Different attitudes to money - is dh being selfish here?

[bluebell2017]

Namechanged for this.

It is quite complicated, so I will try to keep it as short as I can.

DH is from a wealthy background. By the time he was 20, his parents had given him enough money that he was able to buy a house in the SE outright. Over the years, they have given him enough money that we have over £0.5million in investments and dh has a fairly large pension pot.

He earns about £50k, could probably earn quite a lot more but has turned down promotions over he years as he "doesn't want to play that game". Hmm... He has been in his current job for about 20 years, has hated it fro about 18 of those years, but has never looked for anything else because "he wouldn't find anything better/they're all the same".

I has a well-paid job before I had my first child, but became a sahm and have been ever since. (Eldest is 15).

Anyway, dh shocked me a few weeks ago by saying he was hoping/planning to retire later on this year, at the age of 50. He wants to fund this by using our investments.

Am I unreasonable to think that he should be using our investments to try to give our children a helping-hand in life - e.g. to help pay towards university or to pay for a deposit on a house? Dh thinks the children need to pay their own way in life and stand on their own two feet which I might ordinarily agree with - if dh hadn't been so lucky himself. To me, it doesn't seem right that dh should retire whist they are still in school, and the children not have the financial advantages dh did. Dh was simply lucky that his own father built up a very successful business from scratch, but he seems to want to ensure that he is the primary beneficiary of his father's efforts.

Then again, the money belongs to dh and dh's parents. Maybe I am being unreasonable telling dh how he should spend it and I shouldn't resent him retiring early given that I have been a sahm for 16 years?

I am totally dreading him being at home full-time which is also probably affecting my thoughts and feelings about this. But that is a whole new thread.

I would be very grateful for anyone's thoughts and/or advice about all of this. Thanks.

Why have you not spent more on yourself?

If you don't need a huge income why not get him to look into a change of career to something he enjoys, even part time, to keep the brain ticking over and potentially help towards funding the next 40 years of not working.

Quite honestly I'd be really pissed off that he doesn't want to help the children. My first thought before doing anything would be how can I help my son. I think it's selfish.
Mind you there is no reason at all why you couldn't go out to work for a bit. You could save enough money for a deposit on a home for them and then you wouldn't be at home with your husband all day.
I'm working until I'm 67 doing a job I really like and the prospect of this does not bother me.

What you could do it put a deposit on a rental property with your salary and they could share it when the mortgage is paid off.

I had one kind of view reading your opening post. Mainly that you shouldn't have given up your job.

With subsequent posts, I see a mean selfish man, who instead of being proud and supportive that his DD wants to study medicine ... can't even do the right thing and provide financial assistance. It's shocking.

He's so tight. Is there any way his parents (if still alive) would help your DD? I bet your DC have secretly been praying you'd leave him for ages.

For those who say it's a dripfeed, how much is the one meant to write in the opening post without it being a life story?

If your DH has been like this all your married life, I feel sorry for you spending the rest of your time with him.

I've no doubt your DH has full control of the money, otherwise you'd be able to decide you could give your DD some money to support her.

The saving grace is that you are fully awareof the financial position.

Would you be allowed to buy yourself another skirt if you wanted to OP? What would happen if you said you had found a job?

Agree with ExplodedCloud and others tilt it's time to reclaim your life. He can retire at 50 if he wants but you don't have to go along with everything being his way. Get a handle on all the finances and then get started on divorce and finding a new place with your half .

I think the mortgage free aspect is irrelevant. I think you are married to someone who does what they want and spends what they want and has little to no relationship with his children.

I think you are stuck in a financially abusive relationship and guilt that your house is mortgage free. But what would a mortgage have changed you would still be a sahm and he would still do what he wants. The only advantage it serves is in the divorce.

You feel guilty about being a sahm and afford him rights because he earns. Why you not working is not want you want and in fact enables him to do what he wants.

So what positives do you get from staying with him apart from not wanting th children to live through a divorce even though you know that might actually make you and them happier

You are unhappy, your DC are unhappy. Divorce, use your 50% to help your children out in the future let your H do what he wants with his!

To be honest, his desire to stop working is about the only thing you've said about him that doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

I'd swap roles if I were you.

Ok op please ignore all the absolutely BULLSHIT comments about you being a stay at home mum and spongeing and its his inheritance so he can blow it al on skiing and being a twat.

Please divorce this man. If not for your self, for your children. Hes financially abusive!! Your children and your self sound absolutely miserable. Why does he have no interest in the kids? The kids are definitely going to pick up on this. Go get your self a new job get a life . And with the half you take from him and cms payments life will be ok. Better than it is now for sure

He's keeping you prisoner! You're stuck in a house miles from anywhere, stooped in drudgery with 2 skirts to your name while he goes skiing to avoid the children.

Yet people are sniping at you for having a mortgage free home.

He is a hypocritical lazy ASSHOLE. Fair enough if he'd turned down promotions in order to spend more time with his family - but instead he was treading water just waiting to break into his nest egg. All this speech about "the children should have to find their way" this LAUGHABLE when he has had a million handed to him. You know who else talked about a "modest million" Donald fuckinf Trump.

Tell him to take his silver spoon and shove it where the sun don't shine. I am seething for you. Your poor daughter. This is the state of the country - the young have brains & drive & the older generation have told them to go whistle. Who will look after him when he's grey & old (and destitute)??!!!

Are you free to spend money on yourself op? Or does he complain?

He doesn't like spending time with the children?

He's out most nights?

He didn't want you to return to work?

He doesn't want to support his children to have a financial leg up?

They stay in their room to avoid him?

It sounds to me like you have been an unpaid maid! There to raise his children and look after him and the home!!

I would see a lawyer, think about getting out and living life!

That woman you speak of is still there somewhere! Although if you stay where you are then I doubt you will ever see her again

And I'm not surprised that he has you living in an isolated location

He really has done a number on you!! Please do one on him

Why did you not just get a job when the kids were in school? I mean, he could huff and puff but he could hardly lock you in a cupboard and refuse to let you go to work.

You have no clothes and no fancy things because you don't go out and work for them. Even the way you talk about not going to work is so passive - choosing to not change the status quo is still a choice.

Woman up and change things.

I don't think having a go at OP about her not having had a job up until now is going to help things.

As @quitelikely said, she's essentially been employed as a maid.

When he is off skiing and living the highlife there was no reason in the world for her to have to do the 2-jean shuffle. This is not her fault.

Totally agree with this having had several boyfriends from 'well off' families ( mine is not). The parents seem to think it's still possible to buy a house for £70,000 in SE and us lazy buggers just aren't working hard enough. My mum brought me and my sister up single handed after being widowed when I was one and will give me every penny she has so I can have a successful adulthood, home and family etc. I would not take it from her of course, but her attitude as someone with little is remarkable compared to those parents who have a lot.

Balls. She had a choice. Unless she had 27 children she could have gone to work once they were at school. She chose to stay at home, and that meant her husband got more entitled and her children didn't have to pitch in as much as they might have if she was at work.

It's time she changed it.

Sure, her husband said "I don't want you to go to work" but ffs he's not god. She could have said no, I'm going, things are going to have to change.

She CHOSE not to do that. She CHOSE to stay at home and potter in the house and garden with kids at school all day.

No point complaining about it now. maybe her husband thinks they'd have had the money to help the kids out if she had gone out and earned some actual hard cash in the last 15/16 years?

I think that in order to get a clear picture of the situation we need to know why you haven't spent anything on yourself. If it is because he doesn't want you to or doesn't let you then he is being financially abusive and you should LTB.

If on the other hand it is your choice not to spend money on you then you need to find that girl you used to be. If you control the investments then take a couple of grand and go shopping (though I suspect that if you had a couple of grand you would spend it on your DC as would I).

Maybe you could both work part time instead?

Why are you assuming the children are all at school? We have information about the age of the eldest only.

Also, if they've got 6.5k for him to spend on his hobby and skiing, they've got money to help the kids. It's just being spent on something else. I am not saying that would cover all costs, clearly it wouldn't, but it would be some start.

Lastly, OP has been quite clear that her DH doesn't want her to work. There's a discussion to be had about how much attention she should've paid to that etc, but if he does think they'd have more money if she worked, he evidently isn't arsed about it.

That post was to ifeelcrap.

Maybe he thinks they'd have had the money for the kids if she had worked?

I dunno, but she's not some passive thing in all this - she had a choice, and she chose to stay at home.

Even the living in a rural area - unless they lived in a family home that was passed from generation to generation, she was part of the choice to live there and she could have said no thanks, want to live in the town.

Ifeelcrap - what a horrible post. You don't know how much emotional pressure/abuse the op has suffered from over the years.

He sounds like an incredibly difficult personality op - think seriously about leaving and living a life that makes you and your dc happy.

Maybe he thinks they'd have had the money for the kids if she had worked?

If he does, then he should be taking some responsibility for that, since OP is clear that whenever she has mooted working he has been against it.