The more I think about it, if the brother had been interested in getting some appliances like ours, and was asking the price because he was deciding if he could afford to, it wouldn’t have bothered me.
But there was NO reason for him to ask. No good reason, anyway.
Maybe I’m just projecting the anger I have with the brother on my husband, because I can’t project it on the brother.
Breezy, I have a similar deal with my husband. His parents are very nosy, but also vindictive with any knowledge they have of others finances. I had no problem sharing cost info up until it started to be used against us. Then I had a big problem.
We discussed it and ended up agreeing to answer in certain ways. If we thought the relative was being nosy, we’d respond vaguely, saying things like “Way too much” or “About normal for that sort of thing”. If we thought they were interested in purchasing something similar or had any reasons other than nosiness, we’d answer with a ballpark figure. If we were in doubt, due to past history, we’d assume they were being nosy. It has worked out well, and the questioning has dropped off dramatically.
I wouldn’t have confronted your husband in front of others, but that’s just the relationship dynamic I have with my partner. I’d wait until later, personally.
Moderator’s Note: Well, you may not be out of line, but you are in the wrong forum.
Moving from MPSIMS to IMHO.
I’m amazed at the distrusting attitude I’m seeing. This is family, not some stranger. If you have a reason to believe the sibling is asking for reasons harmful to you, then I can understand. But if the sibling has never done any harm to you, then why not just assume he/she’s asking out of curiosity? I don’t see how one could consider it bragging… someone is asking you for the info. I’m also not sure why it’s “nosy.” Asking questions like this is how people find out about good deals/sales and different ways of paying less than retail. (Besides, having a nosy family isn’t necessarily a bad thing if their intentions are good.)
You can answer or not answer, but to hold it against him/her for even asking, is, to me, crazy.
To me its silly to worry about things like that. You are asking him to lie to his family, or to simply refuse to answer a simple question. I never understood why people get sensitive about what they pay for things. I can see not wanting to share how much you make in a year, but who cares what you paid for a retail product? Its not like they couldn’t look it up on the internet, hes just saving them the trouble.
That said, he did promise not to say anything so on those grounds he’s guilty. One night, no sex. Case closed, next!
Why is it rude/tacky to ask? Because it’s personal information and none of their business (see Miss Manners et al.). My finances are not open to public inspection, and neither is what I choose to pay for anything. Anybody who wants to know the value of a retail item can do their own price research, and stay out of my private financial affairs.
As for “refusing to answer a simple question,” I’m not obligated to answer some nosy jerk’s question just because he asked it. Again, I’ll choose to whom I reveal my age, weight, reproductive status, sex life, bank balance, medical conditions, and so on. Conversely, I don’t ask other people about such things—not even close friends, unless they initiate the discussion. And even then I don’t go poking around for stuff I really don’t need to know.
Bongmaster
I wasn’t asking him to lie to his family, I was asking him not to answer a question that is nobody’s business but our’s.
But herein lies your problem. What you consider to be none of their business might, in their opinion, be exactly that. You said yourself in the OP, regarding his family, that “Once ONE of them knows something, the whole family knows it.”
Well, you might not like that type of family arrangement, but presumably it’s one that preceded your relationship with your husband.
Granted, if you asked your husband not to tell, and he agree not to tell and then told anyway, at the very least he’s reneging on an agreement he made with you. But, in some families, telling people that something like this is none of their business can lead to all sorts of troubles.
I have to go along with bongmaster on the general issue of prices. I’ve never understood the big deal about telling people what something cost, especially when it’s an item they could quite easily track down themselves if they wanted to. Personally, i’ve never even had much trouble telling people how much money i make, and that applied back when i was working and making pretty good money, and it applies now that i’m in grad school and making shit. To me, money’s just a tool that allows me to get certain things that i need or want; it’s not some measure of my value as a person, and nor is it something i feel the need to be embarrassed about.
I think you were being oversensitive. And if, after hearing what your appliances cost, your in-laws start giving you grief about it, then you have every right to tell them to go and fuck themselves. I think it’s better to lay down the law that how you spend your money is up to you and your husband, rather than hiding it from your relatives because you’re frightened of their judgemental attitudes.
In my family (and in my neighborhood in general) there was never much secrecy about money. Salaries and prices were considered a pretty boring, but acceptable topic of conversation. It was really no more sensitive than how many miles per a gallon your car gets, or what brand of cat food you feed your pets, or how you fold your laundry. As a child, I was always pretty aware of my household’s finances, and I was shocked when I learned that many families raise their children with the understanding that household finances were “not their business”. Some people just grew up without money being taboo.
I grew up pretty poor, and amongst my friends we’d often talk about how much stuff costs, simply because that was always on our minds. After moving to college, it took me years to stop telling people how much my hair-clips cost or what a great deal I got on cheese. So if I were your husband I might of easily thought that I had only promised not to spontaniously volunteer the information, as I am wont to do. It may not have ever occured to me that that also meant not answering direct questions.