to be annoyed that people presume DP pays for everything because I'm a SAHM?

[partridgeappletree]

DP earns £45k and our rent is £350 p/m. He has no major debts and we run one car which we don't use much. He transfers me £350 per month for food for us plus DCs aged 9, almost 4 and 2. I receive £200 maintenance for 9 yo, child benefit, DLA, carers allowance and tax credits. Out of this I top up the food money, pay my bills, pay for DCs activities/clothes/shoes/birthday and Christmas presents and everything else to do with them. I also clothe myself and pay for the pets.

Last weekend we attended a wedding of DPs colleague and neither myself or the DC had anything to wear so I had to save to buy us all new outfits and shoes. Lots of people commented on how gorgeous they looked and how lucky we are to have DP working so hard to buy such lovely outfits.

I have saved to pay for us all to go away to Peppa Pig World for our middle daughters birthday for the weekend next month and know people will assume DP has paid but actually all he'll contribute is the petrol money. On birthdays and Christmases, his family comment on what lovely presents the DC have and how lucky they are and how they should thank daddy but he doesn't pay for them nor know what they are until they open them. He plays no part in organising or paying for parties and I'm fed up of being told how lucky I am to be a SAHM and have DP providing for us. I gave up a well paid career to be a SAHM and resent the fact that everyone presumes I'm living off DP when that actually isn't the case.

Aibu?

I don't think we're saying different things Nevermind. My final point is how can this (because I am responding to the op) domestic set up ever be truly equal. Fwiw I agree with you on most of what you have said. I am the higher earner and dh and I often muse about the differences between his and my employer's perceptions with regard to raising children. Dh found it hard asking for flexible working because he knew what he would be up against. On the other hand it was expected of me. I don't disagree with most of what you have said. But this is mumsnet and I do see an awful lot of these threads and in many cases I don't think there is malice on either side. I am aware it doesn't necessarily reflect real life (although I have to say that ime it does), but I do think it is easier where both partners work and inequality - real or imagined - has more limited means with which to flourish.

That is not my experience. I am a SAHM. We look at our family as a business. We both get paid an equal wage and pension,with the rest paying mortgage, bills, savings etc. This means that I have the capacity to save, spend etc exactly the same as my husband. It is important to us both that my work is not (and is not perceived to be) of less importance or value than his. I am the only woman in my friendship group or close family who does not have to "ask" my partner for anything and I am the only SAHM.

dailymail same for me. Everything goes into one pot, all bills/family stuff come out of it, equal amount of spending money each. DH doesn't get, or expect, a penny more than I receive.

lion I'm hardly likely to start a thread saying 'AIBU to be annoyed that my DH is perfectly happy to treat his salary as family money?' Therefore, this type of thread (and I agree, we do see a lot), are self selecting.

So the tax payer is coughing up when one of the parents is sitting on a spare £1500 per month?! Some men really have actually no shame or morals. Next time his family say this to you I would point out exactly what you have told us on this thread and then see how bloody wonderful they think he is.

ms

Same here, his money is my money

My wages (£200ish in an 8 hour a week job) are my wages...but i am able to treat us to the odd thing

It's always good to hear, even anecdotally, that sah parents have found equality. However, I'd be interested to see some objective research on this issue because unfortunately my own anecdotal experience (sahm sister and friends) does not reflect this. I have no reason to disbelieve you and it's great that it works for you. However I do hear an apparently disproportionate number of similar stories, even in real life.

It would be interesting. And for the research to be extended to two wage households for comparison.

Yes I agree re. two wage households - the research could be the single most important indicator of equality in 21st century Britain. It would need a control group where both partners earn equal amounts though, since i expect that there are wide variations in earnings within households which contribute to real or perceived inequalities.

Same here, his money is my money My wages (£200ish in an 8 hour a week job) are my wages...but i am able to treat us to the odd thing

So you share all his (larger) salary equally but keep the money you earn yourself? If that arrangement works for you, that's obviously fine. However it does seem slightly unfair!

I think most of the issues around family money would be resolved if people actually talked about what their expectations were. My expectation is that I work very hard in my career, and am prepared to pay for childcare. I don't want or need a SAHP and if my DP decided he was going to stay at home I would expect him to be able to support himself in doing so and to have a clear plan for returning to work at an appropriate time. While I would probably end up contributing more, I am afraid I would not be happy to share my salary equally with him in that situation.

On the other hand, if a couple jointly decides that one partner will stay at home to look after children then obviously it is completely wrong for the working partner to be financially controlling and a joint share in the money earned is much more justifiable.

as if to prove my point

That was my point intothefire - before people conceive children they should have a very definite agreement in place about childcare, working and money. Problems and resentment can only arise when people are with people that they are incompatible with. For example - I wouldn't have had children with someone who said to me "I'm happy to have children but I will not financially support you in caring for them." So it was a discussion we had very early on in the relationship - maybe date 2 . I'm surprised he didn't do a runner. Then again and again until we had hashed out all of the intricacies to make it fair and equitable.

Can someone please fill us in on the op not being the one abused and her posting lots of stuff?

My question on reading your post is why does your dh keep most of his salary for himself? Why isn't it all family money?

It was important to me to be at home when my children were young. I too wouldn't have married someone who didn't support this and was prepared to treat me as an equal.
I don't want or need a SAHP and if my DP decided he was going to stay at home I would expect him to be able to support himself in doing so and to have a clear plan for returning to work at an appropriate time. That to me is unequal and controlling from your part too. Not an equal decision at all.

I agree that you need to be compatible in a lot of life expectations as well as the more obvious ones.

That to me is unequal and controlling from your part too. Not an equal decision at all.

Not at all controlling - just my personal opinion and choice in relationships. Just as I fully respect women who choose to stay at home, I am entitled to choose not to. I have spent many years building up my career and I work longer hours than my DP. If he wanted to be a SAHD then I would support him but I would not be happy for him automatically to expect 50% of my earnings for as long as he chose not to work, unless we took that decision jointly in both of our (and our families') best interests.

I do think that I am entitled to decide that I want to be financially independent and to retain control over my finances. I have been burned before by being left without financial security, and my independence in that respect is now just too important to me. I think it can also be different when children from previous relationships are involved - if he stopped working then ultimately I would need to pay maintenance for his children because I would be the only parent or step parent earning any money.

I agree with Neverbuythedailymail - decisions in relationships need to be taken jointly and financial expectations need to be talked about. I hate it when men don't appreciate the work that SAHMs do or try to be financially controlling. But I think that is very different to me not wanting to share every penny I earn with my partner, when I am absolutely prepared to contribute enough to the family income.

dowhatnow To be fair - I probably put it a bit strongly in saying that I would expect my DP to be able to support himself in being a SAHD. In our particular situation, he wouldn't be doing it to look after children full time so it would be more of a sabbatical for him than anything else! But I still think that even if we had a baby together which he looked after, I would be happy to pay for everything but wouldn't necessarily be happy for us to have joint finances.

Every family needs income and care. The traditional way has been for the father to provide financially and the mother to care for the children and maintain the home. Obviously it doesn't matter who does which as long as equal respect is given to both, but that seems to be where it all falls down. Too often the one earning the money seems to think s/he has the greater entitlement and is more important.

why on earth would anyone give out all their so called personal income/expenditure on a public forum? I'm a unicorn and I've just got a £50k bonus do you think that's enough?!

Because it's anonymous?

intothefire
People don't always have joint finances but they manage to make it fair.

You made it sound as if you'd just put your foot down and say I dont want or need a sahp so you can't do it even if you desperately want to sah to look after our baby. No negotiation.

I think the important thing is to thrash this sort of thing out before living together rather than blindly going in to things because you are "in love".

Rather depends on what you mean by 'traditional' alltheusernamesaretaken. There was a brief period in the mid to late 20th century when a lot of women in the UK stayed out of the workplace, officially at least, to raise children and keep home for a few years. But women working at income generating activity both outside and inside the home long predates that.

My grandmother had to leave her job when she got married. My mother had to leave hers when she became pregnant. Yes, young women and women who had older daughters or someone else to look after their children slaved away in mills or spun wool all day, but not while they had young families because there simply was not time.
I still remember washing day (Monday) before washing machines were available to the creditless working class. It took my mother one whole day to boil, scrub, rinse, mangle and dry the family washing, and then another day to air and iron it with a non-steam iron.

Again, depends what time period you're looking at. If your family are working class, go back a couple more generations from your grandmother to the Victorian industrial period and your great great grandmothers, if the family were poor, probably did have to work even when they had young families because there simply wasn't money for them to do otherwise. Go back even further, women worked in agriculture as well as taking care of domestic duties and young children, because their labour was needed. If the family requires a woman with young children to work so they can all eat, she works, and that's not been an unusual scenario in this country over the past few centuries. As I said, it depends what you mean by 'traditionally'.

We opened a joint account just after we got married 10 years ago. I am so pleased there is no his or hers. Even on maternity. Makes life so easy.