Her Husband’s Best Friend Got Angry With Them For Not Helping Pay For His Girlfriend’s $3,500 Gucci Bag Or Expensive Birthday Dinner
In today’s economy, celebrating any life milestones, from promotions and weddings to even babies, can be a pricey endeavor.
So what happens when you simply can’t afford to splurge on every acquaintance’s birthday? Does that make you a bad friend?
Sadly, that’s the sticky situation this 29-year-old woman and her 35-year-old husband have found themselves in.
They’re both in a tight-knit friend group, comprised of people in their late twenties to mid-thirties who are mostly married or in long-term relationships. And over the years, they’ve typically celebrated each member’s birthday as a group.
However, the way in which they celebrate drastically changed about a year ago. Initially, whoever’s birthday it was would simply host a gathering for everyone and foot the bill on their own.
Then, last year, the tradition shifted, and she and the rest of her friends were suddenly expected to chip in for very pricey gifts as a group.
Essentially, whenever someone’s birthday is coming up, one of her friends will create a group chat on WhatsApp to coordinate on a large present that everyone will contribute money toward.
“We’re talking about things like Hermes flip-flops, Formula 1 tickets, and Gucci bags. It’s all very public and a bit uncomfortable to say no,” she detailed.
That’s why, even though she and her husband think it’s overboard, they’ve always just gone along with the gifts. In fact, they even paid nearly $350 toward a Formula 1 ticket, which cost over $1,700, for her husband’s best friend, Tom.
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But since then, their financial situation has changed. Today, she and her husband have one kid and are trying to have another baby. Not to mention, they recently bootstrapped a brand-new business using their savings.
“Everyone in the group knows this, including Tom. We’re doing fine financially, but we’re definitely being more careful. These expensive group gifts are not something we feel comfortable doing anymore,” she explained.
So, when it was her own husband’s birthday just a few weeks ago, she opted not to create a WhatsApp group chat to plan a lofty group gift.
She told everyone that her husband didn’t want anything for his birthday, and they simply hosted a pool party with their friend group.
To be clear, she and her husband also paid for the entire celebration by themselves, and they were totally fine with that.
“For the record, Tom gave my husband a nice bottle of tequila worth around $115. We appreciated it. I’m not complaining at all. I’ve never judged or compared gifts, and I’ve been genuinely grateful for every single one, no matter the price,” she noted.
Nonetheless, when Tom’s girlfriend’s birthday rolled around two weeks afterward, he seemed to have much higher expectations. Tom actually created a new group chat and told everyone that his girlfriend would like a new Gucci bag as a present.
Given everything she and her husband have going on in their lives right now, she wasn’t too keen on contributing to the gift, either, and she told her husband that. He agreed, and in the end, they just didn’t reply to the group chat at all. Rather, they wound up buying Tom’s girlfriend a massage voucher worth about $140.
She and her husband also attended Tom’s girlfriend’s birthday party, which was at a fancy (and expensive) beach restaurant. They all had a great time, too.
Well, that was until Tom texted in the group chat a couple of days later, pointing out how the bill for his girlfriend’s Gucci bag was nearly $3,500 and claimed that anyone could contribute to the gift. Understandably, she still wasn’t on board.
“I told my husband I didn’t want to chip in. We didn’t choose the place. We gave her a gift. And again, we’re being more mindful about money right now. He obviously agreed,” she recalled.
Tom, on the other hand, clearly had a different perspective. He proceeded to text her husband separately and state that, because they didn’t get in on the group gift, they were expected to contribute to his girlfriend’s birthday dinner bill.
On top of that, Tom said that their massage voucher gift wasn’t good enough and accused them of being jerks for not chipping in on the Gucci bag since they’d always participated in group gifts in the past.
She was genuinely shocked by Tom’s reaction as well, especially because she and her husband had never complained about their own birthday presents.
“But suddenly, we’re being labeled as the rude ones just because we made a different choice this time based on our current situation,” she vented.
Now, the tension has left her wondering whether refusing to pay for part of the Gucci bag or birthday dinner for Tom’s girlfriend is justified or truly a jerky move.
Is it fair that she’s being pressured into spending so much money on a birthday gift? Should she make it clear to her whole friend group that she’s opting out of the tradition moving forward? How would you handle this in her shoes?
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