To feel a bit miffed about paying maintenance??

[phoenixrose314]

My DH and I recently set up a joint bank account for the first time. We've been together for 8 years, married for 5 of them, and finally decided to sort out finances so we're equally paying the same amount, as at the moment we're making around the same amount of money.

He gave me the number he'd calculated that I need to transfer to the joint account each month to cover all our bills - I asked him to do it as he had a day off and he's a lot better at maths than I am. It seemed a bit steep so I asked to see the list of calculations - he handed them over and I was a bit surprised to see that he'd included his child maintenance payments for my DSS and DSD in amongst the rest of the outgoings for each month.

Now I love my stepchildren to bits, they spend a lot of time at ours and I do contribute by buying their gifts at birthdays and Christmases (DH is usually stumped for ideas!), and am always taking them for days out and buying them the odd thing when we're out and about... We have a great relationship and we've luckily never had any issues. THAT I am happy to do.

Am I being unreasonable to assume that I shouldn't contribute to DH's maintenance payments? I want to bring it up but have a slight feeling DH will overreact/be really moody with me for it.

I would have thought he'd pay himself. But then I can see how it might come out that then you'd end up subbing him for spending money anyway. On this list, do you also have things like your mobile phone payments or credit cards for each of you individually? Or are those still coming from your own accounts? I know a child isn't the same as a phone payment but you see what I'm getting at..

In my situation my ex is now a sahd so his wife's income is the (his) family money so maintenance is obviously coming from that. Otherwise it is like saying as a stay at home parent the partners money is not yours - when of course it is because without you providing childcare etc they wouldn't be able to work and would have to pay childcare etc. It's about working as a family. I don't think you can have mine and your money in a family situation. I appreciate you will get a lot of people coming on mumsnet who don't agree with that but at the same time if someone posted on relationships saying she was a sahm and her partner didn't let her have equal spending money that would be wrong. It's the same situation with my ex just the sexes are different.

Another point...
It is I think pretty underhand to add in the maintenance payment to the joint account without even discussing it???

I would be seriously pissed off if DH did that to me, it could even be a deal breaker.

FWIW I'm a stepmum to DSD. I contribute to caring, feeding, clothing her etc whilst she is here. I would never contribute to maintenance though, it's simply not my responsibility.

If you both have the same spending money then yabu. However if he's the higher earner and has more spending money and maintenance money means you now have less than him then yanbu.

As other people have said, if you were pooling everything, then yes, all expenses should come out of that. But I assume you're keeping money back for personal items, so he should include maintenance as part of that.

I paid DS' school fees, clothes, school trips etc rather than ask exDH to contribute as I didn't feel it was his responsibility. But we obviously shared everything that involved all of us like, er, paying for the roof over DS' head, holidays etc.

I think if they lived with you and your DH then you would be paying so you should pay the maintenance as well - just because they aren't there doesn't mean you shouldn't pay.

Fairlylea I'd say your situation is slightly different because their "family decision" for him not to work would mean your DD would stop being fed/clothed (in simple terms, obviously that's not the case) if he no longer paid. So as a family they made the decision for him to earn no money knowing there were financial responsibilities still to be met.

In OP case. I think he's a bloody chancer. OP pays towards the children already by contributing half to a (probably) bigger than would otherwise be necessary house, more furniture for their rooms, more food etc. But it is he who choose to have children, so he should take the maintenance hit out of his leftover-from-bills money.

Of course you shouldn't be paying for your DSC!

I do an awful lot in kind for my DSC but I do not support them financially in any way at all. My money is for my DD!

Totally depends - do you have children that he's paying towards?

Yanbu. His children, his responsibility.
Fairylea - while I understand the reasons for your ex being a sahd , I find it strange that he doesn't provide for your dc. His wife does. I couldn't do it , I'd have to go and get a part time job.

Tricky, surely it's just money and you are looking to pool and share?
If you are all expenses come out including maintenance.

Not really sure how you were managing bills before but you will be worse off now obviously. I think you need to chat about it or you will start to resent spending on the step children.
Has he added in things like haircut/ color/ nails etc ( if you have them done) all legitimate expenses.

I think you have opened a can of worms [sad face] honesty is the best policy, just say you are worse off.

if it is a lot of money, how was he managing before?

No you shouldn't be funding HIS children

YANBU. In my view anyway. We share all expenses apart from maintenance, DP would never expect me to pay it, it's his responsibility for his child. So unless you have specifically said you're happy to pay half, it should come directly from him. What we do though is work out what both of us have left after individual expenditure that we have no choice over is met (so pension contributions for both of us, and CM for him) and then divvy the rent, bills etc by proportion of money left (so I pay roughly 60%, he pays 40%) - even if we were earning exactly the same I would still end up paying slightly more towards bills etc as he would have had an 'allowance' for the CM, but I'm not paying 50% of the CM specifically.

Taking Fairylea's point, if DP and me decided that he would be a SAHD then I would expect to continue maintenance as its a joint decision made by us benefitting our family. But, if DP lost his job, or otherwise his earnings reduced for some reason, then that's his and exWs issue - I would not be stepping up in that scenario to provide money to fill the gap as there would also be less money in our household to go around which none of us had any choice over.

YANBU. His children, his responsibility. If all your and his money was in a joint account it would be different, but if you are both keeping separate accounts as well then that's the account the maintenance should come from.

YABU.

I think if you marry someone with kids, they have to become your family. Otherwise you have to live with tons of petty rules that just ruin general life.

If you lived with his children, I think you should share money in one pot too.

I think the problem is not having pooling all the money.
Surely when you moved in with your DP he came as a package with his DCs?
Maybe83 has the setup that I would consider to be normal.

pigwitch what about the very common situation were the mother is a sahm to childeren from a past and the present relationship and the step father is the one out working? Do you think that mother is not providing and should get a part time job?

Is maintenance payment based on a joint income?. If so yabu

YANBU but I think that you should have considered the maintenance he pays when you worked out the 50:50 payments to the joint account which were based on income...
I have a similar situation to you in that we have a joint account that pays for all joint expenses (food/bills and other stuff). We contribute proportionately to what we bring into the home (not what we earn). That means that we took maintenance out of the equation. Much fairer IMO.

My DH paid for a huge amount of DD's costs as her dad is a tightwad and I was a postgraduate student for quite a bit of her teenage years. I don't think he gave it an extra thought, apart from respecting her dad rather less for not pulling his weight financially.

He could have assumed three things

1. Pooling money
2. Separate money, expenses divided 50:50
3. Separate money, expenses divided some other way

1. is not on without discussion about how the split should work.
2. would mean maintenance was his (as the philosophy is each to pay half of joint expenses, and maintenance isn't joint.)
3. is what most of Mumsnet advocates, in that case any spending by either party is by definition of both parties money, so maintenance should be shared.

I would if he is assuming all income and expenses will be pooled, and if you are happy with that arrangement, organise the setting up of a joint account for you both to pay your salaries into. You can set up equal transfers from there to personal accounts for any personal spending money.

If he hasn't assumed 1. and is still looking to share his expenses with you then there will have to be an awkward conversation.

Personally speaking though, I would be pissed off contributing to another woman's household if she was effectively having manicures and doing lunches out all the time, while I was slogging it away at work. If the other woman worked the same hours as me and just happened to be less well off because she was a nurse or teacher or shelf-stacker or gardener or whatever, I wouldn't mind about chipping in.

I think if you married him then as a family unit you are both responsible.