To expect DH to support me financially on maternity leave and increase the share of mental load

In fact wouldn't it make much more sense for him to be a house husband?

Very much so.

Why does a mature adult need somebody to spell out to them children change your life?

I did not say “kids changing you life” needs spelling out before marriage. I don’t think any adult needs to be told that. I said what should’ve been discussed before marriage is the split of unpaid and paid labour as well as finances. I do not for one second believe this man was unaware kids change your life. Sounds like he was just hoping it would have a little impact on his life specifically and that like so many other households. Would just do the lion share.

Why are you assuming he was not keen on having children? Do you think it’s really that unusual couples to marry and then just have kids as the next step. Seems like you are just
keen to find an angle to make his behaviour her fault.

There are many many men who want wives and children but don’t want to be husbands and fathers.

Both ways. They both needed to clearly acknowledge that it would be difficult and both would be expected to make big sacrifice. If they both weren't up for that then don't have DCs.

And yeah. Better to baby each other than to end up with kids that you don't have the capacity to look after between you.

You said yourself. It should all have been spelled out before marriage.

Frankly wouldn't it make more sense for him to take the majority of the time off to do pat leave and childcare? Since he's a much lower earner?

In fact wouldn't it make much more sense for him to be a house husband?

Then you could work 5 days a week not 4.

This would give you a household income of £95k before tax, assuming your current 4 days are pro rata. Only £11k a year less than your current totalled incomes and with huge savings to everyone's wellbeing and probably childcare costs too.

If this sounds impossible it's only because of his male ego. Many woman do just this sort of thing.

Agree entirely with this.
You feel like his mother because he is not behaving like a partner in a team; because you’re not a team. You are doing everything!!

Honestly why did you have any children with this useless person?? You’d be much much better off divorced. He isn’t in the team with you. You’re already doing it alone. He literally brings nothing to your unit… which is a choice he is making and has made for yonks. What does that tell you about how he feels about you??? It says he doesn’t respect you and doesn’t see you as two equals.

No, I'm saying the imbalance was drifted into becaise the OP didn't explicitly ensure an agreement that suited her as a pre condition of having children. And I suspect the reason she didn't clearly state preconditions was that he wasn't that keen on having children so she couldn't demand anything.

Where do you get 120 from?

Spelled out by whom to whom?

You are babying this grown adult man.

He earns about 1/3 of the total household income (120/40 is 3) so he is paying the correct percentage of household bills by paying a third, not a half. However, it is odd that he ends up with more money to save than OP in this situation given he makes much less. I suspect there are just so many bills she actually covers in full.

A much more fair arrangement would be to agree that you both should have the same amount of spending and saving money each month, then everything else goes into a communal pot. This should apply both when OP isn't on Mat Leave, and when she is! There will just be less money concerned when she is.

Well OP can clarify.

You seem to think this imbalance was carefully agreed to upfront instead of something drifted into.

Ugh - this just sounds awful and so petty. Your DH sounds a bit thick TBH.

You could try what me and DH do. We both have our own accounts where our wages are paid into.
We also have a joint account.
We both transfer virtually all our wages (we keep about £250 a month back each) into the joint account
98% of all our spending comes out of the joint account. It works very well. My DH gets paid nearly 3 times what I earn. We both see it as our pot of money.

He will absolutely demand 50/50 to stop you leaving him out of fear.

He will also absolutely not want 50/50 if you ever do divorce him.

Courts these days tend to look at splitting of assets 50/50 as a starting point. He wouldn’t necessarily get more if he demands 50/50 custody (which he won’t).

Id suggest booking an hour with a divorce lawyer for a chat. Get some professional advice about your particular situation and see where you stand.

He won’t “help” with the kids now. No way in hell is he going to do everything for them 50% of the time!!!

😧

And one who gravitates towards deadbeats and handmaidens - his natural habitat.

Why did you let him creating savings for himself while you have none? For all you know he could be planning to bolt out of there when he has enough savings.

He needs to be contributing proportionally. That way both of you can create savings (or do whatever you want with the spare money). As of right now he’s just using you.

Strangely enough lately I’ve seen many men who seem to have the “your money is our money, my money is my money” attitude, including when they earn more. What the fuck.

I wish more people would read these kinds of posts before they have children with men who won’t do one pot finances . That said quite honestly @Iris10000 yes you may lose out a bit initially in a divorce but you earn well and will be much better off in the long term and mentally / emotionally it will be a definite improvement for you .

Staying with him because you think he will get a bigger share of assets in a divorce is a false economy. Every year you spend with him will build up more assets he will be entitled to a share of. A share he can instigate taking by walking out on you at any point. If you are concerned about being financially worse off, staying with him is the worst thing you can do.

I understand about the kids and not wanting to be a part from them. But he really isn’t likely to go for 50/50 in the end, he’s too selfish. If you don’t ask him for CM at first, I’ll bet he’ll be quite happy to let them live with you and just do eow or similar.

Was the second DC planned, OP? If so, what were you hoping for and what made you think it would be different to what has happened? It sounds like this is all pretty predictable but you must have some wherewithal if you earn what you do part time. So this makes me wonder if you have some childhood issues you need to work through and should maybe think about counseling for yourself.

You need to figure out your finances. This isn’t some ideological argument. You literally have bills to pay and you collectively need to figure out how you are going to pay them.

Open an account. Work out how much your monthly outgoings generally are (mortgage, electric, childcare costs, average weekly food shopping). Add them all up. Don’t worry about holidays and days out for now. Look at your current incomes. Like what you earn this month. If you earn twice as much, you contribute twice as much. If your Dh earns 30% more, you work out what proportion you both need to put in. You both add, say, £100 extra or whatever for incidentals, like a birthday present for a friend at nursery or new shoes for your preschooler or whatever.

You adjust this as you go. When you have no income, your Dh has to carry the full load. Or he can take parental leave and you can go back to work. Life is tiring. Unless he has a health issue that causes pain or fatigue, a normal functioning person is able to contribute to family life outside of working hours. Hell, I have fucking cancer, and I’m still cleaning the house and cooking dinner and sharing the running around to evening activities with Dh.

Don’t let him fool you into believing this, but none of guys at work do bathtime nonsense! I don’t know any men who are coming home from work and doing nothing. The ones I know are parenting and sorting the house, often tending to work emails and other things late evening when kids are asleep. When our eldest was a baby, Dh was working a FT job, doing all the things to start up a business in the evenings literally with dd strapped to him, so I could shower and get things done, AND getting up for nearly every feed all night to make the bottle or change a nappy.

I literally did not make a night bottle until dd was 8 months old. I remember it because Dh had gone out drinking (a rare occurrence), then passed out at home, and I was really annoyed that I had to do it myself. Men are as capable of working on little sleep as we are. And many of them are engaged parents, who are changing nappies and taking toddlers to playgrounds and cooking dinner and loading the dishwasher. They may not boast about it to their mates, but it’s just a normal part of adulting, which most can do just fine. There is no reason he can’t, unless he chooses to, and I’d be making that very clear. Parenting and running a household is 50/50 when you’re both home.

Would he ACTUALLY have the children 50/50
how would he cope with pre school pick up / drop off / nursery pick up drop off / activities etc.

say he actually had them from Sunday 6pm - Sunday 6pm would / could he actually do it ?!!!
by himself - not relying on his parents or any siblings esp female ones to do the bulk of it for him...

Has he refused counselling because he would be ashamed to defend his approach to “sharing” in front of a third party?

Because he bloody well should be.

I am assuming it's his baby, in which case, he is equally responsible for it.

Since he cannot go through pregnancy and birth, the least he can do is provide financially for you whilst you recover from that.

For your husband's information, this is what my husband did during my pregnancy and after childbirth:

• All the cooking, as I had bad morning sickness and the smells in the kitchen made me nauseous
• Anything requiring heavy lifting (hoovering, bins, etc.)
• ALL nappies when he wasn't in work
• Bath times after he finished work
• Taking baby out for plenty of walks so I could nap on weekends and in the evenings

In addition to equal amounts of playing, singing, cuddling and contact napping, despite working often 12 hour days in a very physical and tiring role.

None of my friend's husband's did any less.

Why you decided to have another baby with this horrible drain I have no idea but since it's done now, you need to whip him into shape and he needs to grow tf up.

So he saying - the higher earner should pay more, unless the higher earner is him, in which case the lower earner should dip into their savings?

He can't have it both ways!

Given how much he's contributing to overall family life, he's not going to ask for 50/50 custody and actually it's not likely he'd get it with such young children and you being the principal caregiver. Lots will threaten 50/50 as part of divorce, but often they don't go for it.

In any case, his right to equity in the house will also depend on length of marriage, who is primary caregiver etc. It's not totally cut and dried.

But in any case, I'd be seriously questioning staying - what happens if god forbid you or the DC had some kind of problem that meant you'd have to stop work? He wouldn't support you, would he? He's showing that now.

Tell him that there is a direct link between not pulling his weight and not feeling loved enough. Nothing makes one partner feel cold towards the other like having to shoulder the financial and domestic responsibility alone