Partner wants new phone - what is ‘fair’?

[hotcrosslily]

We’re in our second month of our new rental property. £650 a month in the East Mids. We have a 4yo together and I’m due at the end of next month. He earns £1000 a month (apprentice/unqualified labourer) and I earn £800 from self employment. I buy all the food shopping, stuff for the children and pay the utility bills yet he somehow still managed to be £60 short for his half of the rent this month! We don’t have a joint account yet but will be setting one up soon as I’m way better at managing money so I can keep on top of it all. We don’t have cars so that’s one less expense at least. Live very central and walking distance to daughter’s school.

He buys tobacco almost weekly and pays for the odd bits that we need from the shop but always spends money on ridiculous things for himself like £4 tiny packets of beef jerky. He’s 30 but still into skateboarding occasionally so bought himself a new £50 skateboard last week. He also spent £30 on some new clothes. Also spent god knows how much on video games. I however don’t buy anything for myself and haven’t even got any maternity clothes at 7 1/2 months pregnant! I wear the same outfit of Primark leggings and a £10 sweatshirt or plain tee.

You can imagine my response when he said he was going to buy a new phone at the weekend He broke his old one and has been using an outdated model but it works perfectly fine. He only uses it to text/ring family and play games on. Not like he needs it for work or anything. I said no not until he’s paid his half of the rent and mentioned his recent purchases. He agreed in a stroppy way but didn’t cause an argument at least. Am I being mean? He should be contributing half to everything that I pay out. I spend all of my wage on food shopping, household items, bills and stuff for the kids/baby. I haven’t had my hair cut in almost a year and am lucky if I can buy make up more than once a year! Frustrates me that he regularly buys things for himself without a thought for
me when our finances should really be shared.

Time he had some hard lessons in finance.

You earn 800 and he has 1000. That's 1800 altogether. If everything is going to be properly fair you need to run it on a ratio basis - in other words for every 10 parts he pays, you pay 8.

For example

Rent £800

800 / 18 = 44.44
10 x 44.44 = 444.44
8 x 44.44 = 355.52 (comes out a few pence short as a rounding error)

He pays £445 you pay 356

Try applying that to all your rent and bills and see what it comes out as monthly. Insist you open a joint account for rent and bills and both pay that amount in every month. That wuld be fair, its not reasonable for you to carry on paying for everything like that

Nyancat that sounds like a good idea thank you! Since he earns £200 more than me how would we go about splitting it? Can’t get my head around the maths

listsandbudgets thank you for explaining it like that! Maths was never my strong point in school😂 I will draw up a correct split budget and discuss it with him over dinner this evening

I think given his inability to spend sensibly that when the joint account is opened both lots of wages go into it and it pays all bills, food etc. You then have separate accounts each that you have a SO of personal spending money into. You do not buy things for yourself from the joint account. I would go so far as to not allow him a card for the joint account, or maybe allow one at the beginning, but if he takes the piss take it away from him.

Everything goes into the joint account. Then 'pocket money' is a direct debit to your own accounts the same day that your salaries go into the joint account. You check the current account every day to make sure that only food and baby stupid is being bought with the joint cards.

Hang on a minute.
He was £60 short on his half of the rent but brought himself a new £50 skateboard?
That alone is unacceptable.

LemonBreeland I agree with you about not letting him have a card for it. Realistically he doesn’t need one. He works with his Dad and gets picked up/dropped off by him so doesn’t need money for travel. He can make a packed lunch from stuff that I get with the food shop so won’t need money for food or drinks. I do all of the ‘family admin’ so he doesn’t really need access to the joint account at all, aside from to put wages in it

Your plan of having to mutually agree all expenditure is not sustainable. You shouldn’t have to treat a 30 year old man like a child. He will end up resenting you and calling you controlling and you will very quickly get sick and tired of having to police him.

I’m afraid you are in a relationship with a cocklodging man-child. He spends all his money on himself while you feed him and keep a roof over his head. He’s happy to let you own one outfit that fits you and get your hair cut once a year. Frankly, he sounds horrendous.

I would give him an ultimatum. Either start behaving responsibly or move out and pay child maintenance.

Why are you thinking up rules to stop him spending money unreasonably and leaving you and his children short? You are allowing him to hand the responsibility to you and continue to act like a child.

He shouldn't want to buy new trainers if he already has some and you need maternity clothes or the rent isn't covered.

Stop worrying about being mean or controlling and tell him to step up and start taking financial responsibility for his family.

Do you do all of the childcare and housework plus carry the mental load for the whole family too?

PlugholePencil yeah he’s been very selfish with his independent purchases! He appears to be stuck in his ‘£2k a month wage’ mindset and is obviously now used to me paying for everything since he was made redundant and got a crap job

What will stop him spending money from the joint account on himself?

Make sure there is no overdraft facility on the joint account.

I can see all sorts of shit arising from having a joint account with such an irresponsible and selfish person.

Would you let your daughter put up with this from a man when she's older? I think not! Be a role model to her.

How does he feel about your father paying for your child’s nursery fees?? Has he no shame ???

The more you explain about him the worse he sounds. Has he any adult attributes at all??

Poppinjay I just can’t see any other way at this point as we’ve been raised so drastically differently. I’ve known how to pay bills and live sensibly for the past 10 years. He has only been living away from parents and a rent/bill free home for just over 4 years. Obviously it is down to him to change as he is an adult and his parents could only hold the blame whilst he was living with them.

He was okay when we had significantly higher wages but when he was jobless for a few months after redundancy he got comfortable with me footing the bill for absolutely everything.

Yeah I do literally everything. Cleaning. Child rearing (he works 8am-8pm so only has weekends with our daughter though). All ‘family admin’. Set up all the bills. Closed off all the old ones. I arranged the entire house move from rental applications to hiring a removal man. I did all of the packing and I’m doing all of the unpacking because he only has weekends free.

He really does get on my tits a lot of the time as he doesn’t realise how easy he has it. Yes he does a very physically demanding job for a meagre wage but that is his choice and plenty of men work hard and still help out in the home. He had a day off yesterday because there were no jobs on and he sat playing video games all day then had the audacity to whinge when I asked him to walk 5 minutes to Co-Op and get some necessities. Ironically they were all cleaning supplies so I said ‘you’re only going to get stuff so I can clean the house’. I pointed out that he’d been sat on his arse all day whilst I cleaned the house and the fact that he wouldn’t have any clean clothes or clean dishes to eat from if I didn’t. He came back with his tail between his legs and cleared the mess from dinner for once in a blue moon out of guilt I presume!

I do want to just stop washing his clothes and cleaning his dishes but the build up of mess would really irritate me. If we didn’t have children then I would have given him an ultimatum a long time about but our daughter loves him immensely and I wouldn’t want to break up our family over a skateboard and a mobile phone.

I know it isn’t my job to ‘make him change’ but I don’t think there is any other way. It’s very sad and it’s all too common these days. I see a fair amount of Facebook posts complaining about partners/husbands living like pigs and generally taking advantage of their partners doing everything. ‘Traditional wife’ living is becoming popular and a lot of men have been babied their whole adult lives. Almost 80% of the men I’ve been with still lived at home at 20+ and most didn’t even have any income. It’s highly embarrassing IMO.

I think some women have much lower expectations of men these days. Like gushing over dads out alone with their children in public. I personally was very shocked at the fact my own mother hasn’t cooked a single meal or cleaned the house she shares with her partner since they moved in together. It’s been several years now. He is a chef so he probably enjoys the cooking but it is bizarre to me that the man is doing absolutely everything. It should all be shared unless of course the other person enjoys it, like the ‘trad-wife’ trend. I however don’t enjoy and find it exhausting!

How are you going to manage private school fees even when you are working full time?

He actually had the balls to say ‘I’d just like to have a whole day of doing nothing for once when I’m off work’ when I asked him to go to the shop. I of course responded with ‘I’d love to have a whole day of doing nothing too’. Twat😂

eurochick my Father will still help out significantly. He was insistent on it as our daughter is very intelligent and we all want her to have the best education. All schools in our town have horrific Ofsted reports and lots of problems. It’s purely a guilt thing as he wasn’t really in my life until I was 18 and never paid child support to my mother. He’s quite wealthy and doesn’t have any other children so I suppose it’s up to him how he spends it. He’s trying to make up for my childhood through my daughter but that’s another thread! We’re incredibly lucky and fortunate to have my Father’s help but, you guessed it, OH has never even said thank you for him paying for our child’s childcare and education!

I think some women have much lower expectations of men these days.

You say all this but you are living with, and about to have 2 children with a man who thinks its acceptable to not have the rent money, but spend £50 on a skateboard. It sounds like a lot of the things you expect/want from a relationship are lacking here, other than the fact you say he is loving partner and father (aren't they all!) I think you need to reflect on whether you want to spend another 4 years teaching him how to be an an adult. Will it be another 4 after that, perhaps?
You are allowed to step back from this relationship and loudly shout "What about what I want?!"

You are basically a lone parent to two children, soon to be three.

and I wouldn’t want to break up our family over a skateboard and a mobile phone.

You won’t be.
You will be separating from him because he will grind you down with years of using you.

He's having a laugh. You need to grasp the nettle right now or this will only get worse. You have 2 children together. £50 skate board, for heavens sake. He needs to grow up!

Insist on the percentage split others have suggested. Not sure why you are eating out and having takeaways if you can't make your rent but that's another issue.

I think some women have much lower expectations of men these days

You’re one of them! He sat at home doing nothing all day yesterday and you STILL did all of the housework!

Seriously, pull yourself together.

So he earns £1000 and has to pay £325 rent per month, but he can't manage that as he's spent all the rest of his money on HIMSELF???

He works with his daddy, who drives him to work

He does fuck all around the house OR with his dc.

Dear God, why do women get involved with useless cocklodgers like this?? He is NOT a good man or a good dad. He's setting a crap example to your dc.

He is inherently thoughtless, deeply selfish, puts himself above everything else, and a giant baby. Why oh why did you think it was sa good idea to have another DC with him??

I wouldn’t want to break up our family over a skateboard and a mobile phone.

It's NOT over that. It would be over years and years of being taken for granted, of having to look after him, of having to do all the grunt work, houswwork, childcare, supporting your own dc, wifework...

What does he contribute, exactly? What are his good points?

I'd have lost all respect for him years ago.

I think you will be entitled to universal credit to top up your family income, especially as you have high childcare costs. Go onto a benefits calculator and check.

I think some women have much lower expectations of men these days.

Don't you see the irony in this, OP?