'AITA for wanting to cut my SAHM wife's spending money (and mine too) to hire help?' UPDATED

"AITA for wanting to cut my wife's spending money (mine too) to hire help?"

I am 29m and my wife is 28f, we have 2 kids (5m and 3m) and planning on 3rd kid. I work 70-80h on avarage and my wife is SAHM, I make really good money even for USA standards and we live in europe in a country where cost of living is way lower.

Argument me and my wife are having is that I keep telling my wife I don't have time to iron my clothes etc and since she is SAHM, she should do it, but I know that having 2 kids makes her job as hard as mine, so I offered to get us nanny or help for our house, but It would mean both of our spending money would be cut by around 10-15%.

I manage all of our finances and we get same spending money after investing and savings, but my wife is angry that I would cut her spending money too. I don't have time to do things around house, I am trying to help my father retire since he is turning 70 next year and he helped me a lot (bought me first apartment when I was a student where my wife lived too during uni)

I dont help him financally, I am just slowly taking over his company as well (I have 2 brothers, but only 1 works there and I am only one qualified to actually take over according to my brothers), that means I pretty much have 2 jobs, thats why i work so much, but it also means we have a lot of spending money. (around 6.5-7.5k euros each month)

Note that spending money is different than money for paying everything like groceries and things for kids, we have separate accounts for that, my wife is really into designer brands etc, and spends all of her money on clothes shopping usually, she think I should only cut my own spending money if I want to hire nanny or help.

I disagree and think we should both have our spending money cut, I got call from my SIL and she said I am being controlling by wanting to cut my wife's spending money, so I am starting to be honestly doubt myself, because I don't want to financially abuse my wife (my mother used to do that to me)

This is what top commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

NTA. The moment you both decided to have kids they became the priority. That's sacrificing most of your things for them. She's being selfish. Don't feel bad for having to cut off her spending money. She's just being immature. It's only fair that you both do it together for the greater good of the family. Plus you have a kid on the way.

_iamtinks said:

NTA. You actually sound thoughtful and your solution is reasonable. You could try explaining to your wife that you could make time to iron and help with the kids by working less, but this would also cut into spending money for both of you. Your wife sounds a bit entitled tbh. Good luck.

amzlrr said:

NTA - both of you need to make sacrifices if you want to pay for help because at the end of the day the help is there for both of you. Tbh, your wife sounds like the AH here, refusing to give up her “designer brands”

And ParsimoniousSalad said:

Hiring help for the household and childcare should come from both of your spending money. I don't see any good reasoning why you should take the financial "hit" alone when you'll both benefit.

You can't work 3 jobs, if you try to take on the home chores she doesn't seem to have time to do. You need to be able to live your life and have quality time with your kids (and your wife) too. NTA

He later shared this "surprising" update on the situation:

So... I am not gonna lie this is surprising update, I've taken few days off before Christmas with my wife so we can spend 2 days without kids and family craziness. I had convo with 1 guy here on private and I realized that my wife doesn't usually behave like this, so I asked her about it, what is actually going on etc.

Turns out for past few months my wife was giving money to her sister, to help her move out from her boyfriend whom I never really liked if I am gonna be honest and never knew why, well it turns out he is abusive, and as it turns out my SIL is pregnant. At least now I know what I had bad feeling about him other than him trying to borrow money from me constantly.

If you wonder why she didn't tell me this, since obviously we have means to help her, it's because I helped her SIL with some of her debt in a past and I told her family I don't want to be used as piggy bank (I invested in my BIL plumbing business).

my wife knew that this situation would be different, but her sister didn't want to ask me for money (not sure where her sister think my wife gets her money from, but I digress)

I can say it here freely, since my SIL bf doesn't use reddit and after what she told me about it, I've hired a PI and we have moved her to our house (she already had a room) and we are gonna help her with getting her own apartment in January.

When it comes to main topic, we are hiring some help and starting to look into getting nanny for weekends (we changed some things in our budget since we are ahead in most of our goals)

Also some people had some things to say about my wife, while sure it sounded ridiculous that my wife didn't want to lose her designer clothes money and comments were mostly respectful, I had some nasty private messages about my wife not deserving money she gets, her being freeloader etc.

It was her decision to be SAHM, but she also had great future in finance ahead of her, so she is not a slacker, one of the reasons I love her is how hard working she always was. She is also great teacher to our child, our 5yo is so ahead in math without her pressuring him hard it's honestly amazing, I saw her teach him and making it fun which I honestly don't know she does, because he enjoys it.

Ah also adding it last second here: I talked my SIL and before I even mentioned it she herself told me she is sorry about the financial abuse comment, she was just scared about situation she is in, which is understandable.