Who is being unreasonable in this situation?

[WotATwot]

Husband and wife, they share two children and husband has two older children from a previous relationship that wife has known since they were 5&7 and they are now teens. The two shared children are young still.

Wife gets a large payout for an accident she was in (no lasting issues but pretty horrible at the time) and says she wants to keep it aside for help toward a house deposit or uni each for their two children so puts it in their bank accounts.

Husband thinks this is unfair because they are very unlikely to be able to do the same for his older children and neither is their mother. He thinks even if it's not a similar amount, DSC should be given some help if the younger DC are going to receive so much.

Husband thinks there is a theme ongoing in the relationship where his wife shows little care for his older children since hers were born and wishes she would want to include them more with things and thinks it's upsetting that she's never seemed to care or shown an interest in DSCs going to uni or having any savings for their futures.

YANBU - wife is right. She should prioritise her own children and is entitled to give what she likes to them without having to even it up.

YABU - husband is right. Wife should give DSC something even if not the same amount to make it fairer.

Wife is not unreasonable for choosing how to spend the money (on the face of it as there is no other info about how finances generally work).

Husband is not unreasonable for feeling sad his wife doesn't want to include step DC much/show more interest.

Sometimes in a blended family situation some children end up with more than others because of the amount of ‘parents involved’ and extended family. It’s never going to be fully fair.
Whats the situation with the teen’s mum? Is she in a financial position to pay for uni or will they have to take out loans?
You can’t expect them to take out thousands of pounds worth of student loans whilst in the future (if your dc go to uni)!you are planning on helping financially. The same applied to other things such as house deposits etc.
Its complicated. You are free to put the money in an account but long term the contributions from your home to the teens should be fair.

How much does DSC’s mother give to the younger children?

This is basically all there is to say! Both have a point.
This is part of the problem with bringing families together, it can be very difficult to balance everyone’s needs and wants.

I think you need to think about your approach to sharing money in general as a starting point.

With us, all money is shared totally equally. Over the years that's included an inheritance for me and a fairly large redundancy payment for DH. In both cases, the lump sum was thrown into our family pot and considered as ours, and jointly spent. We don't really have any concept of 'his' and 'mine' when it comes to money.

Therefore if this was us, there'd be no question of it being 'my' accident payout, it would just be 'our' money. Hypothetically, if DH had two dc and we had two together then I'd consider it fair that he provided for his 4 dc and I provided for our 2 with our equal shares. So if there was £100k then proportionally that would be £12500 for each of his two dc and £37500 each for our dc together.

If you don't share money as a starting point though, so this money is considered just as yours to do with as you like - then you should feel free to save only for your two dc. Any similar windfalls DH then gets in the coming years like bonus, redundancy, inheritance etc, he can choose himself, completely independently, what to spend it on.

neither unreasonable but wife can do what she likes with her money presuming this is how all monies coming to just husband or just wife get split

Well, incare about my friends' dcs and their long term career and educational goals do I woukd also be upset if my partner didn't care about mine.

If you mean just in the context of money, it's more complicated. I don't think you would need to give them an equal amount.necessarily but I can see why, assuming.you are married and finances are joint, he would expect all the dc to benefit from a windfall.

If two of my children were being treated so much better than the other two, as a parent, I would do all in my power to rectify that. I wouldn't allow the two who were less "lucky" with their other parent to be made to feel like they were second best or that I'd "upgraded". I'd love them just as much and want them to know that.

So, whilst the wife isn't wrong to prioritise her own children, not at all, the husband isn't wrong to be unhappy about that. And if I were he I'd ensure that balance was redressed somehow.

OP what would your reaction be if your DH now directed his monthly savings only to the older children? Or if he did that in the first place?

It’s important to consider how you would feel in the reverse. Ultimately I don’t think it’s fair to treat step children differently if you would be upset if your own children were treated differently.

I think the wife is being unreasonable. It would be nice to give the DSC some of it, even if it was just a couple of thousand each. She's married to their father and they're children of the family. That would be my approach as a stepmother anyway. I don't blame the dad for being pissed off.

Wife needs to put her money away for her kids immediately so dh can’t access it.

It's not for the DW to save it her DSC, they have two parents to do that.

I would side with the wife. It was her accident, which presumably if resulting in a large payout, caused her suffering. This is her money and of course she's going to want to prioritise her own children.

That said I can see why the husband is upset but it's tough luck really. If his ex won the lottery the older kids would benefit, but the younger ones would see nothing. It can't be equal in blended families.

If it's e.g. 100k it probably wouldn't hurt to give the older ones 5k each.
If I knew SC from a very young age I'd hope to care for them enough to have their interests at heart.

OP what would your reaction be if your DH now directed his monthly savings only to the older children? Or if he did that in the first place?

It’s important to consider how you would feel in the reverse

That’s not the reverse though, because all 4 kids are his so he’s obligated to them all. His wife is only obligated to 2 of them.

A pp asked how the step kids mum was contributing to the younger kids but again not an analogy as they don’t live with her and she might feasibly never meet them.

And if the step DC’s mother came into some money, she should give some of it to the two children who aren’t hers? Yes?

Don’t be ridiculous!

I do think it’s a bit unfair. You are married and therefore have accepted the kids as family, and they should be treated as part of the family. I wouldn’t give them equal amounts, as they have their mum too, but I would think giving them a smaller amount would be fair.

I think you are well within your rights to solely gift the bulk of it to your DC, if there is some money left over- it would be kind to set DSC up with a first car or a decorating fund.

Teens are old enough to know that any large cash gifts to their half siblings came from their mum. Your stepkids have two parents, and it’s on them to look after them in this way. I don’t think the concept of ‘family money’ applies with a blended family without great resentment.

I get that it doesn’t feel fair though. But I think men should think twice before having a new batch of kids if they can’t deal with the natural unfairness that will arise when having kids with two different women.

but on a separate note- I’d think twice about putting large sums of money into a bank account they will take control of when 18! It might not go on a house at all.

I don’t think the husband is unreasonable to want more involvement/interest in the older children.

However your DC older children are his and his ex wife’s responsibility, what are they actively doing to further their children into higher education? There is a number of ways they could be doing this without money involvement.

His older children’s education is NOT your responsibility, he’s need to discuss this with her older children’s mother, unfortunately with blended families it’s never going to be equal.

I see where the DH is coming from, more interest in his kids lives and a little bit of the money would be a nice gesture

That’s really not comparable though. The older children are OP’s step children, the younger child are not the ex wife’s step children.
The older children could spend half the week living with OP and the ex wife has probably only ever seen the young ones in passing.

Neither are unreasonable. Dad should make plans for how he can do something similar for the other two.

I can see both sides but the older children have their own mother and father who should have made arrangements.

OP what would your reaction be if your DH now directed his monthly savings only to the older children? Or if he did that in the first place?

It's not as easy as that though @Sissynova these children aren't the OPs, DH has 4 children and he'd be choosing 2 children over the other 2. The op isn't doing this as she only has 2 children.

I think I'd put an amount away for all dc but more for the two that are OPs. Enough for her sc to buy a cheap car and insure it for one year maybe (if the amount allows): it's likely they will get theirs sooner than younger children anyway so by the time the younger two are old enough to receive their amount they will understand

What's always interesting in these thread is that the actual parent of the children never does anything to the level that he expects their SM to do.

They never plan the parties,trips,buy the gifts, save hard, make wills or arrange life insurance etc. but get extremely pissy that their wives won't "put themselves out".

If they really cared that much they'd do it themselves, but nope. All words and showmanship and expecting someone else to actually put the work in.