To not consider this “family money”

[ImNotSharing]

I will shortly be receiving a large sum of money (large to me). It is a compensation payment.

Our finances are joint and DH considers it family money. I do not. AIBU?

Happy to answer questions but I’m mainly here for the vote.

Grabby?! For something she suffered enough to get a large payout for? Are you dead from the neck up?! The only person sounding grabby here is the husband!

In our household it would be family money. But then I would expect my partner to spend some of it on themselves and some of it on the family (depending on how much). That said, it would be different if we were living hand to mouth.

And legally, thats fine. In a divorce it wouldnt be considered a marital asset unless there was a massive disparity in the end result.

All money that DH or I earn or receive for whatever reason is family money. It all goes into joint accounts. That is the only way I would want to arrange our finances. Obviously, other people do things differently and that's fine.

But it sounds as though you have basically the same setup in your household, but you want to keep this money for yourself. You've said that you received the compensation only because you put in the effort to pursue it. O.K. And that you facilitated your DH's career by being a SAHM. Also O.K. However, your DH also facilitated you being a SAHM by earning the money to keep the family afloat. And he was the only one who put in the effort at his job. So it seems as though you've both supported each other over the years (financially or otherwise), but the money he earns belongs to the family, whereas the money you received belongs only to you. I wouldn't consider that a fair distribution.

All our money is family money.

You come across as petulant and childish wanting it all for clothes and hobbies, particularly as you’ve said it was much more than you expected.

It would seem fairer to put 75% into the family pot and use 25% for yourself.

You talk about being a SAHM for years, but also don’t seem to appreciate that you got to be a SAHM when many mothers don’t have that choice and have to work. That time is a privilege too. A hard “job” (I did it too for 4 years when my DC were young), but I don’t feel it was a sacrifice, it was an opportunity where I put in time and DH put in money. Both to support our kids. I certainly don’t feel I’m owed anything.

Hundreds of forms? What forms were they?

I've represented hundreds of injured clients and not one of them ever had to fill out hundreds of forms.

Keep some for yourself and use the rest for the family. If it’s more than you expected surely you’d be pleased if you can make paying uni fees (or whatever) easier as well as treating yourself (which I’m sure is also deserved if you’ve had a traumatic experience)? Win win all round, why are you so obsessed with every penny being yours?

Tbh as a parent I find your attitude a bit odd, do you really resent your husband and kids or something? Your responses are so me vs them. A rising tide raises all boats - in my house money for the family benefits everyone because we all care about each other and are pleased to be able to support and provide for one another…

So you’re taking a Little Red Hen approach essentially? You suffered the injuries and you pursued the claim so all mine… no mention of the sharing and help others have given to benefit you.

+Your DH clearly works hard/earns more. Lucky he doesn’t take same (all mine) view with his excess earnings. If he didn’t have time to do your school runs/childcare, where would he have had the time to help with this? Or maybe he’s not great with forms, not everyone is hence contributing comes in different ways.

Both my husband and I have come into money specifically to us (him first and then me more recently) in the last couple of years and whilst we both had no expectations of how the other spent it, both of us used our individual money on the family/house etc without a second thought. I couldn't imagine spending it all on myself, I did however spent a small amount of it on an item for myself I wouldn't have usually afforded. As did he.

That being said, it is your money to do with as you wish but I do feel like the comment above about the events that led to the compensation having an impact on your family too and also your joint finances should be taken into account.

So am I. I feel like I'm in the 1950s. Even though I and my late husband shared all our income, I read this and think this situation is entirely different:

As already said, I did the research. I got the legal representation. I did the hundreds of forms and medical experts and ultimately proved liability. It wasn’t a simple process and I was advised to stop many times. All of that risk I assumed and I took.
The risk wasn’t financial as I had insurance but I took it. If it had been left to DH or wasn’t an “easy” settlement, we wouldn’t have this money.

The bad and stressful thing happened to you. You took the difficult route (against your husband's advice) and put in a lot of time fighting and fighting for this money. He didn't support you in doing that. It sounds like he was one of the people telling you to give up. So why should he have half?

I've been fighting a legal battle for the last 18 months. It's incredibly stressful and draining. You deserve to dictate what happens with the money, and you alone should benefit from some of it. I don't know the amount, but again 50% for you and 50% for the family (including you) seems a compromise (and a generous one at that)

Yes, grabby. He supported her for years, allowed her to SAH and shared all his income and now she wants to keep all this for herself?

It says a lot about her and none of it is good.

This sounds pretty dysfunctional OP - I don't think you have a good understanding of what these terms mean.

If it’s such a large sum that you weren’t expecting, I’d say I’m spending x amount extra on myself & putting what we had expected in the family fund! Or I’d probably say half this money goes in the family fund, then me and hubby get half each of the rest to spend as we please!

I would say it was yours. You went through what whatever it was, not the family. You fought your corner, no the family. It's yours. But I would expect to do something with some of it for the family

Anyway, don't be bullied into anything and take your time deciding what to do with it?

You're so proud of supporting your husband's career through being a sahp but seem to have little regard for his contribution to that and how stressful that can be for him.

The OP isn’t suggesting 50:50 though, she’s suggesting 100:0.

Had a very similar situation - my DH received a very large sum due to a serious injury he had. We treated it as family money - although he was injured we all really went through the mill with it

You're a great team and he has been generous with his money while being the higher earner yet you come to mumsnet asking this question and your choice of words about how you did this and that so it must be yours is ridiculous.

There's nothing wrong with saying I want to use xx amount for myself and we can use the rest for the family but that's now what you're proposing here. As you said you're a great team so talk it over and agree a plan together. If I considered myself to be in a great team with my spouse and he used the words you used here I would be disappointed.

"Because it was something that happened to me. Not our family.

I did the claim, which was long and arduous. And it was me that has pursued this for over a yeaer.

It’s compensation for my pain, my suffering and my trauma. Why would I not spend that money on me?!

I want complete control over the funds, so I don’t want a discussion about saving it for uni fees or similar.

Honestly? I don’t think he gets a say, which is why I’m posting. Maybe I will save a % for the children. I certainly won’t spend it all on my hobby 😆 BUT I don’t want to feel like I have to justify what I’m doing with the money (because I see it as mine)."

Me me me, mine mine mine. Very selfish for a man who you admit has been generous with his money and who you consider to be in a good team with.

Everything is family money in our house including inheritance and I would treat this the same other than maybe a small chunk for me to spend on something I wouldn't normally buy.
I know its compensation for something that happened to you, but I honestly can't fathom your thinking that it should be kept separate to family money

That is such a weak slippery slope argument. The exact same can be said for a wage, HE’S earned it. So long as he’s enabling her to have a roof over her head, food and clothes what would stop him from keeping more for himself because he’s the one putting in the grind?

It is paying off the mortgage level money. But why should I put it towards that? We have budgeted for the mortgage and we both work and contribute towards bills.

I honestly don’t understand why i should use my compensation to pay off the mortgage when we both work and that is something we both agreed to.

This is something I received to compensate me for my injuries.

It’s not family money but I would spread the money on a treat for me and then something for the family.

And something tells me this thing that happened to OP has very much impacted the entire family.

OP, I think you know deep down that you are being massively unreasonable, and that it’s getting uncomfortable now that so many strangers on MN are calling you out on it.

I’m so sorry you had to deal with such a traumatic experience: it’s clear you’re still carrying mental/emotional baggage, and I hope you whatever help you need to recover.

But…it’s utterly irrelevant that you filled in the paperwork or fought for the claim. That would be like your dh suggesting he should keep his annual bonus because he chose to put in extra effort to get it, so you’re not entitled to any of it.

Either you share finances, and that means everything, or you don’t. It sounds as though your dh has generally taken a fair and generous approach towards shared finances (and quite right too!), but if it looks like you aren’t happy to do the same in a rare moment of being able to contribute more than expected, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that started to change over time…. Why should you be allowed to keep this money for yourself, more than, for example, his next LTIP payout, or whatever?

More to the point, you said you have covered all your hobbies and so on from the joint account until now, so what is it you want to do that you couldn’t do if you treat this payment as family money?

It sounds it’s about having control of the money rather than actually spending it. If that’s the case, it’s probably worth figuring out what’s really going on, as that could really damage your relationship over time.

I think the fact that you’ve been a SAHP changes it to.

You can’t say this is your money as this thing happened to you & you did all the work so you deserve it, then benefit from your bogus and sharing all his money from the work he’s done over the years.