Argument over a £1

[ForGentleBeaker]

Years ago my best friend and her husband ran into severe financial difficulties and were going to lose their home. I was pregnant, hormonal, emotional, my head was all over the place, and I desperately wanted to help them.
At that time I had no money but we owned a property in an absolute rundown part of London - my husband purchased it with a gift from his parents and I was added to the deeds after we were married.
Long story short, my attempt to help my friend went awry, and my husband had to sell the property. The property is worth an absolute fortune now. The whole area has undergone gentrification, and we missed out on the crazy London property boom.

My husband doesn't ever want to discuss and I had thought we had put it behind us. I have immense guilt.

Last week, whilst grocery shopping with him, I exchange a premium product for a store brand, and he went ballistic. He started mumbling about why I was saving pennies when I happlynlissed away so much trying to help my friend.

In the car, I was called a jumped up bitch, and he spent the journey home ranting at me for making him sell the property; being a SAHM when the children were younger; spending money; and diminishing his role and magnifying mine.

He is refusing to speak to me because he doesnt want to listen to the verbal diarrhea coming out of my mouth - his words.

I don't know where we go from here. We have 3 children, and he is an excellent father, and husband, till now. It seems he has been harbouring this resent towards me but there is nothing I can do.

Well, we know it wasn't £1.

This thread puts every resentment I ever had in my life against anyone into sharp perspective!

Jesus. Obviously his language is not OK but I completely see his anger. You totally fucked him. If he's worrying about his job, and the cost of living crisis being what it is. He'll be feeling very bitter that he wouldn't be worrying if you hadn't done what you'd done. Against his will. I'm amazed your relationship survived that, although it seems like it might not have.

It's not argument over a quid. It's over hundreds of thousands of pounds. And probably your attitude at him being careless with money by treating himself to a premium product when you binned a fortune.

Nothing at all. It’s an outrageous Strawman designed to Iain her husband as an ogre abx her yhd poor poor victim.

And I’d wager this is her modus operandi to get out of taking any responsibility whenever she needs to in general in life - hence his boiling resentment: she’s never ever taken responsibility and somd her best to make amends

Your DH was right

I have to say i would have refused to sell the property for your friend. I would have let you pay that loan off yourself, even if you had to take a second job.

I can see where he is coming from. You call all the shots with finances. You wanted to help your friend, you took out a loan. He had to sell the house to fix a poor decision you made. All of this happened when you were pregnant and then you didn't even go back to work.

You didn't want to work when you had your children and stayed a SAHM for quite some time or are you still not working.

Meanwhile, he's carrying all the financial burden of the entire family and now he's got job problems and worried about financial security?

You do sound extremely entitled. How about you take on the role of financing the entire family for a change.

After everything, he's had to tolerate because of you, you wouldn't even allow him to have something he wanted in the supermarket. But let me guess it would be o k if you wanted it.

I really hope that friend was worth it. Now way I would have sold the house or stayed in a relationship with you if you insisted.

OP you know this isn’t over £1 and you don’t understand the gravity of what you have done by minimising it to that.

What you did (against his wishes) was unforgivable. You didn’t have the money to lend! You took out a loan? Why didn’t the bloody friend take out a loan. You lost him his parents inheritance and your families future financial security.

He must have really loved you at the time to forgive you. But clearly the resentment and how it’s all played out since has been eating him up and he can’t move on from it.

If he’s willing to try counselling you could go for that. But you need to understand the impact of your actions and stop downplaying it. I wouldn’t forgive you.

Abusive my arse.

If my DH had lost us a house, and then when we’re out grocery shopping he took my nice shower gel out of the trolley to swap it for Tesco’s own, to save us £1, I’d have called him every fucking cheeky bastard name under the sun.

That he’s reframing and/or rewriting history in order to justify an affair.

And he was correct! If he was my friend/brother etc I’d be telling him to leave.

True, but the resentment is because of him looking back at what happened from his now financially precarious position, and realising that selling the property was a huge mistake precipitated from the OPs stupidity. If he could have predicted the increase of the property’s value, he could have made her deal with her debt differently.

I don’t think you should lent your friend the money by taking out the loan. I’d be angry too if I had to pay/help out my husband for something like that. You’ve robbed from him. Can that friend pay you back now?

He's not having an affair. He's just fucking sick of her and he can't hide it any longer.

OP, obviously you have got a lot of people commenting on a financial mistake from several years ago that you cannot change.

Can you be clear with what you are looking for here?

Do you want people’s advice on how to proceed?
Do you want to talk through how you’re feeling?

@ForGentleBeaker I cannot believe how dismissive and obtuse you are being wrt the scale of damage you have caused to your family and the stress it's causing to your husband now. Even your thread title 'Argument over £1' is telling of your attitude.

Im shocked your marriage survived the event actually. You clearly completely disregard his feelings in your attempt to feel good and help your friend, and he is the one that suffered the consequences. He has missed out on the money the property could have made and the lifestyle this would have brought with it

Honestly...I think there is no coming back from this. He clearly holds resentment that is growing, and I understand why. I don't think I could move past this either and I would likely (probably wrongly) allow this to consume me to the point where I couldn't stand the fact I am now worried about money and the financial burden, and I couldn't forgive you

I think this is the end of your relationship now that he has been honest and verbalised his resentment. I feel it will only get worse

Do you not think that if they had had any alternative to selling the property at the time they'd have chosen it?

You put it so much better than I did.

what you did was really stupid and irresponsible considering you were pregnant and had kids, you blee your husbands and childrens inheritance. No person who comes asking for money is a real friend,they are users,let me guess that “friend” is not on the picture now? Did your husband try to stop you at all and talk you out of that madness at the time?

I wonder how huge a loan they took out if it was that bad and what the friend did with it if she still lost her house.

Good lord, I would have divorced your arse if I was him. Even a run down flat in a cheap bit of London would have been worth well over a hundred thousand. How much did you led your friends? Also if you had to borrow the money, you could not afford to help your friends out. You fucked up massively and I am not surprised your husband is angry. I would be fucking furious in his shoes.

I think starting a thread with the title about £1 is massively disingenuous.

Yes he has flipped and been unkind but is there truth in what he said?
-You made him sell the house to cover your personal loan?
-That you were a SAHM when the kids were younger - suggesting he wasn’t fully onboard with this decision either?
-Spending money-is he the main earner? Are you frivolous with money since this event?
-What does he mean by diminishing his role and magnifying your own?

It sounds like the guilt is making you shut down any conversations about this but there is still a lot to be picked over and resentment on his side. I would suggest couples counselling if this behaviour from him is unusual

I agree. And I’m shocked at how she’s got the brass neck to play the poor hard done by innocent victim of a bad man that she’s fucked over and sponged off of for years! Shameless!

I imagine he’s tried to hold things together for the kids but the resentment of his age screwed they’d whole future over has been bubbling under the surface

He has every right to be furious, you did a stupid thing and he's had to deal with the consequences and will do for the rest of his life if he has to work longer to fund the retirement he wants.

JFC I normally try and support the OP but it's impossible here. OP must have lent these 'friends' a really massive amount of money if the only way to repay was to sell the property that her DH had bought with a gift from his parents. He warned her not to do this as they would never get the money back and he was right.

It may be unfair for him to throw the fact that OP has been a SAHM back in her face, but it may be relevant if she has made no attempt to replace the lost money herself by working.

The title of the OP is disingenuous and misleading. The argument is about thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousand pounds that OP lost by 'lending' the money to her friend and it neve being paid back. OP's decision to save the £1 difference in cost between the premium product and the store's own brand was obviously the straw that broke the camel's back for OP's DH.

It’s not £1 he’s angry about Op.
How much loan did you take out for friend? Just rough ballpark? I’m guessing it must have been over £100k to need to sell a house?
It also sounds like he’d said no to this idea. And then did you take the loan out anyway?
It’s sadly financial infidelity. How did you tell him at time? What was the situation you were in? I would have expected you could just keep making monthly payments (awful as that is) but it sounds like perhaps had you and friend just stopped paying and ended up with loan needing clearing or bailiffs?
Either way he was put in a terrible position of selling a house in London which everyone knows only goes up in value.
It sounds like with work pressure and stress it’s brought this up for him into seething resentment.
Couples counselling could help here! He might also be depressed as sounds like he has had to carry a lot of financial burden you haven’t had to and maybe burnt out.

If I were your husband I would hate and resent you until the end of time for this.

You were hormonal and emotional? The best starting position for financial decisions.

He didn't want to lend them money. You unilaterally decided to anyway? But the financial consequence was borne by both of you (mostly him if you were a SAHP). He was right. People who make poor financial decisions, or come from a very vulnerable position through no fault of their own, and who are refused money from banks, are very unlikely to be able to pay back money owed. Which is why the bank won't loan to them in the first place.

I would have divorced you back then. It does sound like he hasn't moved on. The way he has treated you is not nice. But what you did was both stupid and unforgivable. I would not be able to get past it.