Inheritance dispute with husband

Yeah, exactly this. The double standards when it comes to money are astonishing in some relationships.

If with the £300 your ‘income’ goes up then I do agree as you both pay with a fair percentage of both your wages you should put more into the joint account, not all but work out the wage percentages again.

Are you being unreasonable? I'm a bloke so normally I would side with the bloke but jees-louise you are not being unreasonable at all! Your initial plan of saving the passive income in an ISA for the future prosperity of DC is not only the best move financially but it's what your late relative would have wanted! Moreso because it's your decision, if you wanted to go nuts and spend it (obviously shouldn't) even that wouldn't be unreasonable, your inheritance your rules!

Also as for the mortgage boost, it depends if your interest rate is fixed, and if so, how long is it fixed? If its for the whole term then sure it would be good to pay more and get it out of the way sooner, but then you have to consider if husband might be tempted to get a remortgage then all your efforts will be in vein.

Your original plan is the most reasonable thing to do, I would suggest however looking into gold investment because while ISAs and Savings are reliable, they don't always beat inflation. These past few years have seen 3-4% inflation annually so unless your saving account has that much interest you'll actually be losing money.

If you had been pooling all finances from the beginning, I would say you should share. But he has been happy to have an extra £3600 in his pocket every year and not share with you or your joint children. Why on earth would your inheritance be his?

And yes, if this happened in my relationship, I would consider any inheritance dp received to be his money. We are not married and have separate finances.

That feels so selfish though, like I've got this big pot of money and I'm not sharing it, just the proceeds/interest. Don't think I could sleep at night!
But how else do I do it fairly?

Why aren't you listening? You don't need to do it fairly as your husband isn't being fair with his money.

He has been very happy for you to have less financially for years and to also raise his children.

Your relatives made sacrifices in their lifetime to afford you the gift of financial security in the form of inheritance. No, you’ve not made a sacrifice here for that money however you have lost those you loved. He is being very unreasonable here.

A clinical way to look at this is would these inheritances be fair game in a divorce? I’m not suggesting that however as you say you husband is ‘logistics’ then dazzle him with logic.

It's not selfish. You have to do this as he has set the tone for this. If you do not do it then it's you making all the sacrifices whilst he gets to do what he wants with his money.
And your children will still inherit any money you have if you write a will to that effect.. so it's not selfish in their regard. It could only be viewed as selfish towards him... but what else can you do if he has decided to be selfish himself? If you act in any other way you are putting yourself massively at risk.
What if he one day ups and leaves you? Your money you've put into the house would be partly his.. whilst you will never see all that extra cash he made and spent on himself or whatever he wanted.
You shouldn't contribute to his lifestyle like this if he refuses to understand the impact of you doing so or to even acknowledge how unfair it is

Keep the money

You may need it

Don't think I could sleep at night!
And yet he’s been sleeping easy for years keeping more of the family money to himself while you take on most of the family work!

Keep it all as separate as you can. This man does not see you as an equal member of a team.

Childcare IS work. If you do the majority of the childcare to allow him to work longer hours then you have provided him with a service which has saved him money. Would he be able to work those hours and not pay for childcare if he were a single dad? No. Therefore you have helped him earn the extra money he has earned and you are entitled to benefit from it.
He's acting like a twat.
It would even be so bad if he were truly 'what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours and keep everything separate kind of person' but he's only applying that to him!! He expects to benefit off your inheritance when he does not allow you to benefit off his wages when YOU HAVE FACILITATED HIM MAKING THAT MONEY. Emotion has nothing to do with it, nor do logistics.. he's absolutely trying to do a number on you and have his cake and eat it financially. Please please do not get sucked in to contributing to his life in ways which he won't contribute to yours. It's not irrational at all.. he's being borderline financially abusive. It isn't right at all. If he keeps his extra earnings then you keep your inheritance.. all of it.

If I was the higher earner so paid more into the bills every month, and then my partners income increased by £300 per month and wanted to save this away for themself rather than offer to equalise the bill sharing I would be pissed off. Especially if we had separate finances.

@icantwaitforsummer I dont understand why you are giving him 40k of YOUR inheritance in the first place???? he has more available to spend at the end of the month than you so what does he do with that?? give half to you???

Put that feeling aside, he's manipulating you. It's your fucking money!

Take the emotional side out. What is in the best long term interests of you as an individual and your children?

He's selfish. Ignore him.

He's had extra money for years. What did he do with it? Does he have savings?

If you choose to save yours and he chose to spend (for the last x years) that's his decision.

You've not reorganised your finances/contributions for a long time.

As a result, he's been better off for years.

He's only become interested now you've got more.

I can see why you don't feel like sharing.

I'd begin by looking at what income/expenditure in detail. Also pensions. Reset things to where they should be.

The comment about you not earning the money is extremely distasteful. But going by that reasoning, he shouldnt get any benefit as he's not earned it.

£100 a month is nothing. He sounds bratty and grabby. Love the way he likes separate finances when it suits and not when it doesn’t. Childcare is expensive and if you’re doing the lions share then he owes you for that as well

Put it to him like this :-

• he gets to keep his extra income because he has “worked for it” even though this leaves you on less per month because you have both decided to keep your income separate.
• you have inherited £80k and are kindly offering to share it with him BUT the income from the flat is INCOME, absolutely no different than if you suddenly got a pay rise and this was from your salary!

if he didn’t want to combine your salaries before (because he was better off by keeping it separate) it shouldn’t be any different now that you have an extra source of income.
The ONLY way I would agree to him having any say over the £300pm would be if you decide moving forward that all money is joint and shared/spent 50/50.

I bet if and when he gets an inheritance he’ll be keeping it all to himself and eyeing up some fancy car.

I hate men like this. They think earning a higher wage means everything. Most women work and do all the household chores and parenting.

If he acts like this I’d make sure that every last thing down to the minute is divided 50/50. All childcare, drop offs, school and club stuff, cooking, shopping and admin. Anything falling into my camp extra would be billed to him.

Does he have any nice qualities?

Also his 'I work for this extra money' business really gets up my nose. We are not paid according to how hard we work! Some of it is, some is luck of the field, some is having supporting partners who enable us to work hard etc. Nurses work just as hard as CEOs for example.

Me and dh share everything and always have, except his inheritance from his mum and dad. That's his to do with as he likes. He bought me a car, which was lovely but most of it he has saved.
If I ever get any from my mum (seems increasingly unlikely) it will be mine to do with as I like (prob divide half between our 3 kids) and invest the rest.

Also, who says you are feelings, he’s logistics? And who says you are selfish?

I don’t see that at all - he’s not trying to get his hands on your inheritance because of logistics, it’s because he feels entitled to your money. And as I and many others have said, he was fine with separate finances so long as he was the one ending up better off. I don’t think you are the selfish one here, you are just continuing to apply the rules he wanted. If that’s selfish, is he now admitting he’s been selfish for the last however many years?

I'd stick with your plan. It's not fair he gets more spends than you at all.
You are married with kids.
Your money should all be joint and you should have equal access to money left over from bills and commitments..
You getting this 300 would address that up until now it has not been equal.

Your plan sounds reasonable.