To not want to give away half my money?

[givemeareason]

Me and my DP are about to buy a house together, the first time for both of us.

We are getting a mortgage, but I also have a hefty deposit to put down of 200k. This was not an inheritance, but money I earned and saved over the years - I'm mid thirties so have had a long time to save.

We have a DD together, and we are both committed to our relationship and family.

I am just not so keen to put the deposit down and then effectively have given away half of it if the worst happens and we do split.

DP thinks if I keep the deposit as 'mine' then we would be unequal partners in the relationship and he would be disadvantaged due to owning less of the house, if the house prices rose he would have less equity overall.

AIBU to want to keep my deposit as my own? I probably am.

I tried to have another conversation with him and he's pretending to be unwell now.

I am seriously considering buying on my own, a lovely 2 bed cottage for me and my daughter would be perfect.

I'm never able to talk to him about anything, he always storms off, sulks or pretends he's ill.

If he is this bad when you are supposed to be loved up and planning a life living together just imagine how bad he is going to be if he falls out of love with you, you split up and you haven't protected your assets.

If this is him then why move in/buy with him. Get that lovely cottage just for the 2 of you!

Yes, a lovely 2 bed cottage for you and your DD sounds like the best option.

He's acting like this now, wtaf would he be like if you did split up? Reasonable wouldn't come into it. He's thinking of himself - not about you, not about your DD and not about all of you as a family, just himself and I am very pleased to hear that you aren't falling for his 'woe is me' routine.

When my DH (then DP) and I bought our first flat together he had more money for the deposit than I did. Our finances were separate and although we bought the flat as joint tenants I paid him back the difference such that it was as if I'd half the deposit after a couple of years. That said it was a much smaller deposit than you have saved and I qualified around the time we bought the flat so was in a better position to save than I had been previously.

I think you need some legal advice to protect your share of the deposit. It's the only fair thing to do.

He's sounding increasingly immature and manipulative.
I'd favour buying a house with your daughter and he can move in if you want him to. How come he hasn't any savings as well? Maybe a poor work ethic if the way he manages conflict is to sulk and pretend to be ill.

I tried to have another conversation with him and he's pretending to be unwell now

This just sent chills down my spine, OP. He sees no reason why he shouldn't have a 50% share in your hard-earned savings, and refuses to discuss it sensibly. If he's like this before you buy a house, what's he going to be like if you co-own a house, then split up and try to divide your assets like sensible adults?!

If I were you, I wouldn't consider buying a house with him AT ALL, even with the money ring-fenced safely.

Would this be an option: you buy a house in your name only, he lives in it as a tenant and pays you rent, while accumulating his own savings. You agree with him to allow him to buy into the house (i.e. buy a share from you) after, say, 5 years if he has saved enough. If he saves up the money, then you know he's willing to make the effort to contribute financially to the family. And if he hasn't saved enough, then he doesn't sound like the sort of person that someone like you (i.e. someone willing to make sacrifices in order to save money) should be in a financial relationship with.

To me - the money (or property) you take into a relationship should be yours. No one else should be entitled to it suddenly because you happen to be seeing them.

Money you earn as part of a family however should be family money. I earn considerably more than DH but I think of that as our money as does he. There have been times he's been the higher earner also and there's no difference in that.

I think 3 years is quite a short time but I know that's subjective. I do wonder though at what point the posters who think it should be a 50 /50 split on the house regardless of the deposit would take that view - if you'd only been together a year or 6 months would they still say 'you've got to believe it's forever' and not protect yourself?

Fwiw DH and I are married and when we got married part of that was an agreement to share all our worldly goods - since we basically have none that wasn't a difficult choice! If either of us had started the relationship with a great deal of personal wealth we would have had to seriously consider the impact of getting married on that because the stakes of agreeing to share everything would have been much higher. I'm pretty sure we'd still have done it but it certainly isn't something to just ignore.

He sounds like a complete knob OP.

Buy yourself a property and tell him you'll be ready to buy with him when he can contribute an equal amount of capital. That could mean you both put down £2.50p and share the costs of a larger mortgage or what I suspect will happen is this will be the death of your relationship.

If it's the latter, consider him a bullet you have dodged.

I've done this in the past with ex DP - we put in unequal deposits (him more as his parents had lent him some) and then I paid more (70/30 I think) - the trust agreement/tenants in common agreement was drafted to allow deposits to be returned first plus capital uplift- then remaining share split 70:30.
Solicitor actually didn't do this properly but left it at 50:50 - I didn't find out til we split up- luckily exDP was very honourable and we split as we intended. a bit of a close shave
We'd been together 10 years when we bought but it didn't seem odd to do this.
Current DP and I have been together for equally long - I own our house solely - it just felt cleaner and safer

Honestly don't do it. If he is behaving like this now then it will not bode well.
if the house prices rose he would have less equity overall. No he would have more equity commensurate with his initial investment.

Ring fenced deposit or not I'm not sure why you are buying a house with this man OP when it sounds like you really don't like or respect him that much.

OP you strike me as pretty clear headed and I think you have hit the nail on the head – your real problem here isn’t so much any potential split of assets in the future as the fact you can’t have an adult conversation with your DP in the here and now.

Your DP is potentially onto a very good thing here – he gets to make an investment in a house he could not possibly afford on its own, where any increase in value will be much more than it would on any house he could buy alone (if all house prices go up 10% then 10% of 400k is much more than 10% of 100k). But this isn’t enough for him. You’ve recognized that’s an alarm bell – and it is – it is wanting something for nothing and this attitude is unlikely to stop here.

If you were to split he wants to own half of your investment. I cannot find a rational basis for that point of view unless you are married and all your assets are common, marital assets. And I can’t see any rational basis for marrying someone who runs off, sulks and pretends to be ill when the conversation isn’t going his way.

Buying your own property for you and your daughter really sounds the ideal plan. But in case you have second thoughts, other questions that hit me that might be worth thinking about….

If you buy a house together and house prices collapse rather than go up and you then split up – would your DP be willing to share the loss of value? Or would he expect you to take all of the hit out of your initial deposit? Is he only interested in the upside? If you agree take all the loss yourself then it means you are giving him a safety net from property price movement that not many people get to have. If your DP would only agree to share losses if you shared the 200k deposit with him, then in practice you would still be the one who was bearing all the loss and it would be another indication of how much he wants to share, and how much he just wants to gain at your expense.

I also wondered whether your DP has given you any financial support through your Mat Leave? If you are “funding” it all yourself out of your savings – then your DP isn’t doing all that much to support that very important mutual asset you already have – your DD. And if this is the case then your DP sounds even more like someone who just wants to “take” and has a very limited, possibly non-existent, view of what he thinks he should contribute.

I think you're getting a real eye opener here OP - into what your DP is like as a person when the chips are down.

Whether you stay together or not, whether you live together or not, my advice would be a very heartfelt - don't enter into any property owning with him. Just don't do it. You don't need to do it - you could even buy a place, rent it out, and carry on living with your DP as equal partners in either a rental or somewhere smaller with a bigger mortgage.

But from what you've said and how he's behaving, I'd take this as a very serious warning about risking any of your finances in a joint arrangement with him.

Do you actually want to live with someone who behaves like this?

Even a total bell-end should still be in the pretending to be nice phase.

Have you read some of the horror stories on the relationships boards? Your bloke's behaviour sounds awfully like how some of those nasty nasty situations start out.

Where do you live now? Renting together? If so, how long have you been living together?

Who pays the rent, utilities, groceries, babysitter, nights out, childminder?

Did any of that change when you were on mat leave?

Just wondering because he sound so entitled, as you put it yourself earlier.

I think I have been kidding myself about the sort of person he is. I desperately wanted things to work for our DDs sake :-(

We rent together now, and have done for the last year or so.

I pay the rent and bills, he buys the groceries, nappies etc.

No nights out and we don't pay a babysitter. My mum looks after DD if I need a break in the daytime.

I pay a cleaner to clean through once a week as I can't keep up with it all.

He cooks a meal for us 3ish times a week.

Nothing has changed since I'm on mat leave, he thinks I have it easy even though I have been up 4 times a night feeding since DD was born.

I think that's why he wants half my money, because he sees me as having an easy life now.

So you are already subsidising him?

Your financial arrangement at the moment doesn't sound equitable to me. You are already providing him with a place to live, and he now wants more. Regardless of whatever you choose to do relationship wise, you need to protect your finances. Be wary that if this gets out family and friends may try and pressure you to stay together or give in, don't be swayed as this is your child's future you will be risking.

You might want to start a thread in relationships.

Living with one good parent is much better than living with two parents where of them one behaves badly.

Unless you have very expensive tastes, rent and bills must be far greater than groceries.

Does he earn a reasonable amount, and if so what does he do with the money? How has he got to his 30s with no significant cost of living yet have no savings?

Just don't go there.

I think buy something you like for you and dd and then perhaps later on make a decision on whether you let him move in with you!!!

You could then split all costs 50:50 - he gets to benefit from living rent free!!!

You need to address the lack of his help too - I suggest you read wifework.

It really sounds as though he isn't partner & father material

This is the crazy thing.

He earns 35k per year plus bonuses. He has always house shared so never had the full responsibility or expense of paying all the bills, yet he had no savings whatsoever.

He isn't into drugs or prostitutes, and he doesn't have expensive tastes - in fact he loves a bargain. So why does he have no savings? Of course I have asked him before and I get some mumbled response, then sulking so I am none the wiser.

Oh dear sounds like I having a good old moan now. I'm just trying to make sense of it.

Debts you don't know about? He sounds like a financial mess and I'd be very wary of tying myself financially to such a man in any way.