AIBU to feel sad for my niece?

[matchpoint]

I was in London today for work, and I arranged to meet up with my lovely 22 year old niece for lunch. She is a student.

We were in the restaurant, and my niece was umm-ing and ahh-ing over the menu making lots of noise about 'things being tight' and 'Christmas budget', I offered to pay for her but she wouldn't hear of it.

She then whipped out her iphone and calls her boyfriend. From what I can gather, he transferred some money into her bank account yesterday (he has a full time job). She then proceeded to ask him for permission to order food. Direct quote "Well, I just wanted to check it was OK and you didn't want me to use the money for anything else. It is your money."

My face was basically this --> . Anyway, they ended the conversation-permission granted, we had a nice meal and then we had to go our separate ways.

AIBU to be completely and utterly shocked that a grown woman thinks she has to ask permission from her significant other to spend money? I obviously love my niece very much, and I feel really sad that she thinks it's totally normal to ask her boyfriend before she does anything.

(FWIW, her boyfriend is a lovely young man and I don't think there is any kind of abuse in their relationship-although I could be wrong)

[ENormaSnob]

Yabu

[ConfusedPixie]

I support DP (he's a student) mostly, he gets loans but not a huge amount! I'd be annoyed at him if I put money in his account or our joint account and he then went and treated himself to lunch out with it without checking first.

We're trying to save money for wedding/house/future bits by cutting out lunches out and things and only do with the approval of the other at the moment! Could be a similar situation with your niece who is a similar age by the looks of things so quite possibly in a similar situation!

[ConfusedPixie]

Forgot to say that I think YABU. You don't know what's going on in their lives.

[JamieandtheMagiTorch]

I'm a bit unsure about why she has to check.

If he trusts her enough to lend her money, then she should be trusted enough to spend it how she likes. It sounds to me, that, rather than him necessarily being abusive, that she is taking a bit of a dependent role in relation to this loan.

[XiCi]

I think you should have just paid for your niece. Sounds like she is skint and was just being polite refusing your offer. I really would have insisted on paying and would feel quite embarrassed letting her pay half tbh. My 18 year old niece is a student and I would never expect her to pay. I was helped out by my family when I was a student and now will help out the younger members of my family who are now in the same situation. Part of what being an Aunty is all about.
Don't see anything wrong with her checking with her bf if she had to pay. Sounds like things are tight and they wouldn't have budgeted for a meal out

[PrincessScrumpy]

Our bank account contains our money and I tend to ask permission to buy things over 50 pounds but as I do the banking it's more a polite way of telling Dh. Sounds like she's just trying to be respectful rather than he's a controlling arse.

[Pandemoniaa]

If she is not careful, your niece WILL one day end up in an abusive relationship as she is carving out this role for herself.

Probably the most ludicrous quantum leap I have ever seen on MN.

I think you may be making too much of this, OP. My DP has transferred money into my account from time to time and while I wouldn't ask permission (as such) to spend it on a meal, I might well confirm I was doing so. I am not in an abusive relationship but one of mutual respect.

[EuroShagmore]

I think it depends on the background.

If she was struggling to pay for a particular thing and the bf stuck some money in her account to help her out, then it is reasonable for her to ask if she can spend some of it on something else. If he controls all her spending then that is clearly unreasonable!

But I don't quite get why the OP just didn't pay for lunch. Surely it's the normal thing to do when there is a disparity in available cash ("here, let me get that" "oh no, i couldn't possibly let you" "no really, I insist", or whatever).

[Chrysanthemum5]

I think your niece is an adult, and if her bf transfers money into her account then it becomes her money to do with as she wishes. Why should she have to check with her bf to see if she can buy lunch? I know he may have transferred the money for a reason, but once it is in her account its up to her to make the decisions. I'd find this a very odd situation, and to be honest I'd be worried for my niece if she felt this was how she had to behave.

[whistlestopcafe]

Without knowing all the circumstances it's hard to say. We have a joint account that I keep track of, dh will often call me to check if he can put something on the account. Pre children we were not like this but now every single penny is accounted for so we have to be careful.

It's really hard being around people who don't have to be so frugal as they think that you are miserly and don't realise that if you go out for a spontaneous drink you won't enjoy it because at the back of your mind you are thinking that an evening out means that you will run out of money before the end of the month.

[carben]

Yep you should have insisted on paying for your niece and then you'd be none the wiser about her student finances OR the dynamics of her relationships. No way would I have let a student pay half - she probably wouldn't have eaten out if she hadn't been meeting you anyway.

[Hoppingforsun]

ChippingIn Actually I have done a lot of research into abused women and have come to the conclusion that some of it, whilst not exactly "self-inflicted" which is a term implying blame, happens to women with certain inbuilt behaviours and expectations eg exactly this - expecting to seek permission before spending money that has already been lent to her as an adult. Next she will be staying in at night in case he wants supper cooked when he gets home etc. I am not saying this WILL happen to the niece but she is exhibiting a behaviour that will make her vulnerable to any exploitative man with whom she might one day hook up. Hopefully, her current bf is a nice, normal bloke and just thinks why is she asking me whether she can have a sandwich?? Why I asked about her parents is that this is learned behaviour...

[RubyrooUK]

Well, I think this scenario is not clean cut. I'd be annoyed with my DH when we were dating if I'd lent him enough money to pay his rent/get to the end of the month etc and he'd spent it on a meal out.

If that was me, I'd have asked my aunt to come over for a sandwich or accepted the offer for her to pay if money was so tight that I was borrowing it.

So does she need to ask her boyfriend's permission? No, of course not, but I took this as the OP's niece being courteous and checking in with him about spending money that wasn't hers on a lunch instead of rent/shopping etc.

Also I would have paid for my niece, no matter what protests she made. When my brother was at uni, I always said that I really wanted to pay when visiting him and it would really upset me if I didn't pay as I knew he couldn't afford it. I made such a fuss that he always let me pay.

So I don't think you should worry yet OP. it just sounds like your niece got herself in a bit of a flap about paying for a meal she couldn't afford, after already borrowing money. As someone else said, that makes her sound quite responsible.

[jinglebellyalltheway]

Hoppingforsun, what would your research tell you if a woman said that she had given her share of the rent to her boyfriend for him to pay the landlord, then he went out spending her rent money on meals out because he didn't have any spare of his own to spend on luxuries??

[Hoppingforsun]

jinglebell Well, I am assuming that if the cash had been "nominated" for rent then the OP's niece would not spend it on lunch and would have accepted her aunt's offer to pay. Of course, we just don't know... But there is enough information to feel uncomfortable about the niece's reaction to seek permission from her OH for something that really any adult ought to be able to decide for themselves unless there were particular circumstances, and I accept there may have been.

Sadly, I have come across women who socialise less and less, and abase themselves more and more, under the assumption that this is what their OH wants. And gradually the OH begins also to accept and expect that state of affairs.

[jinglebellyalltheway]

How is the OH making her socialise less?

she went out with the expectation of a free lunch, her polite token attempt to pay was taken literally and she found herself stuck with comming up with 50% of a lunch she hadn't budgeted for! So she borrowed the money off her boyfriend. She might lend money to him next month, its nothing to do with gender or control