Is my lovely husband financially abusive or am I spoilt?

[vinocola]

Back story is that we've together a long time (14 years), from a young age. When we first met I was main wage earner, then when he finished his degree he was. For most of our relationship (three kids) we managed on his wage fairly well but not without building some debts up. I always managed the finances and bills etc. I've always done 'something' alongside kids to bring money in, childminding, cleaning etc

Fast forward to now, he is now in a very well paid job, no money worries and plenty to pay our bills. When he got the new job he fairly swiftly had me removed from the joint account where his wage gets paid in to - his justification of this was that I hadn't managed our money well in the past and now he was taking over.
This upset me as with a limited amount of money coming in NOBODY could have managed to not fall short sometimes. The position he is in now, running the accounts is that there is plenty money to go round therefore much easier task than robbing peter to pay paul.

He pays all bills and transfers £300 a month to my account. If I need anything on top of this I ask him and usually he will then transfer extra but it hasn't taken away the financial independence I used to have.

On one hand I feel very lucky as we now have enough money coming in to not worry about unexpected bills but I also feel irked that I 'cant be trusted to have full access'

Financial decisions are now his - ie holidays, home improvements, cars, meals out etc.

He is sometimes very generous, rarely spends money on himself but its very much up to him if we spend money. For example he recently bought our son a pair of £200 rugby boots. I wouldn't be able to make that decision as I don't have the money, sometimes I would suggest a purchase and he would lecture about not wasting money but will then make purchases like the rugby boots without hesitation.

I need my hair done and have been considering buying a box dye rather than ask him for extra but it just seems ludicrous that I can seemingly afford to have my hair done but as it stands I have £30 in my account until he next comes home. (he works away)

Am I being unreasonable?

Oh heck op. You don't know where he lives or who he lives with?

I do not have a good feeling about this at all. I think you need to brace yourself to discover some unpleasant truths when you start looking into this.

Get yourself some knowledge because knowledge will start to empower you

Financially abusive but if you go back to work, you should be able to save and spend that money as you see fit. Would going back to work land you with significant childcare bills or are the children a bit more grownup now?

Hi vinicola,

I wondered if you'd read AngryMo's thread on here over the past few months? I think she's on thread 5 now, similar situation to you, she's had some great advice and support and I'd really recommend reading them. Here's a link to thread 1, the next thread is linked at the end of each thread:-

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2539981-financial-control-what-is-normal

And FWIW, we don't have a high household income, but in my opinion, £700 + CB for food for 5 x for a month, clothes for 4 of you, school expenses, lunches, haircuts, kids' activities (?), petrol etc - is really quite tight. And presumably when he's away, unexpected expenses come up all the time - new tyres for car, birthday gifts, washing machine repairs - that you have to go to him cap in hand for? That rings big alarm bells for me.

Just RTFT and the fact that you don't even know the address of his flat-share for work is ringing major alarm bells for me, more than the financial side of it (because it doesn't like he's trying to control the money that you earn). It might not be another woman, it could very well be another man/men! The fact he has not volunteered to share this information with you from the outset, in case of emergencies or if you just wanted to visit, is very concerning.

He made a unilateral decision to remove your name from the joint account and it is now his account.

He now makes all decisions on major purchases and even on items like expensive rugby boots.

You have to ask for more if you need more.

You got lectured about your poor management. You have expressed a 'but' statement trying to explain to us all here in internet land that the family hadn't enough coming in to cover necessary expenses.

He swoops in and pays for treats.

YES, you are being financially abused. He has grabbed power in the financial area and you are forced to continue to acknowledge that power whenever you need more than £300 per month.

It makes no difference how much or little a victim has to spend each month.

The key to abuse is the power imbalance.

You need to investigate who he lives with and what the relationship is. Don't rule out a relationship with a man. You need to figure out exactly how much he earns monthly, and where he works.

Even without a second relationship, there is a lot of arrogance here, a lot of high handedness, and he certainly seems to have a lofty idea of his position and what he is entitled to do.

How much is he actually home?

Vino - can you say the school requires his address etc as an emergency contact?

Is he a limited company? If so you can see his financial data via companies house online.

If you, at any point, decide to separate you may require a forensic accountant to do some digging. If he won't disclose the address I'd hire a private investigator - this may sound extreme but it's very odd you don't know his address. It's the first thing I'd give DH if I was staying away from home.

Agree with previous poster - never judge your situation by comparing with your peers - judge by comparing with your OH. £100 each to live off is fair, £700 vs £3/4k is far from.

Clearly he's got something to hide. I'd want to see all the bank statements, pension, investment and credit card statements to understand the big picture.

I'd want to be sure he's not leading a double life somewhere or has somehow frittered all the money away. Very, very concerning.

Don't you have to physically attend the bank to get taken off an account ? (apologies if this has been said before )

I lived in a situation like this so it doesn't sound at all far fetched to me. I'm now divorced with total control of my own finances and no need to go cap in hand to anyone and I have got a good job now no-one is holding me back.

OP you are very vulnerable. You need to get some legal advice because it's possible that your husband could just decide to up and leave you one day - and being self employed it will be easy for him to hide assets or reduce his child support liability. You have four children you need to protect. Seeing a solicitor won't mean you are turning your back on the relationship, it will just give you a bit of knowledge to be able to start making small changes to protect yourself better just in case. I suspect there's nothing you can say to your husband that will make a difference because I suspect you've already tried everything and there's nothing wrong with your communication skills.

I'm so sorry for the situation you're in its awful I know. I went without makeup for months because I couldn't afford any while ex drove around in his Porsche and went out on nights out without me. The worst thing was the fear that I was perceived as stingy by friends as we clearly had a good lifestyle but I couldn't afford nice presents on their children's birthdays etc. My life is nothing like that now and it's wonderful.

Op, he sounds like he has a whole bag full of secrets. He sounds like he is hiding things from you and that the taking you off the joint account is the least of them. He doesn't sound like a good or 'lovely' man who is putting his family first, he sounds secretive and controlling. I hate the fact (on your behalf) that you have to go begging for cash to do little things (or anything at all). What kind of relationship is that? Master and servant?

I wonder why he just didn't set up his own account and put hardly anything in the joint one? I guess there was more money in the joint one for him to control and play with. I hope you get to the bottom of all of this op x

Never fails to amaze me what utter shit women put up with while describing their abusers as "lovely", and of course the old chestnut "good father". Yes, a good father who financially abuses the kids' mother and won't allow free access to household money for their needs.

What do these turds have to do to stop being lovely, good fathers?

spells away then a spell at home he has a flat and works in another city and comes home on days off

You don't even live together!

Are you actually legally married?

The financial abuse is the tip of the iceberg here.

He's in another relationship. Maybe with a man, maybe with other kids.

You need to hire a private investigator to find out who your dh is!!!

There are lots of red flags that need sorting out.

But you don't have 300pcm. You have 700 plus child benefit. Which he has to repay in full each year.

How much does he actually have left each month after paying bills? He has a mortgage and a flat's rent to pay. Plus bills and council tax for both. Does he have to pay his own travel if working off shore? Does the 40k savings you have seen also include his tax savings? Is it savings for a rainy day when he can't get more work?

The big red flags are that you don't know. You say he's not spending a lot on himself. How much is the child benefit bit? When you say food and entertainment for you all what does that entail? Is it all school clubs as well? Does he know you are claiming child benefit that he will have to repay in his tax bill?

You need to ask questions. But it may not be abusive just bad communication.

Talk. Like adults who are in a relationship. Say you are worried about the future. Say you want to know more about retirement plans. Say you are struggling to feed and clothe two teenagers (unless you are living it it is hard to believe they eat so much!) On the housekeeping money you have. But that you want to understand your family finances better.

It starts with talking. Where it ends you don't know until you have more answers

Oh please get this moved to Relationships OP.

Yes this is very similar to Mo's thread linked above. OP, if you have time it's worth a read.

I was in a similar situation with my exH - I was entirely infantilised by him, our finances weren't at all transparent, he controlled all our bank accounts, my name wasn't even on the mortgage or deeds of our property. He also worked away (abroad) a lot of the time. Like a child I had to ask for money for hair cuts/ clothes even after school clubs for the children. After one time not having enough money to pay for groceries I asked for a proper reliable sum of money to be paid into my account he told me I had to provide him with a spreadsheet with a budget forecast ....
I believed he was a good man, kind to me, a good father - I was wrong.
Gradually things began to unravel - I discovered he was lying to me, saying he had to fly on a Sunday afternoon as he had a meeting first thing on the Monday morning leaving me with two young children - only to discover (via hacking his FB account) he was partying in Madrid or some other cool European city that night with a crowd of young single work colleagues including one he was sleeping with.
The fall out was immense but it was so worth it. I divorced him - the courts made him make a financial declaration and I discovered he had been borrowing against the house which I was completely unaware of. I got a really good deal, a share of his pensions (he had refused to let me have my own pension), the house, monthly maintenance payment for the children and peace of mind. Best thing I ever did.
Good luck OP - I am not saying that your situation will end like mine but I learnt that transparency is essential when it comes to finances - it is your money he is controlling and there needs to be a full and frank discussion about what is actually going on.

"But it may not be abusive just bad communication."

Honestly, why do women feel they have to bend over backwards to give men the benefit of the doubt, even when the abuse men perpetrate is staring them full in the face?

This man has no difficulty with communication. He has effectively communicated to the OP, that she must not be treated like an adult financially, because in the past she has been a bad money manager. But in fact, she has not been a bad money manager. They had less money at the time, both of them managed the money and they both had a cannabis habit. His money management skills are no better than her's and yet he has managed to justify his financial abuse of her by spinning this narrative that she can't be trusted to know what money is coming into her family and to decide how it is spent.

That's not a man who is bad at communication. He has brilliant communication skills. He's also self-employed. How well do people manage to make loadsamoney in any business, if their communication skills are poor?

Seriously, women, please stop groping for excuses for men. If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a fucking duck. This guy is a financial abuser and possibly worse and the main priority of the OP should be to protect herself in the event that he's going to fuck her over financially by leaving her poor (lots of men do this and the state supports them to do so). She can worry about communicating with him and seeing if there's a way she can re-root her relationship to be one of equality and respect, once she's got her safety-net in place. But the safety-net comes first, because by his actions, her husband has signalled that she needs one.

I'm not sure, but perhaps lots of talking's already happened. Perhaps he is charming and very clever at avoiding details and moving on to other disussion? Perhaps he maintains this is what is best for his wife- so that he doesn't have to worrt about not trusting you to spend too muh when e is gone, and so he controls what the kids and you do/eat while he is not there?
What kind of disussion have you both had previously, and does he ponder over what could work for both of you, ot does he change topis, or does he stand his ground for what he states is best for you ?
And if there are open disussions now.......Will he suddenly become open and honest about his other address, or why he needs to keep secretive about the previously shared acount, or what is his income, or why he needs to keep you asking and not knowing, rather than sharing and an equal partner .....

Do do a lot of research such as at Companies House (which is free). If he is self employed and if you were to split but are married it cna be hard to get any money paid at all although if there is a house with equity and he (or you) has a pension then claims on each other's pension and a share of the house is harder for him to avoid on a divorce. I do know one lady whose husband is very very rich - or his family is actually and his parents make sure he is paid the minimum wage through the family business where the wealth is so on divorce this rich chap got a massive share of the wife's businesses even though in reality he was worth 10x what she was but because his parents had all the assets and business in their names there was nothing she could do. Anyway she's now free from it and paid him off but it does show the tactics people use.

On the other hand huge numbers of women in the UK (more fool them) leave finances to men and are happy to do so so we cannot just assume every couple has to be 50/50, feminist, both working full time, women perhaps earning a lot more, everything held jointly etc etc. Every couple differs. Indeed in the UK there are plenty of religious groups and cultures where women submit to their husbands and husbands control everything.

This is also not about a lack of communication either. If discussion and compromise could help in any way most domestic violence situations would be long ago resolved because victims of abuse "discuss and compromise" constantly. The victim has always 'cooperated' with the abuser; the abuser never cooperates.

Sounds like your whole life with him is built on sand op.
I think it sounds like he has another family or at least another long term relationship.
I can't believe that you have accepted all this without a word, but I am very different to the op.
Op, do you want to accept this life, where basically you are a mistress? If you do, that's fine. Horses for courses.
You just have to accept that things will never be in your control, you have no say over your life or future, and that when the kids are older you will probably be ditched. Sorry, op.

"Never fails to amaze me what utter shit women put up with while describing their abusers as "lovely", and of course the old chestnut "good father". Yes, a good father who financially abuses the kids' mother and won't allow free access to household money for their needs.

What do these turds have to do to stop being lovely, good fathers?"

Well said Sheba!

And AskBasil and Attila. Bad communication my arse.

So the OP lives in a nice house, all the bills paid every month without a single moment of having to worry,, a husband she doesn't think will cheat,,working hard to provide for his family... But is getting treated like he murdered someone. The OP has said her husband is worried things will go back to the times when they didn't have money and doesn't ever want it to happen. There are two sides to every story and quite honestly people need to calm down. Let's keep things in perspective here.

Oh for the love of God.
Enough of this crap.