AIBU to expect my husband to pay me back for deposit money?

If he doesnt pay it back, the OP is going to lose far more than £30k in lost compound interest over xx years.

She's being financially astute.

As soon as we got married (almost 40 years ago) we always had joint accounts. We never had his or her money. Big purchases are discussed but generally we don’t monitor each other’s spending.
A word of caution to those who keep finances separate when one of you dies the surviving spouse cannot access that money.
Each to their own but I find it strange to loan your husband or wife money.

Similar story here @QuirkyHorse. My father left my mum and died 6 months later, leaving his share of the family home (held as tenants in common) to his mistress of 6 months. The fall out from that was huge and I vowed I’d keep control of my own money. Sure we may divorce and have to split assets, but whilst we’re still married, I’m keeping control of my money.

Having seen my father screw my mother over financially, there is no way on God's earth I was going to pool my finances.

That said, dh and I are very much on the same page financially. If we can't afford it, we don't buy it.
We do have a joint business account but if he ever needs to take out of it, he asks me to transfer it out to him, as it's me who does the financial side of the business.

I can't imagine having a joint personal account, my dh really doesn't need to know how much my horse costs me a month 🙈🤣. I certainly wouldn't expect him to pay it if we had a joint account.

In what way did I insinuate that my union is “superior”? I have certain beliefs about marriage (none of them particularly outlandish!) one of them is that finances should be joint. Another is that husbands and wives should be faithful - if I say that “I don’t see the point of getting married if you’re going to cheat on your partner” does that also mean I’m acting superior?!

I can only conclude that your perception is a reflection of your own insecurities.

Any savings you made or investments you've made during your marriage are half his when it comes to divorce. Guessing id expect it back to though.

If the business booms will he be keeping all of the profit as ‘his’ money? If so then yea, you get the £30k back

DH and I run our finances separately. There are a few reasons for this. 1) Most of our savings and investments are in ISAs and they can’t be held in joint names. 2) He has a different attitude to risk than me. He does a lot of active management of his investments. He’s an ex currency trader so is in and out of shares regularly, whereas I prefer to hold more cash and invest in one or two funds. 3) He has a very good DB pension scheme he can access in 18 months. I have a DC scheme which whilst well funded, will pay a much smaller pension. 4) He’s likely to inherit well from his parents, I won’t.

This means jointly, we have a good mix of cash, passive and active investments but I want to manage my own money in line with my own risk profile. My cash is also ear marked for paying off the mortgage/school fees/uni costs if one of us loses our job. Of course we discuss what we have between us, but I don’t want him interfering with how I manage my money and I don’t opine on which shares he’s planning to buy/sell. It works for us and I’d want £30k back that I’d lent him too.

And for us, separate finances have always worked. We've never argued about money. On these threads, people with joint everything always struggle to understand that. From my perspective, I think great if joint everything works for you. Crack on. You don't need to insinuate that your union is superior to those of us who do things differently.

Agree. But you shouldn't have discussed with your friends, OP. None of their business.

That poster was quoting @ChaliceinWonderland.

They have put 'honey' in quote marks to make a point. It isn't fair to tell them to fuck off - tell the poster who used it originally.

Inheritance, savings before marriage

I think the issue here is discussing your personal finances with friends.
If you and your husband are both happy with the arrangement, there's no need for third party opinions.

This isn't Dragons Den (and even they would want something back for their investment).

It's to start a business, of couse it needs repaying / replacing.

No wonder there's a thread on here each week from a woman who has been shafted financially by a man, seeing some of the responses.

We've been together for 36 years and ad two children we have hone through the richer or poorer bit of our vows several times!!!!
Right from the beginning we had a joint account where everything went in. We didnt have a savings account for a while as we were literally hand to mouth.
As years have tolled on dh took out an 80k remortgage for a buisness and that has been the best investment ever for us.
There have been times when dh has had poor health and ive propped up the finances and theres been times when I've taken a madive pay cut and he has supported me. There has never been any ' well I paid gor this and you owe me'

I remember a colleague commenting that his wife had forgotten to pay him back for a tin of cat food he had bought for his cat and that absolutely blew my mind!

People get married for all sorts of reasons. The "worldly goods" thing is mostly in the bin now, alongside promising to obey...

this

I think lots of people have already said this, but it’s all irrelevant. If you divorce all assets/monies/pensions/investments etc will be split 50/50 regardless of who had what, earned what, or spent what.

For a franchise deposit yes I’d expect that back once the business makes enough to cover it - more on the principle that that needs to be taken into account in the business’s finances, he can be kidding himself it’s successful if that never has to be recovered.

The rest of it - you have equal fun money. But your fun money has been after you’ve saved in your name so actually you did not have the same disposable income (to spend or save). So unless one party is rubbish with money this does not sound very equitable. If it was the husband squirrelling away money and the wife with little savings I’d think that unfair. Unless this was in the earlier days of your relationship, as you are still young.

For what it’s worth we don’t have a joint account but we split the bills so we have equal left over for spending or saving. So I pay the big bills as I earn more. When money was tight when we had huge childcare bills I used to work it out in detail, nowadays it’s just roughly balanced.

We have separate finances but do have a joint account for bills. We split the bills/ any fun money and big purchases down the middle. My DP earns slightly more but we both prefer to keep things this way. Similar to you I don't understand couples who share everything, especially couples like us who have got together later in life. Every single couple I know who do joint finances, one person comes out of the arrangement worse and is unable to save their own money or wages and it leads to tensions.

Me personally, I wouldn’t have given it to begin with. If you don’t have the equity to start a business of that size, you shouldn’t be starting a business of that size. (Dh started his business with about £1500)

But yes, I would expect the money to be repaid if I wasn’t a business partner. It would be very different if it was our house. We put in varying amounts for the deposit (I put in more than Dh), Dh pays about a 1/3 more of the mortgage each month and pays for nearly all repairs and maintenance. No one is keeping score. We own as joint tenants.

But a business is not so much a marital asset and if you aren’t an active partner, no that money should be repaid (and properly accounted for in accounts too).

With all my worldly goods I thee endow? For richer, for poorer?

I know those aren’t said in civil ceremonies but the whole point of marriage is that you become a new family and share all of your assets. You tie yourself to a person romantically, financially and legally. Otherwise what’s the point? You don’t need a certificate and witnesses just to promise each other you’ll stay together for the rest of your lives, potentially have children, but otherwise keep everything separate.

We've been together 34 years, married for 23. Never had a joint account. If I was in your situation, I'd want the £ back though.

Your set up is absolutely not what I’d consider an acceptable way of dealing with finances as a couple for my relationships. I can’t imagine being in a partnership where one person was building up significant personal assets and investments and the other wasn’t.

But per the rules of your system, it’s reasonable to expect the money back.

Legally money within a marriage is shared and so this is about your own internal beliefs in your relationship. Lots of couples share all money (we do) so it would be a bit alien to those that operate like this. But if it works for you and everyone is happy then I wouldn’t worry about it! You do you.