WIBU to not subsidise DHs Shared Parental Leave?

[PurplePipp]

I'll start by saying that DH have separate finances and it works for us. We both pay into a shared account which all household expenses come out of and leaves us with the same amount of money left over for extras (our own cars, hobbies etc).

DH and I are adopting next year and will be taking SPL. I will be taking six months at full pay and have also saved up a lot of annual leave over the years so will be off for about 10 months in total. The plan was for DH to take about 12 weeks of SPL at statutory pay, to run parallel to my leave so we are both at home together and have a better chance to bond.

I am the main earner although we both work full time. I earn about double what DH does. I also average about 7 hours a week of overtime but the opportunity to do lots more. DH rarely gets the opportunity to work overtime.

For every week of SPL my DH takes, we need £100 in savings to subsidise his statutory pay. I recently received a large performance bonus that has gone straight into savings. I've picked up a project at work which means I can get an extra 5 hours of overtime a week, which will go into savings. This means we should in theory have enough to buy all the baby bits we need as well as DH taking 12 weeks of leave.

But DH has now been asked to work 3 Sunday's between now and Christmas. He is able to have this either as overtime or as time in lieu, and he has decided to take it as time in lieu and have the Fridays off instead so he still gets two days off on those weeks. I know it's a pain only having one day off a week, but this is only for 3 non-consecutive weeks and it's pissed me off a bit that he's not taking it as overtime. The Sunday's are also only 6 hours but paid as an 8 hour day, and I work this amount of overtime every week.

I'm going to have a chat with DH tonight to see if I can persuade him to take them as overtime instead, but if not WIBU to say that I don't want my overtime and my bonus to subsidise his time off if he has the opportunity to contribute to it himself but chooses not to? I'd still be happy to subsidise 6 weeks, but I kinda feel like why should I be working my arse off for him to have 12 weeks off?

The flipside of this is that he does work hard in his job, pulls his weight with housework and childcare arrangements and is genuinely a really lovely person. Our financial situation has always been this way so we generally agree that because I'm the higher earner I pay more towards the house and pay into savings because he's not able to, his financial contribution is smaller but we are both left with equal amounts of spending money as I think that's fair.

I don't think you're unreasonable at all. You are doing extra work to earn more money. Your dh has been offered the same, but instead of taking the additional money (which would benefit the whole family), he's chosen to take an extra day for himself. Which does make him a bit selfish (although it's understandable to want a break from work - but you're not getting one are you?)I

I totally get where you're coming from. Good luck with the adoption.

Sometimes on here it's like I have stepped into a parallel universe I swear. Op earns more, contributes more so they can have the same, commutes more, does more overtime and her dh wants three days to play his fucking Xbox when that would equate two weeks leave and somehow the op is financially abusive and unfair

Cabbage I once mentioned in a post once that we don't have sweets in the house for DSD and we don't eat much processed food, and got told I was bullying DSD and that she would grow up to resent me for not giving her a snickers a day. Think it's time for me to leave MN and find somewhere where people aren't quite as ..well, like this.

Op- I've just finished reading the thread with all your clarifications which makes it clearer. One question - are your savings calculations for your DH's SPL what's needed I maintain current earning or the minimum income needed to pay bills? If the former I would suggest that you both reduce your spending over the entire 10 month period post adoption to find the 12 weeks of SPL. That his policy is statutory and yours is full pay doesn't mean that a lack of savings should automatically reduce his time off. Both of your disposable income should go down first.

Second- neither of you should work more than you can handle. If you can manage son overtime but know your husband doing overtime would be much harder on him then
its not reasonable to push him. If you can't handle the over time either don't do it and risk resentment creeping into your relationship.

Sit down and honestly discuss and plan what you can contribute to your goals and that fair doesn't necessarily mean doing the exact same thing.

Good luck and congrats on you future adoption!

Sorry lots of typos- if working over time is harder on him than pushing him to do so isn't necessarily fair is what I was trying to type

I out earn my husband too and have a job that requires longer hours so I do understand but he and I are different people and we both do our best to support our family in every way including financially

FWIW I hardly even needed to discuss this with DH. Conversation lasted all of 5 minutes. It hadn't occurred to him that him doing the extra would mean giving me a break because I've told him recently that we are on track to hit our savings. He's going to take one of the days as TOIL for my birthday next month as I've booked the day off for myself, and he's doing the other two as overtime. He's also going to give my dad a call tomorrow to see if he has any work going (runs his own business and has DH on the books on a zero hours contract from back when DH was out of work for a few months about 5 years ago, DH helps out still when my dad gets busier than usual)

My honest view on this is that time is more important than money so I’m with your DH here. You can afford for him to have time in lieu but you just don’t want to and in a partnership that does seem a bit mean.

Once you have kids, finances should really be family money, or it gets far too complicated!

Fortunately DH (the higher earner) is happy to split his income equally (actually I probably use more than he does!).

Sorry OP, I think YABU. But I’m probably a tad biased as I don’t understand why married couples would ever have separate finances, and I was financially independent throughout every relationship I had until DH and I moved in together.

Oops, cross posted

Pink have you read the whole thread? We can currently only afford for DH to have half the time off that he wants, so I have to work overtime if he wants to do the full 12 weeks we had planned. By saying (when I was pissed off in my OP) I wouldn't subsidise any more than 6 weeks it meant me reducing the overtime I'm working and also treating myself a little bit rather than hoarding it all into savings, not withholding money we have already saved to be spiteful.

I've also mentioned twice why we have separate finances, so our credit scores are not linked at all as that would stop me getting a mortgage and buying our house. So if you really struggle to ubderstand that I'm not sure how I can make it any clearer??

@PurplePipp as the year goes on some of the parenting topics may be more helpful/constructive in the future.

AIBU, apart from acting as troll central, doesn't always provide the most useful responses if you are feeling stressed or struggling. Keep clear of it when you are feeling this way!

I just had a blip about the fact I'm putting in an awful lot of additional effort for our savings and he's been given an opportunity to make a contribution and has turned it down

I think my main issue was with your OP - which did come across as but since then you’ve changed your view a bit.

That’s the thing, you can’t control how people react to your words. Sometimes MN is difficult because of that - I’ve certainly posted OPs and been etc but actually it’s because it’s touched a nerve or something.

Anyway that’s enough from me.

Good luck Op! You are your husband sound great, I hope everything goes well with the adoption

Purple a lot of people will be commenting without reading the entire thread so don't take it personally. 9 pages is a lot for most people to catch up on and as you've already acknowledged your OP didn't lay out how you felt very well.

It sounds like you've got it sorted now anyhow so that's great news.

Your finances will be linked because you are married and share an address, so I wouldn’t worry about keeping things separate for that reason. You can apply for a mortgage in your sole name, so his credit rating won’t come into it, although given your figures if you are only earning £10/hour you might struggle to borrow on your own wage. I think DH should work towards improving his credit rating, so you have more options for borrowing, and I think you should work as much or as little OT as you feel able too.

I think your chat with DH has straightened things out thought. Sometimes they just need us to tell them what we need them to do.

Good luck with the new family member. Try not to get bogged down in the details right now, it’s a scary time, and it’s ok to be worried.

Our credit isn't linked on our credit files at all. As in when I look at my credit report, he is not associated in any way. Our finances are not tied by having joint accounts or anything at all.

And I don't earn £10ph, I earn £17ph but when it comes to planning overtime it equated to bringing home £10ph after deductions. I have an agreement in principle for £160k, I need to borrow £140k as I have £70k in equity that is being given to me by the current owner. It's obviously more complicated than that but that's the jist of it. I work in finance, and have received good financial advice about what I am doing by a financial adviser, so I'm pretty confident in my decisions and my reasoning for them.

I'm not naive enough to think I could get a mortgage for a whole property all by myself on a £10ph wage.

And DH is trying to improve his credit rating but its not easy he's doing what he can but it won't be enough to make a difference when it comes to getting our mortgage sorted asap. Mortgage will be solely in my name

Posted a bit earlier & came back to this thread. Bit shocked at the mauling you got. Glad some posters have been sticking up for you.

Also glad chat went well with your dh and is sorted. Don't take the negative comments to heart. AIBU is brutal. I'd post on boards specific to your problem rather than here. Less responses maybe but your less likely to want to throw your PC out the window. So there's that.

Thank you Just. DH is a good'un, shouldn't have doubted him debating treating myself to a day of annual leave next week to do nothing And give myself a break!

I am so glad you spoke to your oh and all has worked out. You were right and you didn't deserve some of the reactions you got. I think you sound like a great team and think you will make great adoptive parents.

Your mistake was saying you had separate finances, that sends people here into a spiral 😂 next time open you'd post with the fact you share finances and feed your dsd snickers for breakfast and two on a Sunday

YABVU. This is awful! You don't sound like a team at all. It's really not the attitude to have when you're about to become a family. As others have said you seem very money-driven and you're putting money before anything else. Give DH a break!

OP, I think you're getting a hard time here because PPs think you're money focussed when you just sound worn out and probably feel it's unbalanced and your efforts aren't being appreciated by your DH.

The weekends he's choosing to work on Sundays and have Fridays off: will your DC have arrived by then? You are seeing it as he is working 3 days to get 3 days off versus working 3 days to get 2 weeks off - a huge difference and again I can see how you'd feel frustrated by this. But is he prioritising early time together over later? Does he not realise how tired you are?

A PP said you don't work harder than him, but you at least work much more hours, don't you. And you evidently don't take heaps of time off, given the amount of leave you've accrued. Does he see your extra commute and overtime as something he has to supplement for with him doing childcare?

I think you just feel unappreciated and need to talk to him about this.

Really glad you spoke to him and I definitely think you should take a day off and rest 😀

Oh go away, redguitar.

It’s their first post under that name, OP.

Troll central indeed.

I think you are being massively unreasonable
You are a family... imo it doesn’t matter where the money comes from. It’s all going on the same thing, making you all comfortable, secure and content.
It’s only money, it really doesn’t matter