem to see anything wrong with discussing our private financial business with his mother, or with her making judgmental comments about my ability to manage money. That's when I realized that this wasn't a temporary thing Jake was doing to make himself feel better after Marcus's divorce.

This was who Jake actually was, someone who thought it was acceptable to control his wife's access to money and discuss our marriage problems with his mother instead of working them out with me. Two weeks ago, I started looking for apartments more seriously. I found a one-bedroom place about 15 minutes from my work that's available next month. It's $1,450 a month plus utilities, which is doable on my salary. I haven't signed a lease yet, but I put down a deposit to hold it while I make my final decision. The landlord said I have until the end of this week to decide.

I also talked to a lawyer just to understand what divorce would look like for us. We don't have kids, we've been married less than 10 years, and we both work full-time. It would be pretty straightforward. We'd split our assets and debts and go our separate ways. The house would probably have to be sold, we'd split whatever equity we have, which isn't much since we only bought it two years ago. The cars are both in our individual names,

so we'd each keep our own. It's weird how simple it would be legally when it feels so complicated emotionally. I haven't told Jake about any of this yet. I'm not even sure I'm definitely getting divorced, I'm just trying to understand all my options, but I think I already know what I'm going to do. Update 4. I moved out six weeks ago. I didn't plan some dramatic confrontation or big speech. I just told Jake one evening that I'd found an apartment and would be moving out on

Saturday. He was stunned. He asked if I was seriously going to end our marriage over a budget disagreement. I told him it wasn't about the budget, it was about the fact that he didn't trust me, didn't respect me, and had let his mother interfere in our marriage for months without ever defending me. I said I was tired of feeling like I was auditioning to be his wife after 12 years together. Jake said he thought we could work things out if I just gave it more time. He said maybe he'd been too strict with the allowance and we could adjust it. I told him the problem wasn't the amount of money. It was the entire concept of my husband giving me an allowance, like I was a child. He asked if I was really willing to throw away 12 years together over

this. I said I wasn't throwing anything away. He'd already decided our marriage needed to be built around distrust and control, and I couldn't live with that. We had the same circular conversation we'd been having for months. Jake kept saying he was just being practical and responsible. I kept saying he was being controlling and disrespectful. Neither of us was going to change the other's mind. I packed up my clothes, my books, my personal stuff. Jake helped me load boxes into my car, which was weird. Very polite and civil, like we were acquaintances helping each other move instead of a married couple separating. Linda came by while I was packing and made some comment about how I was giving up too easily

and running away from my problems. Jake told her to stay out of it, which was probably the first time he'd ever defended me to her, and it was too little too late. My new apartment is small but it's mine. One bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen with a breakfast bar, a living room that fits a couch and a TV. The rent is $1,450 a month and I pay all my own utilities and buy all my own groceries and I don't have to justify any of it to anyone. It's been an adjustment. I'd forgotten what it was like to make decisions without considering someone else's opinion. Jake and I are being civil about the divorce process. We're using a mediator instead of lawyers since we don't have kids or complicated assets. We put the house on the market three weeks ago

and already have two offers. The real estate market is pretty good right now, so we should be able to sell quickly and split the proceeds. Marcus, Jake's best friend whose divorce started this whole mess, actually reached out to me a few weeks after I moved out. He said he'd heard what happen and felt terrible that his situation had somehow contributed to our problems. He said Jake had been asking him a lot of questions about his divorce over the past year and he tried to explain that his marriage to Emma had problems that went way beyond money, but Jake seemed fixated on the financial aspect. Marcus also told me that Linda had called him a few months ago to ask details about Emma's

behavior during their marriage. She wanted to know if there had been warning signs that Emma was planning to take his money. Marcus said he tried to explain that Emma hadn't planned anything. Their marriage had just fallen apart and the divorce settlement was standard, but Linda didn't seem to want to hear that. So apparently Linda had been building her case against me for months, looking for evidence that I was another Emma in the making. And Jake had bought into it completely. The divorce should be final in about six weeks. We have one more mediation session to work out the last few details, but it's mostly paperwork at this point.