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.

No she didnt act as a nanny for her DH she stayed home looking after her own children

Name changed for this.
I received a very large compensation payout for life changing injuries sustained in an accident. I used the money to pay off our mortgage and buy an investment property to generate income for the family, with the expecation that when I need the money to pay for future operations and care (which will happen), the property be sold to fund it.
This way I can still afford the treatment I will need but the whole family benefits in the interim with the rental income. I would never have just spent the money on myself even though the compensation literally only exists due to my misfortune.

I think for me it would be the other way around.
15k and I’d decide absolutely how I’d spend it and likely some of that would be on the family but I’d still discuss it.
But life changing amounts of money I would absolutely decide and plan how to spend it with my partner.

Actually, I did have a 10k ish windfall that was ‘mine’. I planned it with my partner. I definitely benefited more than him but I’d never spend any significant amount of money without talking about it. I need have to ask permission but I respect his opinion and it would be natural to talk about it.

I can see your argument about you suffering the injury and doing all the intense work for the claim but I don’t think it really changes things.

If my partner had 200k in the bank from any kind of windfall he would absolutely discuss and agree with me how it was spent or saved. I think I’d question our relationship if he refused to use any of that money to benefit the family.

I'd be so pissed that I would take a visit to the Maldives alone fora week. TREAT URSELF |!

edit: I missed the part where it was into the hundreds of thousands?

YABU. You should pay off the mortgage

I can't really imagine what you would spend a couple of hundred thousand on that wouldn't be of any benefit to your Dh or children. Or why you would want to.

I can see why paying off the mortgage wouldn't feel right and why you might want something special that you wouldn't normally be able to afford, as a reward for your efforts in managing to get the compensation. But why would you keep it all just for you?

Saying you'd let your DH keep any compensation he might receive one day is absurd - firstly it's unlikely he'll ever have reason to claim such a sum and secondly you have no idea what state your finances might be in if it did happen - by then you could be struggling financially for unforeseen reasons.

In my family, all contributions are family money. Most of it though is technically mine - salary higher and more money received from parents / inheritance. We discuss all large purchases but, in your situation, it would be fine for me to use it for something I wanted, but I can't imagine wanting to ring fence the total amount.

What you haven't said is what your DH wants - to pay off the mortgage? I think it's reasonable not to do that if you have a plan already that will pay it off. Clothes and a hobby won't use up much of it either.

If you did ever divorce though, it would become part of the joint finances to be shared - unless you are planning to spend it all now?

YABU and incredibly selfish in my opinion. In our case that would be family money. As a parent I don’t understand your mindset of wanting to keep all that money for yourself and not improve the lives of your children and husband. When I get a bit of money for my birthday I struggle to spend it on myself, it is more likely to go on a day out for the kids because for me that is more important than buying myself frivolous crap.

Fair enough you spent a year pursuing the claim, so take a years salary from the pot to cover your time spent on it and put the rest into the family pot for everyone to benefit from. I would be interested to know how your husband genuinely feels about this now and how resentful he (and your DC) will feel over time. I can see it now, your next family holiday when you are sat on the plane in the luxury of 1st class and your DH and DC sat in the cramped economy seats.

Sorry I meant to say ‘I don’t need to ask permission…’

@ImNotSharing this is where your argument falls down:

"Maybe that would be my initial expectation [that it would be family money if it was DH getting paid compensation], but if he objected I'd be open to listening to why not".

Why would DH'S compensation payment be family money, but you think yours should be just for you?! In what world is that fair?

How has your DH reacted to you saying all this money is yours, not family money?

Is your thinking changing at all after reading the overwhelming majority of comments here disagreeing with you?

In your OP you said you had "joint finances", not joint money from salaries. That also makes a difference imo.

I don't understand why you are trying to frame this as a feminist issue? Do you really think that the OP would be told to keep the money for their own clothes and hobbies if they were a man?

If anything, I actually think that a man in this situation would be even more likely to be expected to treat the money as family money, because people generally expect men to financially support their families. I don't think there is any evidence that the OP is under more pressure to share the money simply because she is a woman.

If a woman posted on here to say that she was working hard to pay the bulk of the mortgage and household expenses for the family while her DH contributed much less despite sitting on a £200k hobby fund, I guarantee that she would be told to LTB.

This is not about holding women to higher standards than men.

Personally this is family money as I assume any of your husbands bonuses are.

I don't think it's fair to say money is joint unless I get extra in which case I want it.

You say that the money wouldn't be there at all only for your efforts, research etc.
But this is true of all money. Your DH isnt handed his salary for no effort, slovenly work etc. He does the work, research, getting to know managers, building a client base, developingbexpertise or whatever got him his good salary. Your own salary requires effort and work. Both these are added to the family pot. And you say the family money pot was adversely affected by your injury. So I think that at least half should be family money.

Would you consider booking and paying for a nicer than usual family holiday abroad? Then keeping the rest for yourself.

I think for me the bigger problem is why you want to be part of a family but you are pulling in a different direction.

Yes, it's yours. And if my husband came into similar it would be his. But there is no way on earth either of us would do anything other than clear the mortgage, have a holiday and save the rest. Perhaps that's because we each have access to our own money and so "buying new clothes and spending on a hobby" isn't a problem for us.

But i honestly think your husband will see you differently after this. You've done childcare, he's shouldered the bulk of the bills and it's worked. But this is a real moment of showing who you are in an unusual circumstance and whether you are working together for the benefit of the family or not.

It doesn't sound like he wants half to spaff on watches and gambling.

I suspect on the way to the divorce court he might flail around trying to make you see reason by deciding that his higher salary contributions to the family were made on the basis of you having less money. Now you have it, you can pay half of everything. But like I said, I think you'll be going to the divorce courts. I wouldn't want to age with someone who ive raised a family with and who doesn't want what's best for us collectively.

I cant imagine feeling comfortable having this stash of money that I used just on treats for me.

I do think you deserve to benefit from compensation for your injuries though but that could happen even if it was family money. Or you took a sum off it to treat yourself eg 10 or 20k and the rest went into family funds.

it sounds like you did really well to
pursue the claim and you absolutely should celebrate your achievement but I wouldn’t enjoy having it all earmarked for me.

I can't imagine a world where I received, at least, £150,000 and wouldn't want to use some of it to make my families life easier.

Paying off at least some of the mortgage and putting some aside to help make uni just a little bit easier financially for my DC would be a priority, closely followed by a family holiday being booked.

I'd be pretty devastated if my husband won that amount of money in compensation and wanted to keep it the whole sum for himself

Same here. All money from whatever source has always been ‘ours’.

I don't think you are necessarily being unreasonable - it sounds like you have been through something very traumatic. If you had bad facial injuries - will you need to save some of the money for any cosmetic/reconstructive surgery in the future? It might just be that you sit in the money for a while - I wouldnt rush into any decisions. For me - paying off my mortgage would take a huge pressure off me (and my family). I wonder why your gut instinct is not to spend anything on your nearest and dearest - that my be something to unpick (I dont mean that in a critical way just to be curious as to why you feel like that).

Who do you think will look after your kids while you do your hobby or think you look nice in your new clothes? Dh?

Or if the kids aren't old enough to need care anymore then you really ought to have been paying 5050 anyway. At least you can now.

Might be worth thinking about what would happen to individual inheritance from any family on each side, as feel that if you deem the compensation entirely yours (I don’t disagree that you need control over what you chose to do with it), then I’d imagine that inheritance could be viewed the same, and how you might feel about that with your husband potentially not sharing inheritance for example.

I’m married. We don’t and never have had “family money”.

I'd probably pay off the mortgage if it's that much... That will improve everyone's lifestyle!

I think its difficult, but it is your family's money really, as you share all that you have anyway. Buy what you want to with it... But then when you've done your shopping spree, look at what you can do with the leftovers.

Gosh I didn’t realise there would be so many posts overnight or that people would feel so strongly over this.

Having read through most of the comments it seems to be the amount that people find offensive I keep.

I guess if it had been five grand, it would be easier to rationalise spending it on myself as opposed to ploughing it into the family pot.

Someone mentioned taking their family to Australia or doing some sort of trip of a lifetime. I do actually want to spend some of it doing my hobby overseas, but I want to do that alone. I don’t want to take the family. I don’t want to share the experience or the cash.

Maybe I do need some therapy.

I guess the other question, is would the husband not have fought for his own compensation because he wouldn't have the headspace or time, having gone back to work for the family. Whereas the OP had the time and space to do so.

I would absolutely see the money as mine, and I would expect to have a leading role and final say in where it was spent. But it would be spent or saved to benefit the family, not just me. Which is how we have treated inheritances etc, when DH inherited it as his money, but as spent on a large extension in the main.

I would take a chunk for me...25% or whatever (50k is a large amount of play money) and use the rest in a meaningful way.

Paying off a chunk of the mortgage benefits you too OP. More money to spend on clothes and hobbies.

Wow, just wow.

I came into an amount of money that would pay off our mortgage that would absolutely be what I would do! I can’t for the life of my understand why anyone would blitz that amount of money on frippery whilst remaining in debt. This is wild.

Whenever DH or I have come into chunks of money e.g. work bonus, inheritance, some excess profits from a company I ran etc we have used it to do family things - pay chunks down on the mortgage, convert the loft, get a new kitchen, have a holiday together. That sort of thing

I'm part of the family money crowd because it would be in my marriage. However, you've obviously been through a lot. If you wanted to go and do your hobby overseas for a recovery break, as part of your emotional healing from it, I don't think there is anything wrong with that. It's just as valid as using it to pay for therapies of any kind. Then maybe the balance can be family money?