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.

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

I was originally in the i kinda get why you want to keep it but @ImNotSharing
What youve written is STONE COLD.

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.

You have 200k + unexpected cash.... you are fincially solvent and whatever about your husband you wouldnt want your kids to go on an extra nice holiday. Fine do a hobby one solo (while your husband looks after your kids....) but how would you not want to take them somewhere amazong with this unexpected windfall.

+1 for Get Therapy.
I cant imagine being you - i imagine it's lonely?
I feel a bit sad for you.

I understand how you feel- I think it’s a pretty normal reaction. A lot of people saying “well in our house it would…” are possibly not understanding or skipping over the feelings of trauma (especially for facial injuries which I imagine are even more personal). In that sense, I understand completely that the money represents an acknowledgement of the pain you suffered, which would be wrong to diminish.

At the same time, £150-£200k is a really significant sum (unless your family income is in the 500k+ range in which case it matters far less). I think you need to think carefully about what, exactly, you want to do with this money, because while it was obviously you who suffered the primary trauma and worked for this, that never happened in isolation. I imagine if you told your DH “I am going to spend <x, y, z> just for me, and then the rest we can do whatever with” he would probably be happy with. It is however both a) selfish and b) foolish just to have the money sitting around until you decide what to do with it.

selfish because even if you were the one who drove this, it didn’t happen alone (as you acknowledge the costs involved in pursuing this came from join finance)

foolish because while you wait to decide what to do with it, inflation will be destroying the value of the money. Even if you invest it for your retirement it would be sensible, maybe carve some out for some family recognition (a nice summer holiday this year or w/e) and invest the rest, or clear debts.

I think you shouldn’t reduce these feelings to selfishness- if I was having my best guess I think this is a trauma reaction. You should do something to address that.

I hope you are okay and congratulations on winning in court and getting them to payout for their failings and your suffering.

My DH was dismissed unfairly last year due to being hospitalised with heart problems. We are in the process of going through a disability tribunal, and it’s stressful and has at times consumed him with how unfair it has been. When the money comes in (they are likely to settle we suspect) it will be considered joint money, as we have joint finances, and although this happened to DH, it has affected us all considerably as a knock on effect. He, and indeed you, are not an island.

My DH ended up having some counselling which was invaluable, and may be something you consider too, because your fierce separation off regarding this suggests that there is more going on under the surface

I don’t want to take the family. I don’t want to share the experience or the cash.

I find this so weird. Who gets 200k and doesn’t want to at least share that with their kids, for whatever reason you’ve received it. And to say you don’t want to share the experience with your kids I think most people would find bizarre. If a woman was on here saying her husband said that she would be told he was selfish.

I’ve been a SAHM myself so I completely get your side of that, you end up taking on the bulk of all the boring side of things and your career takes a setback, so I understand keeping a portion of it. But even 25% would still be keeping 50k for yourself, that’s more than you even expected to receive initially. I think most parents, not just mothers, would share that kind of money. DH gets a 2k bonus every year and just automatically adds that to the family pot when realistically he could spend it on himself.

I started thinking you weren’t unreasonable and then read the full thread and completely changed my mind. A few thousand to treat yourself sounds sensible, but an amount that could change the future of your family is so different. We don’t share finances and I’d expect to make a final decision, but equally paying off the mortgage and making sure we both got equal treats and enjoyment would make me happy. You can be proud of the effort you put in and the size of the win without being mean. If you divorced it would be classed as family money.

Every penny that you get OP should be family money. It should be spent on the kids not on yourself especially not something as frivolous as a hobby.

I’m sorry, but that’s about as selfish as it could get. If my DH said the same thing having received a £200k payout, I’d be heading for the divorce courts.
Because you chose to not work when your children were of school age, your DH had to continue working to pay the bills and put a roof over everyone’s heads. Your choice was doable because of his salary. Now you’re in the money, you’ve forgotten all about that and want to be greedy and keep it all to yourself. Maybe he should put a claim in against your for compensation for stress due to having to work all the hours he did thus enabling your SAH lifestyle?
I really am flabbergasted that you genuinely believe this is just money to benefit you. I would hazard a guess that your DH will most certainly expect you to fully fund half of the household expenses from now on - he’s not going to be subsidising you with that money sitting in your own personal account is he? In fact, if you’ve got far more money than him, maybe you should be funding more than half the household costs from now on.

It's difficult to judge as we don't know what the current physical situation is: If your face is now as it was, improved (if it was caused by an incompetent enhancement, permanently disfigured, permanently painful, unable to eat, sleep etc.

It sounds like you had some surgery/procedure on your face or mouth that caused facial damage/harm or changed the appearance of your face in a negative fashion?

I think a lot of the responses you are getting (including mine) are assuming that the damage has been repaired/recovered and that your face is now back to normal. There is also the clear fact that your facial injuries were of a severity that warrants up to 20K of compensation, but you have had an extra sum of 150+K. To me, the extra 150K sounds like a fortunate additon, that most of us would treat as family money.

If you have been left with lasting facial damage or pain that is a different matter, as this is a life changing experience. I can see then, why you might feel that your ongoing disfigurement means that you feel you need ongoing compensation.

I will keep saying this because people obviously don’t understand and that’s fine but this is not the same as an inheritance or a lottery win or a salary.

This was something that happened to me through no fault of my own that resulted in life changing injuries. The payment is compensation for that.

Yes, there was an element for expenses and loss wages but the majority was to compensate for the pain, suffering and disfigurement.

I think maybe that’s what people can’t get their heads around on this thread.

Unbelievable. 😳

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 still think this is a trauma response, like hoarding for comfort and security.

Sorry but I think you’re taking the piss and I wouldn’t be very happy at all if I was your husband. You seemed to be quite happy for joint finances when it benefited you as a sahm. If you have a really significant payment into the family you should be discussing how you use that together. That could be early retirement or reducing stress for both of you. I just can’t comprehend how you’d suddenly just want to have control over that and not give your husband any say at all. I honestly think that could be marriage ending for you.

This post makes it fairly clear that there's more going on underneath than just how you spend the money.

I don't disagree that you should have some for yourself, but it sounds to me like this is really more about resentments, old and new, and not feeling heard.

I think the two of you should have this discussion with a counsellor, and you might benefit from some therapy of your own. It sounds like you still have significant trauma.

I had a similar amount of money for similar reasons, and I bought a house and added the rest of it to the family pot, even though we weren't married at the time.
Once we moved into that house after being together several years and having kids, I added his name to the house deeds.
My dh (married now) has since been there for me in many ways and insisted I use whatever money I needed for the surgery I needed due to unrelated, but not strictly medical need. That cost in the region of £40K.

To me, it would always be family money if you're finances have always been joint, which is consider yours to be from what you've said.

Why not keep £40K and put the rest into the family pot, especially as even that is 2x what you were expecting to get.

Money makes people selfish and greedy, so be careful and think hard before making a final decision.

My jaw literally dropped at this.. if I received a large enough sum of money to pay off our mortgage (regardless of whether there were plans /budgets in place for that already) and therefore significantly improve the whole family’s quality of life and I instead chose to spend it on clothes and a hobby I think my husband would divorce me. And I think that’s exactly what I’d deserve

He never called her greedy. She made that up for her own narrative.

I would consider a paid off house and extra money (ie the money you now spend on the mortgage) every month 'nothing'.

But @ImNotSharing you say your children had to have other people doing school runs, you had to enlist help to look after them as you weren’t able to do everything at that time. Do you not think they would have experienced some trauma there, some anxiety over their mum being unwell? Don’t you think they at least deserve some treat or money set aside for the future? I think most mothers would automatically want to do this anyway to be honest.

OP, I have found that in life, most people are not able to understand others' situations unless they have been in that exact same situation themselves. Most people simply do not have the imagination to put themselves in someone else's shoes.

I think most people do get why you were awarded the money. It's your assertion that you are now going to spend it on clothes, want to persue a hobby, won't take your children on holiday, and don't think that paying off the mortgage early, benefits you at all, whereas, to me, it's a huge benefit.

I can't ever imagine spending a large sum just on me. I expect I would add it to our pot, either on holiday/car, premium bonds etc.

Dh and I have separate finanaces and always have (married 20 years). So no it wouldn’t go into a joint pot as we don’t have one. I was on your side as I thought it was few thousand which I would have used to treat myself, but even then I’d have done something nice for the family (weekend away, trip to a theme park etc). If you’re taking 200k then that’s a huge amount and would have a big impact on family life. I’m mortgage free but if I wasn’t I’d have whacked half off the mortgage, put a quarter into a mixture of personal pension/ ISA and used the other quarter as easy to reach savings and to have nicer day to day life for me and the rest of the family.

People can get their heads around that and still wouldn’t say some of the cold detached things that have been written. Go and blow most of it if that will make you feel compensated. Majority of us would get that feeling from doing unimaginable things with our family. Again, not all of it, just a bit.

when my PIL die my husband wouldn’t say it’s all my money because of xyz. He probably could, everyone could. But families don’t, hence why there are lots of suggestions of therapy as it isn’t normal to be so detached to say this all mine

I’m a mum who has also taken a hit to my career. But my husband has worked and supports our family financially. We both contribute in different ways. Paying the mortgage off would support my kids, me and my husband. To my mind once your finances are intermingled in this way it’s impossible to have a yours and mine attitude to money, because how do you quantify whose contribution is what?

Also op hasn’t said whether it was their choice to be a stay at home mum. For many women this is a luxury we would love, and it’s amazing if our partners are able to support us like that.

Op says her husband is generous with money, to me that goes above and beyond paying his fair share.

Op is requesting MN delete posts that call her selfish, which is wild as she’s posted here for opinions.

Ultimately most people here would want to better the lives of their family, their spouse included. Like I would kill to be able to pay of my mortgage so my husband and I could both enjoy our lives a bit more. It would benefit our children financially too, and we would be less stressed.

Op wants to fritter away paying off your mortgage money on hobbies and clothes. That’s so unbelievably reckless with money and so irresponsible to me as somebody with kids. I couldn’t fathom behaving as Op is and, if my husband did this, I would genuinely reconsider our relationship because I think of us as a team, and it would tell me he didn’t at all.

With the significant amount, why can’t it be both? I say this kindly, it sounds like you’ve fought tooth and nail over something very traumatic and significant that happened to you, but with this life changing sum you have the ability to have a huge impact on you alone and your family’s lives. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I read one post you said about maybe doing something alone and not wanting to give to your children - you choice to make - but i do wonder if some therapy or counselling before deciding what you do may be beneficial to be sure you aren’t making that choice as a response to the trauma you’ve experienced.

I work with traumatised people and it impacts so much. i am wondering if this is influencing your decision. You may want to explore whether your choice and current thinking is a reaction or a decision.