Friend’s Dilemma

Ok so - I would like to get some input from some people in regards to a situation my best friend is in. She has come to me for help figuring something out with her husband and I’m honestly torn on how I feel about it. Warning - This will be long.

My friend (let’s call her Kate) has been married to her husband (we’ll call him Dan) for almost 3 years - FYI I did check with her before posting on here since it contains some info from her personal life, just changing names for anonymity. Kate has a child from a previous relationship. Kate has been insecure about her breasts for as long as I can remember. She’s a smaller framed woman and just doesn’t have large breasts. She has talked for years about getting implants, but has always just put that thought toward the back of her mind because she was young and thought if she met the right person, she might have another child. Didn’t want to run the risk of implants interfering with breastfeeding or changing after pregnancy, so she opted to just wait, which I think was sensible. Well, she met Dan 6.5 years ago and obviously they hit it off and got married close to 4 years later. They had a baby together in august of 2019. Their marriage had gone through a lot for two people that had (at the time) only been married a year. I won’t go into all that because it would take all day. But basically, Dan had always been a pretty big drinker and started turning more and more to alcohol. That created big rifts between them. Long story short - Dan wound up checking in for rehab.

Now to the main point - after the baby was born, they had decided for Kate for be a stay at home mom for a few years. It’s now been a little over a year, and Kate has been talking about wanting to finally get implants. Her desire is even stronger now because she feels they lost a lot of their “perk” after having a second baby so in her words, “now they’re small AND deflated”. To top it off, Dan is very much a boob guy. He has always had a big interest in “big boob porn” any time he watches anything. (This isn’t a debate about porn. Kate is ok with him watching but admits it hurts that he specifically searches for that knowing it’s what she’s most insecure about). During his stretch of heavy drinking, Dan never physically cheated on Kate, but he did message another woman asking her for pictures of her boobs. This was about 2 months after the baby was born and absolutely destroyed any confidence Kate had left and sent her into full blown PPD. She considered divorcing him but agreed to stay if he stopped drinking since he was so black out he didn’t even know he had done it and since he didn’t physically cheat or entertain sleeping with someone else. It took him almost a year and a 30 day rehab program, but he did eventually stop drinking completely.

Now - Dan doesn’t have a problem with Kate getting implants, but he keeps saying they don’t have the money to spend on them. Kate did accounting prior to the baby and understands money. She is very realistic when it comes to money spending. She knows they can afford her implants, but she decided to just go with it and see what kind of money she can work on saving up. Being a stay at home mom she obviously can’t just work overtime. Recently, Dan has been talking about wanting to buy a new 4 seater UTV. They had one before that he sold after two years because he drove it drunk and rolled it and he shattered the windshield. Kate is upset because he is now saying an item she posted for sale that they don’t need or use - he only thinks a small portion of the sale should go to those and the majority (literally 90%) should go toward a down payment on the UTV he wants. He told her she couldn’t put the remainder of her implants on a 0% credit card to pay off in 12 months because then he has to worry about a monthly payment. But he would be financing the rest of the $18-19k UTV he wants. She’s extremely frustrated because she feels he thinks monetary decisions are 100% his to make. She also doesn’t want another UTV right now because she viewed his last one as a “booze cruiser” and she has bad memories because he only ever used it when he wanted to cruise and drink beer.

The last conversation she had with him last night where he talked about using the money from selling something toward a UTV down payment, she said he told her basically to forget about her implants until she goes back to work and pays for them herself. He’s known for years she wants them and has always said she can get them, even once she stopped working, “after this is paid off” or “after we get this done” but he’s changed his tune. So now she’s angry and feels like he’s fine spending money as long as it’s on something for him. So...she told me she wants to open a separate savings account without telling him so she can put money into it secretly until she has enough. I’m torn because I totally understand where her frustration comes from. But in my relationship (and hers up until now) there’s always been transparency with money and I have a hard time thinking about someone intentionally hiding money from their spouse. She’s not coming to me to have me tell her what to do. She’s just talking it out because she knows I don’t judge her and I talk things through with her logically. What do you think?