My wife has spent all our wedding money.

Please get to a counselor right away for professional advice, Eddie! She sounds highly immature and manipulative. She is lying to her parents and lied to you (about using the money to pay off her car). This is not normal behavior and needs to be addressed ASAP.

I'm so sorry that you are going through this. It doesnt sound fair what she is doing. I would be very upset. Hope you guys can get it worked out. Are you guys going to wait a little longer to get married since this happened?

Were things this rough before marrying her? I would not have a shared account with her because she will drain all of the income. Go to counseling because she’s not being rational or listening to reason. Even if you weren’t planning a wedding, paying off her car or the bills is more important than whatever she’s spending the money on.

I seen this happen before, and it wasn't good. If you love her and still want to marry her now, than get a prenup and have separet banking for your financial safety. But with all that going on and disapprove of her actions, then do go to counseling first and postpone the wedding, and wait until this gets fix. I didn't like the part that she stated its 'her' money, if she is not willing to share money, that's something for both of you, than she won't do it in the future. It is truly sad to read your story and I do hope everything turns out great and I hope that her family don't see as the bad guy; I wish you good luck.

She is financially as foolish as a child. It may mean she has always had parents who gave her money as she needed it, and has not developed any sense of structuring her budget to cover her needs and sticking to a budget, staying within it. Or, she has had the opportunity, and is spoiled and wants everything now, and expect to money to magically appear from parents or you to bail her out, while she fritters money away. You need to work on and solve this before you marry. Your marriage is doomed if she is going to put blame on you for not cleaning up her messes. You need financial counseling. This is a 2 person issue over time. But first she needs someone neutral to go through this with. Marriage counselors can be very helpful.

I agree with what some of the other posters have said and that I think you two need counseling. That is not a way to have a marriage. Realistically I wish my fiance was making a lot more money so we can have a more lavish lifestyle and unfortunately we are in situations where sometimes I have to have a little bit more and sometimes he made out of a little bit more. However I would never seriously berate him and make him feel like less of a person because he's not able to contribute to something as much as I want. If I want something then I will pay for it and even then he hates that because he feels like he could be doing more but I never make him feel like that. You two are a team and you both need to be there to support each other. At the end of the day before she married you she knew your financial situation so she cannot complain about it now. It sounds to me like she wants someone to take care of her and not contribute and that's not how your partnership should work. I feel and I'm sorry to sound disrespectful towards your wife that she's being very selfish and pretty much wanting you or her parents to pay for everything. She needs to put her big girl panties on and if she wants to have the wedding she want she needs to do what most of society does which is worse within a reasonable budget and then save up towards that. You need to seriously talk to her and let her know that she's being disrespectful to you and if this continues on I hate to say this but you two need to really reconsider your married life.

This is a huge red flag. I agree with others that you need to get yourself to counseling.

This is a big problem. I got engaged and immediately started to save because I knew my parents wouldn't be able to pay for my entire wedding. I had a few thousand in my account when they gave me their financial contribution. They TOLD me it was now my money and I could use it on the wedding, a down payment on a house, or anything else I had in mind. That doesn't mean I took that as a free for all to go buy a new wardrobe. I did have to purchase a car shortly after they gave me the check because my transmission was going out. I used a very small portion of the total AND I had already had money saved anyway. It sounds to me like her money management skills do not align with yours. You definitely need to seek professional help as finances are one of the most fought about things in a marriage.

Am I understanding correctly that you are already married? You need to protect yourself! I would strongly recommend you get your credit report. Make sure there aren't any loans in your name that you aren't aware of.
To be very frank, I don't see how a marriage can work with someone like your wife. Marriage counseling only works if both people are entering into it in good faith, and it doesn't sound like your wife is. She also sounds manipulative and emotionally and financially abusive, and marriage counselling is never recommended if there is abuse.
I think you need to talk to a lawyer and just find out how you can protect yourself and what your options are.

This is extremely red flag worthy! Couples Counseling is definitely advised!

I'm so sorry she is manipulating you like this, Eddie. I would agree with all the PP. Seek immediate counseling because you don't deserve that at all! she also needs help with money management.

She sounds like a selfish spoiled child. Has she always been this foolish with money? Has she always treated you this poorly? Since you're already married you need to be extremely careful here. Keep your finances separate so she doesn't drain all the money in your accounts on selfish unnecessary spending. If it were me, I would give her 2 options: immediate counseling (in which she makes a real effort to change) or divorce. I couldn't tolerate being legally and financially tied to someone who thought this was an acceptable way to treat their spouse and handle finances.

View Quoted Comment Well we married at the court house. She said she still wanted the wedding so we were planning for that.

None of this is okay behavior. She is being manipulative and deceptive, as well as irresponsible. Personally, this is not a situation I would stay in. If you want to, I definitely echo PPs to seek marriage counseling.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for your response.

Ummm. I would take a step back from wedding planning. A large step back. Honestly. Me and FH(mainly him) were having a hard time staying on track for saving for the wedding, but every time I spoke to him he eventually understood. His issue was that he hated being controlled with his money. His dad and me tried to help him but it felt more controlling to him and he lashed out and spent on his cc and hid it. Since then he has showed me more and more that he can save on his own and needs zero help. I could not be more proud of him.

How long have you you been together? Is this something she does often?

Your wife seems to think she is better than you, and possibly that she doesn't care what you say? I get her point with paying off her car, but then she didn't so where did the rest of the money go? Not to planning m did she buy her dress with it?

View Quoted Comment How can you plan something that costs many, many thousands of dollars, together, without first getting a neutral counselor to help set up a budget? So she sees it from a neutral person, not "your fault", but fact: first both of you need a household budget. Then you save money, with her and you contributing in an equal way. This may not be equal dollars but equal effort, like 10 hours of pay from each of you a week. And managing to live on the rest, without increasing the amount in debt or on credit. Only planned spending. See what wedding costs will be, but do not engage a venue or anything else until you have at least 80% of your total budget for a wedding. If you cannot do that, spend the money on degposits for separate apartments. If she wants a wedding, she needs to rise to the occasion, and learn to save and spend money in a disciplined way. She needs to take responsibility. Not borrow. Not play gimme gimme and badmouth you for not wanting to throw away more money with no accountability. No bailouts. If the two of you work at it, you can learn a functional way to deal with money. Or you will endlessly fight about it . And the cost of a wedding is too much to throw away. And if you care enough to stay married and have a wedding, you cannot start , setup to fail with her style money management.

I'd be pissed if I were her father. I am sure that "gift" was to help her throw a wedding...not to pay off her car.

I would get into counseling immediately.

Considering you are already legally married, I would not plan any type of wedding celebration at all. Both of your time and effort should be spent in counseling before you are so far in debt that you can't get our of it or you end up divorced before you celebrate an anniversary! I would insist that she let her dad know what she did with the money and that there will be no wedding. Seriously, counseling!!! This is not normal!