Finances post baby - how would you split?

but the op here wants to get married and her bf won't marry her.

Marriage isn't all that important to some people and that's okay. There are other ways to protect yourself without being married.

Dp and I have 2 DC, 14 and 10, mortgage, cars etc and we're not married.

Finances are split pretty much 50/50 as we earn similarly, but I wouldn't want him to subsidise me even he was the higher earner.

Op, you can't decide to stay at home and ask him to pay for that if he wasn't part of that decision. What if he turns round and says he wants to go part time to be more 'present' as a parent, would you cover his portion or the bills. Because given you expect him to do it for you that would only be fair. You're putting a lot of pressure on him to provide when it seems like he thought this was going to be more of an equal set up.

You are naive. If you want to get married tell him.that. don't accept no. You have a child fgs.

When I met my now dh I was a single parent on a low wage. He was a single older very wealthy man with no children. He would have been very happy for me to live with him . He had no reason to marry me why would he

I said I will not live with you. Unless you marry me. For me it was important. For commitment and also financial protection.

Course I could have just moved in with him and lived with him. And he would have loved that. My son and I would have had a great life.

But men really do prefer women who demand commitment. I demanded marriage. He married me. We are coming up to our 10 year anniversary and it's all wonderful. No way would we still be together if he'd not married me

He won't marry you?you need to be stronger

How far are we supposed to have come.

Yet women are still stupid enough to have babies with men who won't marry them.

No. Buying a house and having a baby. Which really is just having sex once isn't a commitment.

If your man won't marry you and you want to get married then he's just not that into you. Ss the saying goes. He's just waiting for the woman who he really will love and marry. And make no mistake she will come along

I think you need to have a discussion with DP about reducing your hours and income. Both parties need to be in agreement.

the biggest red flag I see here is you pay 50/50 for bills etc when he earns double what you do. I would have been expecting him to pay double what you towards expenses etc then the rest is each parties to do what they like with.

maybe it’s worth the discussion about pooling money or at the very least how the bills are split.

who is going to be responsible for childcare costs/bring up the child financially?

Oh ok, fair enough I missed that. Still need more info on hours worked/ finances etc really though . It’s not as simple as saying both working full time is fair ( and fair on who?), every situation will be a little different.

Before marriage my wife and I were 50/50 on everything, just so that in the event of a relationship breakdown everything gets sold and split the same way.

Once we got married she did not contribute to the household bills other than food shopping. This roughly worked out as I earned double and we had no childcare costs.

We then wanted to do some house renovations but the condition I put on that was we pro rata all the bills then. She contributes £800 a month and I pay in just over £2,000. This pays all of our bills, food, cars, childcare etc.

She stays home with the kids one day a week through choice, if she wanted the kids in childcare that day for some "me" time I'd support that and not expect any adjustments to contributions.

In your situation you need to work out if your DP would subsidise you dropping hours or would still want 50/50. I couldn't watch my wife or girlfriend struggle financially because they wanted to spend time with our kids, especially if I earned double, but not all men think like me.

I think OP said that she would do drop offs and he'd be doing pick ups.

I do agree you can’t have it all but I was the higher earner which was why we had to downsize. We don’t know enough about how much they each earn to really know the impact. First on overall finances but also in the balance of childcare. I know lots of men that don’t really think about the logistics and just look at overall costs. Plus as I said would they be equally sharing pick up/ drop offs. Because if not I thinks actually she does get more say.

@Italiandreams

You're right when you say ideally it should be discussed and agreed...but in this case it wasn't agreed.

You were also aware that to go PT you were willing to downsize inorder to do so.
OP went PT but also wants to move house which in their own words will be creating larger mortgage repayments... and possibly increased other bills...

Bit late now but you’ve left yourself really vulnerable financially. You’re the lower earner, you’re part time and you’re not married. It’s fine not to be career minded but you do need to be savvy.

What does your DP think is fair now that you are earning so much less?

OP what happened when you were on maternity leave?

Did you continue to receive your full salary?

Did you continue to cover half of the bills?

How long were you off for?

Did DP take paternity leave?

Did DP pay you anything to compensate you for the childcare you provided/the money that was saved on nursery fees? Has he suggested paying you compensation for this going forward?

I think you do need to have an open and honest conversation, because if he still wants separate finances then he needs to recognise the financial contribution you have made in the form of childcare.

Ideally it should be discussed and agreed. However, if the OP had gone back full time , would her partner have done half of all drop
off/ pick ups/ illness cover? Do they both work similar hours because full time hours/ commute times etc vary. I understand it comes from a place of privilege being able to chose, but if you can, what is wrong with saying it’s actually better for our family of I am part time. It’s not all about maximising earnings if someone is pushed to their limit, and that choice could be made. I have tried both and we are all much happier me working part time. Which again I know I am lucky, but we did downsize our house to be able to do that as I was the higher earner.

I seems that you have fallen into the trap of believing that a relationship and it’s finances should be based upon equality. It shouldn’t it should be about trying to achieve equity.

Equality is about black and whites. It says that to be fair and equal in something everyone must put in the same amount. It treats everyone the same regardless of individual circumstance.

Equity understands difference and nuance, the greys in things. It understands that everyone comes to something with different needs and circumstances and then aims to divvy up resources and utilise our differences to then try and ensure fairness in a situation.

Equality works really well in some things - how to split the hotel costs for group of friends going away together for instance.

A relationship needs equity.

Whats your point 🤯👕

She chose without her partners agreement.

Tbh the red flag here is that pre baby your partner (I note, not husband, which is important) earned double what you did but bills were split equally.
The writing was on the wall even before the baby came along that this was not a partnership.
I wouldn't have had a baby with someone of that mindset.

It’s a privilege to be able to choose. Like OP.

Conversely he wasn’t happy about it.

It’s not always a privilege.

2 excellent long posts on P5, from
@MumbleBumbleAppleCrumble
@MissScarletInTheBallroom

But surely that’s contributing half minus the money they won’t be spending on childcare? Money after all only being one of the myriad of things people contribute to a household and a relationship and a family.

I absolutely agree that these things need to be decided as a couple rather than announced; but equally, all contributions need to be valued. Currently it seems that money is used against the OP and that shouldn’t be the case in a loving and equal relationship.

I think the problem with doing ratio:ratio for bills is it really doesn't take into consideration the lack of career progression available while you devote your time to kids, or the inevitable extra work you'll be picking up raising your joint DC and looking after your home.

You obviously both need to be on the same page, but IMO the only way to be equitable partners is to divide the money equally, regardless of who earns what. So all in one pot of joint current and saving accounts, and both have the same amount to spend on themselves a month.

I used to be the higher earner, and we tried a number of different financial splits. 50/50 when we started living together, but that went out the window when my DP lost his job during the pandemic. Then a ratio when he had a part time job while retraining, but that didn't leave him with much and didn't feel fair. We ended up splitting the fun money equally, at my suggestion, and tbh it's worked so well for us. Now he's the (much) higher earner and it's still working well for both of us. I reduced my hours at work to 4 days, which we both agreed on, and pick up more of the life admin.

Well that very much depends on who earns what, and the relative cost of childcare?

My take home pay is double the cost of a nursery place per day, and that's before extra pension and free hours etc