Imagine being a single mom, and your son’s dad died when he was just a child.

If your son were receiving survivor benefits due to his father’s death, would you use the money to pay your bills, give all of the money to your child, put the money in a savings account for when he’s older, or some combination of the above?

In this story, one mom is unhappy with how her boyfriend thinks she should spend her son’s survivor benefits, but she’s not sure if she’s overreacting or seeing red flags.

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITA for not wanting my boyfriend to factor my son’s survivor benefits into our new household budget?

My (38F) son (15M) receives $1100 a month in Social Security survivor benefits from his late father, who passed away when my son was five.

My boyfriend (40M) and I have been in an on-again, off-again relationship for a long time. Things have been good recently, and he’s proposed.

We’re planning on getting a house together.

I have my son, and he has three children, but only one of his kids would be living with us full-time.

Here’s how they plan on paying for the house.

The house we are looking at is $2,500 a month.

My boyfriend’s proposed budget is for him to pay $950, for me to pay $950, and for us to use $600 from my son’s check for the household.

He suggests we can then put the remaining $500 from the check into savings.

Her boyfriend disagrees with her thoughts about the survivor benefits.

My current practice is to give my son half of his check ($550) for his personal use and save the other half for him.

I think that since he’s almost 17, he should have some control over his money.

My boyfriend disagrees completely.

He thinks that since we are “going to be a family,” all the money should be pooled together for shared expenses.

He thinks I’m wrong and selfish for not wanting to include the survivor benefits in the main budget.

She thinks she might see a red flag.

We’ve been going back and forth on this, and I’m feeling incredibly uncomfortable with his expectation.

I feel like the benefits are my son’s and should not be used to reduce the adult’s portion of the bills.

It feels like he’s trying to make me subsidize the household using money that was meant for my son’s care and future, not to pay his own share of the bills.

Am I wrong here?

Is it selfish to keep my son’s check separate and manage it for his benefit alone?

Or is my boyfriend’s financial expectation a red flag for our future together?

I don’t think any of the $1100 should go towards the mortgage payment. All the money should be her son’s.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks the red flag is impossible to ignore.

This is a really good point.

I completely agree.

This person encourages her to break up with her boyfriend.

She better not ignore the red flags!

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