For wanting my partner to pay more of the mortgage?

YANBU to split costs proportionally however I would suggest in that case he isn't paying these separate bills that you have no oversight of. Get all outgoings coming out of the same account so you can also review these bills and see if there's any savings to be made, calculate all costs and split proportionally to your income. If he refuses and is happy to see you contribute more than him proportionally and go without then please don't marry him

Edited to add: there's absolutely no reason you he can't still make whatever extravagant food purchases he wants separately but your basic costs should be combined and shared proportionately

I did of course discuss taking a pay cut with him when I left my job as a lawyer, and honestly he wasn't very supportive.

I don't blame him-this is a huge red flag from you. You are just expecting him to pick up the pieces from you throwing in your career and deciding you fancy working fewer hours!

You're not married, no children and you don't want to live in London. I suggest you sell the house and move on without each other.

I'm on your partner's side here. You greatly reduced your income but expected to have the same standard of living.

Hang on, why should anyone support another adult financially that they're not married to?And don't have children with.

If they get married and have children?That's different.I would expect him to support her financially. Right now they're two adults who are living together unmarried, and neither of them owe each other anything.

Absolutely. All of this.

I'm assuming you both lawyers, if you were both high earners.

Ultimately you made your choices. You hated your job, you hated the long hours and now that you've changed careers and taken a massive pay cut you now hate that you can't afford your old lifestyle.

You want to move out of london and reduce expenditure and your partner doesn't. Why should he because you chose to do that to your career.

It can't all be about you and what you want. You weren't happy in your job. You made changes and now you want to make changes to your entire lifestyle based on the fact that you weren't happy at work and now earn less money.

He wants to keep the lifestyle he is accustomed to. I bet he didn't know that you were going to jack in your career after buying that expensive house. So you've changed the terms and conditions.

Possibly, you should just sell up split up and go your separate ways. You don't sound particularly compatible anymore and you want very different things.

For what it's worse, i'm a solicitor too. The hours are long the work is hard.It's often a thankless and exhausting environment. But it does allow me to have a very good lifestyle. One of the reasons I would never give it up is I don't want to go back to the bottom rung of a new career and start again with a massive pay cut.

But you wanted out and you can't expect your partner to change his entire lifestyle for you.

I suspect that you would have supported his decision to change his career and pool your income so you both can benefit. If he is not willing to do the same for you now, he is not going to change when you have a ring on your finger. Don’t marry him.

Look at it as if it were the other way round:
You and your partner both earn about the same and decide to take a mortgage out.
Some time after, he decides working 40+ hours isn't for him, so he thinks "to hell with that, she earns enough for the both of us - I'll go part time!".
Is that fair? No it isn't. And I'm assuming your partner wasn't too happy about it when you discussed it with him prior to doing so.

Incidentally, what did he say when you proposed that you would like to reduce your hours down?
I bet he told you that you couldn't cope and you most likely reassureed him that you could could manage perfectly fine.

I would be furious if my DH quit his job and expected me to pay for everything - so would every woman on here.

I agree. If someone posted on here “I earn a lot more than my partner. We used to earn equal amounts but he decided to move jobs and take a pay cut. He now wants me to pay more of the bills as he can’t afford to. I’ve already taken on more without saying anything as general bills have gone up, but he wants me to pay more of the mortgage as well” the word cocklodger would have been used about 50 times already.

I can see both sides (if no DC) but ultimately, you did not value the high wage and expensive property and your lifestyle is unsustainable so you need to insist on selling the property.

It doesn't sound like you two function as a team sadly. You deliberately reduced your income, he didn't agree and yet you expect him to financially support you. He's uninterested in how you feel and not planning as a team, with his "what's mine is mine" mindset. There is no shared plan for what you're both doing financially right now, never mind the future. If you have children with you expecting him to fund everything and him expecting to fund nothing, that's a great big mess.

I'd be putting the marriage idea on hold and definitely be very mindful of contraception while you try to work things out. If you can't create a life plan that you both buy into though, then you may find it's for the best to part with kindness now and both find what you're really looking for elsewhere.

You chose to take a huge paycut. So you can't have it all your own way. yabu.

I have some sympathy with him op. Both of you really.

im 50 now and live a fabulous lifestyle due to my - good - finances. Bear with me. I like it. If I was to date again I would only be looking at men who could join me in my lifestyle without me subbing them. You can say ‘well I can’t afford to go to The Ivy tonight’ if you like, but he is also free to say ‘well I want to eat at the ivy so I’ll find someone who can.’ From what you’ve written, that is exactly what he will do, he is clearly telling you he isn’t prepared to subsidise your decision - which, btw, was totally valid, but has the consequences of having to downgrade your life to support it.

And you do need to start living within your means, make a budget and stick to it, regardless of what he plans. If you can't afford it then you can't go.

Ultimately you not a partnership. Fair enough he earns 90k doesn't want to scrimp and save on a value food shop but then he should be paying more towards it than you do, he definitely sees his money as HIS money. I dont necessarily think he's wrong but its out of balance for what you want which is also not wrong.

Dh used to earn multiples of what I did. But we got our first tiny house on his salary alone. Pooled all our money and when I was on mat leave/part time any money I had was the family fun money vs his paying the bills, as time went on i now earn as much as dh so we split everything 50/50

If I had remained in my low paid job then our initial set up wouldn't change. Our partnership in finances evolved with our circumstances. He doesn't want to evolve those with you. He wants to have his money pay half towards bills and have his fun. You need to decide if thats the set up you want too!

This isn't a partnership.

You are a mug.

You can't afford the place you are living but he's not letting you make that decision.

It's a clear choice for you, ditch him or ditch the place you can't afford because it's unsustainable. For him it's cough up if you want to stay where you are or be ditched because you can't sustain it.

Put it to him in those terms. See what he says.

It will reveal what he values.

Find someone more empathetic and kind OP. Thats the answer. Marrying someone who can’t or won’t see your perspective (regardless of who’s right or wrong) isn’t a great idea.

Absolutely this!!

People are acting like OP is lower earning because she had DCs or something. That’s not what happened. She cut her income to make her life easier and he kept his income high by working harder. Now she wants the easier work life and the high income lifestyle. How is that fair on him?

I would be furious if my DH quit his job and expected me to pay for everything - so would every woman on here.

He’s already subsidised OP without even saying a word. It’s only come up because she wants more than him.

It does sound as though you both have different priorities career wise and you are moving in different directions. It doesn't bode well for a future together. Is your name on the mortgage? As a pp said, if you decided to leave London, could you? Would he come?

He isn't a partner. He isn't supportive. Don't marry him.

that salary difference is similar to mine and DP's, i would never expect him to pay 50% of everything, that would be totally unfair!!

Definitely start refusing to eat out more than a couple of times a month and refusing to buy anything extravagant

He needs to pay for the “extras” that he wants eg if he wants to go on the more expensive holiday and you want to go on a cheaper one, he either pays the difference for you, or you both go on the cheaper holiday you can both afford. Or he goes alone.

But I don’t really see why he should pay more of the day to day bills that already existed at the point you chose to take what sounds like quite a large pay cut.

OP did. She's working fewer hours. Seemed to be a big factor in her decision.

Did you discuss it as a couple when you wanted to take a huge pay cut? I think this is a bit like being a sahp it can only work if you're both fully on board with it. He doesn't have to subsidise you unless he wants to, you've already taken the paycut for yourself not to raise mutual children. I wouldn't be on board with DH just deciding for himself to earn less so I support him without me agreeing to and I say that as someone who is the higher earner, but over the years DH has made decisions to increase his earning potential and the amount he contributes.

ETA cross posted so you did discuss, he wasn't supportive of financially supporting you and you did it anyway?

If bills have gone up - go through all of your bills and see where you can save. I am single parent with income of £20k by going through my bills I managed to save £50 a month which was amazing. Do you have things like tv packages etc - do you really need them? Can you get cheaper internet? Mobile phones? Go through everything and together it makes a difference. Just because he is on a high income doesn’t mean you should be blasé about bills. I do think it would be fairer if he did it proportionally though. What would it be like if you had kids as others have said. What would he do if he lost his job and you were the sole breadwinner - would he want you to pay while he sorted himself out? Supposed to be there for each other…