About my children's inheritance?

[BonyPony]

My MIL sadly passed away a couple of years ago and left a large sum of money to my husband and kids. My FIL is very into financial management and has virtually total control of the account. We have to get his permission to withdraw any of the money.
FIL has been very generous and paid off our previous mortgage so we could move house. Husband hated the previous home, which increased his grief, stress and anxiety. We were happy to move but are now struggling financially with the bills from the new house. I cannot get this money out of my head. It is way more than I could earn in 10 years and it is just sitting there.
Meanwhile, I have been a full time at home parent for many years but husband is now pressurising me to get a job to make ends meet. I don't want to disrupt our home life, especially when all our financial worries would be solved by husband getting FIL to let him have the inheritance he was given!

Should I give up and get a job or stand my ground and insist husband fight for the money? (Also am I evil?)

I have my own issues. My own mother was disabled and always at home until she died when I was 18. I am terrified of childcare and desperate to avoid it for my kids.
This makes no sense, are you afraid you will die if your kids go to childcare? You know that sounds batshit, right?

I'm also terrified of taking on more hours. I am a fairly rubbish housewife and we get by on a wing and a prayer.
Do the organized mum method (google it). The internet is full with advice how to keep your house in order.

Whether you should get a job aside, if that money was left directly to your dh and children, I.e. not in a trust, your FiL has absolutely no right to hang on to it - it is surely illegal.

Presumably your Fil was the sole executor. Have you seen the actual terms of the will? If not you can order a copy - they are public documents. There is a fee to pay, but I forget how much.

No where near as horrible as wanting to spend your kids inheritance so you don't need to work

Worse than expecting your partner to do the double shift so that you can step up the lifestyle without impact to yourself?

The OP does work, most of it is unpaid as a SAHP. If the DH wants her to take on more paid work to prop up his preferred lifestyle then he needs to change as well and contribute more at home.

Of course this all assumes that the OP is able to get work which pays enough to offset additional costs.

This thread blew up quickly 😂

The main point is in the title. "Children's inheritance" not the OPs.

It’s really not helpful on these threads to compound this issue by telling OP there won’t be any hope of her getting a job anyway, it will just allow her to carry on in this damaging dynamic. Or she is a lazy scrounger.

The money is damaging their family. Badly. OP you have to live your life as if it was not there, and you can’t use it to avoid your fears.

@Butterymuffin we all have our issues from our upbringing.

Its doesnt mean we can avoid responsibility in our adult lives.

We need to deal with our issues if its impacting those we love.

In this case it is. Her husband is stressed about money AND she is considering taking her kids money. Rather than sort her issues. Or trying to sort them with the copious amounts if free time she has had

It's obvious neither OP or her dh are good at managing money. It's not surprising dh handed control to his dad.

Despite paying their mortgage off, they are still in the crap because of poor financial decisions that both of then made. They both need to sort it out.

Op all this is confusing.

Did fil pay off mortgage of last house thinking you might stay there and decease bills and living cost?

Then you move due to dh needs and over stretch again. And to boot had big holiday.

Fil thinks, ridiculous, and withholds cash from dh?
As pp said one might agree with fil but legally, he has no right to withhold.

Was dh money used on the mortgage pay off?

I suppose it comes down to how much was left to your DH and how much to your children. Ignoring the money left to your children because YABU to want to spend that, how much of your DH’s money went on buying the house and your holiday and how much is left.

Generally if you are living above your means and struggling to make ends meet, you need to do something more fundamental to make changes. Selling, and downsizing would be affordable and it sounds like what you need to do if you don’t want to work or get childcare for your children.

Whether you should get a job aside, if that money was left directly to your dh and children, I.e. not in a trust, your FiL has absolutely no right to hang on to it - it is surely illegal.

The dh gave him control. Of course its jot illegal.

Worse than expecting your partner to do the double shift so that you can step up the lifestyle without impact to yourself?

Yes the DH will have to contribute round the house, but it’s really not a big deal and something that 2 WOHP households manage all the time.

Buttery I agree and every moment with her dm must have seemed so precious.

Death does put everything into sharp perspective and makes other things seem trivial.

So your previous mortgage was paid off & now you need more support? Bottomless pit. Get a job, most of us have to pay our own bills.

Her kids are almost all at senior school - a part time job is not double shift - she doesn't have 3 under 5 or similar. If she is crap at house work -a cleaner would make a huge difference in 2/3 hours a week and would actually alleviate some of the anxiety she obviously is experiencing. She needs counceling as her thinking is totally off.

Oh wow

Sorry, but you really, really need to get some kind of job.

No where near as horrible as wanting to spend your kids inheritance so you don't need to work.

Rather reductive as an explanation of the OP’s motives? Perhaps, ‘so you don’t need to work AND do the majority of household chores and childcare’?

The OP does work, most of it is unpaid as a SAHP.

Of children who are almost teenagers.

I don’t understand the notion of being a SAHP for school age children.

That aside, deciding whether you’re going to be a SAHP should be a joint decision. Op’s DH wants her to get a job.

The posts arguing the pros and cons of childcare and jobs all seem irrelevant to me until the OP has sat down with her DH and then both of them together with the FIL.

OP needs to know: how much money DH has inherited in his own right. Whether there is any left and where it is sitting, DH is in charge of this money and needs to discuss privately with OP what he plans to do with it. She has every right IMO to make a case for this money funding her to be SAHM in the same way that she might make a case for privately educating children etc. This is for them to agree as a couple - they might not agree, but the discussion needs to be had.

Then, when that's done, they need to speak to FIL as a unit and tell him to pass control of DH's money back to DH so that he can spend it as he sees fit. FIL doesn't seem to have a legal right to keep the purse strings tight on DH's money.

Of course, DH might be spinning this yarn to OP because he doesn't have the balls to tell her to get a job. We don't know.

As regards the DCs' inheritance, OP needs to know how much this is and the terms of the trust so that she and DH can make decisions about it.

OP - you seem to know very little about the amounts of money involved and the terms under which it can be accessed - this would worry me and I agree that you seem to have been sidelined. I have always been a FT working mother, but I wouldn't criticise you at all for wanting to be at home with your children if this has always been a priority for you as a couple and is a financial possibility.

That's my tuppence worth anyway!

How much % of the inheritance is for the kids? Are you going to put it in JISAs/savings/trusts for the kids? Or are you wanting to have the whole amount to spend?

Yes the DH will have to contribute round the house, but it’s really not a big deal and something that 2 WOHP households manage all the time.

Its a big deal if he won't do it (as the OP expects).

I think if the OP had phrased her OP differently then reactions would be different. DH inherited money, DH pushed to step up the lifestyle, DH now doesn't want to spend his inheritance and expects OP to pick up the gap.

The kids money should be left alone (unless it makes a difference between having a roof or not) but the DH's money could be used to fund downsizing or buying extra help around the house or paying off some of the current mortgage.

Quite aside from all that I think the OP would benefit from outside work both for her own self confidence and more independence from the DH's decisions.

Perhaps, ‘so you don’t need to work AND do the majority of household chores and childcare’?

That she admits she cant can only just keep on top of, despite having most 30 hours a week to do it. No way does she spend 30 hours a week, in time time running a house and only just able to keep on top of it.

They can not afford their lifestyles after making poor financial decisions.

It's not up to the OP to spend her kids money to remedy this.

The family needs more money. She needs to work.

The lump sum left to your DH & your DC is THEIR money. Personally, I wouldn't regard any inheritance left to my DH as mine and we've been married 20 yrs.

YABU to even consider spending your DCs' inheritance which should be ringfenced until they reach 18.

Personally, I wouldn't waste an inheritance on normal day to day living expenses unless we were really scraping the barrel but it doesn't sound as if you are since you've upgraded your house and gone on a fab family holiday with some of the inheritance already.

Your issue is a DH issue if you have a problem with him being reluctant to spend the rest of his inheritance in accordance with YOUR wishes.

The OP does work, most of it is unpaid as a SAHP.

It's not paying the bills though is it. And that work can be done by both parents, and the three kids, in the evenings.

It's not the 1950s anymore. Trying to justify a woman not working by saying oh well she needs to do the housework is cringe worthy.

DH inherited money, DH pushed to step up the lifestyle, DH now doesn't want to spend his inheritance and expects OP to pick up the gap.

No. Regardless of what op says, she is an adult and she went along with this.

Pp has a habit of blaming everyone else for the position she is in. She is an adult.

Theres no way to word using your children inheritance better.

We have 3 children all of primary school age for at least another year.
I took that to mean the eldest is going into Year 6. How does everyone know the ages of others? Or have I missed a post and they are triplets?