Petty Wife Returns Birthday Gift She Got For Husband Because He Refused To Pay For Birthday Cake Her Daughter Baked For Him
Petty revenge stories are well-loved online. Seeing the "bad person" get their due fulfills everyone's desire for pedestrian justice and docile vendetta.
But there's a time and a place for everything. Attempting to teach someone a life lesson during their birthday is not the best time to do so and it doesn't really count as a birthday gift.
In this Reddit story, a wife asked strangers to weigh in on a disagreement during her husband's 45th birthday. OP's 16-year-old daughter fell in love with baking.
She developed her skill and has made money by selling baked goods to friends and family. OP's husband asked his stepdaughter to bake his birthday cake for him this year and she gladly agreed.
OP told him that he should pay for the cake but he dismissed her and said he was her dad. She replied that her daughter is too polite to ask him for compensation, so he said he would pay but kept putting it off until he ultimately forgot to give her money.
Since he didn't pay for the cake, OP sold the wristwatch she was planning to gift him on his birthday and used the money to compensate her daughter. OP's husband found out and got mad.
She retorted that he had enough time to pay her before he got the cake but he kept putting it off. Her husband replied that she's teaching her daughter that relationships are transactional and reinforcing materialistic thinking.
OP said her daughter put in a lot of time, effort, and money into baking his birthday cake so she should be paid for it

He ~cordially~ replied that OP is a jerk for teaching her daughter to expect something in return when she's helping her own family

He shared what happened to the rest of their family and they shamed OP for how she handled things

OP wants to know is she's really at fault when she only tried to stand up for her daughter who expressed her desire to be paid for the cake she made

OP said her daughter told her that she was expecting to be paid for the cake but didn't say the same thing to her stepdad

Her daughter used the allowance she got from OP to buy the ingredients needed for the cake

Redditors felt that in that case, OP should have paid for the ingredients so her daughter can bake the cake for free since it's awkward to ask the celebrant to pay for his own birthday cake

Right? Wouldn't OP get her husband his birthday cake if her daughter didn't agree to make it herself? It really is the bare minimum

None of them sound like they like each other when they can't even show each other kindness without expecting anything in return

That additional detail that her daughter told her she wanted to be compensated was sketchy to some commenters

OP dropped the ball on this one big time — not only did she fail to give her husband a free birthday cake, she also returned his gift to prove a point AND kept the money after

If the roles were reversed, OP would be throwing a fit just like her husband did

This whole family needs to take a collective deep breath before they communicate with each other

Well, this was interesting and bizarre. This family does not communicate their wants, needs, and expectations of each other in a healthy way.
They are horrible to each other and do cruel things just to prove a point — here's to hoping that OP learned something from the comments on her post.