Woman Argues With Husband After Abusive Ex Leaves Her $60k In His Will — 'I View The Inheritance As A Rightfully-Earned Compensation'
While she says she's due compensation for the abuse she endured, he believes money from her abuser should be the last thing she wants.
Fizkes - Shutterstock Financial strife is one of the main reasons that marriages don't work out. Mounting debt and the related stress and anxiety can easily come between an otherwise happy couple and cause them to eventually go their separate ways.
But a sudden, unexpected windfall can quickly get a couple back on track, and that's exactly what one wife hoped would happen after she got an out of the blue financial gift from her abusive ex-boyfriend.
A woman's abusive ex-boyfriend willed her a large sum of money and her husband doesn't want her to take it.
In a post shared on the r/AITAH subreddit, the worried wife shared that initially her ex-boyfriend was charming, but within just 6 months of dating, he became verbally and emotionally abusive.
That quickly turned into physical abuse, prompting her to end things with the troubled man. Fortunately, the relationship was long-distance and they shared no mutual friends, so she didn't have to worry about running into him in her daily life.
That didn't stop him from reaching out every few months. Like their relationship, those conversations started out promising and positive and quickly turned into a barrage of insults about her weight and her lack of attractiveness.
She would routinely block, then unblock him, engaging in a toxic cycle of dysfunction. Like many abused women, she justified his behavior with excuses and feelings of guilt. The communication ceased three years prior to her posting, when she finally asked him to stop calling.
Three months after leaving her ex, she met her current husband and has been with him for the last 11 years.
Her new husband was a far cry for her former partner, treating her like a prize and making her finally recognize her own value. The new couple built an amazing life together, but the abusive ex-boyfriend loomed in the background for the first few years of their relationship, popping up to remind her and her husband that she was still emotionally attached to him.
Eventually, she cut him off and finally moved on with life, something her husband was grateful for.
But the couple had another problem: They had a massive pile of debt including student loans and credit cards, and it was getting in the way of home ownership. Her husband had proposed accessing their 401k plans to pay off the debt, then picking up extra jobs to repay their retirement accounts.
"That just seems absurd to me," the woman admitted. She felt that barring a miracle, their hands were tied financially.
She recently received a call from an attorney who told her that her ex-boyfriend had died and made her a beneficiary on his retirement account.
Not surprised that he had ended his life, but shocked that he had left her with a $60,000 inheritance, she was excited initially. But when her husband heard the news, he was "uncharacteristically angry" that even from the grave, the ex was intruding on his life.
He demanded his wife refuse the money and told her that if she accepted it, it couldn't be used on his own debt, although the couple's accounts were shared. He'd much rather drown in debt and work to overcome it than rely on his wife's former partner.
After contemplating for three weeks, the woman decided that she was due compensation for the years of abuse she had suffered at the hands of her ex.
The lump sum payment would free her and her husband financially, but she's struggling with how to convince him. "Usually we are pretty good about discussing things rationally, but he's been really emotional about this. He's hurled a lot of insults at me, and told me he never should have married someone who is still in love with a loser," she confessed.
The popular opinion is she should accept the money.
Some people called it a tax for being insufferable, and others justified that it was reimbursement for therapy she'd been forced to undergo, and depression medication that would not have been necessary if it weren't for him. All were in favor of keeping the cash, a viable solution to their financial problems. But those people don't have to live in her marriage.
Even though she claims to be glad her ex is no longer ever going to be able to contact her, relying on his retirement money could be very emasculating for her husband.
The fact that he feels unable to rectify their financial woes means that taking this money amplifies the notion that he can't provide for his family. Those feelings of inadequacy do not bode well for their future.
On the other hand, ongoing struggles with their debt won't make the relationship fare any better. This inevitably becomes a case of "is the risk worth the reward?" Either way, the couple faces an uphill battle and might need professional help to navigate it.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington. She covers lifestyle, relationships, and human-interest stories that readers can relate to and that bring social issues to the forefront for discussion.