Man gives wife ultimatum: 'we either share our lotto winnings or we separate and I get half anyway.' AITA?

"AITA for telling my wife we either share our lotto winnings or we separate and I get half anyway?"

My wife and I are extremely fortunate to have won a decent amount of money from Lotto recently. It wasn't the top prize but it was enough to pay off our (sizable) mortgage and still have some left over for vacations.

The mortgage was by far our biggest weekly cost and with that gone we could both comfortably cut our hours back at work to only school hours and spend some more time with our kids, this was always a daydream we spoke about when we bought lotto tickets, I assumed this is what we would both do.

When we got the money and paid off our house, everything almost immediately turned bad. My wife started talking about how amazing it's going to be finally not having to work anymore, I was blindsided by this.

Even with the mortgage gone we would still have to work at least school hours to keep our current standard of living, and on my salary alone things would be tight. I asked if she was serious and she said of course, it was her ticket and she gets to decide.

This is BS because we both bought lotto tickets before and when we moved in together we only bought one because two seemed like a waste of money. I tried to reason with her, say she could use some of the extra to take some unpaid leave here and there but she needs to keep her job, when I said "if I'm only working school hours"...

She absolutely flipped and started accusing me of being a gold digger and ruining this for her, how she deserved it after working so much of her life etc I asked her for a pause because I was honestly afraid, she's never been like this before.

The next few days we tried to have this conversation again but she didn't budge an inch, and when she said "well it doesn't matter now because I'm putting in my notice at work."

I lost it and told her I'm not going through with this, if she's not going to share the winnings which is under both of our names I'll divorce her and get half through the house and therefore half the winnings anway, this started another screaming match where she continued to call my a gold digger.

I'm absolutely exhausted and lost, I feel like my wife has been replaced by an imposter. I would've preferred not winning if I knew this was going to happen.

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

Jolly_Engineer_6688 said:

The good news is that you can afford the divorce. The bad news is that the attorneys will be going on your vacation.

wlfwrtr said:

NTA. You have to file for divorce immediately. If you can show that she quit her job after you saw an attorney you are less likely to pay alimony. Start marriage counseling. Sounds like friends or family may be putting thoughts into her head. She needs someone unbiased to talk to.

NYCStoryteller said:

NTA. Tell your wife that she's blowing up your marriage with her ridiculousness. Lottery winnings=joint income, and paying off the mortgage is comingling it anyway. She's not walking away from this relationship a winner.

So she's about ready to end up in a situation where she has a mortgage, 50/50 custody, and no partner because she thinks she should be able to retire now. You're not a gold digger.

She's a bad partner. She doesn't do housework AND she wants you to keep working? GTFO, lady! You have probably worked equally as many years as she has, assuming you're the same age. She's the gold digger here, thinking that the lotto win = FIRE only for her.

Similar_Corner8081 said:

NTA. You may have been able to quit your job in the 1980s but unless you won millions then there's no way that she doesn't need to work.

30222504cf said:

Money changes people and usually for the bad. It sucks that you are going through this. You are NTA. ​​

Successful-Worker139 said:

NTA. Your wife is being incredibly selfish and short-sighted.

FrankParkerNSA said:

NTA. You unfortunately have discovered the real person you married. She wasn't in the marriage for you, only the stability you provided. Sorry, man.

fedoraislife said:

NTA. I'm genuinely curious how she would've reacted if you had said "Oh my gosh, same! I'm handing in my notice tomorrow as well!" If she then questioned how you would make ends meet as a couple it would really highlight her hypocrisy.