..to insist that DH hands over complete control of his finances to me

[togarama]

DH has always been feckless and irresponsible with money. (He also has some positive qualities but frankly they're not relevant to this post.)

I've been the major earner for most of our relationship and the sole breadwinner for long periods.

DH was out of work for over a year until a couple of months ago. (This was partially his own fault and nearly split us up.) During this time, we built up some debts which are currently on a 0% credit card but obviously still need paying off. We also have to pay our regular bills including nursery fees.

I'm happy to deal with all the bill and debt paying etc.. as long as he puts money in the joint account to contribute towards this. We agreed when he started his new job that he would set up a direct debit to transfer the bulk of his salary to the joint account so that I could access it. Not only has he failed to set up an automatic transfer for the last three months, but every time he makes a manual transfer, he's followed this up by withdrawing or transferring money back to his personal account.

Having totted up the individual withdrawals from the joint account so far this month, it actually ends up as a net withdrawal of £150 and I'm now going to have to pay bills from my personal account again, and pay overdraft charges again, as I've been doing for the past year.

As far as I can gather, he has spent all of this money on beer, junk food, sweets and repaying loans to family members I never knew he had borrowed from. I am furious.

So, now I want his salary paid directly into the joint account, his cash card handed over, and I will give him pocket money. He has the option of agreeing to this or leaving since he is putting me in a far worse financial position than I would be in without him and seems to have no compunction in doing this. I can afford to support one other person and that is our daughter.

I know that this arrangement is letting him off with even less responsbility but I need his salary to stay on top of our finances and can't afford to wait around for DH to develop a sense of financial responsibility.

A word of warning. I was married to a man like this sadly :( I supported us/him/me/our daughters for almost 10 yrs. I bankrolled his failed business, I spent every bonus on getting us out of debt (and him more fool me :().
When we finally split up :) He then decided that everything we had was joint, even though he had contributed very little, unfortunately the law agrees with him. I cannot get him to pay any joint debts, and as they are in joint names I have to pay them. and the law has decided he has a right to "my house", my pension, and everything else I have!
It has taken a long long time to even sort the settlement out, and will take even longer for me to get back on an even keel.
I wouldnt even bother, TBH. he sounds just like my ex. I would get out now before you are in a mess.

My DH is not great with money partly because he is not very good at forward planning so if he has money its spent on stuff now (for the family not specifically on himself) even though there might be a big bill coming through in 2 months time. I am a bit of a nerd planner when it comes to money and I am the main earner. So the position we are moving to is that I will control the money so that all bills are paid, things that need saving for are saved for (I agree with DH what we need to save for and how much so he does have a say in our finances) then I will split whatever is left between us so we each have the same pocket money for the month.

I don't get it. If I were you, I would take all the bills on to my personal current account. Every month, he can transfer half the amount of cost of bills and household stuff (or whatever your arrangements are). Once he has transferred the money, he cannot get it back as it is in your personal account. He then keeps whatever he has left to spend as he pleases.

There is no way on earth I would have a joint account with him. And if he doesn't transfer the money, you ask him to leave.

Whymewhynot - your story is exactly the same as mine. My DH ws the same as yours. I am now divorced and a lot happier.

However, where are stories differ, is that I told his family and friends exactly what he was like and why I was divorcing him. I took a lot of stick and slating from his family and friends and they portrayed me as the 'Bad one'. I was quite happy to put them straight.

Once you have to start taking control of your DH finances and 'give them pocket money' its time to accept that perhaps you do not have a marriage.

I totally disagree that a marriage is over becasue one party is 'bad' at something. He's bad with money, if they can resolve it- by him paying his wages into her account and a transfer going back to him for his spends once bills are taken- then they have an equal footing and some trust is restored. OP can trust DH to finally contribute and he shows he is committed to their financial stability by sacrificing some control over his income as a whole.

I don't have time to read all 5 pages right now, but YANBU! And because I can see a few posts suggesting this, I have to add that I would feel exactly the same if the roles were reversed. You simply can not have one partner bearing the load while the other gets to spend as they please. If it means one has to control all of the finances, then that is what needs to be done. (It could hypothetically be reversed, perhaps a year down the line, once the spendy partner has formed better spending habits)

Before I married my husband, one of the things I was looking for in particular was someone who shared my spending habits. It is very hard to change once the habits are formed.

My husband has his pocket money of me. If he needs any extra he comes to me and asks for it and I say yes or no. He has no idea about who any of our bills are with, doesnt know the code for internet banking etc.

It works great for us. We married young though so he has never known any different as soon as he had his own bank account and had a full time jobit was decided I would take full control of finances.

Can I ask why that was decided so early on snowflake?

We met at 18 and he went on a mad one and spenr loads on records over buying a bit here and a bit there through the month. It meant we went overdrawn and got charged, and he said he hated doing the money so we just decided to do it this way.

He loves it cause he hates that type of thing, I love it cause I am super organised. He thinks it is boring and doesnt want the pressure. Everyone is happy and it has been working for the last 8 years so why change.

He gets everything he wants such as drink, nights out and that type of thing with the pocket money. If he needs a bigger purchase than a primark top or drinks etc he just says will it be ok to have it this week and I say whether he can or not.

We only have 1 joint bank account so all money goes in there and we have no other bank accounts. It means we dont get charged and dont have any stresses.

Also with things like that my husband always say you know best about everything and puts 100% trust in me with all aspects of stuff. He just knows I would never hurt him or do him wrong.

You have to have complete trust in someone to do it imo

That is a really interesting post, thanks.

Not sure I trust DH (money wise) as he is a spend maniac but me having control of the finances gives me sense of stability.

Your post shoes it can work if both parties are willing to accept it's a 'who's best at this bit?' decision not a 'my way/highway' decision.

Just read the whole thread. I saw this pinkieminx

'EVERY week he asks for more money, borrows off a friend, goes overdrawn. It it frustrating. Taking control may solve things, it may lead you to be more annoyed with him.'

My husband would never do this. He rings me up if he needs to borrow a pound of one of the work lads or a fiver of his mum lol. I dont make him but he always wants to check its alright. He didnt even have a bank card for nearly 5 years he just relied of me giving him cash from the joint.

It would be annoying if he didnt do it properly but it is annoying if he does it right.

soz cross post lol. Yeah people think its weird when it has came up to other people and some people wouldnt like it but I suppose because we got together so young it just is a habit now. I think it would be hard to do if someone had ever lived on their own or had more independence but as we have only known each other as a combined financial team sort of thing it does work.

Truth is I hate being asked for money - makes me feel controlling if I say no and a bit mugged if I say yes - money is such a pain!

I only dont like it when my husband says I will have to ask my wife when people ask him about money, and I say dont say that everyone will think I am well controlling as they dont know the full story. Then he always says its ok I like being under the thumb, its comfortable there! He just likes to wind me up lol.

YANBU but probably wasting your time. Will give you a slight flavour of my ex so you understand why I think this.

• Initially had bills in his name. I only discovered that he wasnt paying them when he left me for the first time and I opened the post each day. We had to sell the house to avoid repossesion.

• Gambled £18k that we made on the sale of our house. In 2 months. Looking at it now, I dont see why I agreed for it to go in a joint account. But I did. And lost the future house deposit for me and DC.

• Agreed for all his wages to be paid to my account and I had all the bills in my name. He worked in a pub 2 nights a week for his cash. Then bills kept bouncing and I couldnt work out why. Turns out that he watched me very closely when entering my pin number in shops, then got up bright and early to take my bannk card from my purse and withdraw money before I got up in the morning. Or waited up to do this after I'd gone to bed at night. I found this out after seeing CCTV coverage of one of his withdrawals having contacted my bank assuming my card had been cloned.

• I got to the point of canging pin on a weekly basis and sleeping with my bank card hidden in different places in the house.

• Even now we are split, I have to make sure I dont leave cash at home when he looks after the DC when I'm at uni (he doesnt have his own place so this is the only way he sees them). He stole DS's birthday money which I had hidden in his bedroom. I leave all cash at my mums now to avoid the risk.

What makes me truly angry is that he's in a job where he's constantly around cash. He never steals from them, just me and my kids. So to me his gambling is only an addiction when he knows he can get away with it.

I hope this solution works for you but its only since I split with my ex that I realise what a constant worry living with him was. I know now that the bills are paid, my children have food and clothing and I dont dread opening the post or answering the phone.

You also have to worry about the fact that if your H has issues with money (even if it is on his accoubnt in his name only), the fact that you have a joint account means that if Credit Reference Agencies are looking into your creditworthiness alone, the conduct of your joint account will be taken into consideration IRRESPECTIVE if the issues were all his doing.

Just something to think about if your job depends on A1 creditworthiness.

PS- only read the first couple of pages, so sorry if that has already been said.

ballstoit I'd be very careful about having him in your house unsupervised at all. You could get home to find he'd sold anything of value. If he can steal your childs money he'd be more than capable of selling your furniture.

I do this with my brother because he is a cocaine addict. All his wages are transferred to me so he can't spend it on drugs whilst he's recieving treatment and I keep it safe.
This is only a temporary arrangement though

karma, I know but otherwise he has nowhere to have the children and I have to pay for childcare. I take my laptop with me, as well as the shed keys (where bikes, lawnmower etc are stored) and am only gone for 5 hours. If he was to start moving anything large out of the house my neighbours would text me. The arrangement has worked for the last 6 weeks but will have to see how it goes.

YABU, Sit down and talk with him. But he should not have to give you complete control of all his finances.

YANBU - my DH is similar but not as bad, and seems to be at least a bit more aware of his fecklessness when it comes to money.

I discovered by accident that he was massively in debt through various means (overdrafts, credit cards, loans etc) and had never told me . Trust was a hard thing to win back (I still struggle sometimes with it) because even when pushed to tell me it all (so I could help sort it out), he lied (or made mistakes ). He was embarassed about his inadequacies but genuinely didn't know how much he owed and thought it was a good few £k more than he thought!!

After months of trying to get him to sort his finances out himself, and making him well aware of the shit implications it had on us as a family and how big a pile of mistrust he'd built up, he was still doing stupid things and failing to pay things off despite being in a fairly well paid job.

So a few months ago I made him get his salary paid directly into our joint account. The whole lot. I do online banking and he doesn't so I keep an eye on it whereas he could go for months without opening bills or statements. I made him put everything he could into a 0%finance card. I started by giving him about £300 a month into his own account, and made him set up standing orders of about £200 a month towards paying off some of the other debts. I made him go to his parents and beg to borrow money and made him be sure to tell them it was for his debts not ours.

All of that takes guts for him. Yes, it leaves him in a vulnerable and slightly disempowered position, but it is necessary for us to function as a family, and for me and him to function as a couple.

If you want your marriage to work in the long run, do it. Now.

BubbaAndBump, Snowflake69 and others - interesting to hear stories of relationships which did survive this sort of scenario. I'm glad that it can work out in theory. In practice, I'm not confident that we're one of the couples who will make it, whatever happens.

It transpired today that DH didn't even have enough cash left for his weekly train ticket to get to the office, and that his loan repayment on Tuesday is going to bounce. I've bought his ticket and he will have to talk to his bank about changing the payment date or taking a reduced amount this month. It's all just so stupid and unnecessary.

As of tomorrow there is no overdraft on the joint account. It's up to DH to switch his salary and direct debit payments tomorrow.

If the house belonged to DH or even was held jointly, I'd be tempted to pack up DD and walk out without any more exhausting and pointless conversations about money and alcohol. Because it's mine, it's definitely DH who will have to do the leaving.

Even if he does come home tomorrow with all the banking admin switched, I'll just be waiting for the next unpleasant surprise (as pps mentioned, there's a whole world of payday loan merchants etc.. out there who are willing to lend to low credit scoring people like DH with few questions asked).

It's strange how otherwise sensible women get themselves into stupid situations like this. If you were presented with the complete bag of issues on day 1, you'd just walk away but it builds up gradually over so many years that there never seems to be one defining incident of fuckwittery bad enough to justify ending the relationship. Sometimes I'm angry with myself as well as DH.

I wish I had read a thread like this however many years ago that I was with someone like this.

There wasn't really anyone to talk to in real life about these kind of things because when you explain the situation you are the one that sounds like an idiot for putting up with it.

If you're married I don't think it matters whose name the house is in, so I'd check about that one.