Every family seems to have certain family members who can be very unreasonable.

One way they can be unreasonable is by insisting that everyone split the bill at a restaurant even when some family members order much more expensive meals than others.

In today’s story, one young lady’s family wants to split the bill at dinner, but that would mean she would have to pay twice as much as she’d pay if she just paid for her meal separately.

Find out how she dealt with them!

AITA for refusing to pay double my own meal bill at a family event?

We had a family meal out for my Nan’s birthday yesterday.

Family included: Nan Family A: Two parents with three adult children, ages 18,23,25.

Family B: Two parents with disabled, adult son.

Adult C

Family D: Two parents with two, school-aged children.

Me (30F)

This was arranged by my Family A 25F cousin, with meals pre-ordered from a fixed price menu.

She thought she knew how much she would need to pay.

I chose a two-course meal plus soft drink.

Everybody else (minus young children) had a three-course meal, two alcoholic drinks & a hot drink each.

(For the sake of maths, I’ve removed the service charge/tips from the bill)

The bill arrived, & I expected to pay for my meal & drink, plus ~£2.00 towards Nan’s meal (each of us contributed, so Nan ate for free).

My meal was £18.95, plus £2.50 drink, so I was expecting a bill ~£25.00.

Everyone ordered way too much!

The three-course meal everybody else had was £22.95, & each person spent a similar figure on alcoholic & hot drinks, plus their own contribution to Nan’s meal.

My adult (18-25) cousins in Families A & B would be paid for by their parents.

My Family A 25F cousin said each adult owed £50.00, including division of school-aged children’s meals amongst everybody.

She knew she did her math!

I checked my sums again – my bill was definitely £25.00 – but nobody mentioned that I’d consumed half of what everybody else had because they either wanted a cheaper bill or wanted to go home, so I reminded my cousin of my smaller meal & lack of alcoholic & hot drinks.

I left the room for five minutes, & chaos ensued.

Everybody was shouting at everybody, & my Family D brother-in-law started yelling at me whilst my Family A aunt shouted at him ‘She’s not MY granddaughter, so why do I have to pay for her?!’.

Her aunt was very rude!

People then glared at me or avoided my eyes, & Family B aunt said ‘You! Why can’t you just muck in like everybody else?!’

When I said I can’t afford to pay double what my actual bill was, she said ‘Then why didn’t you say that at the start? What do we do, not invite you to future events?!’

My Family A 23M cousin paid the bill, & later messaged each person with what they owed him.

The family has changed their strategy when splitting bills.

For reference, we have never split bills ‘down the middle’.

With different, individual family sizes involved including children with an age range of twenty years, it’s not been fair to do so, so historically bills have been paid with each family paying their own way.

Now, with the aforementioned children now being adults, this rule has shifted a couple of times to splitting a bill equally amongst all of the adults, with no thought towards anyone (usually me) who consumed less food & no alcohol.

She doesn’t like her aunt’s attitude.

I challenged this once before, & my Family A aunt announced ‘SHE (me) is paying [£10.00 for jacket potato & Coke], & EVERYBODY ELSE is paying [£35.00 for a two-course meal & two G&Ts]!’, making everybody roll their eyes at me for being difficult/different, etc.

AITA for asking to pay only for what I have consumed at this family event plus my contribution for Nan’s meal?

Yikes! That’s one problematic family! It’s almost as if they don’t understand basic math!

Let’s check out what the Reddit community has to say about it.

That’s right! This user thinks the family was being very unreasonable about it.

Exactly! This user has a suggestion for the girl in the future.

This user has a petty suggestion for the girl and it makes sense!

This user suggests a date night with the Nan instead.

This user doesn’t understand the bill splitting dynamics of this family!

Why can’t her family understand basic math?!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.