Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

about dh's bonus

283 replies

bath4 · 09/10/2011 21:02

Dh has a good job and earns enough for me to be a SAHP. We have a joint account which I rarely use and a joint credit card. I use this for day to day stuff. I don't spend a fortune on myself. Just buy essentials.
DH has just received a bonus. He has spent £200 on stuff for himself and £50 on each of 3 dc's. He has never said to me why don't you get something too.
Now in theory I could buy something but its not really about that.
I just want to treated as an equal. My contribution to household may not be monetary but its still important.
AIBU

OP posts:
seaside72 · 10/10/2011 13:38

I have only scanned the thread so apols if I am repeating what anyone else has said but if I were you and my DH received a bonus (or indeed if I did) I would rather he suggested we go out for a really nice meal/day out/night away etc. A treat for us both. I would be fine with him spending some money on himself and DC's but would def expect to be included in some way.
However I do think as someone else pointed out that men are the not the best mind readers! So maybe rather than feeling like you are asking for money for something for you alone suggest going out or doing something as a treat for you both?

If you do bring it up with him IME the best way is not to accuse him of not thinking of you but to say by not considering you he has made you feel .... sad/undervalued/upset etc. Hopefully this opens a discussion rather than starting an argument (subtle difference!)
Money issues are so hard and they fester and build up in relationships and cause so many emotions.
Hope you resolve it and get a to share the bonus.

scottishmummy · 10/10/2011 13:40

indeed my situation works for me i dont see it as global given for everyone else. i do however structurally think that if a woman is economically inactive and dependent upon a waged partner that is precarious, and a lot to give up to support another adult. it does render the unwaged partner dependent upon the good will of the waged partner.

prolonged periods of absebnce from employment make any return harder

and when kids are all at school, there is no childcare or specific family tasks need to be undertaken at home

BillBrysonsHauntedRucksack · 10/10/2011 13:41

Morloth I think I love you. I couldn't have put it better myself Smile

I don't understand how people can think they're in a good, secure relationship if they don't have equal access to any money that comes in. I am a SAHM and any money that DH generates (or any that I generate from occasionally working at weekend events for his company) goes to our family. DH and I have pocket money each month to spend on whatever we like.

OP, could you set up something like this?

Slacking9to5 · 10/10/2011 13:52

I do hear you scottishmummy but every situation is different. Some SAHM have savings, pensions, investments, property etc in place for themsleves. Some don't , you can't generalise. Many better off SAHM are less vulnerable than low waged working women.

Statistically, being an unmarried mother makes someone vulnerable but I expect many women have made legal and financial provision to ensure they are not.
You simply cant generalise.

scottishmummy · 10/10/2011 13:55

yes its all very unique to the individual and one must plan accordingly,and take good legal advice if necessary.

Hungrydragon · 10/10/2011 14:15

I'm lucky in that I can technically take a career break and waltz back into the same role as long as I keep track of legal changes.

Doesn't stop it being scary as hell though. But dh has appreciated the help and support, as my giving up wasn't just about the childcare.

I do some wah too and hope to gradually, organically increase this too.

But being out the job market was a fairly big deal for me....having said that I am really enjoying the SAHM malarky Grin

scottishmummy · 10/10/2011 14:22

milli do elaborate in the finacial abuse you feel is being perpetrated in my relationship? is it a safeguarding issue?what statutory mechanism shall i invoke

yes how very dare i have autonomy and my own salary

pink84 · 10/10/2011 15:01

Not read the whole thread but he sounds really thoughtless. I think you need to sit down and talk about your attitudes to money and try and find a compromise.

Slacking9to5 · 10/10/2011 16:05

Isn't financial abuse where one person holds all the pursestrings, so to speak? So wouldnl' be the case in your situation Scottishmummy but may be for some women so they work to avoid that? I dont really know, just musing!

kickassangel · 10/10/2011 16:33

if i hadn't agreed to giving up my job & looking after dd for 2 years, dh wouldn't have been able to relocate & would have been unemployed.

therefore, 100% of his income was due to my contribution to the family - giving up a good career to enable his. i would never argue that i should be given 100% of that money (or even 50%), but i certainly don't feel any kind of indebted guilt if i spent some money.

in fact, by doing the grocery shopping, i'm doing him a favour - if I'm not around, he would have to do that, AND take care of dd, once he finished work.

unless we want the human race to die out, then raising kids is essential. if a man doesn't want to be part of that process, and doesn't want to contribute, then he should never have kids (and quite possibly, never have a serious relationship with someone who does). whether he contributes money or effort, he is doing it for his kids, not for the wife (in this case). if he resents that, then he needs to think about why he bothered to have kids in the first place.

upahill · 10/10/2011 16:44

I see the arguments about it 'being DH's money' and the flip side of that to it being 'family money'

From my own expierences all I can say is that I have worked full time since before I met my DH and I'm not in a job that gives out bonuses. In the past DH has been.

He has always come home and said ' Guess what love?? I've got £xxxxx what should we do? (giddy excitment from DH)
I have an endowment policy due to mature in the next couple of years that started before I met DH and when I day dream about it maturing he always refers to it as my 'Everest money' as I intended to trek to Everest base camp funded by that policy.

But my values have changed, like DH I see it as OUR treat money. I am not going to spend thousands of pounds treking in a Himalayan country with out DH having a huge treat as well.
It's like our 'weekend money', DH always puts away a couple of hundred pound for the weekend so we can have fun. He doesn't say it's his, it's there for whatever we do, whether it is going out for meals, going away, whatever.

Mind you if he was tight like some of the people I read about in relationships that would be different but I have seen him go without a penny in his wallet to make sure that I had a bit about me in my purse in the days we were stony broke.

PigletJohn · 10/10/2011 16:49

"therefore, 100% of his income was due to my contribution to the family"

and 0% was due to his going to work?

scottishmummy · 10/10/2011 18:15

do explain how not working,not putting in the hours=100% of dh wages is your contribution?are you genuinely suggesting you being economically inactive is the reason your dh gets a bonus?

lets be clear bonus is paid to named salaried individual for their performance, and demonstrable output.given the housewife is at home,not working,this is clearly not something she can legitimately claim credit for

if you dont put in the hours,do the reports,take the calls that result in bonus paid.then its not your bonus.

scarlettsmummy2 · 10/10/2011 18:25

haven't read all the posts, but I worked in a bonus driven culture for several years, as does my husband now.

To be honest, while I did often treat my husband with bonuses I received, such as holidays, it certainly wasn't a given, and he didn't expect it.

He himself just got a bonus in the summer, and didn't share it with me, however i wasn't bothered as he works hard, I have my own money, and he did buy stuff for our children.

Also, while i think that sham no doubt do make a contribution to running the family home/ looking after children etc, working mums still do all this too, except they also go to work.

callmemrs · 10/10/2011 18:33

Agree scarlettsmummy- and so do working dads- or at least they darn well should be!

Given that most couples tend to pair up with someone of similar age, intelligence and level of education, it actually seems pretty logical that many families would want to share the pleasures (and pressures) of earning and running the home.

clam · 10/10/2011 19:03

"lets be clear bonus is paid to named salaried individual for their performance, and demonstrable output.given the housewife is at home,not working,this is clearly not something she can legitimately claim credit for"

Except for the fact that had she not been at home looking after his children and running his home, he would not have been in a position to put in those hours. She therefore contributed to the earning of the bonus by enabling him. Even if he'd funded childcare instead, he'd still have had to leave the office in time to pick them up from nursery, or take them to brownies, or collect them from school if they were ill. And any evening work or conference calls might have been interrupted with cries from upstairs for a drink of water, or squabbles between 2 kids who both want the same toy or whatever. Would he really have been able to do the same job under those circumstances?

Of course it's not his bonus. It's the family's.

scottishmummy · 10/10/2011 19:22

well if you dont work you would say that...

Slacking9to5 · 10/10/2011 19:30

My DH works, he also gets a bonus every year.
In twenty years of marriage I have never heard him say it's his money or that what we have isn't shared. Over the years I earned more than him at one point .
It depends entirely on your attitude to the money. It has always been ours from the very beginning, always ours.

His bonus is always used for what is wanted or needed at the time.Or squirrelled away.

clam · 10/10/2011 19:36

If who doesn't work?

I go out to work. But we have chosen that I'm part-time, in order that one of us has time to deal with more of the home/family affairs. And if, as has happened these last few weeks, a call comes through from DD's school that her brace has broken and is digging into her gum requiring an emergency trip to the orthodontist, or Matron calls me to say she's running a temperature and can I either bring in paracetamol or collect her, or we need to take her for blood tests at the path lab this morning, or collect the dog from the vet at 4pm after his op and bring him back on Thursday morning for a check-up and blah-di-blah etc... it's generally me who deals with it, even if I'm at work, because the bottom line is DH is the main breadwinner and it would be worse if he lost his job. However, when these things happen, he will invariably attempt to switch things around a bit and come home, but if he can't and I sort it, he's very appreciative and grateful.

clam · 10/10/2011 19:40

And I hate all this my money/your money crap. When DH came into a not insubstantial inheritance, he had no hesitation in putting it all into my name for tax purposes. And at one point when he fancied spending an amount on something ridiculously extravagant he asked me my thoughts. I said it was up to him as it was his money. He was appalled and said absolutely not, it was ours.

clam · 10/10/2011 19:45

Ooh, I'm on a roll here....
And when it's one of my days off (from work, that is) there are always various jobs/errands to run. DH doesn't "expect" any of it, but will say "if you get a chance, would you mind dropping my shirts in to the dry cleaners, and phoning the garage about my car" and so on. It's common courtesy.

MrsPoyser · 10/10/2011 20:02

I am the wohp in our house. Everything I earn goes into a joint account, and I expect dp to spend it as he sees fit and have never questioned his expenditure (though it helps that he doesn't really like buying things). But I do feel differently about bonuses. I usually see them as permission to buy myself whatever small thing I'm coveting at the time (shiny new cookbook, Woolford tights, maybe a pair of shoes) and put the rest into the mortgage, but it does feel like one small, private pay-off in a life where everything else is shared. They are not his. Dh gets lots of time to himself, never has to get up before dawn for an airport run, or go into a meeting with lots at stake straight off a long flight, or stay up into the early hours four nights in a row or any of the other things I do to keep progressing at work and keep the family in the style to which they are accustomed. And it's not true that I can only do those things because he's at home - the kids are at school and he could earn enough to cover after-school care at MacDonalds if he wanted to. I built my career through maternity leaves and two insomniac toddlers and he would agree that I work very much harder than he does. I get to buy myself the odd bottle of perfume and feel proud that I've earned it. Sahps can't have both the leisure of not working and the highs of success.

scottishmummy · 10/10/2011 20:10

do keep up clam,the op doesn't work.and feels aggrieved she s not got a share of bonus. that would be the jist of the thread

its not all about you...

clam · 10/10/2011 20:21

What's your problem, scottishmummy?

From what I've read, you've fairly dominated this thread with your own chippiness. I was responding to your comment, to me I supposed, that "I would say that if I don't work."

Why don't you go and be unpleasant somewhere else?

TheOriginalFAB · 10/10/2011 20:25

I don't work in a job that brings in any money. I look after the house, kids and animals and volunteer in school twice a week. DH does a job that pays money and bonuses. He has always said the money is ours as me doing what I do enables him to do what he does.

clam - fwiw I enjoyed reading your posts Grin.