Cash gift from parent - sharing with spouse

Wow so he gets his small wage all to himself and your left paying for everything including holidays etc and now he thinks he has some right to a financial gift/reimbursement not only is he a CF he’s also a leach and I’m guessing the savings you have are to cover him when he retires too he wouldn’t get a penny and I’d be getting him to contribute towards the household. Talk about a free ride

what a lazy cf he is.

sounds like a second marriage but he will still be entitled to your money if you split, especially if it’s seemed to be a long marriage.

The money would be “ours”. All our money is “ours”.

you paid for the trip, right? so you get the reimbursement.

He sounds like a bit of a sponger if you pay for everything already.

I think the point here is whether you generally have joint discussions about finances or because you are the main earner do you assume that what you say goes? If you do discuss it - then why is this different? If you do not, then isnt that like financial abuse? If your DH was a stay at home mum - and the husband refused to discuss his bonus and just assumed that he could do with it what he liked that would be criticised by MN. Legally - you are married and I guess he still gets 50/50 whether you like it or not.

This is exactly what women do in divorce situations too.

I don’t disagree with how you’ve decided to use this gift but your general finances are borderline abusive and if a friend said her husband was doing this I’d tell her she was being treated unfairly.

Either you’re a partnership or not - why get married if that’s not what you want?

I think this is pretty straightforward OP.
Your relative indicated that they wanted to cover the cost of your holiday.
You should therefore tell your husband that he needs to reimburse you for his share of the holiday cost, and you will then give him half of the gift.

I understand why you’re feeling reserved about sharing expenses given your past experiences. DH and I share money. Our salaries go into one account and the bills all come out of there. Any savings are both of ours. If one of us was gifted money by a relative, it would be considered joint by both of us.

If it was a couple of hundred, we would put it in savings or use it to buy something needed for the house/family without much discussion. If it was a few thousand+, we would have a discussion about it. We both feel comfortable that our money is joint though.

Did your relative gift it to you or both of you?

@Zivvy

circumstances here are different he works, just in a low paid job, and does not seem to contribute anything anyway, so why should he get some of this funding as well?

Thing is you haven't protected yourself from being financially burned have you? You got married. It's a legal contract, you've shared all your assets (presumably if you got divorced and it was seen as a long enough marriage). You may be not sharing day to day costs and spending but anything in savings, pensions, house assets etc is now legally part of the pot should you ever split... If you're worried about his attitude and you haven't been married very long divorce now ..... If not pray he doesn't take umbridge at some point and divorce you.....

'The gift was to reimburse the cost of the trip. I shall share with you the contribution you made to the trip. Oh look, thats £0.00. Off you fuck.'

What is the state of the marriage like otherwise?

I wouldn't be accruing too much investments or savings if it's not good, as he will benefit if you get divorce. I would get divorced. (I would say that regardless of male/female.)

We have pooled money but we also have the same mindset on saving.

Why are you paying for everything? That's not on, unless one of you is caring for young children.
The gift was to reimburse you for the trip - you paid for the trip, so it's yours. Only yours.

He's BU and I say that as the lower earner in my relationship.

Don't get me wrong, our money is 100% pooled into one pot and I am able to spend money from that as I see fit.

However, if we were in this situation (and we often are; both DH and I are from different countries so our trips abroad are often to our countries of origin) and DH were given money (and he often is; parents like to help out) I would not be busy clocking where that money went. I believe he usually keeps it in that currency for future visits. I trust him to do whatever needs to be done with it.

Same thing for trips to my family.

The only thing I'd consider is maybe putting some of it towards an actual holiday for your family, acknowledging that it's a gift for the family.

She wanted to pay for the holiday, so the money goes to wherever the holiday was paid from. If that's your account, that's where it goes.

I would return money to him in the same proportion to what he put in. If he put nothing, he gets nothing. You paid for the holiday so it's your money being returned to you.

It makes no sense for him to profit. Especially since you have invested it for the future.

Also he needs to do something about earning more and stop sponging off you.

I think this is a case of do you really want to be married to him? Honestly do you?

Given you are reluctant to get burnt again or share finances I’m surprised you did get hitched. The law doesn’t recognise what you agreed to privately so in the event of divorce that’s irrelevant.

If you do want to split you are probably going to be better to do it sooner and get advice before you talk to him.

At first I thought you were being reasonable but the whole set up doesn’t seem reasonable.DH have had various bonuses, I won £1500 once and sold pre marital assets and inheritances but we both talk about what we do with the funds. The money I won, I wanted to use for a holiday but we had only just been married and DH talked me into spend it on our new house. It was the sensible choice but we made it together

Good job that the OP shared all of her money when funding the trip, then, right?

If he's on a low wage, what they're doing amounts to the same. We keep separate finances ourselves because we have different styles and appetites for investment risk. My husband contributes more to the joint pot in proportion to his income, by for OP, I'd wager that if they did the calcs, her paying for everything probably leaves them with an equal access to spare money.

She chose to finance this holiday and the relative reimbursed it.

It's a nasty attitude to think you're entitled to more in those circumstances.

Obviously when you are married many people, including me, think it should all be in one pot. However, at present I am the breadwinner and in this situation there is absolutely no way my DH would expect any of that money, he would be telling me to treat myself with this unexpected windfall.
My feelings about would change depending on the reason your husband is isn't currently contributing, what the situation has been in the past and what it will be in the future.

As we have always shared finances I have no real opinion on the money.

However I imagine visiting an elderly relative of a partner would not be seen by many as a free holiday. A mumsnet poll would probably have returned answers ranging from a 'nightmare trip' to ' a waste of my annual leave'

It sounds far from a holiday and while he may not deserve any money i doubt he's been having the time of his life at the OPs expense.

Maybe the relative thoroughly enjoyed the company and wanted to gift the money to both irrespective of who paid

Is it beyond your comprehension that people have different experiences to you ? You sound quite insufferable

You don't have to mention it, you don't have to share it. Full stop.
And yes, I'm saying this as a happily married woman (for 20 years).
Nothing wrong to have something for yourself only. On the contrary, a necessity.

Fully agree with you. I know my husband wouldn’t even query this. He would be happy to have it in savings.

Ahhh, Yes. I see - well, I still think YANBU.

He wants to be "kept" without the responsibility of earning more. It sounds like he's not very good with money and you are.

And I think this is a very different situation from that of a woman staying at home to raise joint DC. You need to be very careful @Dexysmidnightstroller as his attitude is looking rather venal at the sight of a wodge of cash.