Wedding gift of 7 million dong instead of 1 tael of gold, I was spoken to harshly by my best friend

I have a group of close friends who have been friends since elementary school. In college, 3 out of 5 of us shared a room.

Having gone through many important milestones in life together, we cherish this friendship. The group set a convention: “When one friend gets married, the others will each give 1 tael of gold.”

I was the first one in the group to get married in 2016. The other four attended, even slept with me the night before the wedding, and took me to my husband's house the next day.

And as promised, I received 4 gold bars as wedding gifts from 4 friends.

The next three of us got married in 2020, 2021, and 2022. We kept that promise, each giving you 1 tael of gold.

The last friend in the group got married not long ago. I got married 120km away from home, and had just given birth to my third child a couple of months ago, so I couldn’t attend. I felt very guilty for being absent.

This time, I did not give you 1 tael of gold as promised, but put 7 million VND in an envelope and asked you to help send it to the bride.

To be honest, my husband and I just finished building a new house and had to borrow more than 300 million VND. I am struggling to raise a small child, and my older child is constantly sick, so we are always in need.

I calculate, 1 tael of gold now costs nearly 8 million VND, giving you 7 million VND in cash as a wedding gift is not a big loss for me. Not to mention, the year I got married, the price of gold rings was over 3 million VND/tael, so giving you 7 million VND is fine.

Unexpectedly, right after the wedding, I received a message from the bride: "Don't you update the gold price?".

My best friend asked me why I didn't give 1 tael of gold but only put 7 million VND in cash in an envelope. Meanwhile, the current price of gold rings is nearly 8 million VND/tael.

She also emphasized that it was okay if I was busy with children and couldn't attend the wedding, but if the wedding was so short-lived, it would be difficult to be friends in the future.

That message left me stunned and disappointed. My current predicament was not something my best friend did not know, so why did he question me right after the wedding over a few coins?

I was so upset that I took a screenshot of the message and sent it to the group chat of 5 friends. I calculated everything and said: "If I don't have to go to the wedding, then you won't be at a disadvantage."

The chat fell silent, everyone read the message but no one replied. My best friend just sent me a private message: “You said that, I know how you are”, then blocked my message.

That move was a declaration that this friendship was over.

These past few days, I have been extremely confused. I used to think that if I considered wedding gifts as “debts”, there would be many occasions to pay them back, such as: children’s full moon, housewarming, illness, etc.

Why do you have to pay in full on the wedding day? Are you blaming me without understanding how difficult and deprived I am?

Is it because I don't understand or is my best friend too calculating?