Just found out DP spent 23% of his July pay on golf

[fuckgolf]

We have 3DC.
We rely on his income at the moment as youngest DD is 2 and we 'can't afford' childcare.
We are supposed to be getting married later this year.

He's self employed and always been weird about me helping him with his taxes, he failed to do self assessment returns for years and received fines, he finally let me submit them for him, has only recently started actually keeping receipts so i can submit allowable expenses. He wouldn't let me link his bank account to quickbooks, but I've just managed to do it with one of his accounts - this seems to be the one he was using for july. He's hundreds into the overdraft.

He put 63% of earnings in our joint account for all food, household bills, family car/fuel etc. We often cannot afford our bills and I intend to find part time evening work regardless, have been job hunting this week.

16% went on fuel and food expenses for work.

13% was spent directly on golf and 10% taken out in cash at ATM's.

I feel a bit horrified. What should I do/say?

Thank you. It really helps to hear that I'm not expecting too much!!

I love a glass of wine to relax. When we are budgeting we cut back on wine- it’s Friday and I don’t have any in the house. ‘But I have to waaaah’ is not a good enough excuse.

I actually know how much he earns each month because his (not official) employer send him a statement every month.

I am disorganised and shit so despite muddling through his tax returns I didn't actually sit down and calculate the large difference between what he was putting in the household coffer and what his pay after tax is. His pay also varies from payslip to payslip and he actually gets paid fortnightly when we have monthly direct debits. It's all a recipe for disaster with an ADHD nightmare like myself.

And!!!!! so easy for him to go undetedected for so long - any normal person would have picked up on this a long time ago and or not put up with the secrecy.

I'm addition, he's clearly spending way over what he gets paid every month and I had no way of knowing about it. I still don't have a way of knowing all there is to know.

He's had to smoke weed nearly every night since he was a teen. It doesn't affect his behaviour or mood in any way that I can tell so I just accept it as if someone had a glass of wine every evening to relax.

Anyone who 'has' to drink wine every night, has a problem. In addition to the fact that they can't afford to drink every night.

I don't know how you are going to extract yourself from him, but you absolutely must.

Practically it will be easy because we are not married, rent and I'm the only one on the tenancy.

I do have all of his invoices for the last several years filed and will photocopy them on case I need them for child maintenance evidence (maybe I'm being naive but I don't believe he will try and conceal his earnings from cms in any case).

Emotionally its going to be very hard. He is so lovely with the kids, he's incredibly charismatic and funny, and we had a fantastic sex life. 😓

It also sounds pathetic but I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and always envied old friends that have been settled and married for a while.
Waited for a long time to join the traditional path of getting married etc.... Have been looking at wedding dresses and ordered flower girl dresses. So close and it's all snatched away. I'm mid 30s now and this is not what I imagined.

I dread to think how much debt there is. It's going to be an awful lot.

If you have decided the relationship is over (would be for me) then put a claim in for UC and at least when you find a job you will get help with childcare costs. I would also start a CMS claim - presumably that could be deducted by his "non-employer" through the scheme if he doesn't willingly pay.

I feel sick on your behalf.

Yes it's over. The only way it could possibly be remotely salvagable was if he was to tell me everything and beg for forgiveness and be trdansparent going forward.

Even then i don't know if I could get over the lies and gaslighting.

I will put in a UC claim on Monday first thing.

Honestly put it in today, takes 5 weeks I believe.

Put the claim online today. You will be asked to attend an interview with a work coach to agree any commitments as part of that (this is standard, even where there will definitely be no commitments beyond reporting changes promptly).

Have you got your own, separate account? If not, open one today too. Transfer what’s in the joint account in there so you can make sure bills are paid etc and he can’t withdraw the money out of spite.

Also ensure Child Benefit paid in your name into your sole account.

Yes I have my own account - child benefit gets paid into it and I immediately move it to joint account for transparency. I don't have any income so that's it!

I will make the UC and CM claims today.

My daughter is on her own with three young children - she's much happier now that she got rid of her 'partner'.

The house they got together is purely in her name, plus all bills. I thought this very strange when I found out.

Turns out he has no credit rating and cannot prove what he earns (self-employed/works alone).

He gave her just £500 a month towards everything. When I found this out, I hit the roof. My daughter always seemed to be struggling to make ends meet and I wondered why - since he had an extremely successful business (according to him).

After the birth of the third child he stopped coming home at 5pm. We thought it was to get out of doing his fair share of bathtime/bedtime. He then started coming home later and later. Then he was coming home 4 times a week - saying he was sleeping in his workshop as he was so over run with work. All this time no extra money was coming in?

Turns out he had massive debt and was seeing prostitutes every week (at 5pm - saw messages in his phone arranging times). This even carried on throughout the pandemic. Also turned out he had two teenage sons no one knew anything about, not even his mother. He didn't pay any maintenance as he told CMS that he didn't earn enough. He had also served time in prison because he's an arsonist. We came to the conclusion he is also a fantasist.

My daughter loves being on her own - and you will too OP. No more lies and no more stress. She has a job and is also on UC.

Holy shit.

I've just had a horrible thought.

He showed me the direct debits on his barclays account to try and prove he was not paying off debts. Of course u don't have to have direct debits to pay debts each month so this didn't wash with me.

BUT his phone direct debit was two separate ones of 35 quid. His phone was the latest iPhone a year or so ago though so quite an expensive contract.

Is there any reason it would be split into two separate payments of 35 quid?

Or are we talking a secret phone here.

"Out of the three guys in our group theyball have separate accounts from the joint account which is there’s,your making me out like I’m out of order giving up all my independence. None of them said there mrs would try and get their account transactions ha"

I've just had this message from him while he's on his golf weekend

He's put his spin on that though hasn't he, probably in what he has told them and what he has told you

My DH has a personal account which I don't have access to BUT all his income goes into the join account, as does mine, then we have the same amount go out into our personal accounts which we spend on our own personal items, clothes, hobbies etc

It's entirely possible that's the sort of account his friends are talking about

I would be tempted to ask him to ask his friends how many of them would go off on a golf weekend when they can't pay their bills and yell at their 'mrs' if she buys their children a toy.

Sounds like two separate phone contracts. When I renew mine I don't take out another direct debit to make up the difference in cost. Just the one direct debit for one phone.

He can't be very bright either as anyone trying to hide a phone would not have evidence of two separate phone contracts on their bank account - they would get a burner phone which is untraceable.

That’s the grown man version of ‘but all the other kids are allowed to/have an X’. 🙄

Do you know if he paid for the phone fully before starting the contract?

If not, one of those payments could be a device plan and the other his airtime bill.

"But did you tell the three guys you have a shit ton of debt and we can't pay the bills?"

It seems incredibly childish to me that he would be prepared to cancel a wedding and throw his family under the bus for the sake of principle. Is his ego that much bigger than what he supposedly loves the most? Also, if you are the controlling one and so horrible, why is he so sad that you're cancelling the wedding and clearly talking to his mates about it? None of this adds up OP and I'm sad to say it sounds like this guy has a lot of debt that you would be liable for.

Why don’t you get a job and stop mothering him?

Why doesn't he grow up and do his tax returns on time and accurately so that he isn't paying fines and can afford to cough up his 50% for the childcare so the OP can afford to return to work?

His tax returns are not her business. If she returned to work he’d have to find time/money for childcare. Sounds to me she likes her SAHM status but resents his spending his money on himself as well as keeping her!