A Singaporean man recently shared his frustration after his wife refused to go out to work and how she kicks up a fuss after complaining that the expenses is not enough even though her husband gives her half of his 7.5K salary. Even though she has 5 branded handbags such as Bottega and Chanel, it was never enough for her.
Here is the full story.
Is it acceptable for a wife to refuse to work and to kick a fuss when she doesn’t get enough money for her expenses, even though she isn’t working?
My wife refused to work since we got married after we graduated. I’m 30 and she’s 27 and we’ve been married for a couple of years. She hasn’t worked a single day. I honestly do not mind it at all. She can stay at home for all I care because I have made wedding vows that I am not about to break.
Yet, she expects me to give her an allowance of more than 50% of my after-tax income, and she refuses to pay for any big-ticket items such as the two TVs I bought, the 4-5 branded handbags she has (Prada, Chanel, Bottega etc), purses, makeup, and other household items.
I used to just buy her whatever she wants but lately I’ve hesitated a bit because most of everything I have bought for her are still in mint condition.
Every time this happens nowadays, she’ll kick up a fuss and claim that I am using money to oppress her. She’ll stop speaking to me for days. By the way, I am still giving her more than 50% of my after-tax income. I have never questioned once what she does with it. The thing is she doesn’t use her money to buy any of the expensive things she wants. She always insists that I must be the one paying for these things on top of the allowance I give her.
I’m running a business that my grandfather passed to my father and then to me. It’s a big and profitable investments business but all the profits have been traditionally retained for growth and I am drawing a very small salary of 7500 SGD a month. I have shown her my income tax statements every year. I do earn 7.5k a month in salary and I draw 0 dividends from the company I co-own (80/20) with my younger sibling.
But fundamentally, regardless of how much I earn, is it ethical for wives to demand to be “paid” excessive amounts of money for lavish spending? By the way, she can’t have children (we’ve tried and she’s barren) so she does not have the excuse of having to stay home to look after kids. This is okay too, I never wanted kids anyway so I am not holding this against her. I would like to reiterate that I have no issue with her staying at home and I am more than willing to give her an allowance that is at least half of my income.
I love her. I would like to think that she loves me too. I have always been very frugal and I have given her no indication that I come from money when we were dating. She even signed a prenup so she wouldn’t be entitled to any of my wealth in the event of a divorce under pressure from both our parents. Her parents wanted a prenup as well because she is an only-child and her parents have 2 condos worth around around 2 million each.
It all changed when my dad paid for a really extravagant wedding (for the sake of our business) and she somehow worked it out that she can live like a tai tai. But as I said, I am not liquid, and she does not have a fundamental understanding of business and refuses to listen every time I try to explain why I cannot afford all the things that she wants to buy.
I don’t know who’s out of line here because I feel I have done a lot to accommodate her life choices.