Fiancé dead set on a Honeyfund

climbingsingle

Why does your FI insist on making you do something you're not comfortable with?? This would so not fly in my relationship. 

Liatris2010

melissamusic said:

SaraBrideSoon said:

melissamusic said:

I suppose it's just not the hill I choose to die on. It's important to me to not have a Honeyfund, yes, but not as important as my relationship. I'll use the fee suggestion, though! Can't believe I didn't think of that before!

But are you willing to have your FI lay down the law on things you prefer not to do throughout your whole marriage?

You are going to be judged just as heavily as your FI by your guests for the honeyfund. I don't think it is fair that he is willing to have people think you are rude and tacky simply because he wants to ensure that he gets cash gifts.

The trouble is, he doesn't believe that people will judge. That's what I most wish I could convince him.

I would worry less about people secretly side-eying you and more about them being disappointed that you didn't get what they thought they bought you, and that you didn't even get all the money they spent.

manateehugger

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

mrsmagicgeek

My FI thought honeyfunds were a grand idea until I got to the part about the fees. He's a guy who will drive to a branch of his bank no matter how far he has to drive to avoid atm fees so that was enough to convince him it was a bad idea.

PineapplePopsicles

SaraBrideSoon said:

melissamusic said:

I suppose it's just not the hill I choose to die on. It's important to me to not have a Honeyfund, yes, but not as important as my relationship. I'll use the fee suggestion, though! Can't believe I didn't think of that before!

But are you willing to have your FI lay down the law on things you prefer not to do throughout your whole marriage?

You are going to be judged just as heavily as your FI by your guests for the honeyfund. I don't think it is fair that he is willing to have people think you are rude and tacky simply because he wants to ensure that he gets cash gifts.

I would actually take this one step further and say that since the wedding planning is so often seen as "the Bride's job" - the Bride will take most of the heat for this.  So you could possibly be judged the hardest for his poor behavior.  People will judge. That isn't fair to you.

PrettyGirlLost

manateehugger said:

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

Yes, this isn't really a functional way of being.  You should have a say in your life, period.  People who don't speak up for themselves become passive agressive- not a functional way of communication, and then become very resentful and bitter and angry.

thisismynickname2

You know, FI and I had a spat just the other day because I really didn't want to do one wedding tradition and he really did.  He raised his voice and goes, "Why do we always have to do things your way? Fine, we'll do it your way without discussion." [disclaimer: total exaggeration] and I said, "Well, pot meet kettle. You're saying that so we'll do things your way without discussion." That shut him up. [Yes, our issue is resolved.]

I, too, am a present-the-logic person and FI tends to act more on feelings, so I totally get you OP.  Just do like other PPs suggest with showing the sites with the fees, do the math... and point out that the people who won't judge you are the ones who have no idea they're getting ripped off.

Good luck! 

melbenso

DH was pretty insistent on doing a honeymoon registry.  I explained to him that the honeymoon places took a cut of the money, so if our guest intended to give us $100, they would really be giving us $93 and some random person on the internet $7. 

So he found one that claimed not to take a cut (I doubt that).  So I explained the finer points of other problems with honeymoon registries: won't necessarily release the money to you until you go on a honeymoon (we are planning to take ours this winter - about 6 months after we got married); guests aren't actually buying you what they think they are - just depositing money in an account that you could use for that stuff, etc. 

I convinced him that we should make a small registry for some upgrade items, and if people asked where we were registered we could tell them "We have a small registry at X, but are also saving for our honeymoon and to buy a house."  Eventually, he just gave up on asking about it, as things got to hectic with the rest of the wedding planning, which is what I was hoping for all along.

In the end, we got some gifts from our registry, but most guests gave us cash or checks.  In total, we were given more than enough to buy the other things off of our registry that we really wanted to upgrade, pay for our honeymoon, and still have money left over to put aside towards buying a house.  If we had a honeymoon registry, a certain percentage of that wouldn't be in our bank account right now.

Bottom line for your FI, not only do honeymoon registries deceive and rip off your guests, they just aren't necessary.

lurkergirl

Seriously though, PPs have really good points about communication issues.  Good luck.

melissamusic

martha1818 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

manateehugger said:

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

Yes, this isn't really a functional way of being.  You should have a say in your life, period.  People who don't speak up for themselves become passive agressive- not a functional way of communication, and then become very resentful and bitter and angry.

The fact that you're speaking your mind about this to strangers on the internet but don't want to rock the boat with the person you've agreed to spend the rest of your life with probably isn't a great sign. I'm not trying to judge your relationship, but I can't help but agree with others above.

It's not like I didn't talk to him about it, I just didn't win the argument in the end.

melissamusic

Even in healthy relationships, people will disagree from time to time. And when a disagreement happens, someone has to compromise. That's just a fact of life. This is all getting a little nastier than it needs to, I think. I get that this is important to you, and I don't disagree with you. Please don't get mean.

manateehugger

melissamusic said:

martha1818 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

manateehugger said:

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

Yes, this isn't really a functional way of being.  You should have a say in your life, period.  People who don't speak up for themselves become passive agressive- not a functional way of communication, and then become very resentful and bitter and angry.

The fact that you're speaking your mind about this to strangers on the internet but don't want to rock the boat with the person you've agreed to spend the rest of your life with probably isn't a great sign. I'm not trying to judge your relationship, but I can't help but agree with others above.

It's not like I didn't talk to him about it, I just didn't win the argument in the end.

But in this case, it's not about winning. It's about his disregard for your feelings on the issue. 

Winning here isn't you not having a honeyfund, it's him realizing the idea makes you uncomfortable and he should want make his future wife comfortable more than wanting to get cash from your guests. 

sarawifenow

I don't think anyone is trying to hurt you OP. I just think that a ton of flags are being raised to people. This is obviously something that you are uncomfortable with, or you would not have posted it here.

PrettyGirlLost

melissamusic said:

martha1818 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

manateehugger said:

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

Yes, this isn't really a functional way of being.  You should have a say in your life, period.  People who don't speak up for themselves become passive agressive- not a functional way of communication, and then become very resentful and bitter and angry.

The fact that you're speaking your mind about this to strangers on the internet but don't want to rock the boat with the person you've agreed to spend the rest of your life with probably isn't a great sign. I'm not trying to judge your relationship, but I can't help but agree with others above.

It's not like I didn't talk to him about it, I just didn't win the argument in the end.

And that would be an issue that would need to be addressed in my relationship.

I would view this situation, as another PP stated, as my FI valuing his desire to publicly ask for money over the consideration for my feelings and the fact that I stated it made me uncomfortable and I was not OK with the Honeyfund.

And that would piss me off and would lead to a discussion on how we could come to a compromise that wasn't going to compromise my comfort.

Actually, I'd tell FI point blank- "Dude, a Honeyfund is flat out asking for money which is tacky and rude as hell, and you are going to make us both look like assholes to all of our friends and families.  If you are insistent upon this, then I'm going to add a Note Bene on our wedding website that flat out states this tacky and rude idea is all yours and I want no part of it.  Oh yeah, I'm throwing your ass under the bus because you seem to think getting cash is more important than my feelings of discomfort on the matter."

I assume that you aren't putting any registry info in with your invitations right?

PrettyGirlLost

melissamusic said:

Even in healthy relationships, people will disagree from time to time. And when a disagreement happens, someone has to compromise. That's just a fact of life. This is all getting a little nastier than it needs to, I think. I get that this is important to you, and I don't disagree with you. Please don't get mean.

Huh?  No one is being mean.  Are we reading different threads?

MNVegas

melissamusic said:

Even in healthy relationships, people will disagree from time to time. And when a disagreement happens, someone has to compromise. That's just a fact of life. This is all getting a little nastier than it needs to, I think. I get that this is important to you, and I don't disagree with you. Please don't get mean.

But there appears to be no compromise in this situation. According to your OP your FI said he wants what he wants and too bad for you. 

AddieCake

If you can't speak up to your fiance about not wanting a damned Honeyfund, how are you going to speak up to him about the myriad of other and probably bigger issues that are surely going to come up in your lives over the next 50 years? 

Liatris2010

Let me offer a compromise:

This rests on the assumption that you can already pay for all of your honeymoon necessities (travel, lodging, meals), and that you have a travel agent.

Book the basics with your agent. Then create a list of upgrades (tours, dinners, room upgrades). Put the travel agent's phone number on your wedding website, and if people want to buy a honeymoon experience for you, they may do so directly through your agent. Givers are not being duped, no one is being asked for cash, much more polite.

sarawifenow

Liatris2010 said:

Let me offer a compromise:

This rests on the assumption that you can already pay for all of your honeymoon necessities (travel, lodging, meals), and that you have a travel agent.

Book the basics with your agent. Then create a list of upgrades (tours, dinners, room upgrades). Put the travel agent's phone number on your wedding website, and if people want to buy a honeymoon experience for you, they may do so directly through your agent. Givers are not being duped, no one is being asked for cash, much more polite.

SITB

 

I think that this is an amazing idea. I would try presenting this to your FI.

melissamusic

PrettyGirlLost said:

melissamusic said:

Even in healthy relationships, people will disagree from time to time. And when a disagreement happens, someone has to compromise. That's just a fact of life. This is all getting a little nastier than it needs to, I think. I get that this is important to you, and I don't disagree with you. Please don't get mean.

Huh?  No one is being mean.  Are we reading different threads?

The mean comment was deleted. I understand that my plea seems out of place when the comment it was in response to no longer appears in the thread.

jules3964

I haven't seen this mentioned, but in addition to the fees being a reason not to do it, consider the idea of feeling tied to doing all the "gifts" people bought you for your honeymoon.

Depending on how many activities people purchase for you, you may spend the entire time making you sure you do everything that people paid for. This may be more difficult when you already have the cash in hand, and don't really feel like following through when you're there and want to relax or just play it by ear. And if you don't do the things people chose to spend money on, that's really rude.

FI and I are planning a honeymoon on the beach in Mexico, and are very much looking forward to having nothing planned except "beach time."

melissamusic

flantastic said:

melissamusic said:

martha1818 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

manateehugger said:

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

Yes, this isn't really a functional way of being.  You should have a say in your life, period.  People who don't speak up for themselves become passive agressive- not a functional way of communication, and then become very resentful and bitter and angry.

The fact that you're speaking your mind about this to strangers on the internet but don't want to rock the boat with the person you've agreed to spend the rest of your life with probably isn't a great sign. I'm not trying to judge your relationship, but I can't help but agree with others above.

It's not like I didn't talk to him about it, I just didn't win the argument in the end.

What was his argument? What constitutes "winning"?

His argument was that our friends wouldn't think it was rude (on the evidence that they said so before we were engaged and considering it), and that we'd be giving up thousands of dollars by not doing it. Getting your way in the end constitutes "winning," I'd say.

sarawifenow

I still don't know which comment you are referring to and I am following this thread. Also, people can't delete comments. Their will still be a space where they were writing...

KatieinBkln

Hm, there's a lot of baggage here for sure, but as a practical (and bonus: non-confrontational!) suggestion: 

Just don't ever sign up for a honeyfund. Will your FI be the kind of guy who goes and signs up on his own? Is he really involved in your planning? You can even say, "Well, I'm just not comfortable setting that up." And then don't. If you are in charge of the wedding website, don't include the link. 

It's a little sneaky and definitely NOT my first choice, but if you really don't want to have a honeyfund, leave the ball in his court. As much as I prefer to be "equality and feminism, YAY!" statistics show that most dudes aren't actually that involved in planning. Chances are you might not have to have that honeyfund after all. 

melissamusic

PrettyGirlLost said:

melissamusic said:

martha1818 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

manateehugger said:

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

Yes, this isn't really a functional way of being.  You should have a say in your life, period.  People who don't speak up for themselves become passive agressive- not a functional way of communication, and then become very resentful and bitter and angry.

The fact that you're speaking your mind about this to strangers on the internet but don't want to rock the boat with the person you've agreed to spend the rest of your life with probably isn't a great sign. I'm not trying to judge your relationship, but I can't help but agree with others above.

It's not like I didn't talk to him about it, I just didn't win the argument in the end.

And that would be an issue that would need to be addressed in my relationship.

I would view this situation, as another PP stated, as my FI valuing his desire to publicly ask for money over the consideration for my feelings and the fact that I stated it made me uncomfortable and I was not OK with the Honeyfund.

And that would piss me off and would lead to a discussion on how we could come to a compromise that wasn't going to compromise my comfort.

Actually, I'd tell FI point blank- "Dude, a Honeyfund is flat out asking for money which is tacky and rude as hell, and you are going to make us both look like assholes to all of our friends and families.  If you are insistent upon this, then I'm going to add a Note Bene on our wedding website that flat out states this tacky and rude idea is all yours and I want no part of it.  Oh yeah, I'm throwing your ass under the bus because you seem to think getting cash is more important than my feelings of discomfort on the matter."

I assume that you aren't putting any registry info in with your invitations right?

Haha, I think putting that note on the website would come off as a little passive-aggressive. And no, no registry info in the invites. Just on the website.

Liatris2010

I just scrolled through the whole thread. People can't delete comments and only two were edited, way back on page one and way before you said this thread was making you feel better. So, I am having a difficult time believing someone said something mean and deleted it without anyone noticing.

sarawifenow

melissamusic said:

flantastic said:

melissamusic said:

martha1818 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

manateehugger said:

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

Yes, this isn't really a functional way of being.  You should have a say in your life, period.  People who don't speak up for themselves become passive agressive- not a functional way of communication, and then become very resentful and bitter and angry.

The fact that you're speaking your mind about this to strangers on the internet but don't want to rock the boat with the person you've agreed to spend the rest of your life with probably isn't a great sign. I'm not trying to judge your relationship, but I can't help but agree with others above.

It's not like I didn't talk to him about it, I just didn't win the argument in the end.

What was his argument? What constitutes "winning"?

His argument was that our friends wouldn't think it was rude (on the evidence that they said so before we were engaged and considering it), and that we'd be giving up thousands of dollars by not doing it. Getting your way in the end constitutes "winning," I'd say.

I'm sorry but this is BS. Look at how many people here get more cash than anything even though they did register for gifts. This is just poor logic and, I'm sorry, but this type of logic is what makes people think that honeyfunds are tacky because their sole purpose is to be a cash grab.

AddieCake

I want to know how you're going to talk to him about shit that really matters in the future, like circumcising a kid if you differ in viewpoint on it, or something larger like that, if you can't even talk to him about not wanting a Honeyfund. 

Liatris2010

melissamusic said:

flantastic said:

melissamusic said:

martha1818 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

manateehugger said:

melissamusic said:

I must admit, you ladies are making me feel better. I should have a say in this! Not that I'll actually act on that feeling, but still.

This makes me sad. Your marriage should be the one place where it's safe to act on your feelings or at least speak up about them. 

Yes, this isn't really a functional way of being.  You should have a say in your life, period.  People who don't speak up for themselves become passive agressive- not a functional way of communication, and then become very resentful and bitter and angry.

The fact that you're speaking your mind about this to strangers on the internet but don't want to rock the boat with the person you've agreed to spend the rest of your life with probably isn't a great sign. I'm not trying to judge your relationship, but I can't help but agree with others above.

It's not like I didn't talk to him about it, I just didn't win the argument in the end.

What was his argument? What constitutes "winning"?

His argument was that our friends wouldn't think it was rude (on the evidence that they said so before we were engaged and considering it), and that we'd be giving up thousands of dollars by not doing it. Getting your way in the end constitutes "winning," I'd say.

He's wrong, you'll be giving up $100s of dollars by doing it because of the money you'll lose to fees. We received enough cash to pay for our whole wedding (which was already paid for) and we had a traditional registry. People give cash all the time. It's not like people didn't know cash is a nice thing to give until people starting begging for it.

melissamusic

Liatris2010 said:

I just scrolled through the whole thread. People can't delete comments and only two were edited, way back on page one and way before you said this thread was making you feel better. So, I am having a difficult time believing someone said something mean and deleted it without anyone noticing.

Huh. There was a snarky one with a bunch of "shut it down" gifs that I swear was there before, but when I cam back to the thread I didn't see it