My wife is a stay at home mom for our 2 kids and I work full-time as the sole income provider for the family. I am slowly working on paying back my student loans.
My wife recently received a relatively large inheritance, about 10x the number of my student loans.
A month after everything regarding the inheritance was settled, I talked with my wife about using the inheritance to pay off my loans. She refused to give me any of the money and said the inheritance belongs only to her. I told her that, yes, legally that’s true but we are a family and we should share our resources to make our burdens easier.
She disagreed and said my student loans pre-date our marriage and are my sole responsibility.
I felt like she was being unfair to our relationship and to us as a family, so the next day I told her that if she was not going to help me pay off her student loans, now that she has money I will not be paying for any expense that is solely hers (like clothes, eating out, flights, makeup, spas, new phone, etc.).
Instead, I will be putting that money towards my loans to pay them back faster. She accused me of being controlling with money and abusing my position as the income-earner but I don’t see why I should be responsible for all that when she has her own money now?
Here are what netizens think:
- Sometimes woman want an emergency fund. Especially if their husband is controlling, or other red flags.
- I agree with you. It’s been made clear to him by his wife that his debt is his debt and that he’s on his own — and of course he wants to clear it off as soon as possible. And if that means putting an extra $500 towards it instead of his wife’s non-necessities, which she can now afford herself — then it is perfectly reasonable for him to do so.
- But the money he’s putting into the household is essentially paying her in a way for childcare, cooking and cleaning, that’s how it works when one parent stays home.