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Celebrating special days is one thing. Exploiting your bank account for those special days is a different ball game!

This husband shares how his wife kept having parties for their son’s birthday even when they have a huge debt.

Check out the full story.

AITA for telling my (M28) wife (F27) that our son’s party doesn’t need to be so intense?

Our son turned 1 earlier this year. Our families are far away from our current home (minimum 6 hour drive from us, 2+ hours from each other).

She had the idea: Small party with friends, then two larger parties, one for each side of the family. I agreed because I thought it would be nice to include both sides of the family & older relatives who we would like to see celebrate with him while they can.

This is where everything gets tricky…

Note: She has been diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and OCD.

We have completed Parties #1 and #2. For both, my wife put herself (and therefore me) under considerable stress to make decorations, food, etc. They have cost us at least $500USD each.

For context, we are currently under the thumb of a mortgage, student loan debt, and have now accumulated a $12,000USD credit card bill. In both cases, she said she had “already toned it down a lot” from what she wanted.

Her toned-down version included dozens of hours of work, even when she was using “budget” stuff. There’s a trade-off.

She avoids buying expensive decorations but increases the amount of work it takes, since we still have decorations and other ideas through DIY.

That’s INSANE!

Each party has gone “over the top” and led to her having meltdowns outside her control: the first one was limited in time, the second one was outside and it rained the night before so she had to decorate day-of.

In both cases, I pointed out that scaling it back would be better than the stress. She accused me of “not caring about the party.” Since this is a 1-year-old’s party, this party is for her, so it means I do not care about her.

For the third party, she says we should stay with her parents for two weeks prior to the event. I work remotely. While they do have wi-fi, it is harder for me to be productive outside my home office.

And, if she is there with her parents alone, she is often frustrated. They do not commit to projects.

The few times I have left her with them and gone on work trips or other things, I get complaints about how unhelpful they are, how passive aggressive her mother is, etc.

Things get worse between them…

I support her, but my point is that this is not a utopia in which she can work on this party.

Now I received a good offer for a new job. Still remote, but I have to travel across the country for a few days during the week she insists on being with her parents.

She would be alone in our home town, and our friends work; she would have no one on hand for the majority of that time (about 72 hours). She insists she cannot stay in our home town, and that she needs to go to her parents’ anyway.

UH OH…

Her solution to this problem is for me to drive her down on a Friday night, then on Sunday drive three hours to an airport (there are no major airports nearby), then on Tuesday fly back to that airport and drive three hours back to her parents’ to stay for about ten days before the party.

I do not think this is a good plan. I told her that she should scale back her party planning, and she blew up at me.

Again I am accused of “not caring about the party.” AITA?

GEEZ! That sounds like a lot is happening at once!

Why would he agree to such an extravagant event considering their financial situation?

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

This user thinks the wife needs therapy.

This user knows these parties are completely unnecessary…

That’s right! This user knows these guys are spending unreasonably on this birthday.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who had to sprint to the bathroom the moment he got home, then emerged to find his partner upset he didn’t greet her properly.

This user knows how to do some damage control…

This user thinks the issue is something else entirely.

Somebody needs to make careful financial choices!