Woman won the lottery and is keeping it a secret from her husband. 'AITA?' UPDATED 2X
"TIFU by not telling my husband about a lottery I won years ago"
Here's the original post:
The lottery winning took place back in August 2014. Mike and I were married in October 2014. It wasn't a fortune, but enough to make a difference. After taxes it came out to right around $480,000. Most people would be over the moon, but I panicked. I didn't want our life to turn upside down because we had extra money now.
I was still legally single at the time, and so I was able to accept it anonymously without the need to tell anyone else. So I didn't. Tell anyone else. Not a single soul. Not my husband, my parents, siblings, best friends, etc. Only the state and federal governments.
(My husband has a tendency to spend on things we don't need and that aren't going to benefit us in the long run so I didn't want our money to blown quickly on stupid stuff like cars and clothes.)
I opened a new bank account with a national credit union and put the check in. Got started with a financial advisor (Keith), who guided me into investing in local businesses and real estate. And that's that. It's been sitting there since, just growing.
Flash forward to today. I'm doing dishes getting ready to start making dinner, and my phone rings. I can't get to it but figure I'll call them back. Then I get a text. No big deal. I'll get to it in a minute....but husband came into the kitchen and glanced at my phone to let me know who text me and called me (which he always does if my hands are full).
It's Keith. He called and text me to let me know my account just hit $1 million after one of the energy companies I invested in soared recently.
My husband is stunned. Has no clue what to even say, staring at me until he says "we have a million dollars??" I was so flushed but finally just sat him down and explained the situation. He's clearly mad at me for never telling him. Asks if my family knows, and I tell him that no one knows except the IRS and Keith.
It took him a few hours to finally be able to really talk to me.. at the end of the silence he told me he's proud of me for investing into our future but he needs a few days to clear his head because he feels like I hid a huge part of "myself" from him. We might just need to take a vacation now.
TL;DR I won a lottery in 2014 and never told my husband until he learned that I grew the money to a million today.
Do you think she screwed up by waiting this long to tell her husband about her lottery winnings? Here's what top commenters had to say:
hairynutzndik said:
I’d be pissed, but not that pissed. Hubby is gonna be able to milk that cow all the way to a new truck
digitalvagrant said:
Did you tell him not to tell his friend? Your family? You had good reason not to tell people. Can his best friend/co-worker be trusted to keep a secret? I doubt it. It's too good of a secret not to gossip about. His whole office will know tomorrow.
And Pilfered said:
You've been keeping this a secret for your entire marriage, how did you not think this money would either be relevant or concerning, simply as a measure of trust and faith.
Sure don't share everything in the first couple stages of a relationship or something, but 7yrs into the marriage is like 5yrs too late to be sharing this sort of secret. Guy must be feeling a fool for stressing about earning money at any point in the last year.
She later posted this update:
Update! My husband and I just spoke on the phone for about an hour. He told me he's staying with his best friend/coworker tonight but that he's not angry. He agreed he would have spent the money on dumb things if he'd won it and is happy that I put it away. Little less happy that I didn't tell him about it for so long, but he said he doesn't care and doesn't want this getting in the way of our marriage.
And then she posted a second update:
Update!!!: Hello! Jesus I didn't know this would blow up so much. I've been at work and talking to my husband Mike all day, basically laying down some ground rules for the money moving forward. He will not tell anyone (didn't tell his friend!) and we will only dip in for emergencies and pre-discussed things.
A few people asked in the comments how much we make a year, I guess to see where we'd be without this money. I currently make around 60k and Mike makes more at around 85k. So to all the ones saying I "starved him" or "made him scrounge" that is not true lol. We make a good amount.
Ultimately, do you think she did the right thing?