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Wife went to great lengths to lie to me
liedto
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This is a anonymous account as there people here that know me and I rather they don't know about this yet.
I realize how weird this story sounds. But I promise is completely true. I'm coming here because I don't know who else to share this with.
My wife and I have been together for about seven years. Been overall happy. Sure, a couple of fights, but I wouldn't say anything out of the norm.
One of the things where she and I differ is about money. She's always spent it freely while I have tried to be conservative-but often failed for one reason or another. This past year, we looked at our finances and decided we needed to buckle down, start going out less and putting in money in savings. This has actually worked for us for the most past.
This past year, she also got REALLY into the whole Sherlock BBC fandom. Reads the fan fictions, big on tumblr, made a bunch of friends, etc. I teased her about it, but I got my nerdy thing, so while it sometimes caused friction (when my jokes went too long/far or I felt she was going in the deep end) but I wouldn't really have thought about it till now.
See, for the last two months or so she's been talking about how a bunch of her online friends are heading to London for a meetup and stuff and how she would really like to attend. We had a serious conversation once or twice about it where I (thought) we agreed that we couldn't swing it this year. She would still bring it up, but I thought it was jokingly.
Write around this time, she decided to go after a promotion at work which would require her to travel more.
I'm sure you guys can see where this is going. This week she was going out of town, first for a one day trip and then for a longer, five day trip. She left yesterday for the longer trip.
Today, I get home, speak to her for just a few minutes where she tells me about her day and says she's going to bed early because her back hurts. Little bit later, I'm checking my email, and I come across an email from ATT saying that her phone number (we share a plan) has gone over her international data limit. It still doesn't click with me. I call ATT, and explain the lady that this has to be wrong, because my wife is still in the country. The lady then tells me that it's showing the data being used in the UK.
That's when it clicks.
Call her up, confront her, and at first she lies, and it's only when I ask her to swear to god she's in the country that she admits she's in fucking London. And one of the first things she tells me is that "you gave me no other choice." Turns out she's been squirreling away her own money for a while, and she had often mentioned how an online friend was offering to let her stay in her place while she was there, so I figure that's where she is at.
I just don't know what to say or do at this point. I yelled at her, curse at her, and then hung up. My phone is off right now. I don't know what to do. I love her, I don't want to break up, but this...this feels so damn big. At BEST she made up this whole storyline, kept lying to me every time we talked about her upcoming trip, and then went to London. And she's using money that could have gone towards both of our lives. At worst, I don't know what's worst. She's cheating on me with someone in London, I guess?
I realize how weird this story sounds. But I promise is completely true. I'm coming here because I don't know who else to share this with.
My wife and I have been together for about seven years. Been overall happy. Sure, a couple of fights, but I wouldn't say anything out of the norm.
One of the things where she and I differ is about money. She's always spent it freely while I have tried to be conservative-but often failed for one reason or another. This past year, we looked at our finances and decided we needed to buckle down, start going out less and putting in money in savings. This has actually worked for us for the most past.
This past year, she also got REALLY into the whole Sherlock BBC fandom. Reads the fan fictions, big on tumblr, made a bunch of friends, etc. I teased her about it, but I got my nerdy thing, so while it sometimes caused friction (when my jokes went too long/far or I felt she was going in the deep end) but I wouldn't really have thought about it till now.
See, for the last two months or so she's been talking about how a bunch of her online friends are heading to London for a meetup and stuff and how she would really like to attend. We had a serious conversation once or twice about it where I (thought) we agreed that we couldn't swing it this year. She would still bring it up, but I thought it was jokingly.
Write around this time, she decided to go after a promotion at work which would require her to travel more.
I'm sure you guys can see where this is going. This week she was going out of town, first for a one day trip and then for a longer, five day trip. She left yesterday for the longer trip.
Today, I get home, speak to her for just a few minutes where she tells me about her day and says she's going to bed early because her back hurts. Little bit later, I'm checking my email, and I come across an email from ATT saying that her phone number (we share a plan) has gone over her international data limit. It still doesn't click with me. I call ATT, and explain the lady that this has to be wrong, because my wife is still in the country. The lady then tells me that it's showing the data being used in the UK.
That's when it clicks.
Call her up, confront her, and at first she lies, and it's only when I ask her to swear to god she's in the country that she admits she's in fucking London. And one of the first things she tells me is that "you gave me no other choice." Turns out she's been squirreling away her own money for a while, and she had often mentioned how an online friend was offering to let her stay in her place while she was there, so I figure that's where she is at.
I just don't know what to say or do at this point. I yelled at her, curse at her, and then hung up. My phone is off right now. I don't know what to do. I love her, I don't want to break up, but this...this feels so damn big. At BEST she made up this whole storyline, kept lying to me every time we talked about her upcoming trip, and then went to London. And she's using money that could have gone towards both of our lives. At worst, I don't know what's worst. She's cheating on me with someone in London, I guess?
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I feel like there's a communication issue here, where she didn't feel she could tell you that this was that important to her, or you just didn't hear it. She should have been able to say "this is important to me and I want to make it happen," and then the two of you could work that out. "You gave me no other choice" is a ridiculous thing to say because you are grownups. She could have done anything else, including carried out the same plan openly.
I don't know WHY it didn't happen, but the size and nature of this lie is not something I could ever get over, regardless of whether or not she is physically cheating. How could I ever trust her to communicate her feelings to me? How could I trust her with money? How could I trust her with anything without having to feel like a parent or a gatekeeper? I don't think I could. I think for me, something like this would be the end.
I'm not sure it's really even material what she's doing over there. If you want to save it and think you can, marriage counseling? I'm not entirely sure what advice you're looking for, and I can't tell you what to do, but if it were me I would not stay.
I mean, out of everything, you've completely failed to realize that she might have wanted some camaraderie and validation. A place where she can immerse herself in her hobby without feeling ostracized. Just to feel normal for a while. She didn't get that at home.
"Cheating" is so far off the mark that it's actually scary. She went to London to get some emotional validation, something she wasn't getting at home. Whether she fucked someone else or not is completely pointless if you don't realize that one fact.
It wouldn't have solved the apparent communication and trust issues you two have at a larger scale, but it would have likely prevented her from feeling the need to, as you put it, squirrel away some money.
it's entirely possible, but i'm not sure it makes the situation significantly more severe. there's obviously a gaping chasm in each of your priorities here and you need to talk about whether the relationship is actually in everyone's best interests. financial goals shoul not be strained; coming together on them is really really important, and if you've been clashing over them perpetually and it's getting worse and worse... it could simply be that neither of you are realistically going to have your desires satisfied - longterm stability, or lifestyle satisfaction.
That's an awful lot of premeditation, and I agree with @ceres where I don't think that amount of dishonesty would be reconcilable.
At the end of the day, it's her money, so you can't really force what she does with it, though if this trip puts your shared expenses in jeopardy, that's another bad sign.
The problem is that while it's not a huge deal in itself, that she had to lie about it shows serious communication issues with you two.
Why would to make fun of her hobby? Especially over that involves a Cumberbatch. Why could she just not tell you that it's super important to her and she saved some money so she's going?
It's the size and scale of the lies she told to get her there, and the fact that her first response to being caught in it is to turn it around and tell you it's your fault she lied... for me there would be no getting over that or trusting her again. I feel like the line should probably be well before your partner hides money to sneak off to another country for a fan convention. There are trust issues there, as well as issues of maturity.
All he said was cheating. He didn't say whether or not it was emotional, physical, or both. And frankly, lying to your life partner about spending a huge sum of money to fly to another country and meet people neither of you have actually met IRL is definitely a form of cheating. It's a huge violation of trust in any relationship, especially one such as marriage.
OP, there's clearly something more going on here. Let me put it this way - even if you were an asshole and weren't listening to her and she felt like she had to get away, it's a pretty glaring issue in your relationship that she wouldn't even talk to you about it. Why didn't she just tell you that she had saved up some money, it was really important to her, and she felt like she needed to go with or without your consent? Instead, she concocted an elaborate lie and then went off without you. And you were so oblivious that you didn't even realize this could be a possibility.
I'm not pointing this out to say she's a bad person so much as to point out that there are some obvious trust and communication issues going on here on both ends. Either she can't or won't communicate her feelings appropriately or you can't or won't listen. Probably both.
To be perfectly honest, though, this whole thing strikes me as absurd. There is clearly a lot more going on here than this one incident. The money thing is probably the biggest symptom of the underlying issues, and this is just one major event where it's all coming to a head. Like, I know plenty of people who have trouble managing their money, but everyone has different, varying reasons for it. Some people just never developed the skills, while others are so used to getting what they want when they want it that they don't know any other way to live. And I know a few people who use consumerism as a form of psychological coping for much more deep-seated issues, such as self-esteem and depression. Like, it's one thing to splurge on a video game every once in a while even though you know you can't really afford it. It's another to literally fly to another country and not tell your partner. There is no level of not being "emotionally validated" that would justify this kind of behavior unless you are being abusive and she just desperately needed to get away from you.
However, you should probably have let her do this. You only get one life, and better to spend it with friends having fun. Financial counselling would also be in order. If she wants to splurge, she needs to save. And it sounds like she was doing this. So if you both could communicate better then none of this need have happened. The relationship counselling should help you with communication.
And the truth was that she was going out of town not for work, but to fuck someone.
I suggest turn your phone on, if she calls, don't yell at her, don't curse at her, try and listen. Find a counselor in your area that will see you guys, try to work through both problems, don't focus on this event as if it's the only problem in the marriage. Let the counselor find out what's really going on with both of you; and hope that these issues can be resolved. I really hope she isn't cheating on you, there is no worse feeling in the world.
I disagree with this comment, which is probably why we're in the situation we are right now.
If this had been a thing that was scheduled to happen in my city, or in a a close by city, or if we were better off financially, then yeah. But I thought she and I both understood that we had made some silly financial mistakes in the past, and doing a trip to London was way out of the budget and would just reset us back to the 'spend now, worry about the consequences later' mindset I never want to be in again.
We do keep separate bank accounts actually, with one other we put our savings into. Even if the money she put away for the trip came out of her own account, is it wrong for me to feel as angry and hurt as I am? There's thousands of thing I would love to do with my money, but instead I'm just saving it up because I'm the type of person that's paranoid about an emergency happening and we not having the funds to cover it.
And from all our talks about the London trip, it felt like it was an occasion to see her friends, visit some landmarks, and see the play with one of those two assholes in them. Obviously it's stupid for me to say this now, but I didn't think it was emotionally important--she never voiced it at that level, so when someone says that I missed out on she wanting to feel normal, I call bullshit on that. And maybe that's where I'm wrong.
Above all it's just the lies. Like, I don't even know if the promotion was a real thing. I feel like a fool, and I don't know if I can get over that, or if I should.
It's not really about what you should do. If you feel like you can't get over it or don't want to, then it's probably better to leave, in my opinion. Then again, I've been in a relationship with someone who thought big lies were acceptable for any reason at all, and I'm never, ever doing that again.
edit: Actually, I want to thank you for making this thread and giving me reason to type that out. I think I needed to see myself do it. I know that probably doesn't make a lot of sense to you, but it's just one of those things where you never know who else might be helped by your thread.
This isn't a white lie, this is a massive thing and a huge breach of trust. I think only you can decide what outcome you want, you know your own self and what you can tolerate in a relationship, and more importantly what you deserve and want in a relationship, what type and deal breakers are. I don't think you're being unreasonable.
Yeah this so much. It is not excusing the behaviour, because that was clearly wrong here, but this kind of thing doesn't just happen.
Well if it wasn't emotionally important she wouldn't have tried to hide it from you and lied about it and spent money on it. And yeah after seven years you guys should be able to communicate these kinds of things to each other.
I've been in a relationship where my girlfriend felt that she couldn't talk to me about her feelings and while it certainly was also her problem it was also my fault. Just because I wasn't intentionally trying to be a dick to her doesn't mean I wasn't being a dick. And I was also very much unaware there was even a problem in the first place, I was thinking things were going quite well when she suddenly told me she was having trouble for months with our relationship.
So yeah, I'm not saying she wasn't wrong or didn't betray your trust but try to be open to the idea that this is a symptom of a much larger issue in your relationship which can be partly your fault. (the issue that is, not the fact she went on this trip)
I was trying to come up with a way to bring this up without condoning her actions as well. I in no way think what she did was ok, but it's also a problem if in her mind she was thinking 'I tried to bring this up so many times, but I can't tell him how serious I am about it because he'll just make fun of me'.
Again, not saying it's ok, not addressing the maturity of it, or the financial issues--just trying to say there might be a bigger break on communication than OP is even aware of. It's hard to communicate well when you feel you are just going to be mocked or shut down.
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Something also sounds weird here. I'm not sure if it's a failure to communicate that you're unaware of, or if you omitted some details or what. What's the name of that cognitive bias where you tend to ignore things that don't line up with your preferred internal narrative? We all do it. It's insidious, and hard to self diagnose. So, diagnose it. Go see an experienced third party who won't buy your goosiness or her goosiness.
Or "lied about the nature, intended destination, and funding of a trip she went on..."
Anyway, definitely consider marriage counseling, but the first step here is to turn on your phone and talk to her. Now that she has had time to process that you know what she did, and you've had time to think about all that has happened, maybe you both can have the open conversation that was so needed before this occurred.
I'm not sure what the current airfare rates are, but my assumption would be that this would be a trip that costs several thousands of dollars. That's not something you just shrug your shoulders on when you're in dire financial straits. It's easy to say "you only live once" now, it's less easy to spend a few months skipping meals or wondering if you would rather have the electricity or gas on this winter.
I'm pretty sure you can have a night out with friends for far, far cheaper.
I feel weird because this kind of sounds like I'm defending her actions, which I don't mean to do, but I find this kind of off the mark.
Probably the least important thing first: I googled flights to London, and while I don't know where OP lives, I was able to find one in about two seconds for 700 round trip(from NYC)--a lot of money of course, but also not several thousand.
Secondly, it also seems like they have a joint account for expenses she was still contributing to, so I think it's slightly disingenuous to suggest they will be literally unable to keep food on their plates this winter. I certainly don't know their financial details, but there is a wide margin between 'we should save up more' and 'we can't feed ourselves'.
Anyway, the last point is the one I felt the need to comment about I guess. I can go out to lunch with my friends here, but I have to take a flight to have a lunch out with my sister, or my good friends in other states. It's really not the same thing--she clearly found enough value in seeing these friends/these events that it was worth it to her. I'm not saying I agree in this instance, but I understand and have totally paid 1000 bucks to 'have a night out with friends'.
I don't mean to get on you about your comment, and I really don't think what she did/the lying was ok--so I hope I'm not coming off that way!
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My take on the entire lie is this, you're being far more shitty to her than you even realize to the point that it was easier for her to lie to you than to deal with whatever hell you would make her homelife like for telling you the truth. Its much easier to go around the issue rather than live in a hostile environment.
Flatout you need to take a good hard look at your relationship because I have a feeling that if you continue to flip your shit it will be the beginning of the end. You both have issues that need to be resolved and none of us are going to be able to do that just hearing your side of the story.
It sounds like the OP and his wife had an agreement to save money, one he clearly took more seriously and in which he made his own sacrifices. Relationships are about compromise, I think its really selfish of her to decide her priorities came first.
That said that she would do what she did either speaks about underlying issues with her or with the relationship and I don't think anyone here is going to be much help in speaking for either.
The first step would definitely be to open the line of communication with her at the least.
To everyone that thinks I either ignored, or dismissed her desire to go to this- I did not. Nor did I make fun of it. We had countless of discussions regarding it and she would even admit that it would derail the track we were in. This is not something I thought we disagreed on.
Like, I'm sort of at a lost of how some folks see this- was I suppose to let her go regardless if we could afford it or not? We've both made sacrifices (or I thought we did) regarding saving money. How am I flipping my shit, as Irevert puts it?
There is no other way to put that. If you see it that way, she probably picks up on that even if it's not the kind of language you use with her. She's not your kid, she's your wife, and you should have equal input into what happens with your money.
You aren't supposed to "let" her do anything. You're supposed to be able to have adult conversations about money, trust each other with your feelings, and respect each other's feelings and priorities. None of that is happening here, and from the outside your whole relationship seems pretty broken.
And this:
Signify something. I cant really think of something that my partner wants and keeps mentioning that was just a joke. Its really easy to read "I made fun of her for it, enough to cause tension" and "when she kept bringing it up casually, I assumed she was joking because I wanted to believe we still agreed on the point." That is a very negative read of what may of happened, But we have no way of knowing her side of it. Seven years is a long time to have this bad of a read on how serious your partner is about something.
Budgeting is really difficult, but I don't I don't think it really fair to say she should have just done it and you should have been okay with it. I have completely separate checking and savings accounts than my partner, but I still don't take trips or make large purchases just because I can despite the fact that we are budgeting. We have joint purchases that we need to make, and if you've talked that out with your partner its not unreasonable for you to expect them to uphold their end of the bargain.
There are somethings you need to make compromises and goals for, and maybe she didn't feel like her compromises were equal or that she was a big enough part of agreeing on cut backs. Also, in the face of responsibility and what are clearly "the right and adult choices" It can be hard to say "actually its really important to me that we have this, or that I attend this con" and maybe she felt to guilty to admit it. That doesn't make it right, either. I feel a little guilty that I'm planning to get a cat in a few months despite the fact that it will be another monthly bill I'll have to deal with, I have enough money to go buy the thing and tell my partner to stuff it, but instead we talked about our concerns. When he initially said it seemed unnecessary, insisted it was important and so we made a timeline. I didn't make a case for it to have my partner "allow me" to do it, I made sure he was cool with it because we are in this together, and I wanted to make sure we are on the same page, even with things I do with my money.
Someone else who is picking up on the phrasing that frankly I've been biting my tongue on commenting on.
'Let her go' can be shorthand for 'give up on the argument because it's exhausting to not reach a resolution' instead of a more literal statement of control. I was in a relationship where the other party recognized the utility of planning for the future and making short term sacrifices towards long term financial stability, but when confronted with an immediate spending decision, especially in the purview of a hobby, had little resolve. Being the workhorse is no fun, and one person spends money on only him- or herself while the other pays bills, pays down debt, or saves, is selfish and doesn't work.
To liedto: It's clear that you both have different priorities for money, even after taking about money and future goals for it. I understand the feeling of being alone facing what seems like an insurmountable future goal. Numbers are implacable and it's easy to feel crushed by them. Your partner should be a source of relief for your stress; not as an abusive outlet, but a person you can talk to about your feelings and with whom you can work towards solutions for problems. What you can't do it let these pressures metastasize into toxic relationship patterns. Not only are they a whole other mess to untangle if you go to counseling (and it sounds like you should) but those patterns will follow you into new relationships if this one ends. If your response to her money habits is increased control, that's already happened, and, as much as what she did was hurtful, you ought to reflect on your own actions and words (and look into counseling, even if its only for yourself).
I honestly cannot think of a situation where I would feel more comfortable lying at this magnitude to my fiancee than even going "Hey look, this is super important to me, you need to stop being shitty to me about this"
Now, granted, I can't think of a situation where I would want so much to go to London for a fan convention of anything where if the finances weren't looking great I'd go "Fuck it, this is super important to me, I'm doing it".
But seriously, faking a business trip to go to anything not a business trip? There's really no time that's ok.
Get counseling and both of you need to work on communication. Think about why she felt the need to lie about it.
This is the thing (along with the language and phrasing) which I think most of us are picking up on the most. It's hard to think of a scenario (again, short of abuse) where this type of behavior is acceptable. A life partner doesn't just up and go to another country like this. So regardless of the particulars, it's clear to everyone that something else has to have led up to this.
However, this doesn't automatically mean that the OP is in the right and his wife is just being a selfish, childish a-hole. As in every relationship, it takes two to tango. It's entirely plausible on one end that the OP is a near-abusive jerkwad who shuts down any communication from his partner and is so dismissive of her feelings and needs that she no longer sees an effective way to tell him anything meaningful. On the other end, it's entirely possible that she just never communicates well, avoids all confrontation, knows that she shouldn't be spending the money, and was so driven by selfish desire that she tried to find a way to go on the trip regardless. Look, it's not even possible to adequately describe everything here on a spectrum. There are a huge number of variables and complexities and nuances that come into play with relationships, and we just don't have all the information.
OP, it sounds like what you want is for people here to say that your wife is a terrible person, you are completely in the right, and that you are 100% justified in being angry with her. Well, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think you're going to get it here. Yes, you are justified in being angry because she betrayed your trust. However, that doesn't automatically make her a bad person, and it doesn't automatically put you in the right. More importantly, it doesn't do anything to fix the relationship, because even if you were the moral arbiter of righteousness and she was the she-devil of selfish decadence, it's not going to change the dynamics of how you communicate or how you plan to continue living your lives together. Unless you think that "being right" somehow means that you get to just dictate to her what is going to happen forever into the future, as if she were just some sort of small child or robot dog.
All we can tell you, for sure, is that your relationship has some serious issues that probably require professional help to work out. If you want to save this relationship, then I suggest you stop trying to assign blame and start trying to work towards a common solution.
What I will say is this in no way insurmountable. Your marriage is (I hope) more important than some cash you see as wasted. If you can both look past this incident and work on the underlying issues you can probably save this if you both want to enough.
MASSIVELY IMPORTANT BIT OF ADVICE
Whatever you don't leave things hanging with this horrific argument. Left alone and in despair is when people get drunk and do even more stupid things to compound a problem whilst trying to escape thinking about it. I would suggest you don't call if you can't trust yourself to not be angry (which is understandable) but send her a text or something and send it now. Tell her you want to sort this out when she gets back. Tell her you love her and this is can be sorted out.
And when one partner steadfastly continues to insist that they want to go on an unnecessary trip when finances are tight??
I'm sorry, but this is not an important trip. This is not some deep emotional requirement. It is a trip for a hobby. If their finances are tight, then she should not be going. If she knows full well that they don't have the finances for the trip and continues to bring it up and mention it constantly, then she is ACTING like a child and absolutely it is perfectly within OP's rights to put his foot down.
If your spouse makes fun of you for being into this hobby, and you don't have anyone local to share it with you, it might be very emotionality important.
That makes me suspect that that OP has him/herself failed at keeping to the agreed budget. I don't know whether it's "my buddies wanted to go see [important sporting event], how could I refuse?" or "I just can't stop myself from eating out every day" or "I impulse buy/gift tons of stuff on Steam" or something entirely reasonable expenses, like "I need a new suit for work because this one is fraying badly, and the image I project to clients is of fundamental importance;" whatever it is doesn't really matter, if I'm reading between the lines correctly. Honestly, between that and the thing about "letting" her take her trip, OP sounds worryingly controlling. With that said, my default impulse is to side with the woman, so I recognize that I'm not necessarily being fair and unbiased.
As others have said, marriage counseling is probably the best option.
Yeah, that's not the case at all.
Like others have said, this is such a strange thing that I understand people's reaction is to try to make sense of it and believe I'm either purposely or unknowingly holding things back. But I know I'm not controlling. Like I mentioned in another post, we each have our own separate bank accounts, with a shared one we have for savings only.
Yes, we both have faltered in saving, but we both agreed that had to end, and prior to this, we were both doing really well.
What I'm probably guilty of is poking her too much about her fandom. We both like to give each other shit, it's part of our relationship, but maybe we went too far.
She emailed me last night give me more information on her thoughts. It seemed like her decision to go stemmed less from her fandom, and more from a midlife crisis (her words), where she suddenly feared she was getting older and hadn't done a number of things.
There's still a lot to be talked about and said, and I don't know what the outcome is going to be, but I do thank people in this thread, because as much as I maybe dislike it, I have to try to understand what part I played in all this.
You said it earlier, but (spoiler) they both could be women. Still Doesn't change any of the advice here.
This is a silly and uncharitable reading of an innocuous colloquialism. It's not weird, uncommon, or sketchy for people in healthy relationships to agree to spend large sums of money as a group. It is weird to lie about a vacation being a business trip and secretly leave the country.
My wife "let me go" to a football game last weekend. I asked because we're a team and the tickets cost a decent amount of money, albeit far less than an international flight, and I was taking a solo day trip without her. Pretty much the same situation with smaller stakes. Even though I asked, she isnt a controlling monster. She's my partner. If she had said "no", we would have discussed and taken it from there. I wouldn't have claimed I needed to hit the office and gone behind her back. That would be a hurtful breach of trust.
OP, definitely look into marriage counseling. Also, are you sure she actually got a promotion?
Just to be clear:
I agree with everyone else that the lie is significant; going to the UK in secret is a big deal. I don't want to downplay that at all.
My observation is that she was able to afford the trip. So, as I understand it, the initial reason for her not being able to go doesn't hold up.
That's not to excuse her telling such a significant lie. But it does suggest that you two rethink how you make financial decisions, and talk about what matters in your lives. If this was important enough to her that she would lie to you, hide away money, and literally sneak out of the country, I find it difficult to believe that you wouldn't pick up on that.
If I look out our savings account, I could go out and buy the new consoles and couple of games right now. Long as I'm okay with going back to making minimum payments on all our credit cards and having no monetary safety net. I feel there's a difference between having money and being able to afford things. When we had the big 'buckle down and save' talk, she agreed too. In fact, it was her idea-spur on by hearing her co-workers talk about the large amount of money they had to pay for a vet bill and realizing we didn't even had that in case our cat had an emergency.
And to be clear, shealso never once said "I have xxx saved out of my own pocket to go". That might have been a different conversation. Right now, I'm not even sure if she's using money she saved, or if she's using money she's saved + plus money that we need to pay the monthly bills.