Frustrated husband threatens job exit after wife quits due to her inheritance. AITA?
"AITA for threatening to quit my job because my wife just randomly quit hers?"
Throwawaywinherit
My (35M) wife (33F) inherited a large chunk of her late father's sizable estate. She made it very clear that the money she inherited was supposed to go to her dad's bloodline, also known as her and our children (13F, 9M). That I'm not entitled to a cent of it.
We live in North Dakota and I make $52k a year doing a property management job I hate. It gets old driving around dealing with tenants who take their frustration out on me because my boss decided to cut corners.
My wife worked as an accounts payable clerk making $32k. She hated her job because there was no growth and it was boring. But she held the job to show her dad she was responsible.
Her dad died and now she inherited a 5 bedroom mortgage free house in another state. It's in one of the most HCOL areas near a private college where nearly all the students come from East Coast private schools.
She rented out the house by bedroom to students, and gets $6,000 a month when it's all said and done. The rest of her inheritance is locked in a trust that pays out $15k a month. Living in North Dakota, the approximately $252,000 she gets is more than enough to live well.
However, I feel my wife has been unfair with how she's handled the money. Right away, she rented herself a BMW. And then she decided she was done cooking and would order out every day.
The problem is I have high cholesterol and a lot of the foods aren't good for me, and the foods that are good for me, she never leaves enough real leftovers. I can stomach the fact that her inheritance is hers, but it does hurt that I've never resisted picking up the financial burden when I earned more but she hoards all her new money.
She puts her inheritance disbursements and rent income all into accounts under her name, and meanwhile our day job incomes kept going into joint bank accounts. That would make sense but then she quit her job out of the blue last week.
She said she looked at her boss (50F) and that she was not cut out to work until she was old like her. She wants to pursue her passion of photography but doesn't want to earn money from it.
So she quit. But the problem is that she quit because she gets $250k+ basically effort free. I don't benefit from that but still have to pay for the mortgage and other household expenses since she refuses to pay for it, citing it is joint expenses.
We got in a fight and I threatened to quit my job too if we were all quitting jobs now because work is hard. Her rationalization was that she buys takeout every day for us now, so my job was enough to pay for our mortgage.
I asked that if she wants to upgrade houses like she upgrades cars I'm guessing the new house won't be in my name. Will I have to pay the maintenance/ contribute to mortgage payments?
She said I should have to because it would be living expenses that I would benefit just as much as her.
AITA for being annoyed at her selfishness?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
BlueGreen_1956
NTA. The inheritance showed you your wife's true colors.
Divorce her and let her enjoy the money. You will be rid of her and your resentment.
The OP responded here:
Throwawaywinherit
Yes it's not so much about me wanting to upgrade my lifestyle but the fact she's saying that her contribution to the mortgage and other household expenses ( besides the takeout) is now zero since she has no job.
I will have to carry 100 percent of that burden while she enjoys her inheritance. She also said that I should keep my job because if I get sick, I'll need it to pay medical bills since she refuses to use her inheritance for that either.
ZealousidealGroup559
Wow, she's really shown you who she is!
And it's terrifying.
Frazzledragon
So, she wants the "joint" expenses to be fully paid from the "joint" account, which you are paying into, while the 6000 in rent payments goes to her private account? Sounds to me like that should count as joint income, while the trust fund's monthly payment remain inheritance territory. So, probably NTA, because I think you are getting the short end of the stick here.
Sea-Ad9057
as soon as she spends all of the inheritance money ( which is her right its hers ) she will expect you to support her, you know this right .... she will have been out of work for quite a while at this stage and it will be harder for her to find work.
For now get a postnup and in the post nup separate your finances and have the household expenses paid 50/50, she can choose to work or not to work its her decision.... this is all of course if you still want to remain married to her.
CandyandCrypto
Do not quit your job out of spite. That would be dumb. You should immediately create your own account and have all your checks deposited in that account....no more joint account at all!
Then decide if you still want to be with her or not. If you do stay then split all bills as evenly as you can. But don't be surprised when she decides she wants to run off with her new money.
Dlraetz1
There’s no way in hell I would stay married to someone who treated Me like that. Your wife is an epic AH.
newprairiegirl
I think the real question is does your wife still want to be married. If it was me getting that kind of money I would want to make life easy for my whole family. At the very least she should contribute funds equal to income, meaning she should be paying far more of the household expenses relative to annual income.