My wife and I (early 30s) have a joint bank account that we use to pay all the standard household expenses.
For hobbies and other things that do not benefit the entire household, we have separate personal accounts.
My wife’s family planned a reunion for the beginning of November. They’re kind of flaky when it comes to cancelling plans at the last minute. Because of this, when my wife was booking plane tickets, I suggested that she pay a bit extra to ensure the ticket was refundable, just in case plans changed.
She said, quote, “that won’t be a problem. I talked to my family and they are 100% sure they are going”, then booked a non-refundable ticket.
Well, turns out that the trip got cancelled anyway because 3 of the 6 people coming got sick!
Will I look like a bad husband if I insisted that the cost of the plane ticket come out of my wife’s personal account? The way I see it, because my wife unilaterally decided to book a non-refundable flight (against my suggestion), she should also have to unilaterally deal with the financial consequences.
My wife is arguing that the plane ticket should come out of our joint account because, had the trip not been cancelled, the joint account would have paid for it.
How?