Finances - what is fair between husband and wife?

[Mil3nnial]

DH and I each earn around £60K. As of this month he will earn £60k and I will earn £59K as I am reducing hours slightly. He works five days and I work
four days a week. We have young children.

Me having Mondays off means I lose 20% of my salary, no childcare costs for that day and I spend some of that time off cleaning and doing things for the family. Overall we do share household chores but I carry about 75% of the mental and domestic load (by my own calculation).

Is if fair that we simply pay 50/50 towards everything? It probably is but I am resentful of this because when he earned slightly less he made sure he contributed less and also I am losing some of my salary for the benefit of our family. He says I should just put the children in childcare five days and work five days if I am bothered about that.

Without going into background I have paid more than 50% for as long as I have been with him for one reason or another and do more in the house too. I know the split is not fair. I knew he would not pay more than me. He has never insisted on 50/50
until now. He has also said he won't contribute to a cleaner as she doesn't do a good enough job but then who do we think does the cleaning - no prizes.

You really need to change your approach going forward.

Your resentment is palpable but you should not have paid for all those things in the first place without first highlighting to him that you would submit a bill for 50% of each item.

Do that going forward - tell him it will be happening from now on. AND DO IT

He seems tight and selfish which is why you are grumbling over 1k. That is not the issue it is a symptom of things going wrong in your relationship that you are not happy about.

He can only do these things if you let him.

Tell him if he doesn’t like it he can easily go, pay you maintenance and have the kids every weekend!

Absolutely shocking that he won’t pay towards the cleaner!

I'll be honest, I'm still confused as to what your issue is with the 50:50 split (when you'll actually have a marginally higher income than him once you include CB).

Your issue should actually be that he's not paid his proportional share for essential child/home related expenses in the past (why didn't you address that at the time?).

I do also think that you have to understand that its only reasonable to expect him to split essential home/child costs, or ones that you both want. So a cot, a pram, yes, of course he should pay half. But if you want designer and he wants standard, then I'd say the uplift is reasonably down to you. Similarly, if you need to replace a broken sofa, then the cost should be split, but if you're wanting to upgrade a functional one for fashion reasons and he doesn't, then that cost should fall to you. Equally, though, if he wants to buy something that you don't and that isn't needed, then that cost falls to him.

@Quitelikeit I didn't feel like I was letting him. He simply refused saying he didn't have the money and then we needed to buy food

@mrsm43s Let me try to explain simply for you. Ultimately I think a 50/50 split is fair enough if we do that going forwards. I have a bit of annoyance about the fact that he paid less in the past and refuses to pay more now but I think a 50/50 split is not unreasonable based on what we earn now. It is not just based on earnings.

As to whether I addressed all these things at the time yes I did but the issues weren't resolved as he dismisses what I say if he doesn't agree with it which is obviously a bigger problem and may tell you why I'm annoyed he now wants to go 50/50 as it suits him.

What you say about choosing to buy things compared to essentials, well, yes, that's obvious. Thanks.

How we’ve done it is that we calculate the shared costs generously. We work out what we both earn added together, take out what our join costs are, and then make sure we both have equal saving money after the joint costs. we both put a certain amount (differing from each other according to who is the bigger earner) into a joint account.

This way we have our own money to spend on what we consider important and I don’t need to get stressed by his use of his own money nor him with mine.

Not sure it’s entirely fair. I’d have preferred to just combine everything but he didn’t want to. It has made some stuff peaceful as we haven’t had to negotiate!

I’ve had long periods as a sahm and I haven’t had as much saved money as him though. So I did myself out of pocket there. However, I think he wanted me to go back to work earlier than I wanted to so we both kind of sucked it up.

But he paid less in the past, because he earned less. You now earn the same so you pay the same.

I'm genuinely not being goady, I veer towards a bit of black & white thinking, and am struggling to understand why you'd expect someone earning the same as you to pay a higher proportion of the bills.

If he hasn't paid his fair proportional share in the past, then that's a separate issue, which really should have been dealt with at the time.

Similarly, if he's not doing his fair proportional share (based on working plus commuting hours) of the childcare/mental load, then that also need to be addressed.

But these things are separate to it being reasonable to expect two people earning the same to financially contribute on a 50/50 basis.

It's pennies let it go. If you really are resentful then work 5 days - you are benefitting from working one less day emotionally physically socially and by being there for your kids an extra day per week.

I think maybe I haven't explained myself well or people are not understanding.

Yes I have said it makes sense to split things 50/50 as there is such a small difference in our earnings.

I also said he paid less not just because of his earnings but because of his outgoings such as if he had a credit card bill to pay, which he did most months. I now have some things to pay off but he doesn't entertain that he could pay more. I'm not going to insist that he does but I know he hasn't been fair about money in the past and he's only suggesting 50/50 because he's now slightly better off.

I am benefitting from the day off @amothersinstinct

So is he as he saves about £300 childcare for that one day.

@Stainglasses I proposed this previously

option 1 contribute proportionate to our earnings

option 2 put everything in one pot and have an equal amount of disposable each such as £1000

he refused because he was paying child maintenance and we did not agree about whether it should come out of the joint pot or our own money.

@mrsm43s

he earned £39k and I earned £40k so he earned less

i know earn £59k and he earns £60 so we earn (the same)

there's not much difference there! Yet I paid a lot more

it we also about outgoings as I have said - that he had more outgoings

i know have more outgoings

I'm not going to respond to you again as you seem to have a comprehension problem

Thanks everyone for the replies

As I have said at least twice I'm content to go along with 50/50

Isn’t the whole premise of this thread that she’s earning less now? So you think she should pay less surely! I’d say he can be responsible for all essential spends and the first time he argues about something basic his children need you will start contributing lower, so he pays more than 50/50 or he can spend Saturday blitzing the whole house since you’re not the cleaner and the first time it doesn’t happen you will change your direct debit to lower, or he can stop being a stingy fucker and you will pay less in just like he has all these years. He sounds like living with him is pretty depressing to be honest, I’d resent every bit of my time attention and money that went on his stingy self.

FWIW, I agree you should have paid 50:50 at £40k &£39k.

You actually now earn £59k + CB (so £60.3k) to his £60k. How is 50/50 not fair?

Nope. She's earning £59k, plus £1.3k CB, total £60.3k. He's earning £60k.

She's not earning less than him (more, actually if you incude CB), so it's hard to understand why she thinks she should pay less.

@Codlingmoths Exactly. My issue isn't that it should t be 50/50
now my issue is that he's always paid less and he's the kind who will always find a reason why things should suit him. That's another issue as I say and I think the 50/50 split will work fine.

Whatever you agree on is fair. It doesn't have to be mathematically precise.

Also not sure what child benefit amount is for the year but I had to pay about 60% of it back (£800ish) and as stated I was paying for so much.

From next month I'm going to start putting it on an account for the children but will still be responsible for paying some back.

The reason I'm reducing my hours from 90% to 80% now is because I can't manage the slightly longer working days with the cleaning etc.

DH said he wouldn't pay the cleaner anymore as doesn't like how she works but of course that leaves me doing it. I will readdress this as the cleaner coming weekly only cost is about £100 a month whereas I'm losing about £350 for working 30 hours instead of 34.

It's clearly all stuff I'm resentful off as I feel he has been unfair but I don't actually have a problem with splitting things 50/50. I have a problem with DH generally not being a team player.

Ah right.

Well, if there’s child maintenance to pay on HIS children then HE pays it! Obviously.

that does complicate things admittedly but he has to pay for that, not you.

@Stainglasses You say obviously but he always objected to this which is why we didn't have fully joint finances or pay everything into a joint account and have a set amount each, because he thought the child maintenance should come out of the joint pot.

UPDATE

We are going with the £500 each in a joint account (which may not be enough but it is the first month) for joint expenses such as food, petrol, things children need and he is now price checking every item I have ordered from Ocado. I always do the weekly shops at Ocado, supplemented with trips to the butchers and Aldi and I paid for it all out of my half of things. Now that it is coming out of the joint account he thinks we should have gone to Aldi which is fine but he hasn't gone to Aldi and I haven't had time to go. We share a car which he had all day today and yesterday.

i am fine with putting in 50/50 but he just seems to be so one sided about everything

He simply is extremely tight @Mil3nnial

I suspect he knows very well he was doing very well out of you with the previous arrangement. Now he sees that going away and he is having a strop.
If he thinks he can do better shopping wise, maybe he should do it??

^this

DH earns £70k+. I earn less than £20k (part time, term time only). We have a joint account and everything goes into that account. Everything is “ours”.
works for us 🤷‍♀️

(Oh and in the early days of our marriage I was the sole earner - still all “ours”).

This is so transactional. When I read stuff like this I wonder if couples are noting down who gave who more pleasure in sex.

I can't understand this dynamic at all.

Arguing over 1 grand, saying casually... Yeah chuck the kids in childcare another day. With zero thought to the actual children and what's best for them?
How can he be so callous?

I couldn't believe anyone loved me if they were drilling down into that grand.

I was a sahm and my dh was not a big earner at all we cut back on everything and we didn't have much to begin with.
Due to my personal circumstances there was no way I couldn't be a sahm my dh never pushed me or forced me to work at all.
We struggled through and not once did he say anything, we were and are a team.
I work now and have far more ££ by accident not design, we are a team it's family money.

Are DH and I rather strange? He earns £49k. I earn £13k. ( used to be about £34k but health issues caused a change) Money goes into a joint account. Bills come out of joint account. We both access joint account..but check before buying huge items. I do most house/child stuff. We have never done he earns more so pays more. It's our money, our house, our child....

So why you were paying solely for food he was happy with Ocado?!

now he is paying he wants it to be Aldi!!

this man is greedy

You need a joint household account that you both contribute to and all bills and child costs come out of

are you happy together? Financially you behave like you’re both single

Yes!

I was doing one Ocado shop and one Gousto shop a week plus I usually ended up being the one to buy extra bread, milk, trips to the butchers.

as soon as we decided on a joint account for food he said no more gousto and quibbled over Ocado!

the CSM thing was never agreed but he used it as a reason not to pay equally

Fully joint wouldn't work for us but we'll see how this arrangement goes