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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/PM_Georgia_Okeefe on 2023-08-06 14:46:08.
This was a few years ago when a friend and his new wife were visiting my wife and I.
Rewind to when I had been able to buy a house in my 20s, and had roommates that paid rent. When I was ready to have my girlfriend (now wife) move in, we discussed her share of rent. I had her sign a lease, etc.
Misty sue to laziness, we didn’t combine finances until a few years after marriage so she continued to pay me “rent” until that happened.
So my friend’s wife (Kateis asking about the house, when we got it. I explained I bought it years ago, wife moved in, etc.
Kate said something like, “Girl! That must have been nice to find a man with a house and you could stop paying rent!!”
My wife (Sarah) simply said, “Yeah, the rent he charged me was a lot less than my last apartment so I saved that money.”
Kate was shocked that Sarah paid any rent to a boyfriend that owned the house. So I mentioned that Sarah still pays me every month.
Kate expressed her idea that a man should always pay the bills, even if the wife works. That’s her money and she should get to use it how she wants. Maybe this is because Kate was a “southern girl”, and we are in the northeast.
Sarah and I must have looked like we just heard the stupidest thing in the world. I said, “Well, I wanted a partner in life, not a dependent.”
After Kate and my friend left the next day, he texted me that Kate felt insulted in case I see stuff on socials. And I did: things about how “Yankee men aren’t true gentleman”, “women should be on a pedestal”, shit like that. With plenty of support from her southern university sorority friends, with some saying that a man doesn’t support his woman is an asshole.
So, AITA for saying a spouse should be a partner not a dependent?
edit: It wasn’t a surprise to me they ended up divorced within a year of this, and under 2 years of their wedding.