Okay, here’s the deal: My friend has been upset for awhile because money has been going missing from her family bank account for the past few months. She suspects her husband, but he claims that he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She does have reason to be upset since he’s done some pretty shady things in the past, and she’s starting to think he might be spending it on another person.
Well her husband came to me last night and asked for computer recommendations. My friend has wanted a laptop for a long time, and he’s surprising her with one for Christmas. My friend will come to me about this issue again the next time her husband claims to have less money than he really does. This has been going on for awhile and she’s getting more and more worried as time goes on.
Should I tell her that he told me he’s planning to spend the missing cash on her, and basically ruin the surprise (since she knows she’s only been wanting one expensive item) or stay out of it?
It would probably be betraying her confidence. It’s very annoying being pretty good friends with both people in this relationship. Part of me wants to let him know, but I don’t want him ranting to me about her “trust issues” and how she promised to forgive and forget.
I just did this. My sister-in-law is buying a brick to commemorate my deceased father-in-law’s service in WWII (which was minimal, non-combat, and unremarkable). She wanted my husband to come to the little ceremony at the library. My husband was a combat vet in Vietnam and has never really thought much of his dad’s service, other than the fact that he showed up. I don’t think FIL was even in for a year. Anyhoo…my husband wasn’t going to go. What he didn’t know was that his sister bought a brick for him, too! She wanted to surprise him, but he’s stubborn and was saying he just wasn’t going to go. So I spilled the beans. He was kinda bummed for a few minutes, but I knew he wouldn’t go unless he knew it was a surprise for him, so I just asked him not to ruin it for his sister. He’s going to act all surprised (I hope) and she’ll never know the difference.
My point being, if your friend is really seriously freaking about this, you may have to blow the surprise. But make her promise not to ruin his surprise. It’s a great gift!!
Seems like the obvious solution to me. You don’t need to say “your wife thinks you’re cheating”, just that she’s noticed the money going missing. Unless he’s a clot, the husband can reach his own conclusion of what she must be thinking.
The husband may have an idea of how to handle things in a way that wouldn’t spoil the surprise.
Oh yea, it’s a classic sit-com situation. Remember when Desi wanted to buy Lucy an Eniac, but Lucy somehow noticed the millions of dollars missing from their checking account? Hi-larious!
First, you do need to do something. This could potentially be nasty, I think it’s better to partly ruin a surprise.
She wouldn’t have to know what he was getting her. She might guess, but she couldn’t be sure.
Alternatively, if husband knows, then could he give her the laptop now as an early present? Still exciting, if not perfect.
I think it’s a really bad idea, but it could be possible to lend him some money until christmas.
Does the wife not want the husband to know she suspects he’s doing something underhand? I don’t know whether it’s a good idea or not, but only you can decide if you want to keep that secret, so let’s see what possibilities are there.
(a) Tell wife. Then try to pretend surprise (ugh) or admit she found out accidently (b) Tell hubby so he tells wife. Ummm… neither seems perfect.
is it possible to tell husband something like “Wife noticed some money was missing, I think you have to tell her now,” without implying what conclusions she might draw?
No, in a sitcom the situation would play out as follows: Wife notices money is missing, starts to panic. Friend knows what is up, and tells the wife not to worry. Wife starts to think that the friend is in it, and kills her in her front yard. As she is dragging the body inside to dismember it, the lights come on, and all her friends yell “Surpise!!!”
Seriously, just tell the husband that the friend noticed the money situation, and that he needs to find a way to reassure her.
Well… one thing concerns me about this scenario. If they are in a tight financial situation (which I assume they are, as one could easily put the notebook on a credit card without having to squirrel away the cash if things were more liquid), why is he secretly draining the family account for this gift?
I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but if I was married and things were tight, and my wife secretly pulled $ 1000-$2000 out the main household account over several months to buy me something nice, I’d be happy that she loved me enough to do this, but distressed (and kinda pissed to be frank) that she’s pulling these stunts with cash we need to live on, and unilaterally making big ticket purchase decisions when we need to be watching expenditures and consulting each other on big stuff.
Couples can get themselves into financial trouble thinking that way. You can afford something or you can’t. Secretly squirreling away the money, when it’s all coming from the same pot anyway, isn’t very smart. It’s just a way to fool yourself into thinking you can afford something that you really can’t.
I suppose whether or not to ruin the suprise depends on your friend. If you think she is getting exceptionally paranoid to the point where she might hire a private detective or divorce lawyer or something you have to tell her. A happy suprise should not be something that could break up her relationship with her husband. If she is just kind of worried about it but not at a point where she is going to take some kind of drastic action you could mention to her that she should trust her husband and wait to see what happens.
Of course, if it were my friend, I would constantly taunt her with “I know something you don’t know!” and never tell her what exactly I knew that she didn’t, but that is just me.
couldn’t you just tell her
“he’s not spending it on another person, and not doing anything stupid with it (in case she suspects gambling or some such) - please trust me” and leave it at that?
Truth be, I agree with astro. And I think this couple needs a different system of managing money - yours, mine and ours. Gifts from “our” account are somewhat less meaningful.
But you can’t really fix that. What you can do is say “hey, dude, your wife has noticed the money is missing and she is worried.” If he is so stupid to say “what is she worried about” slap him upside the head and say “another woman, drugs, gambling, you spending the downpayment for the house on games for the PSP, what difference does it make!”
You know this really is very sitcom- like and simple when you’re on the outside looking in. I think I’ll ask him if he thinks she’s noticed the missing money (since it’s her account too and all) and try to guide him to coming to the right conclusion without just telling him outright. If he doesn’t get it (which, knowing him, is entirely possible) then I’ll wait until he purchases the computer* and let her know that she’s got nothing to worry about. If she happens to guess what the gift is, or if she’s mad at him, then there’s nothing I can do.
Oh trust me I agree with all of you. Money is tight for them. We’re all fairly recently out of college and are dealing with lots and lots of loans. I also think it’s a bad idea to make a large (for them) purchase without asking the other person. Lets just say that no one’s ever accused the husband of having his priorities straight.
*Like I said before, he can be shady sometimes. For all I know he squandered some of the money away doing something dumb and now he’s going to try to get a gift so it will look like he was planning to surprise her the whole time. That way if it doesn’t pan out, I haven’t gotten her hopes up Can you tell that none of their friends expect this whole marriage to reach the five year mark?
It’s an epsiode of the Dick Van Dyke Show in which Dick’s character Rob finds a bank book in his wife’s glove while going through their drawers. It’s a bank book that he didn’t know about, and so he realizes that his wife, Laura, must have an account of her own.
His first suspicion is that she has been saving to buy him the movie projector that he wanted for his birthday, but when his birthday present turns out to be a shirt, he gets all suspicious and wonders why she needs to have her own bank account.
Accusations and weeping ensue. In the end……it turns out that Laura’s secret account was part of a much longer-term plan to buy him a sports car when she had saved enough money. She tells him she got the idea from her own parents, where her mother saved up to buy her dad something special after many years of marriage (i can’t remember now what it was).Anyway, it’s been a while since i saw the epicode, but i think that’s roughly how it goes.
