"AITA for keeping some of my bonus secret from my husband?"
I (47f) and my husband (51m) have been married for over 20 years. We operate our accounts jointly with all of our salaries being paid into the joint account each month and all bills including mortgage being paid from the joint account.
I earn approximately 25% more than my husband as a salary but our wages are basically pooled for family use. This is where I think I might be the AH. I am also entitled to an annual bonus. I have been secretly diverting approximately 20% of that bonus to an account only in my name.
I do this because whilst my husband doesn’t curb my spending, he does comment every time I buy something about how much it costs and I just can’t stand hearing that. So I use this account for my discretionary spending, so I just don’t have to listen to that question every time. So am I the ahole for hiding some of my bonus from my husband ?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
JadedByFire said:
I guess it depends on whether you’d feel the same if you found out your husband had been diverting money to a separate account for years without telling you. If you’d be fine with that, then NTA.
I’m not even saying YTA for doing it, but if your husband found out about you lying to him - not only about the diverted money but also, I’m assuming, hiding your purchases and/or how much they cost, your marriage may end up a bit rocky.
K_A_irony said:
YTA. You need for you two to both agree to have separate personal accounts for discretionary spending. He gets one, you get one. Lying about money is really wrong in a marriage.
If you two can't agree on this discretionary spending accounts, you have bigger issues. I say this as a woman who is married long term. You don't hide money from your spouse. I have my account, he has his account, and we have a joint account.
uniqueme1 said:
YTA. Secrets are toxic to a marriage. If you wanted to do it and tell him that you were? No problem. You doing it on the sly because it's too hard of a conversation? That's a sign of trouble in the relationship.
mrmasterly said:
I mean…yeah YTA. Not for wanting to have a separate account you fund, but for the hiding it. If your relationship is so shitty you can’t address the passive aggressive and/or overtly snarky comments and have him respond respectfully then you have bigger problems than your bonus. I assume he would go after half your bag if you ditched him?
Professional_Pop8867 said:
Wow to me YTA. Just ask yourself how you’d react if this was an opposite situation? You’ll get your answer.
CoachMACC said:
Let’s be real if he was putting money into another account, you’d be accusing him of cheating. YTA.
After reading the comments, OP decided to update the post to include:
However, a bit more context for the group: My husband is paid about 25% of his income in cash, which is NOT deposited to our joint account. He also does cash jobs on the weekend. All of these cash payments go to his cash pile which he keeps in the house.
I have no idea how much cash he has accumulated, he occasionally deposits some to our joint bank account but I don’t keep track of the ins and outs of his cash payments so whilst I know he has a slush fund, I don’t care.
Some of you asked about our financial situation. We are very fortunate that we don’t need to worry about money. Our home is paid off and we have 2 investment properties (which both have manageable mortgages), we have quite a bit in savings and regularly holiday.
The comments about spending from my husband do not relate to big or frequent purchases by me. I am not a shopper. I literally have 5 pairs of shoes and not much clothing, simply because I HATE shopping.
The comments about the cost of items simply happens for every day purchases, as an example, tonight we went to the shops quickly and I purchased 2 x $6 items, and the comment was "what are you buying 2 for?"
As to the comments about if my husband has money for sneaky purchases of his own, well I guess he does because he has bought multiple big ticket items (think cars and boats), without consulting me first from his cash stash and honestly didn’t care, because we have the money to do so.
But I will obviously have to self reflect because I suspect I don’t care about his big purchases because I know what I am doing with my own sneaky fund, and there is probably a better way