To expect husband to pay half our expenses?

[namechangedforthis125]

DH is a great dad, does all the cooking, works full time. After an injury had to look for a desk job which pays something but as no qualifications, not enough (15k) - before injury about 25k.

Me - this year SAHM, previously marketing roles (30k+ per year). I have 3 properties rented out. They pay for themselves with a little left over, we rent ourselves. We have a prenup and properties are going straight to our DS via trust.

Nearest FT childcare is £1850 pm which basically stops me from working. He pays bills and that's it, I pay 2 days of childcare + rent (1450£) + car insurance (1k a year) + holidays. Out of MY personal savings.
He doesn't see the problem. AIBU to expect him to cover the cost of half the expenses?

My savings are quickly going down and I'm worried about what will happen where they are gone. He was paying only 2 bills I kicked off big time and he took 9 extra on (think small stuff like TV licence).

To clarify neither of us go out or have luxuries aside from holidays. We have agreed to relocate to a different city to lower the rent cost once our contract is over, but that still doesn't solve the issue of him
Not understanding that we should be going halfs.

Does it get easier once kids each 3 years old and have funded hours at nursery? AIBU to be annoyed? I would have loved to have another kid but can't see how it would work financially if the mentality doesn't change.

We can't have a joint account but we still consider it all one pot on the spreadsheet.

It is always a bad idea to drop your hours or go PT when you are an unmarried partner except if you are independently wealthy
It doesn't ways work in real life though. Sometimes compressing hours, dropping a few and getting an extra day off work makes a huge difference to the childcare bill. And it's what some women want to do. Seemingly the punishment for babies out of wedlock is you should work every hour god sends just in case you split up one day

If you are paying for 2 days childcare anyway (not quite sure why that is needed?) why doesn't your partner work those 2 days a week and he just look after the child on 3 days? You could go out to work full time and bring home the bacon. You don't have to worry about having to downsize and you don't have to change your lifestyle.

I'd also stop this your money and my money thing, if you have kids together it should just be one pot, pay everything out of it and whatever is left is saved.

OP - your sums don't add up. You listed bills he pays of over £1k/ month, not including maintenance for DSS. Then you say he pays £640, so how much does he pay and on what? You said his income is £15k, but there are taxes to be paid from that, how much is he taking home? It's actually really important, it's not minor details if in one version he doesn't have a penny left over or in the other version he has a few hundred quid.

Likewise your expenses; you say you have £1450/month - seems like half is your crazily expensive childcare and half is rent, is that right? Why don't you just get a cleaner for £45/week and spend that day with your son? If you're selling the properties then you won't need a day to do maintenance; more than a day per month for 3 properties seems kind of wild anyway, so that's either day saved plus saving most of your rent. Holidays are to visit your family, so it's understandable that you pay. If you saved for the time off then you have to expect to spend those savings, not panic about the time running out.

I think you really need to work with your DH to re-list all your family costs and expenses on an annual basis, along with all income. That way there's no confusion and you can jointly decide how you can afford another child if you want one.

If the only profit from the rental properties is increase in value, would you consider selling one, to reduce the management load, your risk (as if anything serious happens to one, you're in trouble), and your monthly expenses, so that you can pay down some mortgage on the other two and actually turn a decent profit?

DP and I have two rental houses (mine that I lived in before I met him, and ours that we moved out of when we got a job abroad) - but they pay for themselves, plus a bit (I bought mine a long time ago) - so we have a cushion in case of some massive bill. If you're barely making a profit out of three, and you're not making a profit at all given your expenses running them, I think you need to reduce your portfolio a bit.

I think you've got that completely wrong. The OP is funding herself to stay at home from her savings. So here we have someone who did have a well paid job, who has saved to enable them to stay at home with their baby and who is now being told they should go back to work so they can fund their other half's day to day living expenses while they stay happily in their low paid job.

I agree with this. OP, If you've both agreed that your OH is the one who's going to be working and you're the one that stays at home, then he needs to do his best to earn enough to make that possible, and if it's not then things need to change.

There's no way you should be burning through your savings just to cover living expenses. If it's not feasible for him to earn more than £15k then you probably do need to swap roles.

However, he clearly has a lot of work experience and £15k is pretty low for an office-based role, so I would guess he could easily get a better paid job elsewhere.

@LeftRightCentre it's for two years until we get 30 free hours. Me dropping a full day saves far more in childcare than I pay in to my crappy pension. Very judgemental post considering you know very little about my financial situation!

It's just dangerous for you - it's concern not judgement (well, some judgement, that lots of women haven't thought about how it'll all work out if everything goes to pot in the relationship).

How about you each drop half a day?

That money you save in childcare, you'll be putting that straight into your pension though yes? Because if not, that crappy pension just got crapper.

Excited0803 op listed some costs as yearly and some as monthly but without reference

@FanWithoutAGuard because my partner can't drop half a day. It's impossible in his role. He works in manual labour and him taking half a day means he had to find someone to cover that half day. It's not possible. I'm happy to drop a bit of pension and save childcare costs for a couple of years. It's worth it just for the time spent with my child. I still have enough incoming to save as much as I would be putting in to my pension so I'm not out of pocket. I've worked it all out and think I'll be just fine

I personally think that things either need to be split proportionate to income with each paying an appropriate share of bills and both ending up with roughly equal discretionary spends, or everything needs to go into a joint pot. Otherwise you can end up in a situation where one person is buying Gucci sunglasses and the other can't afford a sandwich at lunch time.

In your situation the most sensible idea would either be that you go back to work and he quits and deals with the social issue himself, or you drop the childcare and he can look after the children in the evening while you do any necessary property management. You are selling the flats fairly soon anyway by the sound of things so that issue is likely to resolve itself.

The bigger issue here is that it does sound like you don't respect your husband for his lack of ambition and that is only going to lead to resentment on both sides long term. I can understand wanting to work to benefit your children, but to be in a long term relationship you do need to work as a partnership, supporting each other when needed whether financially or emotionally.

I have the higher earning potential in my marriage, but I can no longer work full time due to a chronic health condition and may long term have to stop working altogether. My partner is a very hard worker, but is happy with a minimum wage job for now and doesn't want to retrain. I had to adjust my expectations accordingly so we could both be happy because at the end of the day, I don't want to be with anyone else. Do you still feel the same?

You have 3 BTL which I assume you pay tax on the income. You rent somewhere to live. You use your savings to fund your current lifestyle. So how much each month are you currently in minus figures ? ? ?

I earn a he'll of a lot more than my partner, I have savings he does not, we both owe money to various things.... not once have I ever looked at our spreadsheet and thought how unfair he doesn't pay for this that and the other..... he keeps half of what he earns partly because it has to be demoralizing for a man to have to ask his partner for money to buy my birthday present or whatever plus he smokes, the only things I refuse to pay for is his debts and his smoking that comes out his half basically. As far as I'm concerned everything else is joint and it doesn't matter who earns what. I thought that's how a joint partnership worked.

The OP is funding herself to stay at home from her savings. So here we have someone who did have a well paid job, who has saved to enable them to stay at home with their baby and who is now being told they should go back to work so they can fund their other half's day to day living expenses while they stay happily in their low paid job.

But OP is worrying about her depleting savings - she doesn’t want to use them for this. And she isn’t using savings to fund being a SAHM - she’s using them to fund being a SAHM who also has childcare. That is a real luxury this family clearly can’t afford regardless of how it’s split.

OP

There are so many issues with this post, I don’t know where to begin!

1. I think you prefer to be the SAHP. So DH’s not the most sociable guy but you’re not raising concerns about his ability to care for DS, just his ability to not do it as well as you. Which makes you staying at home/working part time, a choice.

1. You need to acknowledge that your family income would be almost double if you went back to work whilst he stayed at home. Also on his income he can’t support you, you say he ‘just pays bills’ but let’s face it he’ll be earning about £1100 a month and the family ‘expenses’ you’re quoting in your OP would leave him with basically nothing at the end of the month should he split 50/50 with you.

1. If DH’s earning potential is £15k a year and you can’t afford to work because of childcare, why are you paying £1400 a month in rent!!! FFS, that’s completely ridiculous!!

1. I think UABVU to ask to split things 50/50 when you’re choosing to organise your family finances in a less than beneficial way.

1. To own 2-3 buy to let’s whilst in ‘this’ financial predicament is insane. Sell one/all of them and buy a home with as small of a mortgage as possible. Yes you’ll miss out on the ‘investment’ of eventually owning 3 fully paid off flats but right now you have 3 financial liabilities (which could stop generating rent at any point) and no secure family home. You’ve created yourself a financial house of cards.

1. (My final point and I doubt you’re goinh to like it) OP before having DC it appears you living a pretty middle class lifestyle with a £50-60k combined income. You simply don’t have the income to back it up anymore but seem to be trying to maintain this MC lifestyle and getting frustrated at DH about it. You need to adapt your expectations and take a big financial step back. (Unless you have ALOT in savings that you’re willing to part with).

Plus you have to put into consideration here he was on a pretty good income previously to then through no fault of his own he has medical issues to then drop his income be £10000..... to then have mithering him it's not good enough because the 3 houses are yours, he needs to earn more income for childcare you don't necessarily need or afford. I think you need to give him a bit of break tbh it's probably demoralizing to begin with to drop by that much because of medical issues and then your probably harpering on leaving him feeling even more down about the situation.

Op is not on about childcare, she wants her partner to pay half rent especially as he previously lived rent free, I actually think what she is asking is fair, considering she bankrolled their lifes before and he is still left with a few hundred for himself.

Lots of people also haven't read that this is a temporary situation that op worked hard and saved for in advance and that she is the one going back to work soon and she is the one providing equity and deposits taken from selling her rental properties to buy a family home.

OP you need him to get a better job and agree to pay half the mortgage on the family home when you do move. You also need paperwork drawn up about where the deposit funds have come from and what happens in a split.

Lots of people did not rttt.

Is he your husband or a flat mate? Can’t stand these threads. If he’s lazy and sponging off you I’d get mad but if he’s trying hard post injury then don’t be such a tight arse. Your dipping into your savings - what are they for? A rainy day or a holiday without your husband?

Sorry, but that is horribly tight of you. You are married. You have children. You are in this together. How many men earn more than their wives - and how would you react if they stipulated rules like this? You should have a joint account, with no overdraft facility. This would in NO WAY affect your credit rating, so that is not an excuse. I think the real reason is that you just don't want to share, although I'm sure if he suddenly landed a high-paying job you would then be more than happy to share. YABVU, and you sound like a bit of a nightmare I'm afraid.

My ex was like this. I stopped working to look after our baby DTDs as childcare would've been way too much. He earned a bloody decent salary. He only paid the mortgage and phone, and I had to pay for everything, and I mean everything, else. Out of my savings. Because I stopped working to take care of his kids.

In the end I had fuck all. I left him (he was also very abusive) with just over £100 to my name. Six years down the line it's still affecting me to the extent I'm facing homelessness now.

Put your foot down now and sort this out - please don't end up in the same position I did. I wish I had sorted things out sooner, then I wouldn't be in the shit I'm in now. I would hate to see someone else go through what I went though - you run out of savings, and then what?

@Clockgoneyellow
Wow you are such a mean person and sound like someone who lives off other ppl in a relationship.
It's important to share but it's also important for both parties to contribute to the household in some way. If someone doesn't want to share, that's his or her choice. Who are you to tell others that they must share! And the OP has been supporting her DH a lot already, it's more about the other party not taking the piss?

It’s extraordinary that you think that someone earning so little should pay half, he can’t miracle the money out of no where- you have to live to your means and set a budget for essentials - it’s obvious as everyone says that you cut the child care and I would suggest whilst ds at home your husband carries on working f/t and you get a p/t job to fit around the hours he is not working - many families have to do this. When you take a Ft role when ds goes to school you pay according to salary as if you’re in love and in a relationship everything belongs to you both, so if he earns 10k and you 20k he pays half as much as you to the main bills. Having any savings at all puts you in a better position than many families, I think you should be more considerate/ kinder to your husband who through injury has had his earning power cut - I’m sure he would rather earn/ contribute more too.

I don’t get the whole ‘my’ money thing. You are presumably a family? A team? I get it if you are concerned about eating into savings - and it’s then worth a conversation do you both really want to do that...but sorry I never get marriages where couples consider their finances separate. But each to their own.

A woman should always have her own savings imo.

My husband earns more than me and has more disposable income then me every month. Yet I have 4 x as much savings than him.

Why should I share my savings with him when he is a grasshopper and I am an ant? If he leaves me, he will have a higher salary and I will have my savings. It's all very well being a 'team' but there's no guarantee that he will want to team up with me forever.

I prefer pragmatism to romanticism.

Stop renting for a start and move into the property with the lowest mortgage. Also, you sound massively unsupportive to your husband who not only is injured, will do doubt also be lacking in self esteem at such a pay cut!

Forgive me if I am wrong OP but it really sounds as though you resent the fact that you are the higher earner and that in some way you have this old fashioned idea that the man should be the higher earner and be the one providing for the wife and Dcs.

You have already admitted you resent his lack of ambition.

As I say, I may be totally wrong but as a stranger looking at if from the outside, I am getting the feeling that you want a more "traditional" set up, ie: man goes out to work, woman stays at home looks after DC's.