Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

to ban DH from taking money from my purse?

125 replies

OohMavis · 07/06/2016 07:55

Last night I went to bed with £50 in my purse. The £50 had a purpose, one I hadn't bothered explaining to DH because it was mind-numbingly BORING and therefore unworthy of a whole conversation based around it. I was going to town to buy everyone socks and underwear.

I woke up and I have £25. He's taken money, AGAIN. He leaves for work at 4am and leaves at the last minute, so has no time to stop by an ATM. His work is off the beaten track and has a crappy ATM on site that never works, so he just roots around for cash and takes whatever he finds because he's too lazy, or has lost his card again, for the 50th time this year because he refuses to use a fucking wallet, to get money the night before.

I don't have a debit card because he borrowed it and bloody LOST it and I'm waiting for a new one. It's not the end of the world but it's so fucking irritating. We share finances, what's mine is his and vice versa but ffs.

I messaged him just now and he said sorry, he took it to top up his lunch key at work and didn't think I had plans for it. Well I did. Big pants plans.

So aibu to ban him from taking my change forever more, because he's a lazy git and it's fucking annoying?

OP posts:

OutToGetYou · 07/06/2016 08:58

Actually, more than curious, I'd be furious!

splendide · 07/06/2016 08:59

This is one of those threads where it really depends on your own experiences/ relationship.

This seems like a mildly irritating event as you had plans for the money but I wouldn't assume any underlying arseholery.

lornathewizzard · 07/06/2016 08:59

Sorry, all I took from your OP was £50 for socks and underwear. I think I have low Primark standards

ExtraHotLatteToGo · 07/06/2016 09:10

lorna. Do you know how many kids the OP has? She might have 8. £50 for pants and socks for 10 people, £5 each. Bargain 😁

toadworthy · 07/06/2016 09:11

For the next few years weeks, I would suggest you put Monopoly money in your purse and keep your real money somewhere else.

Men respond quite well to "japes" in my experience. Then when he comments on it you can explain why it bothers you so much and have a laugh.

My DH used to do this a lot. He also used to go out "forgetting" his key and expect me to answer the door when he came home. I solved that by just not letting him in one night. He is nearly 60 and he still leaves wet towels on the bed. He will never change. He is that sort of man. Easy-going. But he has been an absolute rock in other ways so I love and respect him lots.

Chinks123 · 07/06/2016 09:12

Oh the wet towel on the bed thing DP does that too, why why why?!

But to answer your OP no yanbu and I would be pissed off that he'd been in my purse more than anything. It's just one of those things my dad says, a woman's bag is her private business (I don't know what he thinks we keep in there )
But seriously what's mine is ours etc and I am on hand for giving DP cash when he always forgets to draw it out, but he doesn't go in my purse, I know exactly what I have in there usually and need it for specific things so if I went to get on the bus and my change was gone I'd be fuming.

MurphysChild · 07/06/2016 09:12

Can you still get one of those naff peggy purses that we all had as kids in the 70s and wear it round your neck?....day and night.

Chinks123 · 07/06/2016 09:13

toadworthy just seen your husband is 60 and leaves wet towels on the bed, you've shattered my hope that DP would one day grow out of it

toadworthy · 07/06/2016 09:16

My DH also loses stuff. A lot.

Is your MIL really lovely and easy-going? Mine was. I used to think that might be the cause of his "relaxed" attitude. It's much better than living with a stresshead. I have experienced both.

PoppieD · 07/06/2016 09:16

Mine too re not using a wallet, drives me spare, bank cards then get lost, sat on and broken..stopped this though when I ceased to give him my card and he had to go into the bank to get cash at counter which became a faff!

toadworthy · 07/06/2016 09:18

To cure him of leaving wet towels on the bed I would have to rig up some sort of bad consequence.

Eg everytime he leaves a wet towel on the bed he gets an electric shock.

I am open to suggestions.

ExtraHotLatteToGo · 07/06/2016 09:18

OohMavis

I have splinters 😁

Part of me is cursing the twat & part of me is feeling sorry for the silly bugger having to be up at 4 to go to work 😁

I can see how the various lost cards/lost cash/won't carry a wallet/won't get himself organised would wear very thin!!

He's sweet cleaning his teeth downstairs so as not to wake you - he can't be all bad 😊 (Just buy another tube of toothpaste!)

Talk to him, face to face, calmly & quietly explain that you are seriously at the end of your tether with him being disorganised & irresponsible with cash. That he needs to start acting like the adult he is and being organised.

If he still keeps doing it, then accept it's the price you're paying for being with someone otherwise lovely, who just can't sort this bit out. Hide some cash in the house so that you've always got a bit so it's less annoying.

Threaten death if he so much as looks at your new debit card!

Ameliablue · 07/06/2016 09:19

I think as a one off it wouldn't be a big deal but the fact that he is careless generally is. He needs to be more responsible.

ZippyNeedsFeeding · 07/06/2016 09:20

I often give my husband cash, or he asks for it and I tell him to get some from my purse. He always brings me the purse and asks me to take the cash out. His mother clearly trained him that opening a woman's purse was likely to result in sudden and severe pain- she was a good woman, my MIL! Sometimes I've told him just to take it himself but he won't.

OP I think you are being very reasonable. I'm not sure that I would be. Getting to the checkout and then discovering I didn't have enough/any money is my worst nightmare.

MrsSpecter · 07/06/2016 09:22

He needs to collect a sum of cash once a week from a cash machine and leave it in a jar in the house that is his own weekly spend jar and no-one can touch it. But it means he cant touch your purse either. He is a grown ass man, how has he not worked out how to stop himself being in this situation all the time? (Oh because your purse is there so he experiences no problem ) you should hide your purse.

Inertia · 07/06/2016 09:22

It's annoying because it isn't about the money, it's shared money- it's him showing you that his time is far more precious than yours. He's far too important to get cash out , it's far easier to inconvenience you- even when he's already massively inconvenienced you by losing your card!

ExtraHotLatteToGo · 07/06/2016 09:22

4am, damp towel left on the bed. Meh.

7am, damp towel left on the bed. Murder

Hmm. I have 4am sympathy for him clearly 😁

FuckFaulknerILikeTheGruffalo · 07/06/2016 09:22

OohMavis this would never happen with mine because he'd sooner try to train a dog to go into my handbag than do it himself. I don't think I know any men that go into women's bags actually It's apparently some secret special mysterious place that no Y chromosome should ever go.

Banning him from taking your change probably won't work. Arriving at his work and shouting loudly about him stealing from you might It's not the sharing money, that's normal, it's the leaving you high and dry, consequences to your day be damned. Have you really explained how shitty a thing it is?

SaucyJack · 07/06/2016 09:22

"This is one of those threads where it really depends on your own experiences/ relationship."

Nope.

I've never lived with a man who'd think it was OK to take my cash and leave me short without asking me- just because he couldn't be bothered to go to a cash machine.

Which is probably exactly why I'm so suprised that other people would find it only mildly irritating, or would try and make a joke of it.

Nowt so queer as folk tho.

toadworthy · 07/06/2016 09:27

When I got a dog ten years ago I got a training book.

Don't shoot the dog by Karen Pryor.

She explains how to use her techniques on people. I have to admit it was useful.

amarmai · 07/06/2016 09:30

Another one of the many jobs you as "wife"are expected to do? Ever notice how many men are using women's umbrellas as they have not taken the time to bring their own ? The one that took the biscuit was covering his sacred head with his 5 year old's umbrella while the child got soaked.

LordoftheTits · 07/06/2016 09:31

why do you tell each other the PINs?

Because we don't have a joint account and DH gets paid weekly while I get paid monthly so we just use whatever account has most cash in it. Also DH has lost/broken at least seven bank cards in the time I've known him because he refuses to use a wallet

He does take cash if he needs it but he always asks first, he has never gone into my purse without asking me.

KayTee87 · 07/06/2016 09:33

Yanbu - maybe we're strange but I would never expect my husband to go into my handbag without me specifically asking him to get me something just like I wouldn't go into his work bag. I was always taught as a child it's rude to go into someone's bag. I'd be really quite annoyed if he took money out of my purse and had lost my bank card.

coco1810 · 07/06/2016 09:40

Blooming heck, my DP wouldn't dream of going in my handbag let alone my purse without asking. We have a petty cash tin for emergencies like this. No joint bank account either, he pays some bills I pay others.

Sighing · 07/06/2016 09:41

My brother used to abuse my parents treating each other's wallets as public property. He used to steal quite a lot from them, it took them years to notice. For this reason I am very keen to treat wallets / bags etc as entirely off limits within a family. My dh and children bring my purse to me if they need cash out of it and vice versa (if i want change instead of a note from children for example). To me it's a basic respect of someone else's property.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5