AITA: Wife Bought Expensive Furniture W/O My Consent

[Anonymous]

You keep harping on the fact that your wife didn't let you know about the purchases yet to me, the whole getting pregnant thing was in fact, letting you know. You knew you had a baby coming, you knew a nursery would need to be outfitted.

A piece of furniture under $500 nowadays is MDF crap from Target. Clearly you are at an age and income range befitting of owning decent things. Pottery Barn is not even high-end furniture, your wife chose mid-range things.

You have a baby on the way. The fact that you buried your head in the sand and didn't realize you would need to furnish an entire room is laziness on your part, not a fault of your wife's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a troll and advertising for Larkin.

I spend much more on nursery for my kids.

Also I will add that I got new furniture for all my kids. No hand-me-down furniture for them.

And the quality of Pottery Barn has really gone downhill.

But people are dumb. I bought a used PBK crib from someone then sold it for more than I paid for it, more used, to someone else because it was PBK. OP should just sell it as soon as he's done and recoup some of the loss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You keep harping on the fact that your wife didn't let you know about the purchases yet to me, the whole getting pregnant thing was in fact, letting you know. You knew you had a baby coming, you knew a nursery would need to be outfitted.

A piece of furniture under $500 nowadays is MDF crap from Target. Clearly you are at an age and income range befitting of owning decent things. Pottery Barn is not even high-end furniture, your wife chose mid-range things.

You have a baby on the way. The fact that you buried your head in the sand and didn't realize you would need to furnish an entire room is laziness on your part, not a fault of your wife's.

Reasonable people have conversations about how to spend 6+ grand.

Making a rule that says "we discuss purchases over $500" and then completely disregarding it to spend $6 a matter of months later is crappy partnership. Excusing it because "nesting" is ridiculous momzilla nonsense.

Just because you have it doesn't mean you should waste it, nor should one party unilaterally decide its use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a troll and advertising for Larkin.

I spend much more on nursery for my kids.

OP here. Why would I advertise for some baby items? You sound really stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a troll and advertising for Larkin.

I spend much more on nursery for my kids.

Congrats on being rich?

This thread is amazing. Not that OP is getting roasted, but that people are just shrugging off the wife making major purchases because of “pregnancy hormones”. I’m sorry, that doesn’t just give you a pass to do whatever you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You keep harping on the fact that your wife didn't let you know about the purchases yet to me, the whole getting pregnant thing was in fact, letting you know. You knew you had a baby coming, you knew a nursery would need to be outfitted.

A piece of furniture under $500 nowadays is MDF crap from Target. Clearly you are at an age and income range befitting of owning decent things. Pottery Barn is not even high-end furniture, your wife chose mid-range things.

You have a baby on the way. The fact that you buried your head in the sand and didn't realize you would need to furnish an entire room is laziness on your part, not a fault of your wife's.

Reasonable people have conversations about how to spend 6+ grand.

Making a rule that says "we discuss purchases over $500" and then completely disregarding it to spend $6 a matter of months later is crappy partnership. Excusing it because "nesting" is ridiculous momzilla nonsense.

Just because you have it doesn't mean you should waste it, nor should one party unilaterally decide its use.

OP here. Finally a sane person who gets it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a troll and advertising for Larkin.

I spend much more on nursery for my kids.

OP here. Why would I advertise for some baby items? You sound really stupid.

If you’re not trolling for Pottery Barn, then you are cheap as F*** and have no clue as to the cost of having kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is your wife:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1211753.page

Wait until you see the $1400 stroller!

This actually reads just like OP. Someone's trolling...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is your wife:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1211753.page

Wait until you see the $1400 stroller!

This actually reads just like OP. Someone's trolling...

Yep. Same defensive posting too. "Critique my registry" then "I know EXACTLY what I'm doing my baby NEEDS all this crap" and this guy asking if he's the AH then telling everyone how wrong they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is your wife:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1211753.page

Wait until you see the $1400 stroller!

This actually reads just like OP. Someone's trolling...

OP here. My isn’t on here. I don’t think she even knows about this site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a troll and advertising for Larkin.

I spend much more on nursery for my kids.

OP here. Why would I advertise for some baby items? You sound really stupid.

If you’re not trolling for Pottery Barn, then you are cheap as F*** and have no clue as to the cost of having kids.

OP here. The fact that I would troll about some baby furniture is laughable.

You can get cheaper baby products.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is your wife:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1211753.page

Wait until you see the $1400 stroller!

This actually reads just like OP. Someone's trolling...

OP here. My isn’t on here. I don’t think she even knows about this site.

OP here. We don’t have a baby registry yet, and I would be livid if my wife shared our personal info to strangers.

[Anonymous]

OP here's my advice:

If you can afford this, and seeing as how you spent 40K on furniture and seem somewhat mindful of expenses I think you likely can, let it go.

Say to your wife that you know this was out of bounds/disregarded your process, but it's nice furniture that will last a long time and the baby deserves it and now you can get back to your usual method. Give her a hug, tell her it looks good and is good quality, have a "moment" where you agree to follow your agreed upon rules again, and let it go.

If you make a huge thing you are going to have a situation where she is mad at you every time she looks at the furniture and you are mad at her and with this being the centerpiece of the baby's room that's not great.

This is Pottery Barn right? Your kid (girl?) will have this stuff potentially until they're in college. It's just pretty decent quality white dressers. Crib and glider can be re-used for another kid or re-sold. Dressers are neutral enough that they can be put in a guest room without the changing table toppers. It's not a super irresponsible purchase, and it's got utility.

If you can't afford it you have some $ problems to work out and you need to have a more serious sit down.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it sounds like a lot of money to furnish a new room… especially if she is buying Pottery Barn and furnishing everything from scratch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean when you say that you can afford it? Is it like, this is a good chunk of our savings over the last couple of years, but we can afford it? Or is it like, if I pick up some extra work over the next couple of weeks, that will pretty much cover the cost?

OP here. We can afford it meaning that it is expandable income. All of our accounts are covered and this money is pretty much to do with however we please. We often end up putting it into savings. Our annual HHI is 275k. Not rich but we earn enough to be comfortable.

I thought your HHI was higher than this. This sounds like a pretty high percentage of your disposable income.

It sounds to me like you and your wife need to come up with some kind of real budget and plan for your financial future. If you want to save the money is it for the child’s college, or to retire earlier, or to buy a new car in a few years, or for a vacation?
If you don’t have a lot of expenses, and a good portion of your income isn’t earmarked for anything, you are going to have these same arguments over and over again.