I don't need advice. Just want to vent and am hoping I will feel better afterwards, since it's been about three days and continues to nag at me. This is the very longwinded story about what went wrong with an offer to treat our hosts.

Hubs and I were in NYC for a few nights over the holiday weekend. The hosts are university pals from my husband's college days, so we've known them for quite a long time, we've seen both each other's kids grow up, and they have had us stay with them a few times a year when we go down to New York. They have a really nice loft apartment and we always have a good time.

They are both extraordinary cooks, wife particularly, and she also works in finance, so our first night we characteristically ate a great dinner, but it was very late because she got home around seven and then started in cooking. For our final night there, this time, I wanted to be a thoughtful guest and give her a break with cooking and cleaning up. I told my husband I thought we should take them out somewhere, or else pay for some takeout we could eat at home. Hubs said it wasn't necessary, but I dug in my heels and said we should offer it, so I did.

I actually suggested this Peruvian restaurant Suz and her husband had recommended that looked very very good. Our hosts are really sophisticated foodies and have lived in NYC for over two decades, eaten all over the place as well as being great cooks. They are Japanese but both very international and sophisticated. Anyway, the wife, A, suggested this Japanese restaurant in the East Village we have been to before with them. I was concerned because Japanese restaurants are expensive...and I wasn't worried about spending a decent amount, but I knew it would be more than that. But we went.

Of course we ate and drank a lot, together with their college-age daughter who was home it was five people, and then the bill came and with gratuity it was about $450. Yes, it's tacky for me to mention the amount but to me it's germane to the whole story. My heart sank. The husband, T, grabbed the check from us but of course we grabbed it back. Had he said, "Let me contribute something," it would have been a different story, but it seemed like he was planning to pay for all of it--at least that is how I read it, and my husband didn't do or say anything apart from grabbing the check back from T either. So we paid the whole thing. Later on our friends took us out for karaoke and drinks.

So coming right down to it, could we afford it? Technically yes, it's not going to break us. It will be money I could have spent on something else much more meaningful to me--if not clothes, a bunch of meals out (rather than one), a big chunk towards a plane ticket for the SoCal meetup, five private dance lessons, etc. So what I'm saying is, I just feel like it was such a waste, and the whole thing got out of control, which was partly my fault. Of course I didn't say anything at the time, and even let it go. I think I got upset the next day, back home, when hubs and I were talking about it and he blamed me for this happening....he felt like he told me it wasn't necessary to treat them, by which he meant that the wife loves to cook and would have been happy cooking for us after work. And I didn't listen to him. And I missed cues to have them contribute. Etc. etc.

So now I am feeling like I am a shmo, my husband is not supportive, and these people didn't mean to but somehow were grossly insensitive and did not consider that it is wrong to bring people to a restaurant where the tab is likely to be extraordinary--couldn't they have accepted my offer of takeout, pizza, or even a lovely meal someplace where the bill would have come to about $150, even $200, which would have been fine? They have been extremely generous to us over the years by having us stay with them, and we've saved so much money that might have been spent on hotels, enjoying their hospitality, amazing holiday meals and parties, fun, relaxed time in a family setting with their friends and their dog, etc. So I'm trying to think of it that way....that this is a payback for all they've done for us over the years.

I should add that we have always brought them nice things when we visit. This was just one more token of appreciation I wanted to express to them, and now I end up feeling terrible about it, and I suppose I'll just have to let my disappointment slowly ebb away. I am hoping it won't affect how I feel about them, because they're really nice people. I am just intensely annoyed with myself, them, and my husband now. It's been three days.

I know Angie says, "It's only money," and I know she's right. I need to really believe it.