To not discuss my finances with DH?

If you're happy that day to day you can buy the things you want and your lifestyle isn't completely different to you dh, such as he'll pay for holidays etc then it could work.

What would concern me is that you have taken a hit financially due to being which will hit your retirement and future earnings. Is he paying into a personal pension for you? What happens when you retire? Do you then have to live off state pension whilst he holidays in the Caribbean and takes a cruise once a year?

Don't forget you are facilitating his work, could he work the hours he does if you got hit my a bus tomorrow? Could he take care of the dc, stay at home if they are sick, attend sports day etc

Talks and discussions don't work because he doesn't want what is fair for everyone here... he wants it all to his advantage and having him covering the mortgage and you the childcare bill is already doing part of that but he wants it ALL his way.

What is he blaming you for BTW?

Talking to a (non biased) third party would unlikely work as well because he knows he is being unfair, he wouldn't agree to that.

You are being financially abused.

How you feel about what, though? What, specifically, is the problem?

Bearing in mind the confusion that has ensued, how would you phrase the OP, if you were to write it again? I think most of us genuinely want to help (I certainly would like to try), but aren’t entirely sure what’s being asked of us.

But why not instead of it being a discussion, or in fact any kind of blame, you just do is factually. Sit down with a list of every expense each of you pay. Add it up. Then look at each of your income and see who’s left with what. There’s no allocating blame there, it’s just facts, household bills = £X, you’re paying £Y, he’s paying £Z, are you left with equal amounts yes/no.

There’s no emotion or even really discussion involved there.

I am not critical of you. I am on your side!

I am, however, .pointing out that if you do what you did—you get what you got.

If nothing can change nothing will change. There is no other advice anyone can give you.

It is perfectly possible to be financially abused within the marriage, during the course of the marriage, even if nominally a divorce would produce a fair asset split. I would not rely on the mortgage payment/house as shared asset when he has set the expectation that you are solely responsible for the cost of the children. Many a divorced mother has discovered that to her surprise.

So he wants you to earn the same as him but doesn't understand that you can't at the moment because you are subsidising part of the childcare for the child you both made in this marriage, he is resentful because.... he wants to keep all the money he makes and not contribute to the family he made?

If he won't speak about finances then I guess you can't make him. You can point out that a divorced couple will wach have tighter finances than a married couple who live together. And you can point out that people who are married should be able to communicate about matters that are difficult to talk about, in a way that isn't evasive, aggressive (or passive aggressive) or blaming each other, and should be able to come to mutual agreement and compromise without one feeling its unfair. And the fact that you can't do this about money is actually making you doubt the marriage. Tell him how hurt this makes you feel that you feel you cabt raise a pretty important aubject with him.

Ask if he is willing to sit down, with a copy of the entire household income and outgoings, and have a conversation that he clearly finds uncomfortable, to sort this out. And it might help to have a list of points to consider that you can give to him in writing in advance eg how much does he think is reasonable that you each have for personal spending. How much do you think you should be saving. Who should pay for items that might arise that don't fall neatly into one of your current areas of responsibility. What does he feel is fair and unfair about the way you currently arrange finances. How does he feel about being the main earner. You do the same and then sit and talk through each point.

I'm assuming that you both have similar attitudes to money and financial goals. If its more that one of you is a spender and the other a saver then it's not just purely a communication issue it's more an issue of compromise.

If he refuses to engage then you literally have no other options other than put up with it or leave (possibly try and work more hours and advance in career to protect yourself long term, if that's possible)

This whole thread is weird. He earns triple but you’re left with more than him?? How much are his expenses?
you got the better deal but he’s unfair?

but ultimately I think this comment says it all.

Well if your starting position is your ending position “we are strange” then there simply is no suggestion anyone can make that will change the situation.

In reality you don’t have to accept repeating old patterns . Hostility, aggression, bitchy remarks, avoidance of honest communication, grudge holding, stinginess, emotional constipation are all choices you make (you each make) to avoid rocking the boat or changing something of value to you.

He is agressive, unpleasant, and bitchy to avoid sharing his income with you or to avoid giving you power in the relationship. You are avoiding conversation or confrontation with him and mumbling about “a better deal” or how the future when you go back to work full time doesn’t have this problem in order to avoid blowing up the marriage. Because that is the not so hidden threat—isn’t it? He is basically saying “if you try to have an open conversation with me about finances, or try to share finances, I will blow up/end the entente cordiale (sic) that we are pretending to have.

I wouldn’t be so confident, @probablymenow . You don’t really know someone until you divorce them. It’s a potentially problematic split of bills

I am sorry, but your 'd'h is a mean, nasty piece of so and so. My husband and I have vastly different salaries now (mine is a lot more), but when we started out as a family, he earned a lot more and the flat I moved into was bought by him, with no investment from me. First thing he did was put me on the title deeds and he added me on his bank accounts, with cards and the only spending limit was set by a bank then - 250 quid a day. He told me to use whatever money he had in it, no problem. Things changed and I earn a lot more now, etc. and frankly, I can't do enough for him now, because I can't forget his generosity of means and of spirit when we just married. I could not imagine having different accounts and different 'purses' in one family. To be totally honest, I think I would rather have a philandering, drunken, gambling husband than a stingy, mean, penny-pinching piece of so-and-so.

Why don't you just get a joint account where you each pay in a fixed amount proportional to what you earn, and keep your salaries/whatever going into your personal accounts. That's the best of both worlds surely?

How do you budget for anything? How do you manage a day out or a meal? Do you have to pay half each time and discuss if you can afford it before you go? If you suddenly inherited a load of money or started earning double him would he be happy with you not sharing it? Also is he stressed about money for some reason? Could you talk about it before?

That’s a naive statement considering you’ve never had older children. Their clothes and shoes become way more expensive as they start to have their own taste and want to fit in, hobbies (music lessons etc), expensive sports kit/club costs, socialising eg cinema trips, bus fares, school trips - often close to or more than £1k in secondary, driving lessons, university costs. You get the picture.

What do you want to work out? You say that your current expenditure split is roughly proportionate to your respective incomes and you think that’s fair. So, what are you seeking to address?

Or is there actually an imbalance? If so, tell
is what it is and we’ll try to give useful advice.

I’m not sure what you are asking - if it works for the 2 of you, that’s all that matters.

I couldn’t live with a man like him, but I don’t have to.

You have said the money split leaves you with more than him left over, so I really don’t understand what your issue is. It would be different if he was left with loads and you were left with nothing, or the other way around.

Rather than it being a conversation like this, could it be a more business-like chat just to look at everything? As in purely look at the numbers together. We do this, my husband has a spreadsheet with all of our expenses on which he uses to keep things organised and so he can see when it’s worth us changing insurance/mortgage etc (he enjoys stuff like this 😂) and so if this was us, we could look at the spreadsheet and see what all our outgoings come to in £. Then we could look at both our salaries and you can then see that if say you have £1000 coming in and after paying “your chunk” have £400 left for fun money, and he has £2000 coming in and after paying “his chunk” has £200 left for fun money then you can quite obviously see it’s unfair and needs to be rebalanced. Equally you could see that if you are left with £200 and he’s left with £400 then things need rebalanced, or things may actually be equal. Without having that info you have no idea whether he’s genuinely worse off, whether you are worse off, whether actually things are even and so it’s not possible to say whether he’s being a dick or whether he has a point.

If he has less disposable income after the joint essentials but before his own monthly payments (e.g. gym, he's got an expensive phone, he buys bike parts) then I understand his point.

But then my DH paid the childcare as he knew it was important for my mental health to go back to work.

If he is resentful that you aren't paying costs because of the childcare cost of you working then this is a husband problem, not a money one.