How would you feel and what would you do, if you found out your partner had a secret savings account of 35k

[Stuckinthemiddlewithyouuhoh]

So it’s not me, it’s my dad found this out about my mum

She stopped smoking, saved the money she wasnt spending on smokes.

Partner or spouse? Makes a difference.

Still double standards as simple as that

Sometimes there is nothing wrong with double standards if it protects the vulnerable. and thise in a weak position.

I agree the ideal solution is to have a happy and open relationship with each other.
However realistically not all marriages are like that.
I dont know the situation with Ops parents but the relationship board is full of women who want to escape abusive situations with their children. Often their partners wont pay a penny towards the children in the event of a split.

Also there are plenty of couple who keep their finances completely separate and just put a% into the bills account and do t have a clue how much the other has.

But must we always default to the position that the woman is a victim regardless?
MN is a thread primarily for women. People generally tend to post when they have a problem. MN is not a fair representation of life. I can't stand the knee-jerk reaction that all men are abusers and all women are poor souls who need to be looked after.

But must we always default to the position that the woman is a victim regardless?
MN is a thread primarily for women. People generally tend to post when they have a problem. MN is not a fair representation of life. I can't stand the knee-jerk reaction that all men are abusers and all women are poor souls who need to be looked after.

I absolutely understand what you are saying. I dont think all women are in a potentially abusive marriage and I certainly dont think that all women are victims.
However after years of working with families that need support i have seen some really horrible shit being dealt by some men towards their families.

Ive seen women on the verge of malnurishment because they arent 'allowed' nice food like the rest of the family or they arent allowed to have nice clothes. Funny enough the husbands are well groomed and fed. The list goes on about meanest and pettiness that some women suffer.
So I am not talking about every woman who is in a relationship, I thought I made that clear, but for those that didn't understandwhat i was saying i'll say it again , there are women ( and children)that are a lot more vulnerable than others and if they manage to save a bit of money here and there to help them out of hell I fully support them.
As I said, I dont think thats the case in Ops mum and dad's situatiom but the conversation has opened open beyond their circumstance.

Not everything is about being equal, it should be about being fair and right.

Still trying to justify theaft from a marriage, if he'd spent 35k gambling people would be saying LTB, etc. it's the same principle. She has denied her partner of 35k lets not sugar coat it and try and justify it becaue of lived experiances and structural inequality, because what the OP says is they both have average jobs and go on holiday once a year and he's not abusive - if this was being saved to get away from a dickdead it could have been done well before £35,000. if she wanted more in her pension pot it could have been added to a pension, and made upto £42k with pension releaf. It must be nice to not be aware that someone has broken trust in their life partner either that or privilege, I'm not sure which.

Whoss money is it? Has she been contributing her fair share of bills from paid employment.

This! Is it a happy marriage? Did she work? A lot of women of a certain generation were encouraged to have a 'run away' fund! (Wish I had one!)

If it’s still in her bank she hasn’t stolen anything because it hasn’t been spent. It’s sitting right there

Say £15 for 20, if you smoke 20 a day that's £115 a week if you smoke 40 twice that, so £5,000 or even £10,000 a year it adds up really fast. Well done for her on giving up and rewarding herself by positively saving the money she would have wasted. Had she said she was saving her cigarette money? Possibly just in passing and maybe years ago. But he just had no comprehension how it had added up and she had never mentioned it?

When the playing field is level double standards are unjustifiable; as the playing field remains far, far, far from equal I find it very easy to stand behind them

She has denied her partner of 35k lets not sugar coat it

Would it have been his if she'd set fire to it?

So she’s saved it over the course of her life with her own earnings, maybe it’s a retirement fund for things she’s always wanted to do but couldn’t because she was rushed off her feet looking after the house and raising his children whilst working full time to also provide for them. Dose he have form for spending her money for her or dictate if what she can do with it. She’s obviously not planning to divorce him as it would be halved with everything else. I think it just makes her feel safe.
Dose he still smoke?

My mother always had a post office account as a back up fund. My father knew about it but I don't think he knew what was in it, probably not a lot. She also always had her own bank account when it became more common. This was very much back in the day when everyone was paid in cash, they both worked full time. It was always considered sensible for a woman to have a bit of money put away, just in case the family fell on hard times.

She has denied her partner of 35k lets not sugar coat it
Would it have been his if she'd set fire to it?
Exactly.
She hasnt puffed 35k away, its in the bank.
I agree that it's odd that its ok that it would be OK for dh to know she smoked 35k over the years but not ok that she didn't smoke it but saved what she would have spent anyway.
As far as the dh is concerned the money is gone anyway, whether its on a packet of 20 or into a cash isa.

Even if she has it in cash, today, sat in the back of the drawer. It's still not been available as part of their joint funds; he has been denied access to the money. If it's in her own bank account that he has no access to, he has been denied the money. She's not come to him with a fantastic surprise or a windfall; she was found out. She's not the innocent party here. Yet people are still trying to justify it by saying well she could have smoked it away.

It's joint money. They sound like the traditional couple, going by the comment about not being able to have a bank account. What was this, the early 70's? it could put her mom anywhere from 55-75.

On the information here, not systemic inequalities, she's in the wrong.

I wonder how many hours of your life you've spent thinking through how you would cope if your partner walked out and left you with the kids.

I'd do nothing at all, as it wouldn't be anyone else's business.

Jolly well good on that person is what I say!

It's quite modest life savings. He could try being grateful that one of them has had the nous to save something.

I'm assuming here that he hasn't also opened an ISA and put his former smoking money into it.

If he had known about her savings account, I wonder whether the decision on how to spend it would have been a shared one.

I do, in a sense, have savings that DH doesn't know about, because he doesn't bother to ask. It's on a spreadsheet in case I fall under a bus, but he wouldn't currently know what's in it.

Is that abusive?

At what stage does "not mentioning" tip into "concealing"? I guess it depends whether the money was needed elsewhere?

Did your parents have shared finances before this? If the family has been struggling & she's been sitting on this money, I can see why it could be an issue. But if not, good luck to her.

I’m of the old fashioned opinion that partners are meant to share money, so I think it’s weird.

A properly old fashioned opinion is that all the money is the man's money. You're being quite modern.

As long as there was no struggle with day to day living and there was fair contribution from both then there's no issue if it was her own money that she saved.

Everyone should have some separate savings for that rainy day, whether they are male or female. There should be no obligation to disclose it either.

She deserves to keep the money she saved from stopping smoking for herself as a reward for beating her addiction.