Having money isn't always a pleasant experience.
On the popular subReddit "Am I The A**hole?," Redditor sickofentitlement told the story of how her "friends" discovered her inherited wealth and insisted she use some of it to pay for one of their lavish birthday parties.
The whole story was laid out in a post titled "AITA for refusing to fund a friend's lavish birthday party?"
"I am aware the title screams NTA but believe it or not, people think I'm the AH in this situation and it's divided my friend group with more people being against me than on my side."
"Background: i (26F) come from a well off family. My grandma (76) before she retired had a high paying job in the fashion industry. She wasn't a designer or anything or well known on a world scale but she was known within the fashion circles. My grandpa (77) before he retired worked behind the scenes in the art industry so the two of their incomes combined was in the millions."
"They could provide for my mom and my aunt with no worries but they didn't grow up spoiled. My grandparents taught my mom and aunt the value of money and whilst the family was effectively rich, they didn't buy anything designer or any extravagant purchases. The most my mom and aunt spent on anything was buying houses outright and setting up inheritances for me and my cousins."
"When I was old enough, I received quite a lot of money as an inheritance from my grandparents, a few million to say the least. I put all that money into a savings fund for my future and the most I spent was buying a new car when I was 19 which is the car I'm still driving 7 years later."
"Then, my mom died suddenly when I was 21 and I'm an only child, so I inherited even more money, our house and so on. I do not buy fancy stuff or expensive stuff. I quite happily shop at stores where the general public go as I don't need extravagant designer labels to be happy. I also don't really talk about my finances as it's nobody's business."
"About two months ago, I had a few friends over and by sheer 'accident' (I use that lightly), two of them found one of my bank statements. It was upstairs in my bedroom so I know for a fact they were snooping. I was pissed at them and I had to reveal my finances when they saw how much money I had. They were annoyed I didn't tell them and I said it's none of their business."
"Now, I have a problem. It's one of their birthdays soon and they want a HUGE party. I said that was cool and then they dropped a bombshell saying I should pay for it as I'm loaded."
"I was greatly offended and said why would I pay for someone's party. It's caused a massive rift with people accusing me of being selfish and hoarding all this money which I'm probably never going to touch. I told them that that's MY money and I'm saving it for my future and any future family I may have and I've been labelled an AH."
OP later returned to answer some questions commenters had.
"Update: someone mentioned maybe my friends suspected that's why they were snooping. Maybe they had questions after I got a lot after my mom died. I never disclosed anything to them as it was private but it was hard to hide I had a whole house I owned suddenly. I also am able to work a lot less hours than them so maybe they've always wondered how I managed to survive on a 'low income'."
"Update 2: I should add my grandparents are still alive. The inheritance I got from them was money they'd saved for me for when I was of age."
"Update 3: to those saying I'm an AH for my views on marriage. I would NEVER get a joint bank account. I think it's only fair you both hold onto your money, don't share and the only time technical sharing should come up is if you're both paying half of whatever."
"Also I don't ever wanna get married to those who decides to berate me for my view on marriage and getting offended why I didn't have a reason for not wanting to get married. I also don't understand why people are getting so annoyed that I wouldn't share my money with an SO."
"The simple reasoning for that is I do not want an SO or a life partnership. I'm content remaining single. I also would like a future family one day not that I need to mention that and will probably go the adoption or donor dad route."
"Update 4: I also checked my bank accounts and changed my security up as a precaution so nothing was taken. As for the paper statements, I am one of the few people who does like to have paper copies of my accounts. And yes, I do plan on cutting these friends out. I just wanted some honest to god insight into this situation as it's incredibly frustrating and on another level, I'm losing most of my friends I've known for years so it's really upsetting me."
"Update 5: it was also brought up why I never disclosed I was this well off to my close friends. Yes I could have told them and never mentioned exact figures but that info is deeply private. They never mentioned their situations and I never thought to ask as finances are nobody's business but your own. I have no obligation to tell anyone how much money I have or how well off I am."
mrshighwvy got things started by being frank about OP's friends.
"NTA. I'm sorry OP but you're friends suck. They should have been dropped the second they went snooping in your room and them expecting you to finance their lifestyles is insane."
Scribb74 agreed wholeheartedly.
"Whether they had any suspicions about your finances or not they had no right what so ever to go looking through your things, this is a huge invasion of privacy."
"To be honest these are not your friends, a true friend would not snoop to find out information they would ask you face to face."
"Then they tell you you are paying for the party, as you have the money, is again not the action of a true friend. You need to find better friends, these so called friends seem to think you are a meal ticket."
"Oh and NTA, these so called friends are Hugely the A here."
CatsTales understood that money isn't infinite.
"Also, I doubt the friends are the kind of people to think about the fact that millionaires only stay millionaires if they either make enough income to support a life of luxury (which OP doesn't) or if they avoid frequent frivolous spending on expensive things like throwing huge parties for their friends."
"It's very easy to spend someone else's money and letting her friends bully her into financing everything would be a good way for OP to end up with no money left."
terfsfugoff understood why the friends would be frustrated, but also thought they were in the wrong.
"Money changes people. It's hard to be struggling to make ends meet and living paycheck to paycheck and know other people are without these worries just because of winning the birth lottery. It is an objectively unfair system."
"That being said the existence of this unfair system is not OP's fault and she's not obligated to try to fix it by sacrificing her own financial security paying for her friends' things. If they can't handle a friend having what sounds like an ultimately modest amount of wealth (like she doesn't have to work but it doesn't sound like she's super-rich or anything) without losing their sh*t then they just can't be friends."
Arete108 offered some difficult advice.
"I think one of the things that can happen a lot in one's 20's is that you know certain people from work and college, you spend a lot of time with them, and then you think that you are friends. But friendship is based on character, and these people don't have any."
"Sometimes one entire friend group can have low character, but if you're the only "sane" one it can feel like there's something wrong with you. There's not, literally all of them suck."
The last line of their advice might be something for the young women to carefully consider.
"Drop your friends, be lonely for a while, and eventually you'll find better friends."
Are these real friends when they don't respect her privacy and make monetary demands? She certainly has a lot to think about.
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