I recently held my wedding banquet at a hotel in Orchard. My husband and I spent months paying for every single table ourselves without asking our parents for a single cent. We wanted to start our marriage clean and independent.
During the dinner, relatives and friends gave us wedding red packets to help cover our banquet costs. It was meant to be our starting fund for our new BTO flat. But the moment the banquet ended, my father cornered me in the hotel lobby.
He demanded that I hand over S$5,000 from the collection. His reason was simple. My younger brother had bought a secondhand BMW six months ago to impress his friends.
Now my brother could not afford the monthly installment of S$1,200 and was facing a repossession notice. My father looked at me as if I was being unreasonable for hesitating. He said family must always help each other during hard times.
He even claimed that since I am now married into another household, I should not be so calculative with my own flesh and blood. My husband overheard the conversation and immediately stepped in. He told my father that we needed every dollar for our upcoming renovation and flat expenses.
That triggered a massive argument right there in the hotel driveway. My father shouted that I was an ungrateful daughter who forgot all the years he spent feeding me. He has not spoken to me since that night, and my mother keeps calling me daily to say I am destroying the family over money.
My brother even posted on social media calling me cold hearted because I let him suffer while I sit in a nice air conditioned bridal suite. My husband thinks we should cut off all financial contact with them permanently. But my parents raised me, and a part of me still feels guilty whenever my mother cries on the phone.
Should I give my father the money to keep the peace, or stand my ground with my husband
What would you do if your partner hid something this important from you?
