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.

@LaDeeDaDeeDumb no I wasn’t going to ‘reimburse’ those costs because in my mind that money was already spent. We had enough to cover it. If there had been a loan or similar, then obviously I would have paid that back.

I am open to compromising and putting a chunk into the pot but I want to decide how much. I want to decide what it goes towards. I don’t want to be told DH’s opinion. I know written down so bluntly that sounds wrong but it is how I feel.

If my DH had access to £200k and felt I should have nothing to do with how it was spent, it would completely change the way I thought of him.

I would seriously consider divorce as I’d feel I could never trust him again.

I Genuinely would encourage you to spend money on a good therapist as it seems to be a lot of resentment and negativity to your family. It isn’t prioritising or standing up for yourself to say im Going to spend this unexpected sum on myself and not my family. No one is saying all of it, just some. By your posts I get the impression there’s a lot more to the story or you don’t have awareness of how you are coming across (hence the vote)
and the implications of this could be long lasting whereby any future money your husband may get will solely be his

Sounds to me like its enough money to spend 10k on you, pay off a chunk of the mortgage or pensions and invest a substantial amount for the kids.
If you operate as a shared family money, as we do here, then why is this different? Would you be happy for your DH to keep an inheritance or lottery win to himself? Probably not.

She's not compensating the family though. If she paid off the mortgage there would be other benefits. First when ours was paid it was a huge relief knowing I didn't have to worry about that anymore. Not having to pay rent or mortgage in my mind, improves life considerably. The money that would have paid the mortgage every month could then be set aside for other things. And that is cumulative over many years.

You birthed your own children and chose not to return to work - no one forced you to do that!

So if we're ignoring lots of additional details you didn't think were necessary in your OP, we're left with: you and DH have always had joint finances, but he earns more (due to your career break) so pays for more.

But now you want to keep your money separate, as it's a large amount of money that benefits you.

That is inherently unfair, and I'm not surprised that he is upset about it.

You are very clearly NOT a good team and this is not a happy marriage! You sound very selfish.

That isn't the bit that sounds wrong.

There's a huge difference in prioritising yourself and wanting to keep 100k plus to yourself.

Having a hobby and buying a few treats is fine, wanting to keep that amount of money to yourself is unbelievably selfish when you have a family.

'To be fair, I’m not sure if greedy is the correct word, perhaps unnecessary is better'

Well, 2 completely different ways of describing his opinion on it .

It is your choice obviously but stop trying to justify keeping it for yourself by repeating that you endured it. I presume everyone supported you and the solicitors did the legal stuff not you.

Unless you're thinking you can support your dc through uni and help towards future house purchases on your salaries alone then this is surely the perfect opportunity to spend a bit but save most of it?

This post is so illogical to me that I don't even know how to argue against it. What can anyone say to make something that is already glaringly obvious more obvious?!

If the OP's salary was affected by her injuries and that affected her family's financial wellbeing, then surely the whole point of compensation is to help to redress that?

No amount of money can take away the OP's pain and suffering, but it can help to address the material losses that she has experienced as a result of the injury.

I think for that amount of money it is quite wild to want to keep it all for yourself.

I do understand the desire not to have the way it gets spent dictated to you, and in that sense it’s fair to see it as yours, but if you see your marriage as a team - and it would suggest you do if you made joint choices to be a SAHP and now benefit equally from his higher earnings - I think it’s quite selfish not to want to spend a material proportion of it on something that can help the whole family.

Paying off the mortgage, or paying down a material sum against it would benefit both of you - you’d have more spending and fun money on a day to day basis for years to come and less pressure on both of you to maintain full time salaries at a certain level.

At the same time I think it would be totally reasonable to take a good chunk of it purely to treat yourself - on your hobby, on new clothes, etc. and maybe some therapy, as it genuinely sounds like you’re carrying some trauma from the whole experience.

P. S if my DH had been in this position and not paid off debts/mortgage then I would have been at the solicitors getting a divorce before he could have spent it.

I suppose it’s one of those situations where neither of you are wrong. It’s just different perspectives. My husband has just recently had an inheritance which I do consider his money not ours (which I believe the law where we live also supports) but he’s using it to clear the mortgage which will of course benefit the family. I must admit if he’d not done that I might have felt a bit peeved.

i must admit I couldn’t see me preferring to spend it on fun and hobbies for me rather than something nice we could all enjoy but it’s up to you

@ForCosyLion 100% agree.

I have had inheritances over the course of this relationship and they have gone into the pot. It’s not the same at all. Well, not to me.

Of course I don’t begrudge my children money. They have savings in their name.

What I don’t want to happen is that this money just gets swallowed up on bills or mortgage payments and I have nothing to show for it. To me that would feel like it was all for nothing.

I was on your side before, OP, but this has cemented it.

And I feel that it's not that you are refusing to help your family with the money, but that you want it to be your choice to do so and not to feel forced. Or be told that you are wrong for wanting to spend some of it doing your hobby abroad, for instance.

It also depends very much on the state of your relationship - is DH normally supportive, or is he lazy, controlling etc? That would definitely influence my opinion.

It really sounds to me like you have had a traumatic experience, were not supported through that, are actually not remotely recovered, did the work alone to seek some redress, and now there's been a pay off, your DH has swept in assuming he has an equal say. I can fully understand that you want the final say to be yours.

I agree with a pp, that you should seek therapy and take a bit of time to think about what you want to do. I do think there is a lot of emotion around this money and you will only be able to think clearly about it once you have worked through them.

I’ve read all of your posts and I agree with you that you don’t need to be spending it on the children’s education. It’s not their inheritance. I also don’t see anything wrong with spending a chunk on yourself- as I mentioned in my previous post I did this when I got compensation.

However I really don’t think I would be able to get over it if my DH had 200k sat in the bank to do with what he wanted and didn’t want the family to see any of it, saw it as his own money and I wasn’t allowed to question it ever. It would really make me question him as a man and his opinion on our marriage, which I view us as a team. I genuinely think I would be taking legal advice RE divorce because if I’m being totally honest I wouldn’t be able to move past it.

It doesn’t have to be swallowed up. If it’s say 200k I’d be keeping 150 for myself and 50 for holidays, experiences etc for the family

I think there is a very real risk that with your current view, there will be resentment. Not because they would be unreasonable, the vote tells you that you are

I guess the advantage of paying off a mortgage is that it leaves you more disposable income. Mortgages aren't cheap. With the disposable income increasing, you can do more fun stuff.

Two points from me.

1. whatever you do will set the precedent for if /when he comes into any money.

2. you sound like you want to spaff a significant sum on trivial items. That would really irriate me. Can't beleive you'd priorotise clothes and hobbies over chunks off mortgage/ uni fees / house deposits / retirement.

It’s not unfair to want to maintain some control, after something happened that you were powerless to prevent.

Your husband accepted that powerlessness and was ready to accept it as just how life is. You had to hold tight to the sense you had of it being unjust that you suffered, and use it to fight for compensation. Holding tight to the money is part of that.

Buy yourself some time. Tell him you aren’t ready to talk about it, that you need therapy to process what happened and work out what it’s for. And help him understand your feelings, that it isn’t about being selfish or not loving your family, but about needing to FEEL the compensation for YOUR suffering.

You don't want to be told your husband's opinion, but you're actively seeking the opinions of a load of strangers on the internet?

It's all sounding very theatrical.

Don't know if it's unreasonable but I def think it's weird. My children always come before me since the day they were born- and that's not even a deliberate decision but a visceral one.

What has happened to you that makes you feel so detached from them? Nothing makes me happier than making my children happy. Not saying I completely neglect myself- I would have spent some on "me" as well- but the largest sum would have been towards mortgage/helping dc out.

In our marriage 200k would definitely be family money. A large amount would got into long term savings. Dh would definitely want me to spend it on what I would like but it would be used to benefit our family, kids and overall life.

Same with inheritance.

For me if DH had your opinion and I was the higher earner. Which I am. Our financial contributions to the house would change.

We either are a team. Our we aren't. My income is earned by me. My time, my education, my efforts. Which he would no longer have full access to.

Honestly this would be something that would have me reconsidering the long term position of my marriage.