Reply to Best use for 1.6 million inheritance

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To those who say Op has to co-mingle the money for the sake of a good marriage. No. It's not "enjoy your money alone" as some pp said. Instead, it's, "Op, in this case, how it is spent is your decision. Plenty of spouses can choose to invest/spend for the good of the marriage and family. But the decision making power is all Op's. And should be.[/quote]

The idea on this board, though, that it's absolutely insane to commingle an inheritance strikes me as misguided. I inherited about 1/3 of what OP is expecting about 10 years ago and didn't think twice about putting it into a joint account with my wife. It's not like I did anything to earn the money. It wasn't even like my parents did anything to earn the money; it came from my grandparents. I saw it as basically a windfall that there was no reason I should consider mine and mine alone. If one day half of it goes off into another family because ours breaks up, the people who actually earned it will never know or care.[/quote]

How much are you making? [/quote]

I'm making about twice now as I was when I inherited this money (and at the time, wife was home with our then-younger kids). Now our household income is about $300,000, of which I make about 60 percent and she makes about 40 percent. Not really sure what that has to do with whether I felt that I should be entitled to all the money on my own or that it should become a marital asset.[/quote]

There was power imbalance at the time you inherited, strongly  in your favor (wife SAHM vulnerable to cheating, you leaving her with young kids etc). Wives with younger kids rarely have time to cheat. Thus your decision to support the dependent young family was just. 
It’s a totally different scenario from two spouses with grown up kids making about the same money in their 50s, probably somewhat tired from married life, and one of them inherits a lot of money. If they already built a life and financial stability, nobody is dependent in marriage, I see no point to commingle [/quote]

Ha, yeah, I was a real catch as a married new dad making $85,000 a year, she was very vulnerable to cheating. :roll: Actually, in retrospect, she was not yet staying home when we got this money, that was after second kid. In fact, at the time, she was making slightly more than I was.

Regardless, it never would have occurred to me not to commingle this inheritance, because we share all our finances and, to me, a random $500,000 landing on us shouldn't have been treated any differently from a paycheck or a smaller gift. (My grandparents' estate lawyer did double check that the money should be put in the joint account I gave him; that also had assets in it that I'd owned on my own before my wife and I had met, which I had already commingled for the same reason.) If one day I'm fortunate enough to leave money to my own grandchildren[b], I would hope they also wouldn't spend any time worrying about what I'd want them to do with it and would, instead, use it in the way that works best for the lives they're building.[/b][/quote]

This is really dumb.  No one is saying don't use it to improve your lives - just don't commingle it for no reason.  In your case, you could have opened up an individual taxable account, rather than depositing it in a joint account.  It's effect would have been exactly the same on your family; no difference at all.  [/quote]

In my case, I decided that commingling it was the best way to use it for my family. So it's not "for no reason." [b]The difference would have been that I'd have had money that my wife had no access to, which I didn't think was a good dynamic.[/b] At any rate, my grandparents were living when they passed this on to us, and they didn't object when I commingled it. But generally speaking, the point of generational wealth like this is to help future generations, not honor the wishes of whoever left it behind.[/quote]

This suggests some underlying issues with your marriage that you may be trying to paper over or remediate by commingling the assets.  It may be worth addressing them head on, rather than hoping that taking ill-advised financial decisions will solve them.  [/quote]

Thanks for your advice. This was 11 years and two kids ago, our marriage is great, and you don’t actually know me, so I think “you decided it would create an imbalance in your relationship if one of you had a ton more money than the other one, therefore, you must have serious problems you’re trying to buy your way out of” is a bit of a stretch. [/quote]

Well, I hope you're right.  But the fact that one or both of you would view using the inheritance for the benefit of the family as you jointly decide, but simply keeping it in a separately titled individual account as something that creates an imbalance does seem to suggest that there are underlying issues at play.  I can't imagine that anyone secure in their relationship would feel that way.  [/quote]

I just didn’t see why it should belong only to me, even if we were to divorce. I didn’t have anything to do with earning the money. Seemed absurd to say she could never have any claim on it under any circumstances.[/quote]

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