My wife won the lottery, but won't share her winnings with us

“I would've preferred not winning if I knew this was going to happen.”

Winning the lottery is supposed to be life changing in the best way possible.

But, for one family, it’s been a nightmare.

A man has taken to Reddit after finding out he wouldn’t be getting the share of his wife’s Lotto winnings that he anticipated, and now people are wondering - does he really have the right to?

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“I would've preferred not winning if I knew this was going to happen”

“My wife and I are extremely fortunate to have won a decent amount of money from Lotto recently. It wasn't the top prize but it was enough to pay off our (sizeable) mortgage and still have some left over for vacations,” the man said in the post.

“The mortgage was by far our biggest weekly cost and with that gone we could both comfortably cut our hours back at work to only school hours and spend some more time with our kids, this was always a daydream we spoke about when we bought lotto tickets, I assumed this is what we would both do.”

However, he quickly realised that the reality was quite different.

“When we got the money and paid off our house everything almost immediately turned bad,” he wrote.

“My wife started talking about how amazing it's going to be finally not having to work anymore, I was blindsided by this. Even with the mortgage gone we would still have to work at least school hours to keep our current standard of living, and on my salary alone things would be tight.

“I asked if she was serious and she said of course, it was her ticket and she gets to decide. This is BS because we both bought lotto tickets before and when we moved in together we only bought one because two seemed like a waste of money.”

Then, things went from bad to worse.

“I tried to reason with her, say she could use some of the extra to take some unpaid leave here and there but she needs to keep her job, when I said ‘if I'm only working school hours’ she absolutely flipped and started accusing me of being a gold digger and ruining this for her, how she deserved it after working so much of her life etc. I asked her for a pause because I was honestly afraid, she's never been like this before,” the post said.

“The next few days we tried to have this conversation again but she didn't budge an inch, and when she said ‘Well it doesn't matter now because I'm putting in my notice at work’.”

The man said at this point, divorce was discussed, as it felt like the conversation was going nowhere.

“I'm absolutely exhausted and lost, I feel like my wife has been replaced by an imposter,” he wrote.

“I would've preferred not winning if I knew this was going to happen.”

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“You just found out how selfish she is”

Many commenters on the post were quick to side with the poster, calling the wife ‘selfish’ after having shown her true colours.

“Sorry but you just found out how selfish she is. This will come out in other ways, it is a fundamental personality flaw, not just a one time fight over one thing,” said one commenter.

“Get a divorce, get your half of the money and focus on you and your kids. Her priorities seem to be all about her, while yours seemed more about the family,” said another.

“I cannot fathom how someone could watch their partner work while they quit and holidayed. A marriage is supposed to be a team. She has shown her true colours and I don't think you'll be able to un-see it,” a third agreed.

“You need a windfall financial advisor NOW”

However, whilst few agreed with the wife directly, a large number said that both parties were in the wrong, encouraging them to instead seek financial advice and couples counselling before making any big decisions.

“You need a windfall financial advisor NOW, and couples counseling but the windfall financial advisor is the biggest issue,” one commenter said.

“Definitely not a ‘throw away the marriage’ moment and having professionals step in to offer neutral advice could help clear your heads and bring you both back to earth,” another agreed.

“You don’t want to make any big decisions like quitting until you have an expert that can check if that’s even realistically doable with the changes in taxes and stuff you’ll be wrangling,” said a third.

“Most people who win the lottery end up right back where they started pretty quickly. You should go together to a financial advisor before making any more changes,” another person said.

Originally published as My wife won the lottery, but won't share her winnings with us