While shopping for items and groceries online is harmless most of the time, failing to keep one’s spending in check can lead to financial and relationship pressures.
A man recently took to social media to express his frustration over his wife’s online spending habits, which he claimed had taken a toll on their marriage and monthly expenses.
Shopping addiction
In an anonymous post, the OP said he had been married for six years and has a three-year-old daughter with his wife.
He said his relationship with his wife was rather wonderful and he was confident that their marriage would last for a lifetime — until online shopping came into the picture.
“For the past two years, I’ve been feeling increasingly exhausted. It’s not because we’re struggling financially, but it’s due to how my wife spends money.
“My wife loves online shopping and I don’t mean the kind where she buys something occasionally as she shops every single day from every platform available out there,” he wrote.
The OP claimed her shopping habits were so out of control that every corner of their home was stacked with cardboard boxes. In fact, she even had to “borrow” space at her parents’ home to store the boxes.
He added some of the boxes weren’t opened at all and still had the price tag attached to it.
Old habits die hard
Alarmed by the situation, the OP said he tried reasoning with his wife and urged her to have some self-control when it came to online shopping.
“I told her that we have a child now and needed to save money and plan for our future. Every time, she’d promise to change but after a week or two, she’d go right back to shopping.”
The OP added that his wife spends around 70% of her salary on online shopping, while the remaining 30% is spent on her personal daily expenses.
Thus, this forced him to shoulder most of the household expenses such as mortgage, utilities, insurance, and their child’s school fees.
“At one point, I asked her to help pay the mortgage as I thought it would give her a greater sense of responsibility and maybe encourage her to spend less.
However, she only contributed for two months and said her finances was tight. But when I confronted her about the parcels that kept coming, her response was: ‘I’m spending my own money, not yours.’“
Strained marriage
As a result, the OP’s love for his wife began to diminish and this led to them hardly talking to each other anymore, with their only conversations being about their child.
The OP added that he also no longer had dinner at home and was sleeping in a separate bedroom for the past six months.
He added that he’s questioning the stability of his marriage and wondered whether it could survive in the long run.
He also said that he was no longer angry over the situation, but had rather given up altogether.
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