I (31M) threatened to take my wife’s (29F) weekly stipend away if she doesn’t do more chores or get a job. Now she won’t speak to me. What do I do?

174 points•264 comments•submitted by throwraponto to r/asktrp

So I know by the way that I’ve worded the title that I probably sound like a major asshole. But I’d like for everyone to try to hear me out first. I’ve been married to my wife for 2 years now. It’s been a great marriage. I do truly love her. I have a high ranking job at a pretty large company and I make a good bit of money. When we got married we decided that my wife didn’t need to work if she didn’t want to, that she could just stay at home if she would like. We came to the agreement that she’d do 70-80% of the chores if she stayed at home. We do not have kids so she literally has nothing else to really do. She had side projects and crafts that she sold so we also figured that’d give her more time to work on that and grow it. As she does not work we do have separate bank accounts. I like to spoil her so I do give her a fair stipend each week to spend it however she pleases. I give her more to spend than I actually spend on myself.

Now I have realized that I may need to take it away from her. The first year or so of being married everything was going to plan. She was cleaning a lot around the house and was building her craft business. In the last year things have declined tremendously. Her craft business is completely closed. She hasn’t worked on that in months. Not only that but chores are hardly getting done around the house. I’ll come home most days to a dirty house and she will be there playing with the new items and clothes that she purchased that day. I feel like I’m doing all of the work while she is just sitting back and having fun. The stuff she buys is really only for her and nothing that is ever even useful. She has showed no interests of looking for any type of job or hobby to pursue. All she continues to do is go out with friends and blow her money. Recently I realized that I had enough of this and needed to speak to her about it.

First I tried to start of by being respectful. I asked if everything is okay with her. She assured me that it was and that she was a super happy. I then tried to nicely tell her that I noticed that the house had been dirtier recently. She shrugged and acted like it was nothing. I then asked her what she does all day. She started to get upset with me questioning her. I told her that it looks like all she does now is spend the money that I give her on worthless things. She started tearing up and yelling more. I finally told her that if she doesn’t start earning it then I’m going to have to cut her stipends down. She claimed that I didn’t have the right to take her money away. I told her that I did because it was my money that I earned. Ever since then she hasn’t said one word to me. What should I do now? I don’t feel like I’m in the wrong honestly, but I’d like to still fix things between us.

Just to clarify I used to give her 65 % of what I brought in. Now I’m giving her 50%.

TL;DR - I threatened to take my wife’s stipend away because she hasn’t held up her end of the deal. It’s caused a fight between us.