The lottery winning took place back in August 2014. My husband and I were married in October 2014. It wasn’t a fortune, but enough to make a difference. The winnings were around $500,000. 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 separate bank and put the cheque in. Got started with a financial advisor, 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 my 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).
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 that 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 financial advisor.
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 in 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.