for wanting a joint account?

[Xfirefly]

Me and OH been together 7 years, lived together for 4 and have DD 3 months. we own our own home. I'm currently on maternity leave and after a discussion have decided that I will stay home with DD as it wouldnt be worth going to work after childcare costs etc. I was feeling quite guilty about it all at first feeling I was sponging but I'm past that now as OH keeps saying we're a family etc.

I brought up the idea of a joint account seeing as I'll be doing a lot of the shopping etc but OH is dead against this. he said work colleagues have told him not to do it because they argue with their wives (we never argue). I said I'm not going to take money without asking and he said its not that , he trusts me 100% but he's never agreed with joint accounts.

I'm worried that I'm going to be shopping and if I have to sign for it I'm going to be in trouble for using his card arnt I?

any other sahp not have a joint account? how do you deal with the money? did your partner send money to your account?

any advice would be great.

Do NOT show him this thread either. That will be a mistake on your part if you do.

"he honestly isn't abusive , we're open with each other and nothing is withheld"

Abuse though is not just about hitting people, there are other types of abuse which are far more subtle to spot. Also you have actually in the past felt guilty about supposedly sponging off him i.e this comment which also has me concerned:-

"I'm currently on maternity leave and after a discussion have decided that I will stay home with DD as it wouldnt be worth going to work after childcare costs etc. I was feeling quite guilty about it all at first feeling I was sponging but I'm past that now as OH keeps saying we're a family etc".

You are very vulnerable and wide open to being financially exploited. This is the 21st century after all and he is not your keeper; your man is enjoying the financial power he is having over you now.

he happily hands over his cards

He's rather breach the terms of his bank account and expose himself to the risk that if he was the victim of fraud the bank would refuse to refund him, rather than have a joint account? He's absolutely mad.

So here's how it goes. There's a sequence of mysterious transactions on his account. Suspecting fraud, he reports it. The bank pull up the CCTV which most shops have, and supermarkets definitely have, of the payment area, and also get the CCTV of the cashpoints. And look, there's a woman, making payments with this card. "Oh yes," he says "I gave her my card and PIN". Fuck off, they say, and stop wasting our time.

Or alternatively, there's fraud on his online account. "Have you given your login details to anyone else?" they ask. Of course not! Well, what's odd is that we can see all this activity on your account happening from two places, one load of big transactions we think is a fraudster in Romania, and from your house, when you say you were at work. We'll tell the police and they can go around and arrest the person who's somehow got hold of your details: it looks like your partner is stealing money from you.

Why the fuckity fuck do couples share banking details, when it takes ten minutes to set up a joint account?

We don't have a joint account but I am the second card holder on DHs.

If the bank finds out he has revealed his pin and online banking passwords to you they won't cover him if his account is used fraudulently. My dh added me to the account I wasn't on when he discovered this, as I organise the finances. We already had another joint account, so that wasn't the issue - but the basic rule is that if you use the account you need to be on it officially.

I think it's ok to not want a joint account. You would need to budget together and agree an amount that is transferred into your account. This would then need to be adjusted depending on time of year etc.

The worries I have are 'not taking money without asking'. Deciding for you to be a SAHM, means that income to the family is joint. It isn't just his money!

I don't think yabu, but it needs discussed further. Neither my dh or I are particularly good with money, so this is what works for us. My dh has his salary paid into his account. We budget and money is put into our joint account for me to use. All bills come out of his account. Some is left for dh to use. Any left over goes into joint savings. If I need more I have access to the accounts to transfer more over. Plus my own emergency credit card. So in short, we have joint accounts, but don't both spend from them. When we only had the joint account we went overdrawn a couple of times e.g. Both spent too much at the weekend! I wonder if that is why his colleagues argue?

Seems very peculiar to me. DP and I have a joint account and we don't even have kids, it just makes sense as we can both put into it and save together. We also have our own accounts to pay for our own stuff plus some household bills.

But so long as you come up with a solution you both agree with I guess it doesn't matter. I certainly want to use DP's card and not have any access to my own money - you should certainly agree a certain amount to go into your account to pay for household expenses plus some over for your personal spending money if you're giving up work to look your joint child.

"one thing that comes to mind now is the fact his dad left his mum in a lot of debt. maybe that's why he's afraid".

Stated before that parental attitudes play a role here and that is indeed partly why he is acting as he is doing. He's still being unreasonable though even though there is a joint mortgage. He needs to get past the erroneous idea that you will somehow screw him over. He also needs to stop listening to his workmates who are clearly only acting in their own interests. Is he a man or a mouse?.

Also you and he now are totally different people to his mum and dad; history does not have to repeat itself.

Does he want to get married?.

You're already arguing over money so his point about arguing over money is a bit silly.

Personally we have a joint account where all money goes into and all bills come out if and then we transfer an equal amount of spending money (just literally for clothes / books whatever) to our own single accounts. Food and groceries etc come out of joint account. I am a sahm. We never argue about money. At all.

go back to work and keep your own income. you might need the financial independence later on.

the card fraud thing is the thing I was most worried about.

thank you so much for this. I think being a named person on an account is a good idea. I will bring up the joint account again and bring up points you've suggested. weve discussed for a while what to do and being a sahm was the last resort. we have a big work ethic so he wasn't gunning for me to stay home to have power over me. he rather me have my own independence . this will just be until DD is 1-1 and a half really (hopefully). my maternity finishes when DD will be 6 months. I feel guilty because I've always worked.

We've never had a joint account, I have earned substantially less then DH since the DCs were born (we were equal before). However the household account is in my name, DH pays over most of his salary into it every month and all the household expenses come out of that, including food, children's clothes etc. DH has access to that money via a credit card which is paid off from that account by direct debit every month (I also have a credit card on the same account).

So, all household spending apart from bills which are paid by DD goes on the credit card and we check the bill every month to make sure there's enough money in the bank account before it gets paid and move money across from another account if necessary. We both also have our own separate personal spending current accounts and savings accounts. All money is treated as joint, but I actually organise it all day by day. It works really well for us we both get ready access to the money but doing it via credit card gives us a couple of weeks to straighten out any extra spending so there's no problems with us both taking out money at the same time. You do need a savings buffer though.

Yeah I agree with mercibucket, even if you sahm for a while, you need a plan for supporting yourself or not quit your job now, re training to something that makes it worth your while working. I'm sure he does love you but it's also concerning that he listens to his colleagues so much. Plus, dc won't always need you, what's your plan for your life after that?

Well sometimes guilt is telling you something, no possibility of working part time? It seems a really small gain for the potential loss, 6 months here or there...

atilla, yes he wants to get married. he just wanted to buy a house first ( DD then came along and was a surprise).

there is big money issues on his side of the family. his brother is in debt and his mum is very funny and jealous of people with money. she made OH feel awful when he bought a new car and our house.
maybe that's why he is this way. he knows I wouldn't screw him over. we both helped each other when we had nothing. wev worked from having nothing to him getting a good job.

job I'm at now are not flexible or child friendly won't be able to go part time, although with what I'm trained in I'll be able to do from home eventually . Oh encourages this

I wouldn't class my relationship as amazing if my DH didn't trust me not to ravage the joint account and valued his workmates opinions over mine. I'd also detest getting an allowance instead of having open access to our money if I needed it.

I appreciate he's had a bad experience & will be cautious, but you are not his mother & either he trusts you or he doesn't. Drawing on the experience of a close SAHM friend who ended up having to account for every penny (even the loose change from the food shopping) to her now EXDH, I'd be very wary of becoming financially vulnerable to a man who is funny about sharing access to money.

However the household account is in my name, DH pays over most of his salary into it every month and all the household expenses come out of that, including food, children's clothes etc. DH has access to that money via a credit card which is paid off from that account by direct debit every month (I also have a credit card on the same account).

That's a joint account in all but name, though, isn't it? You need a fair amount of discipline to have a credit card with a "settle full balance" DD: why do that rather than his just having a debit card on the "joint account"?

Some very big red flags here, OP. Think about getting this thread moved to relationships where there are several posters on there who have very good advice for situations like this - you're going to get all sorts here in AIBU.

Ann listen to Attila

"he doesn't want to be one of them couples that argue over money he says."

Well if he doesn't want you to be a couple that argues over money, he should stop making unilateral decisions about HIS money on the basis of what 3rd parties say.

He's treating you like a gobshite here.

Go back to work. You feel guilty for not working and he is already treating you as a sponger.

Let him give up his job and financial security and "independence" and future career prospects by taking a year off.

You can't afford to stop working while you are with this man. Particularly while you are not married.

thank you everyone. I'm going to have a chat with him later. I really don't believe he would be financially abusive seeing as he already lets me have access to his account. and the fact hes always encouraged me career wise. I feel well equiped now to have this talk. hopefully hel see sense.

I remember the days when me and DH discussed argued over whether to get a joint account.

We came to the conclusion that we would have a joint account for all house,gold expenses (we each put £750 a month in) and then he keeps the rest of his monthly pay and I keep the rest of mine in our own individual accounts. We went round and round in circles for months until we came to this decision. Our salaries are quite similar though (he earns about £200 a month more than me but has more outgoings) and everything kind of works out even. He spends his money on what he wants and I spend mine on what I want. We didn't have a joint account though until 6 months after we got married.

However, I'm now pregnant with our first child and after discussions we decided when I return to work it will be for 22.5hours as opposed to the 30 hours I do now. My salary will drop by about £350ish as a result and he knows we will have to look at different ways of contributing to the Joint Account as me still paying £750 wouldn't be feasible or fair.

As has been said, if he will not have a joint account with you then I would be very wary of choosing to be a SAHP - you are putting yourself in a very vulnerable position by becoming 100% financially dependent on someone else and they are someone who wants to be in control. It would worry me a lot!! If he really is happy to hand his card over to you so you can buy what you need then that's a positive but it is very worrying that for some reason he doesn't want you to be able to have any kind of 'right' to his' money. If I was you I would want to find out what his reasons are because it screams to me that he doesn't see you as an equal and not someone he completely trusts.

"He spends his money on what he wants and I spend mine on what I want."

I couldn't be in family with someone who thought of money in this way.

What about savings? About long term financial planning? About pensions? and rainy day funds?

Once you are a FAMILY it is not just two individuals living as consumers and buying themselves loads of shit with THEIR money.

we have a joint account and have never argued about it. We also have our own accounts. The joint is for food shopping/essentials like clothes for DD/direct debits. We both out money into it, but DH puts in more as he earns more.

I think you both need to have a long discussion about exactly how this is going to work. Otherwise I can see this becoming an utter nightmare.

Op few questions;

How have you both previously paid for bills? Equal? Are your salaries very similar?

I'll guess yours is lower. I'll guess it's not worth you going back because it's been worked out that your salary doesn't cover childcare. If your salary and his was added, can you afford childcare?

I'm unsure firstly you are being abused so much as both of you are not really thinking about how to do things now as a family. Post in Rel. Get some more insight into some things, simply because some things you are saying are raising red flags. Now, I'm guessing you're genuinely not seeing them because you don't know a better way on how to do things. However, there's little things which do suggest financial controlling and problems later could be a possibility if you don't do some research.

yes we both paid bills. he paid more because his salary is stupidly more than mine. when I went on maternity pay he took on a lot more so I just pay my phone and other small things. I still have quite a lot left over. with both our salaries combined we could afford childcare but I only want to work part time as dd will still only be 6 months. I'll have a talk with him and if I get. nowhere I'll post in relationships. I think I need to be more blunt with him , just ask him outright if it's trust issues.