Christmas presents for in laws

[RecoveringChocaholic]

DH announced yesterday that he expects me to pay for half the Christmas presents that he bought for his family (MIL, BIL & SIL X2, nieces and nephew). In all the 17 years we've been together we've always just sorted our own families. In the last few years I've bought and paid for in full presents for his two brothers wives and his godfathers wife. Although this year he did the SILs. His Argument is that they buy presents for me (bottle of gin, Toiletries etc) and also presents for our DC and therefore I should contribute equally financially. He spends hundreds on presents. Apparently I owe him £150. I wasn't consulted about the presents he bought.
He's not offered to pay for half of the presents I bought for my nephews and niece. (I don't think he realises that I have bought any). My family have all bought presents for our DC but not for us as we as a family generally only buy presents for the children. It's just the way we are.
Now I'm happy to do as we have done in previous years and pay for the presents for SILs. I've already bought and paid for the present for his godfathers wife. AIBU to refuse to pay him for the rest of the presents he bought for his side of the family? Or is he right that I should split this 50/50 as they do buy me a gift?

YANBU
If he wanted you to go halves then he should have told you earlier and agreed a price per gift with you. He should also be going halves with the gifts that you are buying for your family. There should also be an agreement, we only buy for the children in our family, if he wants to buy for the adults too then that’s up to him. I wouldn’t give him any money this time, it should have been agreed first. I would say that if that’s what he wants to happen from now on then you need to agree a budget as you don’t have that kind of money to spend with a ‘you do realise I’ve just been on maternity pay don’t you?’

I don't understand couples that are like this. It's ridiculous.

YANBU but the situation re money in general is not reasonable. You seem to be saying that you split every last joint expense 50:50 . This is not right OP when you are married and earn different amounts. Your DH is in a position to save for a start and your finances are penalised by you being mother to his children.i don't understand not having joint finances in marriage but if you must keep things separate you , as the lower earner, should not be paying a higher proportion of your wages on family expenses.i feel very annoyed on your behalf. As I have said before , earning a higher salary does not mean you have more value to society or to the family eg nurse/ banker, teaching assistant/accountant or whatever. It sounds abusive to me.

Do you buy and pay for your family gifts?
If so, leave as is, discuss next year with limits set..
I would also tell him you would like to discuss all finances as he has much more left over monthly than you so need to move to paying equal proportion of wages for General bills & outgoings rather than equal amounts.

Thanks for your responses. I think you're right that we need to look at our finances in general. Separate has always worked for us but we did used to earn similar amounts. I now work four days a week to his five and obviously my career has stalled a bit with having two DC. We've always been relatively comfortable so it never occurred to me to split finances differently, but with two DC in childcare it's just that bit tighter for me at the end of the month.
I do genuinely appreciate your feedback.

This does seem a bit strange that he is insisting on this now after 17 years. I suspect he’s a bit fed up of covering your finances whilst on maternity, although of course he absolutely should have!

Out of interest who paid for your children’s Christmas presents?

I think an honest discussion and reminder he endowed you with all his worldly goods - assuming the advantages of the traditional vows.
I am surprised money is an issue after a long marriage but it feels like it just needs updating to ensure parity.

Does that mean you pay for the childcare too?
My ex had his faults God knows but he was never mean.

@Llot5 no, childcare is also split 50/50...well the paying of childcare... Childcare when not at nursery is a different matter.

@MrsWhites Christmas presents for own DC are discussed and purchased jointly and paid for equally.

If everything else like childcare, presents for your own children etc are equally split then I can see why he would think family presents should be too but he seems to be failing to see that 1. You have been on maternity leave so have limited finances, 2. That you earn less than him and 3. It’s 3 days before Christmas and he hasn’t given you time to budget for this.

For me this is why separate finances don’t really work within families.

Separate finances work fine for us and I totally get the whole not putting all money into a shared account.

Separate finances mean neither of us can comment on the other 'wasting' our own money providing all bills are paid.

But totally unfair for you to have much less disposable income than him. And crazy that hes spent so much on gifts and now wants half the cash.

So he's the higher earner bit expects you to pay half for all the bills, mortgage etc and is now being a cheap skate about his family's gifts? He sounds like a selfish miser tell him to jog on.

I think he's totally being unreasonable, especially as he's the higher earner!

Eh, so he's the higher earner and insists childcare bill is split 50/50. For the chdren you share together. Of course there's been a problem before, you've just not done anything about it!

He shouldn’t have bought the gifts without discussing with you first if he was expecting you to pay half. If he is going to be that petty you should add up the amount you have paid for the gifts you bought your family and deduct that from his total! But I think he is being unreasonable.

It’s gets worse.

You earn less so you pay less.

How it is now is completely inequitable. I could not be with a man who saw me struggle at the end of the month. What a joke.

Eh, so he's the higher earner and insists childcare bill is split 50/50. For the chdren you share together. Of course there's been a problem before, you've just not done anything about it!

It’s so UNACCEPTABLE.