My wife still doesn’t know about my trust fund – when should I tell her?

Is it wrong to keep secrets from your spouse, even if that secret is something that makes their life easier? Do large financial secrets spell disaster for the future of a relationship? How long is too long to keep a secret? Why are rich people so ignorant when it comes to human relationships? Is it OK to live off a trust fund and not work?

These are some of the implied questions posed by one particularly rich person to the r/Ethics community on Reddit. We read through the responses to this fairly simple moral dilemma, and here is what they said.

The Question

Thinking about the value of money.

The author of the post says that he is 44 years old and that he and his spouse have been married for ten years but together for 15. He has a trust fund (he doesn’t say where it is from or who funded it, but we assume it was his parents or other close family) that pays him $25,000 every month, and has done so even before he met his spouse.

He initially told his spouse that he works as a consultant and the topic has not been addressed since. His spouse is a doctor and earns a very good salary.

He says he has assured his spouse that they don’t have to work, and that he has never had a full-time job himself and doesn’t plan to work at all in the future. He says they live an “upper-middle-class” lifestyle and is content (though whether his definition of his lifestyle actually fits the definition of upper-middle-class is dubious).

Finally, he asks if he should reveal the existence of the trust fund to his spouse. His family has told him not to and have always “advised against disclosing our financial situation”.  

The Community Response

A photo of a rich person.

Generally, those who commented on the original post expressed some form of bewilderment at the audacity of the author to keep a secret so long and at their financial situation.

Nobody blamed the author for not revealing the trust fund on the first date, but to hide it for 15 years is something else entirely. When (or if) he chooses to tell the truth about its existence, it will raise numerous questions about why and how, and probably cause the wife to question what he was doing with all his time when he was supposed to be at work, what else he might be lying about, and if he’s actually committed to the relationship in the first place.

Whatever might happen, it was agreed that the author is in a lot of trouble, and should not expect any kind of understanding or calm from their spouse.

Normal people can’t spend $25,000 every month even if they wanted to, so some were curious what exactly the author is doing with it, if he’s not putting it directly into a bank account or investing it.

Some others pointed out that rich families often have weird and silly dynamics when it comes to relationships and money, and they often go to great lengths to pretend like they are not rich, even though everybody can already tell. So, it’s understandable that he didn’t tell her at first, but to continue to keep it a secret reveals some deeper character flaws.

In the end, it is always better to tell the truth, and putting it off even longer because he’s afraid of what might happen will only make it worse.