Man’s Fiance Went Nuts Because He Spent 5k on Dog Surgery Instead of Their Wedding

There’s an awful lot to unpack in this story.

A heartbroken pet owner took to Reddit to ask advice on how to act when his fiancee gave him the silent treatment after he spent $5,000 on a life saving surgery for his pet German Shepard.

The U.S.-based man, posting anonymously, said thought the dog is old, he ‘would do anything for him’. When the vet told him that the pup had a malignant tumor, he didn’t hesitate on shelling out the money required to intervene.

And though he has a savings account with ‘five times’ what his soon-to-be-wife does, his partner flipped out when she found out about the surgery as the bill meant she would have to ‘downsize her wedding’.

The man confirmed that, though they live together, their finances are currently separate.

‘I paid for the surgery out of my own savings. When she found out how much the surgery cost, she went ballistic that I paid for the surgery without asking her when we’re planning a wedding.’

‘She says that she will have to downsize her wedding to compensate, and that my dog is already so old (10) the money “wouldn’t go far.” I can’t even comprehend how she could say that to me,’ the man posted.

While the relationship was ‘amazing’ before, the blow up has now ’caused a massive rift’.

‘My dog is my dog and he’s a member of the family. I refuse to put a few thousand dollars over his well-being. My fiancee is acting as though I’m being selfish and that our wedding should come first, since we’re starting a family.’

His partner hasn’t talked to him since the disagreement either.

First of all, isn’t the bride’s family supposed to be paying for the wedding? Why is he dipping deep into his savings to pay for their wedding? Also, let me note that our culture pushes stupid expensive weddings on people, but in my book, if a sudden $5,000 expense is such a big deal that it significantly impacts the wedding, you’re spending too much on the wedding. As a couple, are you going to have a better chance of working if you have a lavish ceremony or if you have enough money to make sure you don’t spend the next two or three years of your life under tremendous financial pressure?

Then you get to the issue of doing an iffy $5,000 surgery on a 10-year-old dog. These days, you can run up the sort of bills you used to spend on a person on a dog really quickly — and dogs don’t live that long. For example, a German Shepherd only has a lifespan of 9-13 years. In other words, even BEFORE the surgery, the dog may have been living on borrowed time. I can tell you stories about people in that situation who’ve spent big bills and then had the dog die on the operating table or people that keep giving their poor, sick dog treatment, even though it’s miserable because they can’t bear to let their dog go. So, did he make the right call? It’s hard to say, but at the end of the day, it’s his money, his dog and his call to make — and he made it.

So for his girl to essentially say, “You should have let your dog die so I could spend more of your money on a one-day ceremony” isn’t a very good look. In fact, it makes her look so selfish that it’s a red flag. I’m not saying he should call off the wedding or anything, but this makes you wonder about her. How self-absorbed is she? How is sharing finances with her after a wedding going to work out? Does she see him as more than a bank account? Do they have compatible values? That’s impossible to say at this point, but those are questions he should be asking himself before he pulls the trigger and gets married to her.