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.

As I said, she may do. She says she’s had significant injuries so may change her mind in time. It would be mighty difficult for her to do that though if all the money is spent on her children.

Well next time she needs anything, food, clothes, medical assistance she's got the money for it.
Won't be dipping into family money, right?
I'd be changing finances if I was her hubby immediately into separate for everything. Halve all bills then the rest is kept by the earner.
No more family pot as decided by the selfish participant.

In our house, it would be family money. Paying the mortgage off would be the first priority.

Maybe compromise and do something nice for yourself, like buy something you couldn't normally justify the cost of but will enjoy. Then pot the rest. If that's how it's always been in your relationship it would be odd to suddenly change the rules because you got your own pay out.

Nobody would be calling the OP selfish if she wanted to use the money to pay for surgery or ongoing treatment. Or therapy. Or rehabilitation. Or adjustments for her home. Or anything which was directly linked to the trauma that she experienced.

But she has said that she plans to spend the money on clothes and a hobby.

Would you seriously be happy to work to pay the majority of the household expenses while your partner sat on £200k that they had earmarked for their clothes and hobbies? Maybe you'd be fine with that, but I know I wouldn't.

I guess every now and then we get a reminder that some women can be as monumentally selfish and unfair as men.

As sad as this display is, I have to chuckle a bit at the posters trying to find ways to justify OP's selfishness when it's obvious her husband is generous and her marriage is fine.

She's just selfish, hypocritical and unfair. And if her obsession with completing the paperwork, her username and her refusal to even share with her children didn't already make it abundantly clear, she's NOT sharing the money.

If a women said her husband was planning to spend his compensation on hobbies and clothes after she funded his lifestyle as a SAHP for 12+ years, I'd tell her to divorce him. And I really hope OP's husband does...you know as somebody who knows his worth and has good self-esteem 😉

You don't honestly believe that the working partner would be able to excel as earn as much as they do if they were also the primary carer. I am sure your cognitive ability is above that.

No, why would it? If I’d received injuries significant enough to warrant compensation I’d want to secure my own health and well-being. Just like if a child was granted compensation for medical malpractice I’d expect every penny to go towards the child’s health and well-being, not on giving other people house deposits.

Lots of people get to the very top of their fields while playing an equal role in raising their kids. Surely you don't believe that everyone with a successful career has a SAHP picking up the slack at home?

If your husband was receiving this money what would your opinion be?

If my partner had birthed my children, looked after them and me for years as a SAHM and then had sustained injuries severe enough to warrant such compensation then no, I would not have a problem with it at all. Because it’s compensation, not a bingo win.

Agreed. The CEO of my company (of 1000+ employees) is a woman and single parent. Paid childcare is easily attainable for high earners. It's delusional to pretend that someone staying at home is enabling someone with a masters degree in engineering to earn what they do, for example.

OP if your DH earns a bonus at work, does he keep it to spend on himself, or contribute it to the family?

If he doesn’t get a bonus, hypothetically if he started a business on the side would that be just his? No need to contribute to the family?

And what if you started a business? Would you keep all the income from it and not share?

I don’t see how this is different from those scenarios. I could perhaps if you were arguing that it was your pain and your trauma so you would spend the money on medical treatment and therapy, but you are saying that it’s because of your hard work and tenacity.

Bd proud of yourself for your efforts. Keep £20k just to treat yourself. Ring fence another £20k for potential future treatment, and then share the rest!

You do understand that by e.g. paying off the mortgage you BOTH benefit?

Are you the main breadwinner in your family?

OP I consider myself an incredibly selfish person and even I think you’re being unpalatably, nastily selfish about this. Either you have joint finances or separate, you don’t get to pick and choose what belongs to whom if you’ve agreed it’s joint. Perhaps you should pay back your DH half of all the wages he earned when you were a SAHM. After all, he was going out to work and earning it and without him you wouldn’t have had any household income. And don’t pull the “I facilitated it” crap, it sounds like between you you’d have earned more than enough to afford full time childcare if you’d have been working.

As it happens my partner and I have separate finances and if I came into any amount of money be it 20 quid or a million, it would be mine, it would sit in my account, but if it was that large a sum I would definitely pay off the mortgage (I would do that even if I was single and find it quite bonkers you don’t want to do that) and buy things that benefited us both like extended travel. I wouldn’t put it in a joint account or earmark lump sums for children but that’s more because I’m ideologically opposed to entrenched family wealth and privilege. But I also pay 50/50 towards our living costs regardless of whether I earn more or less than my partner and wouldn’t ever become a SAHP or expect my partner to fully fund our life. Nor would I agree to having joint finances in the first place. However, YOU DID! And you’ve happily lived off his earnings when it suited you and admitted earlier in the thread that your knee-jerk reaction if the situation was reversed would be that he shared it. So in summary OP you’re being a dick.

But you wouldn't have your husbands money if he didn't put in the effort to work and build a career.

Personally, if it's paying off the mortgage level money, I don't think I could forgive a partner who chose to waste it on something else. Every day I went to work to support them I'd be absolutely fuming.

Technically yes but not by much - why do you ask?

I honestly don’t understand this logic - you pursued it and hence it is your money, well, your DH works hard, possibly gets bonuses for his hard work, then he should say that this is his money and any pay rise is his money too, because he worked hard to get it. You agreed to share salary, any extra incl bonus and pay rise is his. And before you say you facilitated his career I assume he supported you during your difficult period too - if he didn’t support you at all you have much bigger problem.
You say yourself you anticipated 20 k and ended up with more. So keep the 20 k which you were happy to take before to yourself and give the rest to the family.
life is unpredictable - while you are spending this crazy amount and making decisions about it unilaterally, your family circumstances may change and you will be beating yourself for being so selfish.
I honestly would have been so disappointed if my DH kept mortgage paying off money which he never expected to receive even with all hard work to himself. Sorry OP, but you are not a team. Team goes through all ups and downs together.

This has to be a rage bait thread. No-one could be as selfish and self centered as the OP is claiming to be 🙄

Because I wondered if it might make a difference to your perspective if you had actually spent many years paying for the lion's share of your family's expenses.

If it was for something you suffered I think it should be ‘your money’ . The whole process and claim was based on the injury to you and compensation to you - so I think it was awarded to you based on your very personal experience
so I can see why you’d want it to be your money.
i think it needs to go in a separate account whilst you wait to think about what you want to do with it. I think that’s fair. I think you might like to think about what would make you happy. It might be better to invest it anyway and take an income from it.

A ten percent return would be quite good on an amount that big!

I can completely understand why your husband might expect you to contribute it to the family pot, but at the same time it is your money for something you suffered so I can understand why you would want ownership of key decisions around it. Perhaps you could discreetly look around and invest it well and perhaps he doesn’t need to know if you get a decent return on it!

( I think this is similar to inherited money that often isn’t assumed to automatically go into the family pot)

the chances are you’ll contribute most of it to your family anyway, I think it’s the assumption that it’s not YOUR money that is upsetting and unsettling factor in this.

It can’t be that large if you are spending it on clothes and holidays and hobbies.

we don’t have shred finances (no DC) I’d spend half on me an DH (eg holiday or house purchase) and half on self. If it was a bigger sum I’d pay some to the mortgage
Mao for me it is a bit of both

That's not what I said and I agree that many single parents (more commonly mums) are able to achieve a successful career whilst being the primary caregiver.

But when it's a couple, yes, I honestly believe the SAHP plays an essential part in enabling the other partner to earn what they do. An equal role as parents would also require all the domestic labour and childcare to be split equally once the working partner has finished their work, this is rarely the case.

Honestly,
Use half for yourself and put half in the family pot.
That way you'll never regret your decision.

@PumpkinPieAlibi I think it's fairer to say that they're enabling them to pursue their career without expecting the full salary and benefits (they're fed, clothed and housed obviously) A full-time nanny who'd cover late nights, frequent travel, etc. is expensive.

My marriage isn’t transactional so no, it wouldn’t do. Money is not the only way to demonstrate care. Nor should it ever be the only way in which “value” is measured. I earn more than my wife but it makes no odds to either of us. And if she sustained injuries severe enough to be awarded hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation I would want her to prioritise her health and well-being.

As I said in an earlier post: if a child had been awarded such compensation nobody would expect the child to spend it on paying for other people’s house deposits. Nobody would be questioning the child on whether they “deserved” it or calling the child selfish. It’s compensation. The clue is in the name.