AIBU to say it's difficult to know how to sort finances fairly in my marriage?

My husband earns 3 x as much as me. All of our earnings are pooled into one joint account. We do this because we are a team and this is the best way to bring up our child from a financial viewpoint.

Also, it just makes things so much easier to manage and everyone feels treated fairly and equally.

I think it would be worth a visit to a financial planner or asset manager of some kind. Financial counselling if you like. Someone professional for whom you lay out all the facts of the situation - without the emotional baggage you are both putting into it - to allow them to suggest impartial and sensible financial solutions. Make sure you are both protected from potential future events and are making the most of what you have now. The emotional side of things you both need to deal with yourselves.

I haven’t RTFT but what is jumping out at me is the house. I think if it’s his house, then he should pay for repairs and upkeep. He can ring fence it so you’re not entitled to any equity should you divorce, but that would enable you to build up your own savings enough to buy a house should you ever need to. After that I would say you should be paying proportionally- say you contribute 1/3 and him 2/3. He will be benefitting from your salary when he retires, why should you be worse off now?

OP you havent yet learnt to think of yourselves as a family - neither of you. But you've had a child and both of you need to grow the fuck up and do your best for that child. Dont have any others until you sort yourselves out!

Pedant61's approach works fine until it doesnt. Older men get their heads turned by young woman and start a 3rd family sometimes. Or they become unable to work or die and you havent sorted out security for yourself and your child. You could both die tomorrow in a car accident and who have you nominated in your wills to raise your child then? Do you both have life insurance to help cover living costs until your child reaches 18 if one of you dies? Do either or you have critical illness cover? Term life insurance is cheap and you should have it, critical illness cover more debatable.

It isnt just your relationship to your husband that needs rethinking.

This is where feminism has done a number on us. You are a younger woman, less established in her career with an older man in the prime of his earning potential. You took a career hit to have his baby and provided unpaid childcare for that baby. And yet feminism has told you you should pay half. No matter the mitigating circumstances - HALF!!!

If you were a childless couple my advice would be different, but you have a child, so your joint responsibility is to protect your child first. Protecting your DHs assets is in direct conflict with protecting your child's best interests. In the event of divorce where does your child live? You won't have a home and you've reduced your deposit savings because you're paying HALF, for stuff you wouldn't even choose to spend on if you had an equal voice.

What happens should you have more children together? More mat leaves? What if busy family life means it makes more sense for you to start working part time? Do you still pay half? What happens if you become unable to work through illness or disability as you get older? What value are you putting on your domestic labour and the childcare you provide? What is the financial value of care you're going to provide your future elderly husband. Will he think of himself as an individual and pay for 24 hour care 7 days a week if he needs it?

My suggestion is to pool finances completely. Your DHs adult children complicate matters only a little. Of course he should be able to support them to the same degree he currently does. I would suggest for fairness that when he gives £££ to his adult children, he also puts an equal amount in your joint child's savings.

For me upon our marriage vows it was all our money. And legally it's all jointly yours too. The fifty fifty thing is bonkers. It's shared family money and should be seen as such. You shouldn't have such a different standard of living that he gets to retire twenty years before you. You are thinking of taking out a loan to pay for the work when you don't even think of the house as really yours, aren't on the deeds so in case of divorce wouldn't get the house and he has all this cash in the bank? It's bizarre.

You poor thing. I hope you at least hung on to the deposit you saved.
You're married and share a child, but you've maintained 1/2 the bills when he earns twice as much? Crikey ☹️.

The only part that is complicated is that he has children he doesn’t share with you. If they did not exist, then you should be pooling your resources and getting equal amounts of fun money.
Since they do exist, it would be fair for him to earmark a portion of his assets from before the marriage for them.

Saves me typing it again

• combine all finances and treat everything as shared

Nope.

Always have a running away fund because you never know.

You need transparency on his income from all sources and on outgoings.

I would recommend that you split all the bills, living expenses and holidays according to your income proportions: he earns 72% he pays 72%.

Then you both set aside proportionate joint savings for your child. So if you want your child to have £10,000 a year savings, he pays £7,200 and you pay £2,800.

Similarly for family savings for big purchases like white goods, sofa etc.

All of these should be in separate accounts.We have one for all the direct debits that has no debit card and one for holidays and one for day to day living.

When it comes to your own savings, obviously get a pension and pay at least 0.5% a month in more. Better if your employer matches your contributions.

Build up a fuck you find so you have three months’ wages in it, so you can say fuck you to your job, your partner or your landlord/mortgage and have a buffer.

As it’s his house, I would get him to pay for the refurbishments but you could do it proportionately if you want. IANAL but divorcing wives have been given a share of property if they can show they have helped pay for improvements. In any case, you have a child so can expect him to have to pay to house you.

Right now, if he dies, you get everything as his wife, and you’ll get his pension if he hasn’t made an expression of wish, as it usually goes to the next of kin.

Financially you may be better if you pool everything and don’t compromise your spending, but don’t be resentful of he spends loads on his kids or his hobbies.

I think that, unfortunately for the DH, he is going to have to reconsider his retirement plans or at least review whether they still work financially and fairly given that he is now the father of a very young child and married to someone who earns far less than he does, but with whom he has committed to share his life. It sounds as though he’s been very focused on his own plans for this stage of his life - but things have changed now, quite drastically. And he has to accept that his first responsibility has to be to his young child - not himself.

In terms of splitting of holidays etc, he says he is happy to pay more towards treat type things like this and to make this more in line with income proportions, whilst day to day bills keep being split 50/50. This was what the first couple of posters suggested and seems quite fair to me.

This isn't remotely fair though? Not only does he vastly outearn you, but you're on mat leave with his child. He should be covering all the bills until you return to work, and after that it should be a fair proportional split.

Op, I've read you're update and I'm pleased you felt empowered to start the conversation.

However what Im understanding from your update:
He will make a will, so what he wants to happen, will happen (which benefits him, but at least you don't have angry children to deal with).
He'll look at putting you as beneficiary on his pension (which benefits you at £0 cost to him).
He will may more proportionately for treats... Not pay for treats, not pay more proportionately into the joint account for everything else - just a bit more on meals out and holidays. What's that? An extra 3-4k a year?

Meanwhile he's STILL refusing you a stake in your own and your child's home, but you've moved to offering up your savings on the promise it will be repaid if you divorce. How much will you be putting in the pot now? More than he's paying on treats I'd suggest?

OP, you seem suspiciously grateful for the crumbs he's offering here, yet somehow, it appears he's come out on top. An extra few k on nice activities he gets to enjoy over the year, in exchange for access to your cash to improve his asset.

I'm sorry to be negative, it's not my nature, but looking at your update you're potentially worse off. Am I misunderstanding something?

Oh dear, another of these threads when a young mum spends her own savings on a maternity leave. I was not born here, so I actually had to ask AI why this is a thing in the UK. Where I come from, assets are shared from the first day of marriage and nobody would understand why would a husband have a separate account and hoard money while the wife maintained herself an the child from her savings, like some kind of luxury personal hobby. I actually read that this is a Western, modern, individualistic thing where everybody has to contribute 50:50 and everybody pretends that woman can earn the same even when she has a baby, but the reality is economic disparity, but nobody talks about it, because otherwise we would have to stop pretending that women and men are not able to earn the same money at all times - but in this ideal West surely this cannot be true, right? So as a result women silently complain on online forums and divorced rates are sky-rocketing, especially when children are small and exhausted women have had enough. Most of this could be resolved with properly paid 12-month maternity leave and properly subsidised childcare, just like in Europe (UK is an outlier, actually, and offers young mothers next to nothing).

Glad you've had a good chat but one thing is puzzling me, if he was so concerned about you not getting the house in a divorce, why did he propose, and why didnt he organise sorting out any legal protection before/after you got married, sorting the wills etc? Why did he even get married at all?

Alternatively - everything in one pot, as others have said.

He suggested that we keep a record of anything I pay towards home improvements and that if we were to ever split, I could get that back plus interest. However I've got no idea whether I can make this legally enforceable. I need to get proper legal advice really.

If you divorce, the judge will decide who gets what. Just because his name is on the deeds doesn't mean he gets to keep the house. The priority will be housing your shared child.
I don't think there is any need for a loan and interest between you, but it would be a good idea to keep track of what you spend on the house in terms of major repairs and improvements. Keep receipts paid to builders, suppliers etc., and keep bank statements showing your payments, either lump sums to DH, or preferably you paying the invoices direct so you can exactly tie your payment to the invoice if ever there was a dispute in a divorce court.

In terms of splitting of holidays etc, he says he is happy to pay more towards treat type things like this and to make this more in line with income proportions, whilst day to day bills keep being split 50/50.

I suggest day-to-day shopping and bills are paid from the joint current account, but any holidays, meals out, or other 'treats' are paid from personal accounts.

Say he suggests going out for a meal. You speak up and say "sounds lovely, but I can't afford it this month, will you be paying?"
If he talks about a holiday to an expensive place, you say "I can afford X hundred for a holiday this year, so if we go there you will need to pay for most of it. How about I transfer you my X and then you can book it and pay for meals when we get there?"
In the supermarket, he starts adding steak and expensive wine to the trolley. You tell him "We can't afford for that to come out of the joint account with the rest of the normal shopping, can you put those through the till separately on your own card?"
You need to get used to saying clear and loud what you can and can't afford, and telling him he needs to pay for the expensive treats.

I think you need to agree some guiding principles and make decisions from there, perhaps with professional advice where needed.

So for example, you might agree now you're married that everything is 5050. So that is home repairs. Which will impact the value of the home, therefore you want that recognised and ringfenced through a legal agreement. If he considers the house 100% a pre-marital asset that he owns then he pays 100% for repairs. Obviously in reality that may not stand up to a divorce settlement, but that's why you take legal advice after deciding your guiding principles.

Finances in a marriage or a relationship are, imo, more of a mindset thing than the precise arrangement of bank accounts and contributions, and you two don't sound like you're in the one-team mindset at all. It's understandable given the age difference, projected retirement age difference and his existing assets and adult children.

He should be paying twice as much into the joint account as you or he should be paying for all the one off big expenses.

I think you do need more advice on the housing situation. Maybe that’s the most unusual aspect of your situation - your DH is concerned with securing his assets for retirement at the same time as being the father of a very very young child. It’s possible that he cannot satisfy both aims. If he was to put the welfare / housing of your child as his top priority, in the event of a hypothetical divorce after he has retired (and presumably will be on a fixed income), do you think he would choose to do things differently ? Would he really keep the house for himself and send you both on your way ?? There has to be some way to protect everyone, even if it means some comprises.