Husband denied receiving money from his mum

[Whenlifegiveslemons]

My husband has been given money by his mum - he has concealed this. I noticed it on his bank statement & asked him outright & he denied it. Ive checked again & my eyes arent decieving me, its there in black & white.

i'm really mad about it because it shows he isnt honest & has comfortably lied to my face. He is fairly selfish with money in general, he pays most of our bills, I work part time & struggle on a small wage as do the lions share of parenting. Its £1500.

For context, we've been married 10 years, 2 young children & marriage isnt a happy one.

Am I over reacting? How would you feel?

Given what’s going on and has been going on for years, this seems a totally daft way to spend money

And it wouldn’t even be a happy holiday

I get a bad feeling from this relationship, because this seems like a minor issue to start a war about. You do seem controlling, and your husband might be lying to you because he's sick of you taking his autonomy away from him and drilling him about matters that's got nothing to do with you. Why does it matter to YOU that HIS mother gave HIM some money? It's none of your business, really. Everyone is entitled to their own money, and if they have parents that'll happily spend on them...good for them. If your husband pays the bills and you're not lacking anything, I think you're overreacting. If you are lacking, then you need to have a conversation about a more reasonable distribution of responsibilities in your marriage.

@Whenlifegiveslemons

I guess the point is, the marriage isnt happy, we arent equal & thats where the change needs to come from be it divorce or gaining some financial independence at least

I agree with this. And I'm sure your H agrees with it too. I don't know why you're so sure he isn't moving quietly towards divorce. Or that he's sought legal advice. It's possible that he's been told that he stands to lose more money than he's willing to part with, not to mention the house. So he's biding his time. Why shouldn't he, he has his finances locked up right and tight and is apparently living the life he wants to live. So if he has serious doubts about the marriage lasting or is simply waiting things out, I can't blame him for doing that.

One of the main pieces of advice you see on here (and it's pretty universal advice) is "Say nothing more about divorce and get thee to a solicitor for legal advice". I'd be willing to bet a doughnut that your H is following this advice. He's doing everything but becoming financially transparent and/or giving you access to his money via joint finances. Why would he do that? Because he is planning at some point to divorce.

And how to I know this? Because I was in a similar situation, although my H and I had pretty much equal incomes and joint finances. My marriage was going downhill so when my mum died I took care that my inheritance was put into an account in my sole name and I never told him how much was in that account. Note: where I live inheritances are NOT community property as long as they aren't commingled with family funds. So I protected myself against an unknown future. And a good thing I did as I am now on my own.

I think you need to accept that your marriage is on shifting sands and do what you can to protect yourself financially. Work more hours, save and don't spend on holidays. See a solicitor to educate yourself on what divorce may mean to you.

Did he actively want to go on the holiday, or did you book or for the family and he came along?

Either way if you are in a financially precarious situation and possible divorce looming and having to borrow money for a holiday, then it sounds like you shouldn’t book any more holidays that get you in debt and instead start saving as much as you can.

Maybe he is acting on it and that's why he's hidden it from you?

Sounds like you should be too.

@AcrossthePond55 Well it will mean a share of the matrimonial assets! Women who work part time because they look after dc, do have the contribution they make overall being recognised. This is likely to be 50:50 and both op and DH will have their savings included! It’s a requirement to declare everything. So even if he’s saved £100,000 and the op £100, both sums are in the marital finance pot. Many women don’t earn what men do because they have given up careers. Some don’t have much of a career to give up and then minimum wage is inevitable when they need to step up earnings. It’s very difficult to make it “fair” in those circumstances.

Sounds like financial abuse to me if you have no access to family money.

Talk to Women's aid for advice.