AIBU to expect DH to pay for all meals out?

[ElphabaTheGreen]

I do all the cooking at home - all of it, unless it's cereal or toast, as DH can't/won't cook. DH and I both work full time and we have two DSs - 3yo and 16mo. This means that I do a shit-load of batch-cooking to cope, including taking annual leave from work to cook if the freezer starts running low. DH does do the washing up, but it isn't nearly as time-consuming as planning, shopping for and preparing cooked-from-scratch meals all week.

At the weekend, we eat a couple of meals out as a family - nothing outrageously fancy. Usually just Frankie and Benny's or something equally kid-friendly and unglamorous, but it gives me a welcome break and the DCs like the change of scenery and the opportunity for chips.

Now, DH earns twice as much as I do. We have a joint account that we pay bills from which we contribute to proportional to our pay, but eating out gets paid for by DH. He's been getting increasingly huffy about this, with arsey sighs when he pulls his card out, then today he said I should pay for some meals out. I've told him in the past that if he expects me to pay, I really can't afford it, but I'd be happy to cook something a bit special instead so long as he keeps the DCs out of the kitchen. He thinks I'm being tight but I'm honestly not - in the past year, my new purchases have amounted to three pairs of the cheapest jeans from M&S and three jumpers off Amazon. DH has bought himself a midlife crisis classic VW campervan.

Given the amount of cooking I do, and the amount he earns in comparison to me, AIBU to expect him to pay for all meals out?

OP - have you a crystal ball?

he also doesn't have the security of the pension that I do, so he puts more into his savings. I'm pretty confident I'll be the higher earner when we're retired.

I don't know how can you say you are on equal rights if he spends 30K I assume cash on a campervan!

When was the last time you bought a pair of nice shoes or new bra?

Some of the posters have a good point--arranging your finances the way you have does put you in a weaker position and that is exactly what you didn't want, right? when you got married and why married women try to be financially independent by dividing everything up in the first place, except that it often results in the exact opposite, a position of weakness with the husband controlling the relationship and the finances and ends up with the upper hand.

My advice would be to have him put his earnings into your joint account and then you pay the bills and do the finances. Both of you have a debit card linked to the account. You have the checkbook for paying bills, etc. And you keep up with the finances. That way he doesn't even have to worry about it in any way and you are empowered to do what you need to do with running the house and providing for the family's needs. We've done that for twenty years and no problems whatsoever. Every once in a while I'll have to say to him, let's be careful and not spend too much the next while, we're running a bit low. No problem. And I never have to "ask" or beg or whatever about what we need to buy or do, I just do it or it's just there in the account for both of us. My dh never has to ask either. If either one of us wants to buy something expensive, we talk about it and decide. If I were wasting the money or constantly spending, that would be different, but that goes for anybody in charge of finances.

I'll bet that when you're retired, if you do have more income than him, he'll be very vocal about how you should therefore be paying for all meals out, plus the upkeep for his the family camper van and all the other things he enjoys, in precisely the way he hasn't done to date for you, occasional coffee machines aside.

Expat said it earlier - this is meanness. Most unattractive. You can argue the toss all day over the maths of the household. The bottom line is, he begrudges spending money on you when he thinks he could get you to do whatever it is for free. My DH loves to be able to treat me, as I do him. He would never stand to see me short of money. Anyone who does when they could easily remedy this is not a nice person.

Your mum has obviously had a big effect on you with your attitudes to money and is behind this strong desire for financial independence. Forgive me if I've got wrong end of the stick, but you have already financial independence by virtue of having your own career and working full-time. Don't you?

The way you deal with family income could not be described as financial independence but demarcation through separate accounts. Not the same thing. You could still pool resources; as you earn full-time money it isn't dependence.

As a PP said, if you were to split, the law would regard the money as shared anyway - a 50/50 split. Whereas as you currently seem to regard the idea of you spending any of your DH's earnings as an unwelcome sign of dependency. Which to outsiders really isn't so.

FWIW though I don't think you want to hear it, you seem to have a raw deal in some major areas of your relationship which you are entitled to address.

I also wish you would just give yourself a break. Having to use annual leave to batch cook is honestly a sign that you are trying to do too much. Get more help from your husband and cut more corners.

Bit confused about the maths here - you each put a proportional amount into the joint account and he earns twice as much as you.

So logically his "personal spends" should be double yours. (Not saying a word here. Not a word.)

But he has £30k for a camper van (as well as other expensive "treats" over the years.)

And you can only just afford 3 pairs of jeans.

Where has your £15k (ie half of the £30k) gone to?

The campervan was paid for by dipping into the money he is setting aside for the mortgage, not his day-to-day disposable income.

Can we go easy on the financial/emotional abuse calls, please? The way we organise our finances has been entirely under my direction. As I said upthread, HE wanted to have 100% pooled finances from the time we were married but I absolutely wouldn't have it (and still won't, sorry). If he offers to buy me clothes, I usually refuse. If I ask him to pay for something like a haircut if I can't afford it, he will. He helped me out of my overdraft once - I offered to repay him, he refused.

At the time we set up our joint financial arrangement, however, our salaries were far more comparable, so I do think we need to review now that he earns so much more than I do as many posters have pointed out. I honestly think he has probably lost perspective as to how much less I now earn than he does so is probably genuinely perplexed why I used to be able to pay for the odd meal out, but now I can't.

It sounds like you love your husband and he loves you, but you say you couldn't share your money because you were brought up by a single mother. I was brought up by a single mother and then became a single mother and I just don't understand the basis of your mother's advice. I have always shared as much as possible with anyone I live with and care about, from flatmates to my adult dd.

I also work all hours, like your husband and there is no way I could do that if I had to look after small children, so you are contributing a huge amount to your husband's earnings.

"The campervan was paid for by dipping into the money he is setting aside for the mortgage, not his day-to-day disposable income."

Wow, so your shared goal of paying the mortgage off early is affected by his decision to spend a not insignificant sum on a camper van? Did you get a say in this at all? They are family savings surely?

I know you say ease off on the financial abuse claims, but this is exactly what it is.

Why do you refuse if he offers to buy you clothes?

I think you should have a joint account which everything goes into, joint savings account for which money to pay off the mortgage goes into, and your own accounts which gives you equal spending money for your own personal spends. Meals out, stuff for the kids should all come out of the joint account.

You say he doesn't realise how much less you have now, but when you showed him your accounts he still thought you should pay for the meal.

This is so sad op.

I know this thread has gone off on a bit of a tangent. So this may not be helpful.

Op we have separate money. I was brought up in a single parents household and saw mum struggle with divorce.

We have a joint account for bulls and savings. We both pay a set amount and what's left is ours. We own a business together now and get paid the same so it's equal amounts.

I have always insisted on my own money. Sometimes I have had more, sometimes he has. But it's always been very similar.

Personally I think meals out should come from the joint account. Unless ones says 'let's have dinner out, my treat'.

But then dh does all our cooking. So I am in your dhs position. If he didn't want to cook and I didn't want to cook, it would come out of joint money. Same as the general shopping. If he didn't want to cook or is working later than me, I usually do it.

It's up to you how you run your finances. I wouldn't be happy with him having far more than me. Especially if my income took a hit because we had kids. But I am not you.

Wow, so your shared goal of paying the mortgage off early is affected by his decision to spend a not insignificant sum on a camper van? Did you get a say in this at all?

I answered that earlier. He will still be able to pay off the mortgage in the time period predicted even with the campervan. I didn't like him buying the campervan, I thought it was ridiculous and that he should have waited until a) the DCs were older and b) we had paid off the mortgage. I told him this, but once he's fixated on something he won't be shifted. It was entirely his money that he spent on it, and doesn't affect the mortgage, so I shrug and let it slide. As long as he doesn't expect me to contribute in any way to the upkeep of the thing he can do what he likes with it.

If he offers to buy me clothes, I usually refuse because I really, honestly don't feel the need to have any more clothes than I have and I would rather wait and save up money to buy clothes myself. Other posters have said, 'you can't afford to buy clothes', not me. I do buy clothes, just infrequently and cheaply. I wear a uniform for work, and outside of work the DCs mean I'm usually covered in a permanent film of snot and digestives so it's the better part of wisdom to not spend on clothes. I used the example of clothes it in my OP as an illustration that I don't spend money willy-nilly and tighten my own spending as much as I can.

Enjolrass I think I will be looking at that kind of an arrangement, although he still needs to have extra income for buying stupid things when he gets fixated on them. If he pays for something ridiculous out of money that we both access, that he then loses interest in in a year's time I would lose it completely and then we would have serious rows about money. And no, I can't change him doing this. He's done it the entire time I've known him, and before that.

This money he used for the van, this is money he's earned working in the evenings and weekend while you do all the childcare and batch cook?

Enjolrass I think I will be looking at that kind of an arrangement, although he still needs to have extra income for buying stupid things when he gets fixated on them

That's what my spare money goes on .

I am very similar. I am eyeing up new laptops and new cameras at the moment. That's why it works for us. dh doesn't mind. Because it does effect him. He knows both will appear before the end of the month

he still needs to have extra income for buying stupid things when he gets fixated on them.

And you will still need to take annual leave to do the cooking that is beneath him.

What a healthy dynamic for your children to grow up watching.

Woman as poor servant.

Man as rich spoilt brat.

Delightful.

The more you post about your finances, the more it seems like you are giving mixed messages tbh.

He wanted to pool incomes when you married. You said no.
He's offered to buy you clothes. You said no.
He offered to pay back your overdraft. You said no.
You used your savings over maternity leaves so you wouldn't be 'housebound'.
You would feel guilty spending pooled money if you believed it to encroaching on your husband's portion of it.
Your husband spends £30k on an item he wanted (campervan) and you think that's okay even though you struggle to buy some basic clothes.

These are very clear lines you are drawing around your finances. They seem more inflexible than your husband's. They also seem horribly punitive on yourself - if not masochistic.

But then amidst all those financial details you are really bothered about who is paying for a handful of meals a month? I'm not saying you are being petty, I am saying that the occasions when you refuse a penny from your husband and when you expect him to pay don't seem to be based on anything rational.

But as I said in my previous post, you seem to be using a skewed model of financial independence (which I believe is the wrong term to describe how you are splitting your money in your marriage) based on trauma from your mother's experience in your childhood? You seem to be using emotions based on that for your current situation. Even though they aren't connected.

Lots of people who have separate accounts arrange it so they put a certain amount of money in their joint account, then each have the same amount of spending money in their own accounts. Is that something you would consider?

I just wish you wouldn't be so hard on yourself! You deny yourself lots of things, you cook but in a way which makes it hardest for you (refusal to cut corners, using holiday leave to cook, not getting your husband to take the children out of the house on a weekend when you are batch cooking etc). I can't understand it. You could be having a much easier, smoother life with a much fairer amount of spending money. It sounds like your husband would meet you halfway. Yet you are actively choosing not to. Seems a shame and I wonder why you don't seem to think you can expect or deserve it.

Exactly Bathtime. I think the word here is "denial".

Wanting to maintain your own career so that if you were to split you would not be stuffed is very sensible. Wanting to keep some of your money in separate accounts is also very sensible. Wanting to demean yourself within a marriage by always being the more impecunious party who has to borrow money for haircuts, clothes and meals out and whose dh gets to decide unilaterally whether or not to pay off the mortgage or buy a camper van is just ludicrous. To anyone looking in, you're acting like his inferior who has to bow to his financial muscle.

Personally, I feel a bit sorry for your dh - he can't enjoy his money with his own DW, because he's only allowed to spend it on what she can join in on or is obliged to look incredibly selfish and spend it on something she refuses to enjoy with him. The only thing you will let him spend money on is meals out, because you've worked out in your own head that he probably owes you that, not because it's a fun way for him to spend money on his family and when he points out the illogicality of your position, you get upset with him for being mean. Poor sod.

I think overall the issue is that he isn't paying enough into the joint account if he has so much money to spare, and there does need to be that full review of your finances as soon as possible - which should take into account all your extra expenses, and the value of your time spent on childcare which enables him to earn more. If you really have to continue taking annual leave for cooking, then a value needs to be assigned to that. It's a pretty ridiculous situation if you are paying for the children to be in a nursery just so that you can cook with them out of the way.

OP, you said you couldn't batch cook at weekends because the children are around and that your husband is "trying to corral them as much as possible". I would suggest that there needs to be a regular arrangement for him to take them out for at least half a day - so you get the benefit of time on your own, whether it's for cooking or anything else.

I think another issue is that you are squeezing the fun out of having money to spend. He is only allowed to spend money on his family on your terms.

The way we organise our finances has been entirely under my direction

They're not though are they because if they were he wouldn't have bought the camper van until the kids were older and the mortgage were payed off, as you preferred. He would also be paying for all family meals out.

And he wouldn't be going through your account to find £40 he thought you should have spent on a meal which would have left you with nothing.

Your misconceived attitude to money and cooking seems to have left him with a sense of entitlement. He now expects what he has been allowed to get away with.

30k is a massive amount of family money to blow on something that will give no return. That could have been put towards uni fees for the kids or a deposit each on their first home. It could have been invested as a deposit on a BTL property now which would yield income immediately and a good return in the long run.

I think roundabout and ovenchips are correct TBH. He's said as much to me in the past - many, many years ago now, so we've probably got into a rut brought about by my financial hang-ups. We will review our financial set up to see if we can reach something a little more equitable that doesn't make me too uncomfortable.

I don't deliberately/knowingly make my life difficult, but I genuinely don't know what to compromise to make things easier. Well, I do, but I'm not convinced it would make life easier enough to justify the discomfort I'd feel over the compromise. Yes, DH could take the DCs out of the house for half a day at the weekend so I can cook...but I don't see them all week, and there is something sweet about DS1 destroying cucumbers on the counter next to me to make a 'luffly salad' while I try and crank out a massive batch of chilli. Or I could keep on taking a couple of days off work every now and again while the DCs are at nursery which they adore, and I can crank up my talking books on an iPad and get cooking. Then I can pick them up early and spend completely undivided attention on them. Or I could use ready meals more often and feel plagued with guilt about feeding us all shit.

Cooking is not, under any circumstances, 'beneath' DH, FFS. He's just crap at it and has no confidence in the kitchen. It also makes more sense for me to do it - I get home at 5ish with both DCs, try to get dinner on the table for around 6ish which is when DH gets home, then we might at least have a chance of spending some quality time together with our children before we start baths and bed at 7pm. Neither of us wants to put our evening meal off until after the DCs are in bed before anyone suggests it. Once they're finally asleep, we just want to get our other jobs done and collapse into bed - DH sometimes resumes working then if needs be. Both DSs are obscenely early wakers, so we need to be early to bed to cope (please also don't direct me towards the MN sleep board - I have haunted that place like a dementor for 3.5 years without any miracle solutions working. My DCs just don't sleep so an early night is the only solution).

If I left cooking to DH for when he gets home at 6, we'd be lucky to have anything edible on the table by 7pm and we'd both be stressed as fuck by his ineptitude. I'll never forget the grief he had over trying to produce omelettes for all of us one night

Cooking is not, under any circumstances, 'beneath' DH, FFS. He's just crap at it and has no confidence in the kitchen.

A grown man is unable to feed himself.

That's either because he has some pretty severe disabilities or because he thinks it is somebody else's job.

Cooking very well can be hard. Cooking adequately to feed yourself and your family is something any adult can do if they they want to.

Or if their wife will let them.

Apologies if this point has been made - something that is often pointed out on the relationships board is that access to finances and free time should be fairly split - usually that means equal - within a marriage. Doesn't matter how this is done it just ensures an equal footing within the partnership. In this case the OP DH sun's like a normally fair person and that the OP is normally happy with it all. It would be worth talking it through with him to see what is at the route of this out of character unreasonable behaviour. Is he just being thoughtless?

I see nothing wrong with people playing to their strengths. Sometimes it's tiresome being a jack of all trades and unnecessarily lowers the value of someone who can do a job well.
Elphaba - I think you need to let your dh teach you how to relax a little bit and have some fun occasionally and enjoy each others' company without having to count up the favours and always be doing the "right thing!" Enjoy the camper van with him, now he's gone and got it, or nobody will be able to enjoy it without a guilty conscience!

If I were a single mum advising my daughter on independent finances, the two most important things would be

1. Keep your own career; don't go PT or SAH when you have kids

2. Keep enough in savings in your own name for an emergency/escape fund; say enough for a rental deposit and a month's living expenses.

For all your prized 'financial independence', if DH ran off with OW and cleared out the joint a/c (extreme example, but see Relationships board), you'd be just as stuffed as me, an SAHM.