'AITA for blowing up at my husband for sharing our kid’s inheritance with his deadbeat sister?' UPDATED
"AITA for getting pissed at my husband for sharing his and our child’s inheritance with his sister?"
My( F36) husband (M38) and I both work full time and have a two year old little girl. Our hours are both long, MIL is old and my own parents live in another country, so we have temporary live-in hired help to take care of our little girl. While not well off, we are comfortable.
Hubs has a younger sister (F36), who hasn’t worked for years. No physical or other disabilities; she’d explained to me before that she loves freedom too much to waste away in an office (whereas her brother and I slave away in an office, but I digress). MIL and Hubs support her financially and she also has a property to rent out.
Recently, hubs and our little girl were both granted an equal inheritance from MIL’s sister. She’d disliked SIL and left her with nothing. SIL complained that it wasn’t fair and asked hubs to give her 2/3 in value of what he and my little girl got, with some weird logic on how a little girl didn’t need anything and how hubs and I are together better off than she is, given we can afford the “luxury” of expensive hired help.
Also, as SIL is on the rocks with her boyfriend, she also has to shell out extra money for renting a place to live. Hubs agreed, before telling me. I found myself flipping my sh!t and telling him that he can spoil SIL rotten but he has no business giving away my little girl’s stuff.
So this is where I might be the @$$hole - Hubs cried after I raged. He said he didn’t want to be greedy and that our little girl obviously won’t need college funds for a long time, so we’d be able to save up enough for her if we both continue working full time.
Then I got even more pissed (big mistake?) asked him why a parasite matters more to him to his own baby girl. He cried even more and just went for a walk to calm down and now I feel like the worst wife in the world. I’d never made him cry before! AITA?
What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:
babybella92 said:
NTA. Why is your husband financially supporting his sister who has no reason not to work other than not wanting to? I would have lost my sh!t too! Why should you have to bust your ass to save up for a college fund just so his sister can throw a tanty for money that she's not entitled to.
[deleted] said:
NTA, it was your DAUGHTER’S inheritance, that means that your husband has no right to give away her money. It’s MIL’s money and she can give it to whoever she wants.
[deleted] said:
Your husband took money from your (and his) daughter and gave it away to somebody else. He "didn't want to be greedy"?! It wasn't his bloody money to give away! How can you be greedy with another person's money? No, you are NTA. Your husband should be ashamed of himself, for (as I see it) stealing from his own daughter.
HonestCranberry8485 said:
NTA - has he already given her the money? because he should think very hard about it. He has NO business giving away your daughters money, that is theft in my eyes. He can give her 100% of his and even there I would be like this is going directly against the last wishes of MILs sister.
OP responded:
He hasn’t yet - his aunt had only recently passed and things are still being sorted out. She didn’t like SIL cause SIL had kept on badgering her with some MLM stuff so I guess that’s why she chose to give our daughter the remaining bit of her inheritance instead.
I didn’t bring up the fact that auntie deliberately left nothing to SIL and it’d be against her wishes to give her stuff though cause he was already plenty upset, but now am not sure if calmly reasoning from this perspective would’ve been better.
She later shared this update:
Hubs and I have reconciled. Basically he told me that since SIL’s bf will likely go back to his wife now, he’s worried she’ll not find someone to take care of her since she’s on the “wrong side of 35” so wants to make sure she would have enough to live on when he and MIL are gone.
He apologised for the inheritance sharing thing; he says that he knew that auntie didn’t want anything to go to SIL and he’d tried not to think of that, but our fight made him reevaluate his responsibilities to family, including auntie, so he’ll have a talk with SIL to let her know his decision.
We still have problems to work out, but will take those forward by being more open with each other about our feelings. Thanks for all the comments and advice.