I need to vent to you girls for a minute, and I'm doing this under an AE for reasons that will likely become obvious as you read on....
My FI went to a bachelor party this weekend; it was a small event, just him, the groom, a mutual friend who's married and one other guy I didn't know. Well, guy#4 suggested they go to a strip club, none of them had ever been and the bride had indicated she wanted the groom to 'go all out' etc. I don't have a huge problem with this by itself.
In FI's words they "must have had sucker written all over them" when they walked in the door. The girls swarmed them, started talking about how it being a b-party they need to go to the VIP room, etc. and they ushered the guys to the back. FI decided to treat the groom, so he gave them his credit card. Apparently the four of them were in the back room with three girls, after an hour FI said 'okay, that's enough, we're done' and the girl insisted that they were already into the second hour so they might as well enjoy it because they were already paying for it.
They finally get out of the room and FI is presented with a bill for $9700!! That's right, two zeros. Nothing's itemized, they're on the phone with our bank because they of course rejected the charge initially - FI's telling the bank this can't be right, that can't be the right amount. The dancers are surrounding him and insisting he sign the receipts and he felt like he couldn't get out of there without doing so, so he signed them but told the bank he was disputing the charge, so it's on hold.
He's since talked to the strip club's finance group who have 'itemized' everything for him - $1000 for a bottle of champagne he didn't order; $2000/hr for the three girls (which he was not told upfront, they didn't even ask the girls to come back the girls pulled them back there), plus the girls signed him up for the tipping plan which DOUBLES their rate, and the club has a 20% surcharge on all credit cards. He's supposed to talk to the manager tonight to discuss at least cutting down on SOME of the costs - so we'll see where that leads.
Of course the groom and our other friend offered to pitch in after they realized what happened, but each said they can really only swing about $2k - the single guy whose idea it was to go in the first place of course didn't offer anything; so we're currently on the hook for $6k.
I'm just sick to my stomach thinking about it. And as if the money aspect of it isn't enough I also am having a serious self worth / trust internal debate. I keep picturing FI sitting there with this naked girl rubbing up against him and taking his hands and putting them on her body and it just makes me want to cry and throw up at the same time. I said earlier in the post that I don't have a huge issue with strip clubs in general, but that's when I was picturing them sitting at a table watching a girl up on a stage. Reading some of the reviews of this place online (looking to see if this is a common scam they pull) I got a much more graphic image that I wish I could erase.
What am I supposed to do here? I'm just sick about it, I'm having a hard time thinking about and even looking at FI - and it's not that I'm mad at him exactly, he's made it very clear that he's extrememly remorseful about it and feels stupid etc. But I just can't get rid of these mental images no matter how hard I try.