Woman kicks ex-sister-in-law off of the family Spotify plan, accidentally sparks family conflict: 'She chose to leave the family, so she gave up any family-related benefits'

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Ely Bulnes • Writer and Editor
Sep 10, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

I remember the good old days, when all you needed to share streaming services was someone's username and password. Sure, some websites didn't allow you to stream music or movies at the same time from the same user, and it was beyond frustrating to log back in and find someone had binge-watched your show, leaving you several episodes ahead and spoiled. So it wasn't a perfect system by any means, but it was way cheaper.

Nowadays, most streaming services don't allow people to share accounts like this anymore. When it comes to Spotify, each individual must have their own account and user. However, they do offer a family plan: a group subscription for up to six people, letting them share the benefits of Spotify Premium for a discounted price. In this system, only one account holder pays the monthly fee. If the other people are children, they're probably not coughing up cash to pay off their monthly subscription, but if everyone in the family account is a grown, employed, bill-paying adult, then the expectations are a little different.

When this new bride kicked her ex-sister-in-law out of the family Spotify plan, it wasn't out of malice. The ex-SIL hadn't actually paid her share in a long time, and considering that she's the one that filed for divorce, it didn't seem fair for her to still be reaping family benefits. The logic is sound to me, but her brother-in-law didn't take well to the news.

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  • 01

    AITA for removing my sister-in-law from the family Spotify plan?

    C
    via AntonioGuillem from Getty Images

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    I got married a couple weeks ago, and we're in the process of merging our finances. This includes going through all of our subscriptions to reduce
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    redundancy and sync our bills. In doing so, we realized that my husband's brother's ex wife is still on his Family Spotify Plan. Because she is, we can't add me.
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  • 04
    My husband started the family plan about six years ago, for himself and his two older brothers. It allows him to have four separate accounts in the plan, and the cost per account is
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  • 05
    lower than paying for them individually. When the plan was created, each brother got an account and the last account went to the middle brother's wife.
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  • 06
    The plan is under my husband's name, so he is the administrator. He gets billed annually and the others reimburse him for their share.
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  • 07
    At the time, this made perfect sense. They all saved some money, the middle brother was the only one with a spouse, and although my husband and I had
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  • 08
    been together for about a year at the time, I was about to start grad school so I could still get the student pricing and thus had no reason to join the plan.
    via u/Toasted_Lizard
  • 09
    Cheezburger Image 10552073728
    via Bongkarngraphic from bongkarngraphic

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    Now, it makes less sense. I'm out of school, we're married, and the middle brother got divorced about a year and a half ago. We
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    can easily afford to keep my separate Spotify, but we also realized the ex never paid my husband back when the plan
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    renewed this year, so we agreed it made more sense to remove her and add me in order to simplify our subscriptions.
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  • 13
    So that's exactly what my husband did. He deactivated her, joined my Spotify to the plan, and texted his middle brother to let the ex know. We didn't text her
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    directly because she became extremely volatile during their divorce so the brother asked our whole family not to contact her
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    directly so all communication could flow through a specific moderated messaging app that their lawyers recommended.
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  • 16
    Cheezburger Image 10552073984
    via Andranik Hakobyan from Getty Images

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 17
    This has caused a family conflict. The middle brother is mad at us because he feels like we're forcing him to have another fight with his ex just so we could save
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    a buck. It's true that she will definitely be set off by this. Plus, he feels like she "deserves" to stay on the plan because they were together for a long time
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    (aka, longer than my husband and I). We can definitely see how it sks for him to have to reach out to his ex, and inevitably her off.
    via u/Toasted_Lizard

  • It was going to happen eventually. Even if she had been paying her share this whole time, it simply makes sense that eventually she would have to be removed from the family plan consider that she is, well, not part of the family.

  • 20
    On the other hand, the oldest brother agrees with us. She can't stay on their family plan forever just to avoid a conflict, it's healthier to sever these last ties,
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    she chose to leave the family (divorce was her call) so she gave up any family-related benefits, and there are logical reasons for me to join the plan now.
    via u/Toasted_Lizard
  • 22
    So, internet strangers, AITA for asking to join my husbands family Spotify plan, and thereby forcing his brother to have a conflict with his ex?
    via u/Toasted_Lizard

  • Maybe our narrator could reach out herself to her ex-SIL. There is no particular reason that her BIL would have to be the one to break the news.

  • 23
    Cheezburger Image 10552074240
    via IgorChus from Getty Images

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 24
    Meowth_the_kitten She wasn't paying for the plan sooooo she shouldn't be on it. Her leaving the family is also a good reason to kick her off but harsher to say!
    via u/Meowth_the_kitten
  • 25
    IllustriousBowler259 This is fairly straightforward: you say she hasn't paid her share this year. So, she loses the right to be kept on the plan.
    via u/IllustriousBowler259
  • 26
    Her ex (the brother) has told everyone not to contact her directly. You're not forcing him to get into a fight: he's created this bottleneck. He has my sympathy
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  • 27
    but he's wrong about her deserving anything. I can't blame him for not wanting to deal with her but he's not paying her share, either.
    via u/IllustriousBowler259
  • 28
    huntthewind1971 NTA. She's no longer family and she's not paying. She has no say.
    via u/huntthewind1971
  • 29
    I wouldn't even inform her about the change let her find out on her own. If she pitches a fit tell the brother just to tell her simply that it's a family plan, she's no longer
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    family. No further explanation is needed. It's up to him if he wants to placate her, but that's not on you. Not your monkey, not your ZOO.
    via u/huntthewind1971

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relationship advice family drama Music marriage spotify wife married life relationships husband exes divorce entitled family entitled people
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