Unless you roll with the country club set, it can be problematic to assume someone can fit expensive meals into their budget.

Read about the family in this story below. They are planning to celebrate a birthday at a very fancy restaurant and it’s causing complications.

WIBTA for telling my in-laws that we can’t afford a fancy restaurant and that we are not contributing to paying for the meal?

My father-in-law’s birthday is coming up and my partner received a message from his sister saying that she and MIL have booked a restaurant for FILs birthday.

We were not asked about our opinions or price range or included in the discussion.

This isn’t just any restaurant and you can’t just order something small.

I can see that they have a set menu and single price of about $120AUD per person, and that is excluding drinks. Drinks are an additional $30 per person for a package or $15-20+ for a single small glass of wine (minimum some are apparently$60-90 per glass — not that I would order that)!

We told my partner’s sister that this is well out of our price range at the moment due to having a single income and a lot of unexpected bills.

It seems like there’d be a simple solution: go elsewhere or opt out. Not with this mother-in-law.

She said she didn’t care and to “work something out” as they have booked this restaurant and it is for their father’s birthday.

We have tried to tell MIL (we are not allowed to mention where we are going to FIL) that it is too expensive and we have just been brushed off and told that we are going and too bad.

Every person involved knows of our financial situation and went ahead and booked an expensive restaurant without speaking to us first– we were just told.

My partner is angry at his sister and thinks she is an inconsiderate AH. She thinks that we are being unreasonable AHs in our concerns about how expensive this meal will be (we pay less for our electricity!).

Let’s look at what people are saying.

Well, that would be the classy thing to do if she wants something fancy.

Brilliant way to describe it. It does feel like showing off.

I love this solution. If she wants to be a dictator, she shouldn’t mind people knowing about it.

This sounds lovely. Can I come?

Bullying indeed. Some people are mentally still in high school.

I’d definitely pre-drink.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.