A lot of people dream about someday winning the lottery, but there are a lot of sad stories about people who did.
A spouse—who sees their own lottery win sounding a possible death knell on their marriage—turned to the “Am I The A**Hole” (AITAH) subReddit for feedback.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit differs by allowing questions about breakups and divorce to be asked, but it doesn’t provide an official judgment based on voting acronyms.
LottoIssues asked:
“AITAH for telling my wife we either share our lotto winnings or we separate and I get half anyway?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“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 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.”
“When we got the money and paid off our house, everything almost immediately turned bad. 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. On my salary alone, things would be tight. I asked if she was serious and she said of course, it was her ticket so 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.”
“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 next few days we tried to have this conversation again, but she didn’t budge an inch. When she said ‘well it doesn’t matter now because I’m putting in my notice at work’, I lost it and told her I’m not going through with this.”
“If she’s not going to share the winnings, which is under both of our names, I’ll divorce her and get half through the house and therefore half the winnings anyway. This started another screaming match where she continued to call me a gold digger.”
“I’m absolutely exhausted and lost.”
“I feel like my wife has been replaced by an imposter. I would’ve preferred not winning, if I knew this was going to happen.”
The OP later clarified:
“School hours is an incredibly common term in my country—people say that’s what they work all the time. It means only working the days and times that our kids are in school.”
“My employer literally has a form that you fill out called ‘School hours transfer request’. In New Zealand, it’s literally a category on job sites.”
“Mortgage terms here are also mostly weekly, banks literally recommend this to save interest costs.”
“She bought the lottery ticket through an app and the money is now on the house that is under both of our names. It was purchased off our joint card, our finances are completely entwined.”
“We both used to buy tickets, but when we moved in together and put our finances together, we both agreed it was financially dumb to buy two tickets a week and we should just get one. She had the app already installed, so we decided she’d buy them.”
“95% of the winnings went on the house—neither of us can take any money from it without jointly signing another mortgage form. The remaining amount is still in a shared account, but if she took it all, it wouldn’t be the biggest deal.”
“It wasn’t an official plan so much as, ‘Imagine if we won X amount, we could work school hours and not have to have our parents always looking after them and school care, we could go to the park and do stuff together in the afternoons, etc…’.”
“I know she has never enjoyed working, but it feels like she’s seen an out and is determined to take it, despite how much it’s taking from me and our kids.”
“The biggest pain point in our marriage is her avoidance of doing housework, a lot of it falls to me and is partly the reason why I would never support her not working.”
“She changes job every couple of years and has been in relatively different positions. She just doesn’t like working.”
“I’m not particularly fussed on it either, and if we had won the top prize, both of us would’ve quit without looking back. It’s just that this situation doesn’t allow that.”
“Other than that we have never had any issues, she’s been a great mother. That’s why I’m so shocked about this.”
“We didn’t win enough to invest and live off dividends so both still need to work. We currently do 40 each, cutting back to school hours would’ve been 30 each, and we need those 60 total hours to keep our standard of living (we both make pretty close to the same, within 10%).
“She thinks I will still work full time and that will be enough to live off, which it could be if we significantly restrict our spending, but it will be tough.
“But it’s not something I’m willing to do, just so she doesn’t have to work.”
“The way she’s acting is so out of character I think she’s on a high about ‘winning lotto’ and not taking into consideration the actual amount. If we had one more number, we would’ve gotten ‘quit our jobs and retire’ money, but that didn’t happen and it feels like she’s trying to act like we did.”
Some Redditors weighed in using the voting acronyms from AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Overall, Redditors decided the OP was justified in their reaction.
“NTA. That’s a really tough situation, and I can see why you feel blindsided and exhausted. What was supposed to be a life-changing win for both of you has turned into a battle over fairness and expectations.”
“It sounds like the two of you had very different assumptions about what this money would mean for your future. For you, it was a way to ease financial stress and create a more balanced life while still maintaining financial stability.”
“For her, it seems like total freedom from work was always the goal—something she may have never fully expressed before.”
“The way she reacted—calling you a gold digger and shutting down discussions—suggests she sees this money as hers alone rather than a shared asset, which is a huge red flag in a marriage. If you’ve always functioned as a team, her sudden shift in attitude is understandably shocking.”
“At this point, it might help to bring in a financial planner or even a couples’ therapist to mediate a conversation where you can both express your concerns.”
“If she’s already put in her notice, the reality of not having that income may set in quickly, but you don’t want to let this escalate into a situation where divorce becomes the only path forward out of frustration and resentment.”
“That said, if she’s completely unwilling to work with you, and she’s treating the winnings as hers alone despite your shared life, you might have to seriously consider what that means for the future of your marriage.”
“It’s heartbreaking, but you deserve a partner who respects and values your contributions and concerns just as much as their own.”
“Would she be open to sitting down with a neutral third party to talk things through?” ~ cschmidtusa
“The good news is that you can afford the divorce. The bad news is that the attorneys will be going on your vacation.” ~ Jolly_Engineer_6688
“Can confirm. My divorce was amicable and cost me $10k.” ~ ZealousidealBear93
“Can confirm. My divorce was amicable, I’m a lawyer and did a fair amount of work myself, my lawyer gave me a friendly deal, forgot to bill me, then sent me a bill for far less work than he actually did when he was closing down his practice, and it still cost me $2,500.” ~ Seth_Baker
“NTA. You may have been able to quit your job in the 1980s, but unless you won millions then there’s no way that she doesn’t need to work.” ~ Similar_Corner8081
The OP provided a small update:
“Kids are both in school, we have minimal childcare costs as grandparents can pick them up. I want to be able to pick them up from school, which is a huge part of why I want to share.”
“If the kids were still young I wouldn’t have as much of an issue as childcare was expensive before they went to school.”
“In my country we have a progressive tax system, two people working a combined 60 hours a week at the same pay, will make more than one person working 60 hours a week at that same pay.”
“Essentially her quitting and me working the same means more than just a 30% drop in our potential income.”
“If we shared, she would be dropping hours as well. We both work 40, we could both work 30 for 60 total. We can’t afford one person at home and the other doing 40. To make up the amount we would have if we both worked 30, I would have to do 65-70 as it’s taxed at a higher rate.”
“I shouldn’t have threatened divorce, I wasn’t serious, but it was something I shouldn’t have done. I said it to make a point that I could get half the winnings and that I don’t think it’s fair for her to be the sole beneficiary of the winnings.”
“I hate losing the woman I loved, this is seriously out of character to an insane degree.”
“Doing 50/50 with the kids and having to move them out of their home. This was supposed to be the home they grew up in.”
“Paid the house off on Monday and that’s when this started, so 3 1/2 days this has been going on.”
“Thank you for the thought out replies. You’re right, we should’ve found a mediator before it got to this point, this was just so out of left field that I didn’t really think through it logically and let myself lose my temper at the situation.”
“I’ll suggest we find a therapist/financial planner to try and work through it.”
It sounds like the OP has a path to move forward.
Hopefully, their lottery win will eventually become a win for the whole family.