Inheritance or gift?

[YellowWolf]

My MIL recently passed away & left DH a sum in the region of £80k. He says she left it to him, & that it's not "the inheritance" as his father is still alive. We have been married for more than 20 years & have children. I know if we divorced the money would be included in the marital assets. I believe the money is ours. AIBU?

It might be time to reconsider this marriage, OP. If he's not prepared to put that money into savings for the future but is going to waste it on a daft investment and then live off your pension, it might be time to separate your finances legally.

If it was left in a will then it's an inheritance.

I think the issue here is two things.

• Your DH is wrong to not treat the money as family money
• You don’t believe your DH is good enough to make a success of his startup

Neither of the above are good

You’re right that it’s a marital asset if you divorce.

But until then, it’s his money. Gift, inheritance - call it what you like, it’s his money.

Honestly, if I inherit some money, or win on a scratch card, or (more likely!) get a work bonus, that money is mine - not ours. I’m potentially being made redundant next year, 5 figure sum will be mine, in my account. It’s probably relevant that this is my second marriage with no joint children.

If I inherited that level of money tomorrow, it would go into my pension. (bar £10K spent on a fab holiday!!) If my husband inherited it, I expect he would do the same re holiday, but then split it 3 ways as house deposits for his 3 boys.

We would talk to the other person about our plans, and listen to them, but bottom line - we would both see it as our own money, and expect to have the final veto.

What is different for us than you, is that we’ve always operated like this, and we have similar attitudes to money. I might choose pension whereas he’d support his boys... but neither of us would be investing into a flaky looking start up when we’d backed 2 failures before! And we also don’t have your history where your* money (bonus, redundancy) has been treated as joint.

So although I think it’s right that it is his money - I would seriously question whether we had an outlook on life and relationships that was compatible with staying married.

*I’m assuming that he’s not an inexperienced high risk high reward investor who can afford that profile. I’m not against losing on 2 start ups and then winning big on a 3rd! I’m more concerned with whether you can afford that strategy. I’d say that as he’s relying on your pension (cheeky fucker!) that he cannot afford that strategy

It ought to be the "family's". Marriage is about sharing. What's mine is yours and what's yours is mine. IMO.

@Ellisandra

that's a shocking point of view., On that basis you starve your stay at home wife because she doesn't contribute anything to the house. If I was lucky enough to win the lottery, then it wouldn't be "I won the lottery", it would be "we won the lottery."

Did he expect/pressure you into putting your money towards renovations and so on or was it your choice.? If it was your own choice then he is perfectly entitled to use his for his own choice.

every bonus and redundancy money I've ever gotten has been used for family holidays and house renovations. I've even given him chunks of cash
Yet he views his money as completely his to do with as he pleases.

I think you need to take a good look at what kind of person he is....and rethink spending any more of your money/inheritances on things that benefit him.

I’m totally with @Elisandra, that’s how we operate too.

On that basis you starve your stay at home wife because she doesn't contribute anything to the house

Jesus, dramatic much. That's nowhere near what was said.

Besides which, I am sure sahms do contribute to the household.

@Gth1234 I’m at a loss as to who is starving their stay at home wife?!

I earn much more than husband. He actually has more disposable income than me because he pays nothing towards our joint set up so it evens out as 50/50 spends, and then I put some of my spends into a pension - which he’ll benefit from.

The scratch card was probably a bad example. Because it’s “luck” money, not earned by us or coming from our families, actually I’m sure we would just split that. Not necessary literally put half in each account - we’d make a decision together what to buy / how to save.

But when I get my annual, I choose to put that into my pension - he doesn’t get a say.

He’s likely to inherit about £50K - I wont consider that mine at all, and wouldn’t question him using it as house deposits for his kids. We’ve chatted before and he’s said that’s probably what he’d do.

As I said - I think it’s different as it’s a second marriage with no kids together but kids of our own.

He’s certainly not starving - he does very well financially out of me, if you want to lol at it like that. We don’t! The only reason he could afford to just give his inheritance to his kids for house deposits when he has no pension other than state, is because I do have a pension that we’ll share!

But fundamentally - we see the money as separate, not joint. The difference here is that we BOTH feel like that, and act reasonably within that framework.

We don’t cherry pick like OP’s husband - my inheritance is mine, your bonus is ours

@ellisandra
Well, seems strange to me, but if it works for you.

so if you wanted a shiny new Porsche with your annual bonus, you would go ahead and get it without discussion ….

@Ellisandra, I wouldn't be happy with that setup. He's able to spend all his own money without having to consider bills or the future. That's not how adults should live.

@Gth1234 essentially, yes.

But remember that I said it works because we both act reasonably within that framework.

Neither of us is starving. We both have fun money. We both also have similar interests. I wouldn’t buy a Porsche for me if he was walking 5 miles to work every day because he couldn’t afford to repair his car!

Last year, I wanted to spend most of my bonus on improvements to my campervan. I told him what I was thinking, and he was over the moon! He loves my van as much as I do.

Next year, if I said I wanted to get expensive braces... he would say go for it, it’s your money.

But he knows that actually, without any need for discussion, I’m not getting braces next year because I’m supporting his son through uni (my income fucks up the means tested loan!).

I don’t want to sound smug, because my first marriage was bloody awful! But in my second marriage, there is respect and love and shared approaches, and no hypocrisy about when the money is joint and when it isn’t! And that’s the problem I see here - it’s not a team.

In your position OP I would tell him to do what he wants with the money but make it plain that you will not be sharing either your earnings or pension in the future.
I can’t believe he is going to invest £60k in someone’s startup business when he doesn’t have a pension of his own.
Is he prepared to see a financial advisor, because he really needs some independent advice.

Your views about its use should be taken into account but ultimately he gets to spend it as he wants this

To me all money coming in is joint and I put my inheritance into the joint account recently. But whether you have separate finances or not, 80k is life changing and a part of me would actually feel it was a bit selfish if all of it went to improving his life alone. But I accept others may feel differently

I'm with those that think it's odd that it's not part of the family money. But it depends how your finances are set up and what the normal is for your relationship.

There are clearly those here whose relationships work with separate finances and those (myself included) who put everything in the pot. Whatever works for each relationship. However, if he's expecting to share your pension and future earnings then he has to share now too.

And I agree with BarbedBloom that it is a large sum of money and if my DH didn't think I could have any any input into how best it could be used then I'd be thinking what a selfish git he was being

I’m a bit torn here. On the one hand I understand why you consider it to be family money, however I received 3 inheritances in 2 yrs. I wasn’t sure what to do with the money, so whacked it in a savings account while I decided.
Me and DH did discuss it, but in fairness I always considered it to be ‘mine’. It was more then £50k. I used some to fund the kids ISAs for a couple of yrs and the rest remains an emergency fund.
I wouldn’t have let my DH ‘spend it’ on something I didn’t agree with. But I believe if I had wanted to spend it on something he didn’t agree with I may have done it anyway.
Not that I would ever have spent it on anything remotely risky. I’m far too cautious by nature.
I should also say at no point did DH consider it family money.

happy it isn't his start up. It is a friend who has already hd two failed start ups.

I may be projecting, but my husband wasted his inheritance BECAUSE he was so adamant it was nothing to do with me, panicked and acted recklessly.

It’s fine to say ‘it’s mine’ and it would have been absolutely ok with me if he’d spent every last penny on himself.

But now he’s angry with me about it having all gone. And if he hadn’t been so adamant that I didn’t get a single say, if he’d just spoken to me, then maybe we’d have paid off the mortgage or not be spending our another year living in a half finished renovation. Instead, he’s hurt me and broken his parent’s hearts.

Ops husband can invest in the start up if he really wants to but that also means he’s changing the dynamics of their financial agreement. And that’s tough and relationship threatening.

If my partner gets a gift or inheritance from their family member, then it's up to them on how they want to use that, I wouldn't dare dictate to them how to spend it, even especially if it came off the back of the death of their mother.

It's definitely his.

However he is not an isolated individual, he is part of a family, and so decisions made about individual wealth should be made together for the benefit of the family, not just the individual.

A friend's dh became ill unexpectedly, she wasn't able to work due to a disability. He died 3 days before his mother. The inheritance her dh would have got went to her bil as it was left to her dh and not her.