Should I ask H for more money if I have enough of mine?

[jacketpotatowithtuna]

Several years ago H was unemployed and I was the breadwinner. Then he slowly progressed in his career and just got a new job with a salary much higher than mine. As a part of old agreement (when he had less money than me) he paid around 1/3 towards household bills as this would leave us with fairly equal free cash (very little free cash in fact). When he earned the same as me, we left the same arrangement as I knew he ran up some debts (he did not tell me about this) so he needed cover repayments. He also bought a car and car insurance from his money.

Now as he got a much better job, I wonder what I should do. I can live with the current arrangement but I have no spare cash left. Theoretically we should split the bills 1/2 each or he should even pay more.

On the other hand, as our marriage struggles and our lives are pretty much separate, I am not sure if there is a point of demanding for more money. By the way, I bought the house we live in with my own deposit and mortgage, and if we split I hope that it he will not ask for a share of it (he never contributed to any of the upkeep of the house), but afraid if I start demand more money for the household (which includes mortgage) he may then ask for the share of the house. We have 2 DC. He is very hands-off parent.

If I ask him for more money now that he will be earning more, he is likely to say 'do you have not enough of your own money?' or 'how much to you need?' and when I actually do not need as such, I know I will hesitate to ask.

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

Tbh I think you need to decide whether you want to be in a relationship with him, and work from there.

Your whole post is basd around possibly splitting. Why?

[hellsbellsmelons]

Wow - this does not sound like a healthy relationship.
Why are you with someone you can't discuss these things with?
You post makes it sound like you don't plan on spending the rest of your life with him.
If you don't then best to get him out of it now and get one with things on your own.

If you do love him and want to make things work then you need to sit down and discuss money and assets and do it fast.

This is just seriously odd!!

[Matildathecat]

Hmm. There's a lot of 'my money' and 'his money', 'my house' going on here. In a marriage it's meant to be 'ours' IMO.

Of course if he's earning more he should be contributing more to the family finances but seems like the real issues are much deeper.

Do you want to be together? If so sit down and talk about 'our finances'. If not I guess you sit down with a solicitor.

[Fizzybangfanny]

Agree with pp. you need to decided if you actually want to be in this relationship.

[jacketpotatowithtuna]

I dont know. I guess we just carry on out of convenience and for the sake of DC. We talk nicely and dont argue and even have intimate relationship, but he is very secretive and non-talkative type and every try to talk has hit the wall. So I just resorted to floating in a bit of limbo hoping that eventually life will take care of things one way or another.

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

Well, you only get one life, so make it enjoyable is my mantra. Barmy.

[Fizzybangfanny]

Horrible place to be. I've been there.
Ultimately the resentment of me forking out time and time again made me push him out the door actually I left, with my bin bags

If your going to work it out, you need to get the moment matters sorted. His debts are not yours and you letting him have more money is effectively paying for his debts. Why should you go with out?

Did you buy the house before or after h?

[StillWishihadabs]

Do you know how much he earns ? What his outgoings are ? Why do you see it as asking him for money ?

[Fizzybangfanny]

*money

[Youdontneedacriminallawyer]

I'm a firm believer that any money earned by either party in a marriage is for the common good, and should be put in a pot for each to use as necessary. Also, any property owned by one is, in fact, an asset shared by each of the partners in the marriage.

In the same vein, any expenses incurred are the liability of husband and wife jointly.

It's absolutely ridiculous that you have to ASK your DH for money for household bills. Does he not use electicity, or eat food?

You shouldn't split bills at all. Everything you both earn should go into one bank account, and everything should then be paid out of that same account. If either of you needs to spend big one month, you have a discussion as to whether or not you can jointly afford it (eg new outfit, holiday, Chrismas expenses, whatever) and you come to a sensible arrangement that he can have his new golf clubs this month and you will wait for next month before you get your new car (or whatever).

[Lweji]

The usual stance is that each partner should have equal spare cash after all bills and family expenses are paid.

It's only fair that he contributes more now, or 1/2 of everything, including children's expenses.

If he doesn't agree to this, then it would be reasonable for you to separate and make him pay child maintenance.

If you bought the house while married I'm afraid that he will probably be entitled to half of it. It doesn't matter who paid for what, as it's family money.
You might get away with a larger share if you used money that you had before getting married to buy the house.

Get legal advice before you do anything.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

"hoping that eventually life will take care of things one way or another"

Don't waste a perfectly good life hoping for things to happen because they really won't. Short-term tell him that his contribution needs to go up now he's earning more. Long-term think about what you really want.

BTW... it's very sensible for people to keep personal title to their money, even within a committed relationship. Dependence is occasionally necessary and it can work if everyone's reasonable but it's generally not a good place to be. If I'd put everything into one bank account with my financially irresponsible exH, for example, I'd have been bankrupt when we divorced rather than just hard up.

[HopefulHamster]

It's strange to me that he hasn't already offered to pay more. I agree with the others that the relationship needs looking at first.

[onedayatatimeLondon]

This sounds very like my relationship with my exh except I wanted to be in the relationship. He was the silent type who refused to talk about anything, suggesting it was all in my head etc. Then he walked, having met ow. There followed an acrimonious divorce where he wanted to take a large chunk of our assets, which I had paid for while he retrained etc and would have left me and the dcs substantially worse off.

I had to fight for survival and while I got there in the end it was very difficult and I wouldn't wish it on anybody.

OP, as you already seem to be thinking this isnt a relationship you want I'd advise you to take control and decide what you want. If you want to stick with the marriage you have to be honest and live it in a way that makes you happier. This means sharing responsibility for the cost of living and not being made to feel so used.

if on the other hand you don't want to stay married to him then take control of the situation and leave. I don't say this lightly and I can't promise it will be easy but if you can take control you may get there more quickly rather than wait for him to take control.

I am now in a new relationship and our attitude to money, sharing and communicating about it could not be more different. As another post said, these are the signs of a healthy relationship.

take care

[jacketpotatowithtuna]

The phrase ask for money is only there because I am responsible for paying the bills. That is how it was when he was unemployed, and that is how we left it.
When we were sorting the money before, he asked how much I want him to contribute, and I told the amount that I thought was fair.
Maybe I should just ask in the same way again.

The relationship is a different matter but I admit that I have no courage to make changes.

Your posts started me worried about the house matter. I always thought the house is the one safe asset that I have. Not so sure now.

[BrunoBrookesDinedAlone]

Well, I'd say he's clearly a selfish man and out for himself, as he's happy to keep his cash and see you and possibly his DC havign less.

So I'd say that based on that, if you split you can bet that he'd bust his ass to get as much of your house as possible. Which he might well succeed at as you are married and it's technically a marital asset. Contributions or not!

[iggymama]

If you split and the children stay with you, he will have to give you around 20% of his salary for child support. Not much less than he currently gives you. Plus you may get other help such as tax credits.


Whether you want to make it work or end your marriage then you need a full and frank discussion with him. Maybe seek legal advice first if you really want to split.

[jacketpotatowithtuna]

onedayatatimeLondon I feel sadness and joy to read your post.
Sadness as it does sound similar to mine. Joy as you fought and got out and now sound trully happy.

I guess I am the one who wants to stick by my marriage more. Purely because we are amicable partners and I want the best for DC. Although, if H decides to leave, then I will only wave him goodbye for good. While in this limbo, I decided to live my life as it was the last day and so we quite enjoy it.

The problem with my lack of decision is that I have not worked out whether H is just the caveman person who does not know how to communicate (he did not have example in his family), or whether he is quiet on purpose to keep his things to himself.

Anyway, I will ask him to contribute more. Will see what he says.

[Offred]

Of course the house is not solely yours if you are married!

You need to go and get legal advice.

Assets in a marriage are joint and are aplit on divorce based on an assessment of contribution. You won't necessarily get credit for supporting him through unemployment as spouses have a legal duty to financially support each other. The court would try to split the assets fairly with a view to upholding the commitment marriage implies and keeping each partner as close to the status they enjoyed within the marriage.

I think you should be demanding a fair contribution from him therefore and you need legal advice about the house.

[BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted]

Unfortunately the house is an asset of the marriage regardless of whose deposit it was or whose salary paid the mortgage. That is the nature of a marriage.

In my opinion all income should be shared regardless of who earns it, decisions about what and how money gets spent should be shared, and both parties should have the same amount of discretionary spends to do with as they wish.

Presumably now that your husband's salary has increased, if he's not contributing an appropriately increased amount to the family's expenses he has more money than you do. Well, that just ain't right.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

You need legal advice about your house. If you acquired the house pre-marriage it is not regarded as a marital asset. However, the longer the marriage continues the bigger the claim your spouse has because a) it is their home and b) it is less easy to argue that they haven't made a contribution, either financial or in kind. If you acquired the house after you married him, even if it was 100% your mortgage, your deposit and your money making the payments, then it would be a marital asset and split 50/50 in the event of a divorce.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

"I guess we just carry on out of convenience and for the sake of DC".

That also means that neither of you are willing to make the final break so you just bumble along and get more resentful. Your children are also perhaps far more aware than you realise about the parlous state of your marriage. Also they won't thank you for staying with him if you were to choose to; no medals are handed out for martyring yourself like this.

What does this marriage of yours teach your children about relationships?. Would you want them to think as adults that this example of a marriage i.e a loveless one becomes their "norm" in their own adult relationships?.

[jacketpotatowithtuna]

Oh dear. It is worse than I expected. I am probably very naive. The house was bought just after we got married. Our accounts have always been separate and he is not my financial associate in credit scores (I made sure of that - it threatened to worsen my credit score when he took out his numerous loans). He pays a certain amount into my bank account as his 1/3 household contribution (so outcome and contribution numbers are pretty clear).

Still.. what that means... I bought the house and took out a loan for home improvements and just trying to get by spending all my money for house, DC and household and even paying for our odd holiday; while he has more cash, does not buy anything apart for himself, invests in assets in his home country, has not put a finger to the house and has not bought a single item for the house, and yet he will get half of it?

I was hoping that if we split he will only take what he bought. Which is practically nothing. I actually even have a will written which says that due to his troublesome management of his finance the house goes to DC, not him.

I am afraid all of this will make me sit very quietly in my marriage, afraid to make any move...

[Offred]

Go and get legal advice.

He may not get half.

However marriage is a legal contract to financially support someone. If they happen to be crap with money you are better getting out sooner rather than later I would say no matter what the sunk costs are.

The court will see it as your duty rather than the state's to support him financially as that's what you agreed when you got married. They should try to recognise your greater contribution but it is highly unlikely they would let him walk away with nothing.

[Offred]

But really is money worth being in this relationship forever?