Does money gifted to me also belong to DH?

[Xitt]

Pregnancy and weight loss have left me with an apron of skin that’s constantly sore and affects my mobility and self esteem. I need it surgically removed but can’t afford it. Unexpectedly my DF has offered to pay for it. He also wants to pay for me to retrain so I can return to work.

DH and I have had a huge argument because he insists that any money gifted to me by my DF is OUR money because we’re married, so therefore he gets a say in how it’s spent. And maybe he might need some of that money for something. Or he might just not agree with spending it on my tummy tuck and retraining; maybe he’d prefer to pay it off the mortgage. We have joint finances and I’m currently a SAHM so his salary and savings etc is joint money. He thinks it’s unfair that he has to share his money but when I’m gifted some money I’m not sharing.

I sort of see his point but DF has offered this money for a specific purpose. AIBU to think it’s my money for my tummy tuck and retraining, and DH has no say in how it’s spent?

GP I mean

Your father isn't giving your family money - he is giving YOU an operation and giving YOU a training course. If I was your Dad I'd be mortified to think that your DH is thinking of spending this himself !

You father could say he will pay the surgeon directly and there will be no cash gift, he’s literally paying whatever the bill is.

Ditto everything else. If you need work clothes, he is paying that bill, not giving £££ for you to spend when you want.

what are the NHS doing about it? Have you seen a GP?
It’s not bad enough for the NHS to do anything. Apparently it can be maintained with regular washing, Canesten cream and sweat absorbent pads applied under my tummy flap, and pain medication when necessary. They don’t fund surgery if there are cheaper solutions. Unsurprisingly I don’t want to live like that.

You and DH CHOSE to have a baby
I didn’t choose to sacrifice my body and spend the rest of my life in discomfort though. That just happened unfortunately. We chose to have a baby so by extension we chose to pay the expenses of having a baby. Whether that’s nappies, clothes or repairing the damage the baby caused.

gingersausage feminists center issues which primarily impact/ disadvantage women, feminism is about centering females, not about insisting women behave identically to men, that women should strive to be more like men, nor that traditionally female roles such as being a stay at home mother to a preschooler are pointless and inferior to traditional masculine wage earning roles. I'm not sure what your post has to do with feminism.

The glaringly obvious feminist issue is the often overlooked physical and mental health impact on women of pregnancy, childbirth and the post natal period - this is a uniquely female issue. The other linked issues are unpaid female domestic labour and access to the labour market for women who wish to return to paid work after a period of unpaid domestic work should she wish to return to paid work - this is not a solely female issue but one that overwhelmingly affects women.

The human relationship issue is about attitudes to money and assets from different sources within the relationship. If the OP's current full time domestic and childcare role was agreed mutually surely all money and assets must be shared as the family functions as an economic unit. "What's your is ours and what's mine is mine" can't work unless there is such a significant surplus of "ours" that everyone has everything they want, and that is not the case here. Personal gifts are a gray area - of course each person should have personal possessions. The problem here is that only one of the couple - the op - seems to be "allowed" personal assets due to the way she sees different categories of asset. DH is not allowed to fritter money on luxuries but op is. That's not a feminist issue, it's just unfair on a 1:1 human level within a couple.

Regardless of who's earning and who has a rich/ indulgent daddy it's not fair if one of a couple is obliged to put every penny they receive into a joint pot whole the other keeps every penny they receive to spend on themselves.

@Myfeetarekillingme

I take it you are being ironic?

You don’t care if your mortgage isn’t paid? You deserve to be in a cardboard box
I don’t see the point of living in a lovely paid for house and committing suicide because I can’t cope with the constant pain and discomfort any more.

I agree with your going back to work. In that case your DF should just pay directly for your fees because you need to get back to work.

The tuck, your surgeon might advice you not to have more kids after you have one. Similarly, the recovery is very long and the potential for complications not exactly low. It's a HUGE operation. You will need help with your child/childcare. That is going to impact on your H who is currently supporting you all. Making a unilateral decision about that isn't on unless your DF is planning to also pay for all the childcare you'll need to recover (and the op itself is around £8-£10k).

On the one hand it comes across as your H likes you in your box but in the other you have a real 'What's mine and mine and what's yours is mine, too,' mentality.

You need to see a doctor if you're still having mobility problems - having a large baby isn't really here or there, I'm not a large person by any means (only 5ft., 4in and have never been fat) and had 3 large babies, but you may have put on a whole lot of weight and that could be affecting things.

I didn’t choose to sacrifice my body and spend the rest of my life in discomfort though
Firstly, I don't think anyone has suggested that (certainly not me).
Secondly, in the same post you've quoted me I've said that I think your DF should cover the operation directly if it's something he is happy to do for you.

My issue is that you seem to think that anything that's your DH's has to go in the family pot including bonuses, but any treats for you like a car are yours, any future inheritance you predict is going to be yours to do what you want with because you've decided he'll fritter it away, that if your dad wants to give you money and you want to retrain then that's also your money to do what you want with it. Essentially, your DH pays all the bills (rightly if a couple choose to have one parent at home) but he also has to put his bonuses into the family pot, whilst you stay home and get free financial top ups from your dad which are in some separate pot just for you.

You have an overall attitude to money and finances that is really quite unfair.

So, as a family you can’t afford any luxuries or holidays. But as an individual you can afford cosmetic surgery because someone else is prepared to pay for it? While as a family you are living hand to mouth?

Are there debts too? Other than the mortgage? Because you’re being very cagey about the state of the family finances as a whole.

As for not affording to work because of it all being swallowed in childcare, in the short term I sympathise with this view, however in the longer term the longer you stay out of work the harder it is going to be for you to go back there. Sometimes having a salary swallowed in childcare is the price you have to pay to ensuring that you stay in the employment market and are able to earn more when the childcare is no longer an issue.

And I speak as someone who was a SAHM for years and whose dh’s job made it impossible for me to work (but that’s another story.) but years on I found myself in a position where, having not worked for a number of years employers won’t look twice because they have people with current experience to employ. I don’t regret having been a SAHM for anything, however in retrospect if I’d known then what I know now I would have gone back to work even if only for a couple of hours a week, because now I’m older and am virtually unemployable.

When my sister went back to work to keep her career open I was doubtful this was a good idea as her childcare costs were high. Now she has a well paid job and her career hasn’t skipped a beat, where as others who will have given up work at the same time and not gone back for several years will either still be unemployed and unlikely to be able to find anything meaningful now, or will be several years behind in terms of their careers or potentially not even been able to return to those careers at all.

It’s worth definite consideration.

As for your DH, while I understand that the money is for you from your dad, I can also see why he is resentful.

But presumably if he inherited a large sum you’d be happy for him to spend it on luxuries for himself?

Do you love your DH?

Whoa!!!

The gift is the surgery, not a sum of money to go to your husband.

You will be better placed to retrain after you’ve had the surgery. You would also be better placed to replace your piece of shit husband.

Take the gift, lose the husband.

The longer you wait for surgery, the older you will be and harder the recovery.

Your husband is putting the mortgage and your immediate earning potential over your future health and happiness

Presumably he thinks when I eventually inherit DF’s house that’ll be half his too

You need to check where you stand on this. I wonder if actually it would be half his too legally if, for example you divorced.

I don’t see the point of living in a lovely paid for house and committing suicide because I can’t cope with the constant pain and discomfort any more.

If you've pinned everything on being fixed by a tummy tuck it's a bad idea. That op can give you some very nasty complications and you need to be well informed of this before any decent surgeon will consider it.

Hubby doesn't seem to appear to understand how important this is to you, and perhaps you are also missing how stressed he is with the mortgage. It's possible that by accepting money from your father for it it kinda brings him into a monetary row between you and hubby. Perhaps sit and have a long talk with DH about the joint finances situation and the stresses you're both clearly experiencing with this life change. It's always a difficult time for everyone
.

Also chat to your GP about the soreness with the skin.

Xitt your opening post suggests you have what used to be called a "maidens apron" - absolutely loads of us do and you really can avoid all discomfort by keeping the area under it clean. I've had 3 large babies like a pp and am usually absolutely on the side of any woman suffering birth injuries, but I'm struggling to understand how this is causing you mobility problems or pain. Occasional discomfort, a bit of faff and a change in which clothing looks most flattering yes. Mobility problems though? You lost 4 stone not 14...?

Female biology and being a woman can suck especially if a couple wish to have biological children, but do you fully appreciate the risks and recovery period involved in a tummy tuck?

Is the pain that you refer to physical or psychological?

I'm beginning to wonder whether you'd benefit more from therapy than retraining given you have no idea what to train as, and plastic surgery.

@Anothernotherone why are you explaining what I think to me?

@Xitt if your mental and physical health is that badly affected, fill your forms in for ESA and PIP. That way you will be keeping up your NI and pension contributions as well as contributing to your household finances.

"He may want to discuss the option of more dcs etc" - Surely that’s my decision as it’s my body? I don’t want any more.

"you've made it crystal clear that if you inherit your father's house, you have no intention of sharing that good fortune with your partner" - I might not want to sell my childhood home. I certainly won’t provide DH with cash to fritter away on luxuries. If I get DF’s house it’s for DC. Not for DH to spend. You could argue that DH is getting half because it’s going to his DC.

I can see why dh wants some input into the decision making. To me the above quotes show that you are dictating everything to him. Perhaps he would be happy to spend that money as you wish. He maybe just wants to be considered and his thoughts validated?

Perhaps he might want to pay the mortgage off and then use the spare money each month to save up for the op or pay for retraining. This way they get a much better longer term use of the money. We don't know. The dh isn't happy because as far as he is concerned, he gets no say or input. If the father had gifted her these specific things he might have a different attitude. But the gift was a gift of money to be sent on making her happy. Surely they together as a couple work out how that is best put to use. As pp's have said, as an outsider he might have a different opinion on her depression etc and maybe he thinks short term fixes aren't the best long term solution to making her happy. Maybe after discussion he might agree that she's right. But I can see why he's not happy in being shot down in any decision making whilst putting everything he gets into the pot without question. It all seems to be about the op if we delve under the surface.

@Xitt This thread is almost useless; it's full of people commenting on your original post which leaves out a lot of vital details.

You and your husband are not a partnership. You are not pulling together. It is difficult to tell whether this has started because he feels you are not sharing, or whether you are not sharing because you have never been a partnership, but the resentment on both sides is clear nad this is not a good environment for your child to grow up in.

Generally in England, all assets are taken into consideration in a marriage, and inheritances are not automatically excluded. That means that if you were to inherit the house and then divorce, it could be counted as a matrimonial asset. There are ways that it can not be taken into account, but you'd need legal advice on that.

If it's going to come to that anyway, and you're going to spend forever trying to protect what is "yours" from your husband, and you feel unsupported by him, you could save yourself a lot of pain by addressing that now.

Oh, and I’m being serious and practical, not snarky.

Pregnancy and weight loss have left me with an apron of skin that’s constantly sore and affects my mobility and self esteem.

Lose a bit more and get rid of the H.

Seriously, if he can't see the benefit to you & your MH and happiness of surgery & retraining, then he's a proper dick whose greed gets in the way of your happiness. Do you really want to be with someone like that?

Money earned is family money, but an inheritance or gift belongs to the recipient.

Of course a sahp is equal - they are providing not only childcare but the ability for their partner to work non standard hours, to maybe travel, with no pressure to get back for the childminder or cover illness's etc. The wohp gets to maintain career progression, pension etc. A sahp loses out in those respects.

Pregnancy and childbirth can cause injury. A man who loves his wife would want to fix that. Resentment of a gift to his wife that would take away her pain and give her back body confidence, says a lot about him and none of it is good!
Frankly I'm not surprised the OP is cautious about her future inheritance. She knows her DH doesn't have her best interests at heart.

Also a parent retains the right to spend their own money on their own child. They are under no obligation to spend it on their child's spouse.