To be a bit hmmmm about DP asking me to pay for his divorce?

[infinitemonkeys]

I'll try to keep this simple.
DP had been separated a year before we met. After we'd been together a couple of years and were talking about having kids, I made it very clear that he would need to get divorced beforehand.

He dragged his feet, and the divorce was eventually finalised a couple of months after our baby was born this year. He has to pay £1,500 in solicitor fees etc and has just received the invoice.

he has just asked me if I'll give him the money to pay the invoice.

As background: I earn approx 4x more than him, have never asked him to contribute to any household bills (although he tends to get the food shopping and one-off things like vet bills). He received a benefit backpayment of just over a grand last year which related to the house he shared with his exW, which I thought he'd put aside to cover the divorce.

I've asked him why he doesn't have the money to pay this bill and his response was, "money just goes, doesn't it?".

Am I being U to feel a bit peeved and to tell him to pay for his own bloody divorce? I also bought every single thing for our baby and he didn't offer once to buy anything....

Or should I just see it as a family expense and pay up?

Really not sure how to feel about this!

Why doesn't he earn more? My answer e would depend on whether for example he's a poorly paid worker in the charity sector doing a job from the heart which he is passionate about or a bit of a layabout who can't be bothered to put in more hours at a dead end job who expe st you to pick up the slack. Either way, though, I would expect him to come up with something a little better than "money just goes!".

He earns only 25 per cent of what she's earning. So if she's on a very comfortable £36k net for example, he is only bringing home £9k a year, or around £700 a month. A vet bill of £200, £80 on household shopping per week, some petrol or a bus fare and it's all gone.

Now, I don't know their financial circumstances, and they may both be earning a lot more, giving him far more disposable income. But I don't think it's fair to assume he is a "cocklodger". The £1500 for the divorce may be impossible for him to pay and the OP says herself that it was her who pushed for it.

I wouldn't have a problem with the principle of it coming out of family money, say, if all your wages went into a joint account and he said "Bloody hell, look, the bill for my divorce has just arrived, is it OK to do a cheque from the joint account."

But asking you for the money is just . . . wrong!

schmee that's pretty much spot on. I guess maybe I am being a bit unreasonable after all, then. I think my first reaction was, "your mistake, you pay for it".

Don't pay it.

Actually I don't think you are being too unreasonable, it's just that you and he need to take the time to sit down and look at finances. I've been him (all income wiped out by the family shop and an emergency cost) and I found it hard to talk to my DH about as he thought he was paying for everything as the mortgage came out of his account. I certainly wouldn't have been able to stump up a big sum.

I think he could have been more tactful though!

It is his bill and if he doesn't have the money to pay it he needs to negotiate a payment plan with his solicitor.

I think it would have been different if he had said beforehand he would need your help to fund the divorce then you could have jointly decided how to save and what proportion you would each put in.

IM, out of all the majority of replies saying that he is the unreasonable one, you chose the one that supports his lack of financial planning

It's a bit like those people who say they hadn't realised that christmas was coming so quickly and ooh isn't it expensive blah blah blah

well, he needed to get divorced, yes ? Ergo, there wil be a bill to pay. Divorce costs are usually very well sign posted and upfront so no big surprise really

he planned all along that you would pay it...because you always have for everything else, I expect

do you often make excuses for his inadequacies, or collapse with relief when others do it ?

Seems that you gave him an ultimatum but didn't follow through so chances are he sees no reason to respect you or be an equal adult with you.

DH paid for my divorce legal bills (which were much higher than £1.5k), it was something he simply took as a household expense as it was necessary to start our new life together. At the time he was earning 7x my salary but we were living together and had combined finances at that stage. It wouldn't have made sense to expect me to pay for it all on my much lower income as I would have really struggled to do so while DH could easily afford it. He cares about me far too much to put me into that kind of financial position.

My question is why allow the non-divorced situation to linger so long in the back of the cupboard? Dragged his heels?
The previous life is his, so is the bill.
He should have sorted out his marital status much earlier.
You pushed for it, as is your right if you want a committed relationship with someone.
He is not behaving responsibly. Do not make any more allowances. My theory is, if you stand back and allow him to get on with, he will find the money, organise a repayment scheme as he will be compelled to like any other adult.
Stand your ground, do not do his thinking or organising for him

If he didn't put the 1000 he received from the sale of the house into your joint money,then he wouldn't be taking the cost of the divorce from it either.

Well,in my world anyway.

OP said he got 1K pay out last year.

Plus if you are not going to get back together everyone knows at some point you will need to think about paying for a divorce, especially if there are new partners.

I think you need to sit down together and sort out finances for the future. "Money just goes" is not an acceptable explanation for him not being able to afford to pay the bill.

There's something a bit... ungallant about letting your new partner pay to detach you from your old one. It would affect the way I felt about my DP if he didn't attempt to make the gesture of freeing himself to be with me, especially if I were already paying for the major household expenses.

Even if I ended up paying it, I'd want him to at least say, 'Darling, I'm going to sell my motorbike/collection of vintage Beanos/bass guitar to pay this wholly expected legal bill, which incidentally I consider cheap at twice the price because it means we can commit to each other now.'

What if it was the other way round?

"DH insisted I finalise my divorce before we had children, I accepted this and pushed the divorce through but now I've been landed with a bill of £1.5k. I don't have enough spare cash to pay this, DH earns four times as much as me, is it unreasonable to ask his help to pay the bill?"

How many women here earn four times less than their husband? Yet when the man is the low earner he's blasted for it.

On the other hand the fact he didn't discuss the divorce payments at all with you is pretty fucking shitty and you need to have a proper conversation about your finances. He can't just assume you will pick up all the bills because you earn a lot, just like a woman shouldn't assume her partner will pick up all the bills because he's a high earner.

What if it was the other way round?"

"DH insisted I finalise my divorce before we had children, I accepted this and pushed the divorce through but now I've been landed with a bill of £1.5k. I don't have enough spare cash to pay this, DH earns four times as much as me, is it unreasonable to ask his help to pay the bill?"

I think the person who is getting divorced should pay the bill. I'd also think less of them if they only get a divorce from their former partner because their new partner insists on it.

You wanted him to get divorced.

My myself and my ex husband never got divorced until one had a new partner who 'insisted' on it mainly because we both knew all it was doing was putting money in lawyers hands.

£1500 is alot for a simple divorce? Did his ex wife contest it?

I think if you love him and want to be with him you should pay, and ask for it back in instalments if that makes you happy.

Do you have joint finances or is what you earn yours and what he earns his?

You don't have a proper agreement about finances, but rather a loose arrangement that he picks up small stuff and you cover the major bills? £1500 does strike me as a fairly major bill so I don't think it is intrinsically U for him to expect/hope that you will pay for it.

But I do think that this is a very good opportunity/prompt for you both to seriously discuss how your family finances should be handled in future.

The first thing. No, money does not 'just go'. You are not married to him: keep it that way. For a long time.

With regards to finances in general: what should be happening is that you both pay the same PERCENTAGE of your earnings into your joint, family expenses - with some nudging and smoothing to reflect who is doing more of the shitwork and the baby care. Note that this is partly because you are NOT MARRIED and, should you split, there is no presumption that 'what's mine is yours'. Legally you are flatmates with a baby.

If that's happening - and it sounds as if it might more or less be, if he literally earns 1/4 of your wage - then your set-up is ok, really... BUT - this bill is HIS. The fact that he earns less simply does not come into it - as 'flatmates with a baby', he has no right to ask you to cover expenses like this, just as you really would be unfair if you asked him to put equal amounts into the mortgage as you do. The fact you pushed for a divorce is neither here nor there - err, were you supposed to be happy with starting a family with a man still married to someone else?? - and him be happy to do that??!

However, the biggest reason I'd refuse to pay this bill would be the comment above. He had a payout that could have covered much of this bill: he chose to fritter it. Don't start being the Bank of Mummy before you're even married.

Incidentally, if you'd have said something along the lines of 'Even though he earns less, when our baby was born, he tried his best to make sure he'd bought what he could out of his wage - just little things, babygros and bibs...' - my post here would be completely different.

A cocklodger, but perhaps one with only a tiny dick.

DrDance we're not in the UK, so that's how much a simple divorce costs unfortunately. As for how we split our money, we sort of muddle through - all the bills come out of my account, but he'll pay other bits and bobs. I suppose it's equitable enough because we both work long hours and neither of us is out partying or anything. I'd hate it if he was totally skint before month end, which he would be if I made him pay half of everything. As it is, I manage to save money every month, while I think he just manages and maybe has a hundred or so left over.

Cocklodger. That is all.

This.

Insisting he gets divorced is just reasonable in a normal relationship.
What is odd is to stay married for years and years.

And I'd worry about the just goes statement.

If he earns a quarter of what you earn, he should pay a quarter of the bills, food, rent/mortgage, surely? Not just the odd tiny cost.

Sorry but he needs to pay for it himself, as he would have had to if he'd made the effort to get divorced as soon as they split up.

You'd have been better off sticking to your original demand of not having a family until the divorce was done and dusted - why did you give in on that, btw?