AIBU to go on the trip without my husband if he can’t afford it?

Can imagine a SAHM being told she can't afford a holiday as she doesn't work.
YABU OP.

This sounds horribly transactional! Its hard to believe you operate as a couple with such a rigid division of financial resources

He's being shitty? He's being honest that he can't afford two holidays and she wants both holidays and doesn't give a damn whether he goes on either holiday which I find odd! Surely in a good relationship a couple would sack off the skiing holiday for a year and do the long haul holiday together! I bet you wouldn't be happy if your partner started going on holidays without you!

I can't even imagine this scenario

At times I have been the higher earner, at others it's been DH. It didn't matter who was the higher earner. Holidays and other household expenses came out of the joint household income. Either "we" could afford a holiday or "we" could not.

You sound more like housemates than a married couple.

You sound like house mates. Like students, splitting bills etc. You're not describing a joined unit. We pool our money. I earn more per day but less in total as part time but have the common brain load of mum/wife on top. It's not seen as the lesser contribution. We'd both go or we'd not be going.

You have got to admit that is very odd, being married and not living together. And very rare.

I also think being married and having completely separate finances is odd, and if you have one earning more than the other, I don't think it's much of a marriage. That is just my opinion though.

Then IMO you don't go on the Holiday until you can together afford for both of you to go. Or go on a less expensive shorter holiday that you both can afford.

No it's not what marriage is. Divorce looks at a 50/50 division of marital assets as a starting point, but that doesn't mean that's what marriage is, there is far more nuance to it than that. You control your own finances in a marriage and need to negotiate a set up that works for both of you. With a few caveats, you can do what you like with your property while you're married and you can leave your property to whomever like in your will. You can't leave your spouse destitute, but you aren't obliged to make everything available to them. You certainly aren't obliged to make more available to them because they choose to spend their money on other things rather than save for something or choose to pursue a lower paying career/work less hours/etc., for their own sake.

In my Mum's case, they married because they loved each other and wanted to be husband and wife. They wanted the big party, they wanted the commitment, they wanted the anniversaries and all the other stuff that goes along with being married like him having a say in her care when she was dying.

They just didn't want to share a home or their money, and they wanted their stuff to go to their own kids when one of them died.

And yes, I'm aware that technically they merged finances when they married, but they didn't in actuality, and that her husband could have made life difficult for me and my step brother when my Mum died, but he didn't, because he'd made the deal and stuck to it.

Sometimes people do things differently, and it's not necessarily wrong just because it's not the norm.

We each put 75% of our income into various joint accounts; day to day expenses, holidays, bigger house/garden expenses and general savings. The remaining 25% is our own.

Could you set up a joint 'holiday' account going forward?

If he is not good with money and has not saved then I would be a bit miffed but if this trip has been planned for a while and that is his favoured trip then I do not think you can insist he spend his limited money on doing the long haul as well as the ski trip. If you are not prepared to help him why not suggest you postpone the long haul trip and help him make a plan to save for it even if it means giving you money to set aside each month. Personally I think this is a strange way of sorting finances.

Because that's what marriage is? If you get divorced or one of you dies, you discover that things count as shared. It's a legal contract that means finances are shared.

If you don't want that then why bother getting married in the first place?
For the party?

Even odder to bother in your mum's case?

🤣 as a matter of fact, DH & I have separate finances. We don't even have a joint current/ bills account. We are always very open when money is concerned. We both know our income, outgoings, cost of hobbies and so on. DC are always fed, watered & clothed. Granted, we don't have a mortgage and the other bills are split fairly. We do have a joint savings account for unexpected expenses & holidays that we both contribute to proportionally.

We have this system, because DH is dreadful with money and I am more cautious. He'd definitely raid a joint account and would happily spend it all on takeaways and unnecessary stuff the kids & wider family ask for... but for some reason he respects the savings. (He is very generous, me, not so!)

When we got married it all just became our money. I can't imagine a group holiday where we wouldn't decide whether we can afford it as a couple rather than as individuals. It sounds as though you disapprove of his spending choices and he doesn't prioritise quality time together, I wonder if the separate finances are a symptom or a cause of wider problems in your relationship?

Not all married people feel the need to do their finances exactly the same. My Mum and her second husband never even moved in together, let alone merged their finances. It was the situation that worked best for both of them.

Obviously if you have kids together then there should always be a degree of merged finances, as one parent is always likely to take a financial hit due to the kids (in most cases the mother), but if no kids, then why should merging your money have to be the default?

Crikey as my dear old nana used to say

'Im alright Jack'

Maybe try a joint account for holidays that you both contribute to (proportionally). Then you can make decisions each year about holidays together without resentment.

Sounds like neither of you should be going on holidays and should instead be saving money and clearing debt.

How can you be married and have such separate finances to the point that he can’t “afford” to go with you? If he can’t afford it then as a couple you can’t afford it.

Maybe some marriage counselling or a financial advisor would be a more useful way to spend the holiday money.

Should say cohabiting not childhood !

Because it's never her money in the first place she doesn't care that he buys the bike. There chances are that she won't even think then about buying the handbag. I've seen it work with the sexes reversed and her being the first to make a big expenditure out of joint funds.

I've heard cohabiting people who pool finances explicitly state that they went out deliberately to buy something that matched the cost of what their partner just splurged on.

No children in the OP

It seems to me that if you and he both want to go on the skiing holiday with you friends that's what you should do, and shelve next year's holiday plans until your joint finances are in a better position.
Separate finances don't really work in terms of the relationship dynamics when money coming into the household is stretched, and one spouse is treating themselves to something expensive and nice and expecting the other to go without.

Maybe you need to have a discussion on your medium and longer term shared financial goals and work out how you are going to get there jointly, rather than having single goals ..

I suggest that you have a joint account as well as personal accounts (which you may have already), out of which all household and joint costs come. Usually this is bills and household shopping, but in your case it would make sense for one 'family' holiday per year to also come out of the joint account, and increase your contributions to cover it.
That way you are automatically both contributing proportionally to the joint holiday.

It is worth noting that by contributing proportionally, you end up with unequal personal money, e.g. one person earns 80k and the second earns 60k, so the first person pays 60k into the joint account and the second pays 45k, which is proportional, but then person one has 20k left for themselves whereas person two only has 15k.
Long term this is a recipe for resentment (as you are finding out already).

If you are serious about being partners for life, through thick and thin, e.g. potential illness, maternity, redundancy, etc, then a better option is to each contribute to the joint account so that you are left with the same amount of personal money each. A simple way is for salaries and all income to be paid into the joint, then each get transferred the same amount of personal spending money into your current accounts.

We have separate finances, and have been together for 20 years. It works for us and we earn vaguely similar.

But holidays are a joint decision based on what we can both afford. You and hubby shouldn't even be considering things like a ski trip or long haul holiday - neither of you can really afford them. Have fortnight in France or Italy out of season for a few years and you'll have a great time and can get finances back on track.
Just tell your friends it's been a tricky year financially and you are giving the ski trip a miss this time.

Not sure your hubby is 'shit with money' he just earns less and is trying to keep up with you.

Do you earn the same?

I think things often start out like this but if children come along and someone goes part time or limits their career in some way to facilitate that it becomes a different story

Or if one half works in a lower paying role e.g. nurse and one is in a corporate role and a big disparity in salaries appears over the years.