I'm wondering if I might be being unreasonable so I thought I'd see what the AIBU hordes might think.
I work part-time, DH works full-time. He earns more than me. I am employed, but my income fluctuates because I sometimes take on freelance work on top of this. So every month we look at what we've both earned and then split our monthly payment into the joint account accordingly. I think this is fair and I'm happy with this. Most of the time it's him paying 60% and me paying 40%, but very occasionally it's 50/50, and once or twice it has been me paying a bit more.
Anyway. Last year, my parents gave me (us) £24,000. An extremely generous gift made possible because they moved house and bought another, much cheaper one.
DH has never made any assumptions on what the money will be spent on, nor has he even asked me. He is very respectful about that, although as far as I'm concerned, it's our money. I made one slightly frivolous purchase (a very fancy tent and some other posh camping gear), and the rest has been at least partly spent on various home and garden improvements. There is till some money left (about £9k).
Last year, we converted our garage into an office, with electricity going in, nice new floor, roof, lighting, paint etc. It cost quite a lot of money but we paid for it together (it wasn't solely funded by the gift from my parents). We also refurbished our lounge and had a patio built.
Because the patio was built close to Christmas and DH had spent a lot on presents for me and our daughter, I paid for the patio with my parents' money. I didn't ask DH for a contribution, though he did offer.
Anyway, my AIBU is this: we have just had some very expensive fencing put in. It looks really nice, and we are happy with it. It cost just under £4k (it is close-board fencing, which is made up of individual planks of wood, nailed on by hand one by one - that's why it was so expensive). DH did not have money to put towards it, so I paid with my parents' money and asked that he pay me back his proportion towards the cost, which he is doing in instalments.
His proportion of the cost is higher than mine because of the difference in our incomes. He hasn't grumbled about paying towards the fence, but I'm wondering if it's fair of me to ask him, given that I have this money from my parents? I would like to put some of it into the mortgage. I also want some savings - I don't really have any at the moment because a lot has been spent on the house. But I could afford to just swallow up the cost of the fence.
DH wants to overpay the mortgage and is willing to contribute a certain amount of his income towards this each money. But can't he afford to start doing this until he has paid for the fence. I'm wondering if I'm being a bit unreasonable in asking him to contribute? Should I just write it off and then he can start overpaying instead? In the long run, wouldn't that benefit us better? I'm not too sure.
For full background, in the past he's paid the bulk of things and when we bought our house, he had lots of savings and I had none, so he paid most of our deposit. This is another reason why I feel a bit mean. But there is a tiny voice in my head that's also noticing he's spent a fortune on clothes and records recently. And so a small (and probably a bit mean) part of me is asking whether he would have been able to contribute more to the fence if he hadn't spent so much on all that stuff.
I should also add that we haven't argued about this at all, and I'm genuinely not sure what to do, hence this post. Please be gentle with me!