My wife [34F] found out that I [31M] had been refilling brand-name product containers with generic equivalents, and now she says that I “betrayed” her trust. via /r/relationships

In the following post I know I'm coming off bitter, sarcastic, and mean, but let me explain that it's the result of my current frustration.

My wife of three years has always been of the opinion that brand name products are in every way superior to generic brands. She believes that a store brand of any product, no matter what it is, is low quality and—no joke—she believes that they can make you ill. She has a similar attitude toward fashion, in that expensive labels equal better quality in every way. But that's a different tragedy.

Examples:

• If you buy store brand detergent instead of TIDE, you'll get germs

• If you buy store brand cereal instead of Cheerios, you'll get sick

• Store brand shampoo versus salon-brand will make you go bald

And that's just a small sample, but the above are important to my story.

I work full-time as a robotic-engineer. The nature of my job is about 60% desk work and 40% field work. I leave the house at six in the morning, commute an hour to work, work ten hours, and commute an hour back home, so, out-the-door to in-the-door every day, I work twelve hours.

My wife works at a primary school as a kindergarten/nursery teacher's helper. The school she works at is two blocks from our house, so she walks there. Her school day starts at eight in the morning and since she only works the half-day preschool student schedule, she's back home by noon. She does this Monday through Thursday, having elected not to work Fridays.

I only mention the disparity in our work schedules because my wife usually says she's too tired after her exhausting day to do housework or go shopping for groceries. She will cook dinner once in a while (two times a week at most), but only in a poor-me, look at what a martyr I am sort of way. We eat in restaurants all other days.

So, if the house is ever going to get vacuumed, I'M the one who'll do it. Same with dusting, sweeping, doing laundry, and going grocery shopping. Needless to say, these things get done, and done well.

My wife always likes to talk about her theories regarding store brands versus national brands, how it's worth the extra money to buy national brands because of the superior quality.

Strangely enough only the money I earn is ever being spent to buy these name brand items. My salary pays for everything in our household. The only thing my wife's salary is used for are her personal luxuries (usually clothes and shoes and beauty items). And she has all the time in the world to do those things, her exhaustion only being limited to cooking and cleaning.

My wife has talked a lot about saving for a trip to Southern France (which will happen at the end of this summer, thanks to my efforts). I told her that going to the Continent will involve a lot of belt tightening. She gave a lot of lip service to saving money and being frugal, but I know the kind of person she is (I don't mean this in a hateful way, by the way) and I know she is completely incapable of denying herself luxuries and comforts if there is a way to get these things. And sure enough, on her end with her salary she did not slow down one iota with regards to salon visits, buying new outfits, and other luxuries for herself. It should be noted that any luxuries that she ever gets for me are drawn from our joint account and not hers (I have no access to her money), and she will often start tapping into our joint funds to buy luxuries after she blows all of her own money.

So, to save money, I just started replacing the "good" detergent with cheap detergent. I am always the one buying groceries anyway, so she wasn't looking. I was dishonest in that I poured the cheap stuff into the empty name brand bottle, and discreetly discarded the generic container. I also did this for the Cheerios, oatmeal, even ketchup containers, since the off-brands look like the national brands anyway.

The shampoo and conditioner were the hardest to fake, because name-brand bottles have the cap screwed on in such a way that refilling them is very difficult. But with a funnel, pliers, and patience, I did that too. I simply bought slightly cheaper brands than the brands she was used to. With the shampoo I did notice there was a big drop-off in quality if I bought the 1£ stuff. I typically bought the 3£ bottles to replace my wife's £25 wallet-busters.

I should mention that I am perfectly aware of how pathetic this all sounds, so yeah…

Anyway this went on since November last year up until Friday two days ago. In the meantime I'd saved well over £1,500 for the vacation fund, skimping heavily on name brands and just refilling bottles and other containers.

Even more interestingly, in that same time period I can distinctly remember my wife, on at least two separate occasions the last of which was less than three weeks ago, remark how much cleaner laundry gets with name brand detergent compared to cheap stuff (which we were using). I also closely watched her try different "cheap" food that wasn't brand name.

And, NOPE! She didn't die, contract a horrible disease, or even a cough. In fact she made no comment at all about the quality of the food and other products we bought. I thought if I were going to be busted anywhere, it would be with the shampoo, because maybe she'd notice a slight difference in color or consistency here or there. But nope! Shampoo and conditioner were fine. She still has a full head of hair and the hair is clean.

Friday afternoon I surprised her with a email confirmation that states I paid for a hotel for a whole week in Caan.

"How could you afford it?"

Not "how awesome!" or "hey that's wonderful!" but instead "how could you afford it?"

She asks this because she's fully aware she did a grand total of JACK SHIT to help us save any money for our vacation.

And stupidly, I told her about how I bought cheaper detergent.

Shouldn't have done that, I suppose!

She immediately started acting like she was coming down with hives and was itchy, and said that I betrayed her trust, how could I do this to her, and so on and so on.

She's actually really upset right now and isn't speaking to me.

I noticed she hasn't said anything about canceling the trip, because I know she still wants us to go, she just wants me to grovel and beg for forgiveness about lying to her.

I did apologize for deceiving her, but defended my action explaining that I wanted us to afford a trip and we couldn't save money at the rate I (I made sure to just say I and not mention WE because I knew she would flip out about that too) was going, and so I cut back on laundry detergent.

She didn't think that was good enough and immediately started taking out all of her clothes and laying them out, saying the needed to be professionally cleaned now. Evidently the idea of she herself going out and getting some name brand detergent and doing her own bloody laundry never occurred to her.

She's been calling her girlfriend (I know because she made sure I could overhear) spilling all our dirty laundry (pun intended) and telling her what a sleaze I am for lying to her.

I personally think she's way overreacting and ungrateful, and also that she's not really upset over the fact that I used cheap detergent. I think what she's really upset over is the fact that she made this huge deal about how wonderful brand names are compared to cheap stuff, and she was proven emphatically wrong and she feels like a jackass.

I don't think I'm ready to apologize to her for that and don't know if I even should.

She isn't very good at math so she hasn't confronted me over the idea that I've saved over £1,500 just on laundry detergent alone. She hasn't added two and two to realize that lots of stuff at home is generic stuff, and she hasn't gotten sick or died as was her theory.

I'm waiting for the moment she discovers we've been eating "Taste-E-Os" and not Cheerios and starts pretending she's been poisoned.

I told my mate about it and he started laughing uncontrollably.

I don't think the situation is as funny as it is pathetic, but that's just me.

So, do I owe her an apology? A divorce or something? A session with the therapist?

I think her reaction is way out of line.

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tl;dr: Wife always insists that brand-name products are vastly superior to generic brands. I've been refilling various brand name containers with generic equivalents for a few months and have saved hundreds of dollars. I used the money to buy hotel and travel fare for our summer vacation. My wife found out and insists that I betrayed her trust.