Man Wants to Secretly Spend His Wife's Inheritance Without Her Permission

Unexpected inheritances are often the spark of lots of intense disagreement. Have you ever seen a movie? But this story isn't a movie. It's a real post in Reddit's "Am I the A-hole?" A woman recently came into a large sum of money unexpectedly, and her husband didn't like what she wanted to do with it.

So he came to Reddit to ask if he would be wrong to secretly spend his wife's inheritance without her permission. You'd think this would be a case of a seemingly bad husband being like, "I know this sounds bad, but hear me out: She wants to use the money to hire someone to murder me," which would maybe be the only acceptable excuse, but no. It's not like that at all. 

He explains that his wife "unexpectedly inherited a large sum of money from an elderly lady for whom she used to work as a housekeeper." If that sounds like the beginning of a movie to you, that's because it is. To several movies.

But this appears to be real life. Apparently, the woman had no living family, and she and OP's wife had become quite close over the years. Anyway, his next sentence is, "I have big plans for my wife's inheritance. This is life-changing money which should be invested rather than wasted."

"I have big plans for my wife's inheritance." Hear anything wrong with that? Yeah. He told his wife all his big plans for her money, and she disagreed about how to spend it. "She wants to do something in the elderly lady memory and also donate it to some worthy causes which the elderly lady supported." Sounds very noble to me. 

But her husband writes, "While I do appreciate my wife's generosity, I truly think this is not a good way for us to use the inheritance. I tried telling her to leave this to me while she is grieving."

Surprisingly (not!), that didn't go over well. They got in a huge fight and she ended up threatening to not join bank accounts with him anymore. Now, he is "considering investing it before it's too late." He wants to steal his wife's inheritance out from under her so she can't donate it to charity. Sounds like a real winner, this guy, huh?

Commenters quickly jumped in to say various versions of: "You didn't inherit it. Your wife did. She gets to spend it as she chooses." That should have been the end of it. 

But in an edit to his original post, he writes, "I do agree that spending my wife's inheritance without her permission is not the right thing to do, while I am entitled to half of it, I am not to all of it." Then he said he's going to get a lawyer involved and go behind his wife's back if she doesn't agree to give him half of it. 

Yikes. He sounds like a monster. In responses to comments, he keeps reiterating that he believes he has a right to half the money even if it was his wife who inherited it. Imagine having that attitude. Many tried to tell him that he probably doesn't have a legal right to any of the money; it was left to her and only her. 

Just because they're married doesn't mean he automatically gets half. He writes about suing his wife for the money if it gets to that point, basically making it clear that they are headed for divorce over this inheritance. 

If he seemed like a more rational person, I'd say, "Hey, maybe after some time passes you can sit down and have a conversation with your wife about it and maybe come up with a compromise. There might be a solution that involves investing some of it into your joint future and still donating some to the causes she cares about, but ultimately, it's her decision." 

But this guy really, really doesn't seem like a rational person. He's willing to sue his own wife for her inheritance. He is not a clear-thinking person, and he's going to ruin his marriage over it. I, for one, think his wife will probably be way better off without him.