For wanting my partner to pay more of the mortgage?

You are not "prepared" to move somewhere cheaper. You want to move somewhere cheaper that will benefit you and he ends up travelling to cover what you want.

The thing is a salary that low allows little lee way in terms of buying a house. It would be an empty threat to say. She's going it alone and leaving the area because even moving to a cheaper area, I very much doubt she d be afford to buy anything on her own.

Private rent for a one bed flat in the southeast is about fifteen hundred pounds, excluding bills. That's what she's currently paying to live in a big house with her partner. So she might as well stay put. It won't be cheaper if she goes it alone.It will be more expensive and she'll be renting not buying.

Because if they made a joint decision for her to be a housewife then:
a) it would be a joint decision
b) he would benefit from her contribution.

Her living off him isn’t a benefit to him in any way. Why should be get all the downsides while she gets all the upsides? That’s not a partnership. A partnership is not about one person always getting the short straw - that’s what OP wants here.

You’ve conveniently ignored the part where OP earned a lot more than him and didn’t pay more. I wonder why you don’t want to discuss that…

From the moment we started to live together all our money was just "ours".
We got a joint account, everything goes in and out of there.
Surely love is about sharing everything?
I really couldn't be with someone so petty.

I never understand any of these threads when partners aren’t pooling resources. If you are in a long term relationship then the fundamental premise should be that you support each other.

When DP and I first got together he earned more
than me. Then he made a career change and I earned more than him. Throughout our relationship when have supported each other emotionally and financially as needed. Currently he earns far more
than me. I mostly look after family and work part time. This may or may not change in the future.

if your partner cannot see that partnership is not always a 50/50 financial split then I’d be seriously questioning the validity of your relationship long term.

That's not mental load that is life. Your own life that you are responsible for and can decide to participate in as much as you like. Chucking a buzz word on it is meaningless especially when that buzz word is used to describe actions done on behalf of another usually vulnerable person like a child. Sorting out your diary and managing your own bills isn't "mental load".

She still would have been choosing to quit her job to be a housewife, so why the difference? OP chose to reduce her hours which were far more than her partners while they earnt the same amount and now works the same hours as him but is paid less. She's not asking him to be the sole breadwinner, she asking him to pay proportionately to what they both are left propertionstely with money left over rather than OP being skint and him having money left over to splash on things.
If you think marriage or children would change this kind of attitude you're dreaming. You're either partners or you're not.

Of course it’s unfair for one half of a “partnership” to decide, without agreement with their partner, to quit their job and insist their partner cover them! Of course that’s unfair!

Even if that job is causing unhappiness and stress? Why would the partner not agree? Especially if between them they can still afford the bills. The OP and her partner are not a team, this is not a partnership that should lead to marriage.

My DH was in a high earning job, but was very unhappy. When he wanted to quit and take on a job that paid way less than half, I was very supportive. It meant tightening our belts, we had three kids, I didn't earn much, and it wasn't easy, but the difference it made to my DH and our marriage was chalk and cheese.

We did discuss it first, but the alternative was that DH carried on in a job that was making him deeply unhappy. Luckily we both put mental health and happiness above money.

I mean why would you change your career to something that pays less? Did you discuss this with your patner?Would you afford life financially life without them?

dump the selfish arse

I do wonder the opposite to be honest.

Looking back over the last month:
DD had a hospital appointment that needed to be moved.
DD had a birthday party that required a present and a card.
DS had an optician appointment, new prescription, new glasses to collect.
DS needed forms filling out to get the 30 hours funding.
DS and DD both needed childcare paying for.
DS needed a school trip signing up and paying for.
DS needed us to pay for school photos.
DS needed us to sign up for his lunch options on sports day.
DS needed to take chocolates in for a non-school uniform day.
DS needed a costume for that same non-school uniform day.
DD needed us to sign up for her parents morning at nursery.
DS received his school report - which we obviously reviewed.
DD needed to have her vaccinations.
I had to respond to two other invitations to birthday parties we can’t go to.
I had to buy DS all new school uniform on the school portal.
DS needed snacks taking in for the last week of term (snack supplier wasn’t operating that week).
DS needed to renew his sports clubs and pay for them.
…that’s just off the top of my head… not life admin, just DC admin. It definitely adds up and it definitely takes mental load not to let any balls drop.

This is how I handled a similar situation and it did change his mindset and he came around. Some men are just selfish until they learn better ways or until they lose a great partner.

There’s no shared mental load. People without kids look after their own life admin. It’s not naive, it’s based on over 50 years of adult life experience.

Don't go out for meals or go on holiday. You can't afford it. Did you discuss your finances before taking the pay cut?

Are you playing dumb that those without children don't also have schedules, appointments, social events, people birthdays, house maintenance, laundry, cooking cleaning etc and that women by far remember, plan, remind and do more of this?
They absolutely should have equal shared responsibility of it just as a couple with kids should. In asking OP is her partner actually did take equal responsibility for all of it

Please explain this further as
She left her job
She took a pay cut
She wants to move
She wants him to pay even more of the bills than he already is.

He is already paying more of the bills.

Financial abuse does really make sense unless you flip it.

It should be proportionate, we did it this way before we got married and now he pays it all apart from half of the food shop because I reduced my hours after we had a child.

The crux of this is that you are not compatible. You want different things in life and neither of you are willing to compromise. You took a massive pay cut and expect him to fund that. I am all in favour of couples paying proportionally and supportin geach other, but th epoint is that you aren't married yet. You're at the point where notwithstanding being engaged, you are thinking about what you both want long term and it's clear that what you want is NOT the same thing. He is not supportive of your choices and whether or not that makes him a good/bad person is irrelevant. You're not compatible.

I voted you are unreasonable not because I think it's ridiculous for a couple to share expenses, but because you made this massive life change without agreeing ahead of time how it would look. It must have been obvious at the time that your lifestyle would have to change if you made this huge financial change and you should have had the discussion then. Either you should agree to pool your finances or agree on a way to split them - sounds like you both just assumed it would just carry on in some undefined way which is unreasonable of you both.

If he loves her and doesn’t want her to be miserable then that wouldn’t be an issue. She isn’t jobless she’s retraining with potential for a higher income in future. And many female lawyers leave the profession after having children, particularly if their spouses are working in a similarly demanding profession. She’s actually saved their relationship from that difficulty in future.

He also has given no room for compromise- I.e. moving to a cheaper area - £3k is a lot for a couple, even in London. The only option she has given her is be financially comfortable and miserable or be poor.

He’s not a life partner and if I was OP, I would be rethinking the relationship.

See,the thing is life isn’t black and white like a lot of you guys seem to think. Often it really is different shades of grey. When my DH and I met we earned the same. I was bullied and miserable in a profession I had studied long and hard for. After a few years we took a very late gap year. The sale of his house funded it. At the end of that year after discussion I resigned. When we returned home he moved into my house and I eventually managed to get a P/T job. He got promoted and so we had to move area completely. I wasn’t that keen but supported him and the sale of my house with an enormous amount of equity funded OUR house in the new area. Fast forward past two redundancies (his) and several house moves for his job leaving me to find new P/T work wherever we ended up and with a number of years living apart during the week until house moves could be sorted out and here we are. He is now in a very senior position and I only have a small private pension as I had to retire on health grounds. He is where he is because I supported him when it was needed and vice versa. Life, health and situations ebb and flow over time and in a true partnership you each contribute what you can when you can because you are just that - partners. If you are not able to grasp this then sadly I think you are in for a fair amount of unhappiness along the way.

My experience of "the mental load" before children was that I didn't realise it was a thing.
My bills were all on direct debits, if I wanted to go out I checked my diary to see if I was doing anything else that day, and if I wasn't I went. I guess maybe there was a bit of effort involved in ad-hoc things like sorting insurances. Maybe an hour a week on average would have covered it?

Actually, OP has said that all the bills come out of her partner's account and she doesn't even know how much they are, so sounds like he may well be picking up more of these things anyway.

To be fair, I don’t find there is a huge mental load in my relationship with children.

Maybe if you have lots of children, or they have SEN or something. But neither DH or I spend much time on life admin. I am always baffled by people on here who say it is a full time job. Cleaning yes, childcare yes, renewing car insurance etc definitely not.

It sounds like they did have that conversation. He made clear his position and OP did it anyway. Now she’s getting swathes of sympathy because he’s still not happy about something he wasn’t happy about then and isn’t happy about subsidising OP more than he already is!

Sorry you're being massively unreasonable. You chose to reduce your income after signing the mortgage contract and agreeing to 50/50.

35 grand a year is peanuts for someone with legal knowledge and qualifications you could very easily be earning a lot more in London without having the insane pressure of a magic circle firm.

3 grand mortgage is ridiculous even for London. You could move somewhere slightly cheaper within London or look to get a better paying job.