In marriage, honesty is very important, and that includes honesty about spending habits.

What would you do if you found out your spouse spent a lot of money behind your back on something completely frivolous?

In this story, one woman is in this exact situation, so she wants to get her money back. She has opened a new account and is moving money over every month. Her husband hates it, but she knows better than to trust his judgement. Is she doing anything wrong?

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITA for trying to take back $80k of the $160,000 my spouse spent behind my back?

My husband spent $160,000 “investing” in baseball cards without telling me.

During this same time he would get mad at me for spending money on meal plans or salon services.

I would get yelled at for my disrespectful spending and my financial goals not aligning with his, so he’d say.

He did most of this spending on his personal credit card that he paid for with our joint account.

She didn’t know about the purchases for a long time.

For a long time I didn’t have access to our online banking so I didn’t see the amounts he was paying in his credit card.

Whenever I would question a $2 or 4,000 payment he would have some excuse and usually would say it was on the family or grocery store. He would refuse to show me his statements.

One day, driving to lunch, he mentioned how my friends owed him for the concert tickets I had used his card to buy.

I agreed to get the money from them. In mentioning the card though, I remembered just seeing another $4,000 payment come out of our joint. This was after 2 months ago when he promised he had a $2,000 balance and was going to pay it off and stop using it.

She finally saw a glaring red flag she couldn’t ignore.

So I asked, “I thought it was going to be paid off a couple months ago?”

That was all it took. He launched in to me about how I ruin everything, we can’t just enjoy the day, this is why my relationships never work, on and on and dropped me back off to our house and left.

It was this outburst that made me realize there was more going on.

After lots of back and forth and digging and finally getting him to give me access to his credit card statements, I added up $160,000 in 3 years that he spent.

Their marriage could be in trouble.

I already realize the financial abuse that has taken place on many levels, and there is so much I’m not including.

During all of this my husband met with a divorce lawyer, then begged ME for another chance.

That was about a year ago.

We are still together but as you can imagine the financial issues are only one of many issues we have.

She’s protecting her financial future.

At the time I realized what he had spent and that I was so ill prepared for a divorce, I started transferring money from our joint to my personal every month.

My goal, over time, is to take my half back, $80k, and invest how I want to.

He was of course mad but I basically said oh well. He should have considered me when he spent it and I was only correcting a wrong.

Her husband is trying to stop her.

Recently he made sure the money wasn’t in the account when my transfer was scheduled. He did this 2 months in a row and said I could no longer do this.

I waited for the money to be there and did the transfer anyway.

He went nuts. Telling me I’m a rat, he’s selling the house, dissolving our business, etc, etc. He says that it’s wrong for me to go tit for tat and that I should let it go.

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The money is just sitting in my account as I have not spent any of it. Am I the jerk for trying to take my half back over time?

How are these two still together? They need marriage counseling and a financial planner. Her husband clearly has issues. He shouldn’t have access to the money or the credit cards. He’s not to be trusted. She’s the responsible one.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This person thinks she needs to divorce him.

Another person thinks she needs to tell her friends and family.

This person has a theory about what the lawyer told her husband.

One person says to sell the cards.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an incoming college student who does not want to share their grandparents’ monetary gift with a medically complex sibling.

Everyone seems to think divorce is the answer.

I’m seriously surprised that they’re still married. Selling the cards would be a step in the right direction. Seriously, she should give him an ultimatum. Sell the cards and agree to see a marriage therapist or be prepared for divorce papers.