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Dear Moneyist,
My husband and I are in couples counseling. He wants me to sign some kind of legal document saying that I will give him 50% of my inheritance after my mother passes. She is 92 and currently healthy. I said I was willing to get a money manager and set up a retirement account in both of our names, but I don’t want to give him half.
I don’t know how much money I will get from the sale of her house, which I have to split with my sister, and I think it’s foolish to sign a document like this. He thinks he deserves the money because he made more money than me for 20 years. I’ve always worked, even while raising our daughter. Am I being unreasonable?
J.G.
Dear J.G.,
No, you are not being unreasonable. On the contrary, you are being generous.
His request is bizarre for a number of reasons. Chief among them: Why would he insist on 50% of your mother’s inheritance if you are married, and share a life together? Surely, he would benefit from the spoils of this inheritance as you are a married couple who share a home and, I assume, are a team. Another oddity: Your mother may be 92 and healthy, and let’s hope she lives to be 100. If he looks at your mother and sees dollar signs, that would also make me question his thinking.
Inheritances received by a husband or wife are typically treated as separate property rather than marital property in a divorce. So unless you are planning to split, I presume it would not affect him. For instance, according to Bryan L. Salamone & Associates in New York: “Inheritances designated for one spouse, rather than the couple jointly, are separate property and immune to asset division in the court. However, the court requires proof of the asset’s separate status.”
“If you are the heir, there are important steps you should take to produce and preserve such evidence,” he adds. “”An heir who inherits cash, stocks or life insurance benefits should keep those assets in personal accounts, rather than joint accounts. An heir who comes into real estate holdings should refrain from putting the spouse’s name on the deeds. It’s much more prudent to draft a will, leaving the property to the spouse.” Establishing a trust provides extra protection, he says.
Studies show that working mothers, even those who are married, often carry the lion’s share of the household duties and day-to-day child rearing, housework and cooking. “Although mothers of young children spend more time on work, household labor, and child care than fathers, they are not more likely to have access to workplace policies such as paid family and medical leave, paid sick days, workplace flexibility, and affordable child care,” the Center for American Progress says.
“Compared with fathers of young children, mothers of young children spend significantly more total time on paid and household labor,” according to a report by the organization, a progressive public policy research and advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. “With the exception of multiple jobholders, mothers with a child younger than six years old spend more time on paid and unpaid labor than fathers within every demographic group.”
Your offer of a joint retirement account is more than fair. Keep your powder dry and your inheritance separate, and continue with couples counseling. I suspect there are issues there that will shed more light on the problems in your marriage. I’m sorry that he feels disgruntled that you’ve made less money than him during your marriage, but it seems like a long-in-the-tooth problem that — as often is the case with unreasonable requests and resentments — has very little to do with you.
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