When two people commit to having children, their key responsibility is to raise children who will grow to be productive members of society and who are able to independently take care of themselves.
Some parents really struggle with this, between watching their child grow up and letting them go, which just sets them up for failure, cringed the members of the "Am I the A**hole?" (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor Prestigious_Brick151 was concerned about their 21-year-old son, who was incredibly financially irresponsible and was showing no improvement, because their wife kept bailing him out of his mistakes.
When his car was repossessed because he didn't make payments, the Original Poster (OP) called their wife out, pointing out that the rest of the family didn't deserve to financially suffer because of trying to take care of their son's mistakes.
They asked the sub:
"Am I the a**hole for telling my wife our family will NOT financially suffer because she keeps bailing out our adult son?"
The OP's adult son struggled to become financially independent.
"My wife and I have an adult son (Male 21) who has had problems with responsibility basically his entire life."
"In high school, he did poorly, mostly because he wouldn’t do the work and ended up needing summer school just to graduate on time."
"After graduation, he didn’t go to college, went through something like seven jobs before he was 20, and continued living with us basically rent-free."
"And when I say rent-free, I mean free. No groceries. No utilities. No meaningful contribution to the household."
"The frustrating part is that he would be broke while spending whatever money he did have on alcohol, vapes, junk, tattoos, etc. He couldn’t even keep his phone on because he wasn’t making the payments; he just would go everywhere and bum everyone’s WiFi so he could call/text."
Part of the problem was the fact that the OP's wife was enabling their son's behavior.
"This has caused arguments between my wife and me for YEARS."
"I have always believed that if he is going to live with us as an adult, he needs boundaries and consequences. My wife thinks I’m too hard on him and has a tendency to cover for him or rescue him."
"For a while we pushed the military because we thought maybe some structure would help him. He enrolled and backed out multiple times. I think three total. Eventually I realized nobody can force an adult to become responsible if he doesn’t want to."
"Then came the car, the whole reason I’m typing this."
"Our son asked us to finance a car for him and promised he would make the payments."
"I said absolutely not. I knew exactly where this was going."
"After this went on for a while, somehow we ended up at a used car lot anyway, where my wife financed a used Toyota Corolla in her name for him."
"I refused to participate. I didn’t sign anything. I didn’t even want to know the terms because I had made my position crystal clear: this was a terrible idea, and I wanted no part of it."
"Predictably, he treated the car like everything else. Tickets, blowouts, dents, etc."
"Then one day he walks up to the house and casually tells us, 'They repoed the car.'"
"Turns out he hadn’t made a payment in MONTHS."
"This was while he was still living in our house without paying rent or household bills and while he was working on and off. His explanation was that he couldn’t afford the payments and was too embarrassed to ask us for money."
"So the car gets repossessed, but of course the loan is in my wife’s name."
Even when the car was repossessed, the OP's wife continued to enable their son.
"I figured this would finally be the lesson. Nope."
"The finance company repeatedly contacted my wife about the remaining debt. She basically ignored it until someone eventually showed up at our house and served her because they were suing her."
"She finally contacted them and managed to get the lawsuit dropped in exchange for a payment plan of around $200/month."
"At this point I’m thinking: Great. Our son can pay $200/month toward the debt HE created."
"Except he hasn’t. The payment arrangement started about two months ago, and as far as I know, he hasn’t made a single payment."
"My wife says she’s asked him. He ignores her, blows her off, or says he’s having money problems."
"Meanwhile, we are having money problems, too."
"We are not wealthy. There is no trust fund, inheritance, giant savings account, etc. We’re a dual-income working household, and basically every dollar we earn has somewhere it needs to go."
"Then today my wife texts me, 'They’re trying to garnish my check for the payment for the car.'"
"Apparently they contacted her workplace."
"I responded, 'Makes sense.'"
"She said she’d try to make a payment tomorrow because she can’t have them garnishing her wages."
"I told her she needed to get with her son and make him pay it."
"She said no, because the debt is in her name, and basically said she’d just have to eat the cost."
"Then she told me, 'He won’t give me the money. Work harder is all I can do. I’ll eventually be able to pay the f**king bills, or I’ll be dead.'"
The OP finally called his wife out.
"That’s where I lost it. I told her those aren’t just her wages being garnished. We are married and operate a household together. Losing hundreds of dollars from her paycheck means less money available for OUR bills, groceries, and family expenses."
"She said she had already asked our son several times, and he either doesn’t respond or blows her off, so all she can do is work and take care of it herself."
"I told her that’s exactly the problem. She keeps asking him instead of requiring anything from him."
"When I told her to get the money from him NOW, she literally responded, 'LOL. Oh no. If he wanted to help or could, I’m sure he would.'"
"That sent me over the edge. I told her that this is exactly how we got here. She has protected him from consequences his entire life. Every time I’ve tried to hold him accountable, I’ve been painted as the asshole who’s being too hard on him."
"Now he’s an adult, created thousands of dollars in debt, ignored it, and apparently gets to say, 'I’m having money problems,' while his mother works harder to pay for it."
"And we’re supposed to have money taken out of our household to fix it."
The OP set a boundary.
"I got angry and told my wife, 'This is not going to affect us or our finances. I’m making this clear to you. I told you about this car multiple f**king times. I expressed my doubts, you still went and got him the car.'"
"'He defaulted on the car, and now it’s our f**king fault? The $200 a month that you’re going to pay for him will NOT come out of our regular finances. I don’t give a d**n what you have to do; you will come up with $200 extra somewhere else.'"
"'Stop spending, start saving. End of story.'"
"Yes, I know that was harsh. I hated saying it and regretted it immediately."
"And legally, I understand the debt is in my wife’s name. The finance company doesn’t care about our family dynamics. She signed for the car, so obviously she has to deal with them and prevent a garnishment if she can."
The OP wondered what all of this meant for their marriage.
"That’s not what I’m arguing about. My issue is what happens inside our marriage."
"I explicitly said no to this car because I believed our son wouldn’t pay for it. My wife did it anyway. He didn’t pay for it. She continued protecting him. Now the exact financial consequences I warned about have arrived, and her solution is essentially, 'I’ll work harder, and we’ll pay it.'"
"Except there is no magical extra money. If $200-$400 disappears from her income, our household absorbs it."
"At this point I feel like I’m not even fighting with my son anymore. I’m fighting with my wife over whether we’re ever going to require our adult son to experience the consequences of his own decisions."
"I don’t think my wife should ignore the creditor or let herself get garnished. Obviously the debt needs to be dealt with."
"But I do think our son should be expected to repay every cent of this, and I don’t think our normal household budget should be sacrificed to bail him out yet again. And if my wife insists on paying his debt without requiring anything from him, I think the money needs to come from sacrifices in her discretionary spending or additional income, not from money we need to run our household."
"My wife clearly thinks I’m being too hard on both of them."
"I think I’ve spent years watching this train coming down the tracks, repeatedly saying, 'Get off the tracks,' and now I’m being asked to help pay for the wreck."
"AITAH?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You're the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some pointed out to the OP that their wife was enabling their son to the point of irresponsibility.
"This is absolutely no longer just a financial problem; it’s a very serious communication and respect issue."
"When a partner refuses to compromise or even listen while putting you at financial risk and expects you to just suffer the consequences silently, that is absolutely a case of emotional and financial abuse!"
"I understand that she feels responsible for your son, but she’s not actually supposed to be financially responsible for him anymore, and she failed to instill proper responsibility and discipline into him when it mattered as he grew (and gaslit her partner anytime you tried to take appropriate steps to do so yourself)."
"At this point, she is no longer actually functioning as a partner to you; she’s only your son’s enabler now."
"If I were OP, I’d be so fed up and hurt and desperate that I’d demand she deal with this and make it clear that if she cost me any more resources for an adult that has habitually abused their relationship to him for financial gain, I would file and change everything to financially decouple from her and wouldn’t even file joint taxes anymore so she can be free to live more closely enmeshed with her real partner, the manchild she created and refuses to help become a truly self-sufficient adult." - Nexi92
"His wife has just as much respect for him as his son does. OP should just be happy his son hasn't gotten someone pregnant yet because I'm sure his wife will say that's their responsibility." - AllAbouttheQueso
"Frankly, her constant protection has DAMAGED your son’s ability to be responsible for himself, because there have never been any consequences."
"There is a difference between a child-turned adult who knows they have a safety net, and one who has never learned why a safety net is needed." - WhyAmIStillHere86
"Kids are supposed to learn their mistakes and consequences at home while under your guidance… to teach him…"
"This hasn’t been done, and now she has produced a non-functioning adult... and the consequences are going to be harder... and rightfully so." - shooting4purgatory
"Hey, OP? I have a bit of experience with this being the sibling of a coddled child."
"Until they hit rock bottom, nothing is going to get better for your kid. My parents died before they left their house (after practically destroying it, f covid) willingly and presumably are hopefully working for a better life."
"We don't talk anymore due to stuff that happened between then and now, and our mother bailed them out of EVERYTHING. My sibling was/is (bear in mind I don't know current status) a drug addict and drank and drove, and it's a miracle they didn't kill anyone."
"Your wife needs to stop babying him. She is not doing anyone any favors. However, my mother didn't stop even after our dad died. If therapy doesn't work, I hate to say divorce might have to be an option." - chiitaku
Others agreed and said the OP would never see a return on the money invested.
"You will never see the money for the car from your son. If there was no paperwork and legal agreement signed by him about paying it back, just accept that your wife will have to make the payments. Nothing you can do about that."
"However, you need to have a frank discussion with your wife, and she needs to choose."
"Either she continues to support an adult child who, unless he has disabilities you have not disclosed, is just freeloading and you leave her, or together you serve him with formal eviction paperwork and get the ball rolling on getting him out of there, AND the two of you go to therapy, both together and apart." - NellyNellB
"Your wife isn’t taking you seriously, OP, sorry to say."
"She should never have made any decisions on her own like that."
"You should tell her to start selling her jewelry and personal items to cover the costs, and if I were you, I would consider setting up a separate bank account as your wife can’t be trusted at all."
"NTA at all." - Popular-Parsnip8911
"Anyone want to bet he will be back sooner rather than later?"
"I find it hard to believe that he is paying rent somewhere and not couch surfing." - Opposite_Community1
"OP, change the WiFi password at the house. Disconnect the power to his room. Put a padlock on the fuse box if you must."
"Put a password on the television. Tell your kid that the fridge is closed to him outside of meal times, and padlock that if you must."
"Outside of a bed to sleep in, he gets nothing until you get your money. This is exactly what would happen to him in the real world if he pulled this shit. Tell him to go to rehab if he doesn’t like it." - lostmymarbles1177
"NTA. Your wife didn’t buy her son a car; she bought him a consequence-free lifestyle and put the bill in her name."
"He’s not 'having money problems.' He’s learned that Mom will absorb the consequences whenever he does. And now she’s asking you to help pay the subscription fee for that lesson. You’re absolutely right that the debt legally belongs to her. But pretending it’s not affecting the household financially is nonsense. The bigger issue isn’t the $200."
"It’s that your marriage has become the safety net for an adult who has no incentive to stand on his own."
"At some point, 'supporting' your kid becomes enabling him. Your wife seems determined to find out exactly where that point is." - Far-Swim7394
The subReddit fully agreed with the OP's concerns about their son and his lack of financial independence. That was something that had to be taught and enforced, and since the OP's wife was constantly bailing him out of his mistakes, he had no reason to learn.
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