"Maybe you should be grateful I let you live here for free"

[DefinitelyDone]

A similar thread got me thinking about my situation with OH. After what he said to me the other day I was in no doubt that he was the one being unreasonable, and I think I’m ready to end things with him over it but some perspective would be good.

We were having a discussion/disagreement over getting our children a small pet, and then he said:

“Maybe you should be grateful that I let you live here for free”

This is long so TLDR: He said I ought to be grateful for living in his house for free. I’ve contributed £15k to ‘his house;’ despite that being most of my saving and me having a mostly low income. And have done 90% of the housework and childcare for 14 years. AIBU for thinking I shouldn’t be expected to pay him?

We aren't married but have been together for 14 years and have three children, 12, eight and three.
He bought our house a few years ago but we used to rent, the house is in his name only. I did contribute £10k towards an extension and have spent at least another 5K on things such as furniture and carpets Etc. I’ve also decorated 6 of the rooms alone if that counts for anything.

I have never paid him rent. We lived together for two years before having our first child and I never paid rent then either, though wasn’t working at the time. He’s never asked for money and I’ve always bought my own things/paid my own bills and never asked for money from him.

While being together my finances have ranged from having no income to receiving £40 CTC per month, up to receiving a higher amount of CTC when he went self employed, to me earning anywhere from £100 -£1000 per week over the past few years but this has now reduced back down again over the past few months and doesn’t look to be increasing again. I’m also very unlikely to be receiving CTC next year as his income has increased again.

My point is that my financial situation is changeable but other than the past few years I’ve had a pretty low income.

He always paid the rent before he bought the house, but there is no mortgage now, he pays for most of the food and household bills, but nothing that is just mine such as my phone bill Etc.

I pay for everything for the children and always have, even when I had hardly any money when our first was born, I bought all her clothes and baby things second hand.
I buy all of their clothes, their school uniforms, activities, pay for school trips and days out, every birthday and Christmas I have bought 90% of their gifts.
I do pretty much all of the housework and childcare. He is better with our three year old than he ever was with the other two and does tend to his evening (not middle of the night) awakenings which he never did with the others. Basically, he’s just being a father there, sort of, but this was pretty amazing when he started that as I was completely on my own with the very frequent evening and night awakenings with my first two.
He never, ever gets up early to help with the children. He never, ever lets me sleep in in the mornings. He rarely gets up for work before 10am and is usually home by 5pm, often earlier.
There was a period of about a month when our second was a baby and went through a period of wanting to sleep in when it was time to get up to get my first to nursery. After much nagging he started taking our first to nursery so I could sleep in a little and let the baby sleep in too but this didn’t last long and he hasn’t helped in the morning since. Eight years since.
He occasionally collects them from school but I do all the school related things- homework, spelling, reading Etc, I did all of the home learning, even during the first lock down when he had no work. I battled a very reluctant seven year old with a very demanding toddler while he hid in his ‘office’ playing games or whatever.
I have always done pretty much all of the housework, until our three year old was born I used to do his laundry too, now he sorts his own clothes out, I do pretty much all of the cooking, cleaning, tidying.

Things got very bad during lockdown and I pretty much stopped everything. He had no excuse of being
busy with work and witnessing how he watched me fall apart and didn’t step in to help really hit home how things were, so I did the minimal laundry and pretty much stopped cooking and cleaning. The rest of the day was home schooling. He started to occasionally wash towels and load/unload the dishwasher a few times. He’s even mopped the kitchen floor and cleaned a bathroom or two a couple of times. Amazing. I wish I wasn’t joking.

So bearing in mind all I do and have done, is it unreasonable of me to think that actually, I shouldn’t have to pay him a penny to live here? I shouldn’t be grateful for living here for free like it’s an amazing kindness from him, and that actually, he’s the unreasonable asshole here and should be grateful for everything I do. It’s really shown me how he feels towards me; I’m just a lodger that doesn’t contribute in any way.

I realise all this is grounds to LTB and after several similar threads and being told to, I think I’m finally ready to call it a day, but right now I want to focus on who’s being unreasonable here and if I’m deluded.

Hmm, @Nancydrawn, I have seen the “no accidental contract” argument before, but you don’t accidentally trip into living in a bona fide domestic relationship for more than 2 years, which is the threshold where I live.

I looked up a summary of English law on what I would call a constructive or resulting trust. It looks like the court can infer that a woman in this situation has an equitable interest arising from financial or other contributions to a property purchase (original price or mortgage), even if there is no direct evidence of a common intention, or through proprietary estoppel.

So maybe the adamant posters in here who say that the woman in a situation like this has no interest in the house, are incorrect or oversimplifying? Of course the expense of legal action would outweigh the benefit in some situations, but for other situations it would surely be worth getting legal advice.

Oh god why why why do women do this to themselves
You've had kids and destroyed your earning capacity as well as paying for everything and investing in his house with absolutely ZERO protection for yourself. Why???
Anyway it's done now but if you've any sense you'll leave him and claim maintenance. Your savings are gone forever.

Why don't women just bloody well get married before they have children?

Or make sure they can be self sufficient financially?

What I don’t quite understand is how he was able to afford to buy a house outright but you’re entitled to CTC?

And what were you doing before you had kids OP?

He sounds like a shit regardless.

I guess that your 15K is gone but if you can arrange to move out with the children into your own house the court will order him to pay child maintenance for your 3 children.
He may not owe you anything but he has to support his children.

Since the mortgage has been totally paid off, a lot of the mortgage has actually been contributed by OP, especially if she paid £10K towards it. The fact that it was an extension means she’s actually paid for the house.

Eh? OP doesn’t say where she lives but not sure there is anywhere in the UK where £10k would constitute a significant wedge of the value of the house.

You might be able to claim a beneficial interest in the prior but you would have to fight for it via the courts. I would take legal advice.

I will be advising my teen dds that you are either entirely financially self supporting or you are married. This route is not an option. I suggest every poster on this website does the same.

If you can prove you have invested £15k in the house then you could potentially get that back via court but if you split up he will only owe you child maintenance and that's it.

I think you are asking the wrong question. You are not his tenant, aren’t you supposed to be one half of a functioning relationship, bringing up a family together? You have very very few legal rights. He has a legal obligation under the Children Act to make provision for the children. You need to take some advice and have a reality check. Then you need to think about the advice you’ve received and have an honest talk with the children’s father and decide where all of this is going, and you need to do that before the children are much older.

If the summary I read is right, she wouldn’t just be entitled to her 15k back - she’d be entitled to the percentage of the house that the original 15k represented, ie would get the proportionate value of any increase in the property value - and could also be entitled to a further share representing any significant non-financial contribution.

@Gremlinsateit

Hmm, *@Nancydrawn*, I have seen the “no accidental contract” argument before, but you don’t accidentally trip into living in a bona fide domestic relationship for more than 2 years, which is the threshold where I live.

I looked up a summary of English law on what I would call a constructive or resulting trust. It looks like the court can infer that a woman in this situation has an equitable interest arising from financial or other contributions to a property purchase (original price or mortgage), even if there is no direct evidence of a common intention, or through proprietary estoppel.

So maybe the adamant posters in here who say that the woman in a situation like this has no interest in the house, are incorrect or oversimplifying? Of course the expense of legal action would outweigh the benefit in some situations, but for other situations it would surely be worth getting legal advice.

Yes, not my area of law but there was the case of the unmarried woman who built a patio in the house she shared with her partner. House legally only in his name. Judge ruled she had an equitable interest in the house, it was evidence both partners intended her to have a financial share in the house.

Get proper legal advice on this point op.

You need to say to him, Maybe you should be grateful that I raised your children, cleaned your home, cooked your meals, ran your errands, sorted your admin, made your bed for free for fourteen years. Present him with an accurate bill of what it would have cost if he'd had to pay for it all.

Do nothing at all for a week unless he pays you the going rate for a cleaner, chauffeur, chef etc and then offer to pay him some rent from what you've earned.

What a tosser. As soon as your youngest is in full time nursery, I'd look for a PT job and cut back heavily on what you do towards the home.

It is a complex area of law but it is not as simple as saying the op has ‘no rights’ to the house. The fact she has contributed to the building of an extension may be mean she has a claim under the Trusts of Land Act. She would need to prove the financial contribution she made as well establishing that she did so on a common intention that the property was to be shared but there is a legal argument that op needs to explore.

agree

I think it may be useful for anyone in a similar situation whether you are married or not to consider how these sort of financial/sahm situations always seem to crop up and cause conflict in relationships I’ve witnessed and what I see as different POV from the parent working and the one at home.

At the beginning when the mother is pregnant and possibly low earning, they will look at finances and decide that mum being a sahm will suit their needs perfectly. Dad therefore won’t be as hands on because will be out of the house all day, possibly having to drive/use machinery and can’t really do all the nighttime wakings. They fall into a traditional set-up circa 1955.

But as family grows and kids need more expenses forked out on them, and demand on the sahm drops as kids in school, resentment kicks in. Coupled with the fact income has stayed same and expenses soared. If you do not discuss family finances openly and have poor communication in general then the rot really sets in. No one is wrong, there is just not enough money to go round.

I’ve seen it with myself and every single family I know. The mums I was friends with when I was a sahm have all gone back to work, or are trying to string along some kind of wfh MLM type career. None of us wanted to but we had to. There was one mum who avoided this until her eldest was 18, but that was because she was getting an income from her eldest’s father who was not her husband. Now she is back in employment.

There are three things that women (and men too) need to understand really:

1. If you are going to commit yourself to another person for life, especially if that means giving up earning potential you need a contract in case it all goes to shit. That is called marriage.

2. Unless you are minted, or you partner is extremely rich, you cannot be a sahm forever. I don’t mean, “we can get by on cheap shops at Aldi, forgo holidays and drive a clapped out old car forever on my partner’s wage.” You will run out of money, you will get in debt, your husband/partner will start to hate you because he’s working all hours whilst the children grow up and you seemingly have more and more free time whilst they are in school and he is at work. Especially if you have no concept of where the money is coming from to pay for your lifestyle.

3. The people of the UK will it seems vote conservative governments in on an alarmingly regular basis. Tony Blair was the exception. This means that the days of tax credits etc are long gone and not coming back. There is not going to be any state aid for families in the future and the country seems to be fine with that it seems. Therefore the message from the people of the UK is, “don’t be offering your hand out for help with your kids.” Which is shut because the cost of living now is more than its ever been but unfortunately that’s what it boils down too.

In your situation OP I’d get a full-time job. It’s your only way out of being a domestic servant with zero rights.

No, that's absolutely true, but it also means that relationships have to progress at the pace of the state. Some couples are ready to marry after a couple years of living together; others might be, say, in their very early 20s and not be ready to make a lifetime commitment, just enjoying living together for now, or both in their 60s with independent incomes and estates that they want to pass on rather than join. I think contracts have to be entered into willingly and knowingly by both parties--and that are plenty of reasons both parties might want to live together but not join contractually.

That said, OP I don't want to derail your thread: I think whatever the situation, it was a shit thing for him to say.

It's really difficult to say with any clarity whether one, both or neither of you have been unreasonable

What was agreed when you first moved in with you partner?
Were the DC planned?
Why weren't you earning before the DC?
Why have you never married?
Where did your £15K come from?

Agree with a lot of what other posters have said about questioning why so many women allow themselves to become completely financially reliant in a man without the security of marriage

I’m glad some people with sense have come on and raised the matter of proprietary estoppel. Great post @dailygrowl

That’s a fair point Nancydrawn, but we also have provision for asset protection, esp in the case of the 60 year olds, and of course if they maintain their own residences and keep their finances separate it is not a bona fide domestic relationship.

If you have evidence of contributing money you can probably get it back. Obviously it will be expensive if it has to go to court. I think you can lodge an interest on a property at the land registry. You need to look into it.
I helped DP pay for his renovations and kept the receipts and he had said to me I would have a claim if we split up. He’s paid for things on my house but didn’t keep any evidence purposely as he counted that as support.

@JennyBond

Why don't women just bloody well get married before they have children?

Or make sure they can be self sufficient financially?

What I don’t quite understand is how he was able to afford to buy a house outright but you’re entitled to CTC?

And what were you doing before you had kids OP?

He sounds like a shit regardless.

Capital, including cash in the bank, isn't taken into account for tax credit purposes. Eligibility is based on taxable income only.

Even if this wasn't the case, the capital value of the home you live in is disregarded for benefit purposes.

@Unreasonabubble

Why don't women just bloody well get married before they have children? I must have been so old fashioned. I "dated" my husband for 9 years before he proposed. I did tell him "no marriage, no children". It took us 2 years after Marriage to conceive.

Why do women just not know that they have no rights if they are not married? You would think in this day and age, they are more clued up than they are.

Where are women's brains?

I'll take this one step further.

Why don't women get a clear understanding about their manfolk's attitude to women and what it means to be in partnership with them before they even get into the discussion about marriage, moving in together etc. Find out about their past, what was their parents' relationship like, who were they influenced by.

Too many women walk headlong into a live in relationship without even the foggiest idea what they're getting into and who the person even is. It's only when it's too late that the man does the big reveal, and the woman realises they've ended up with an abusive misogynist.

My DHs parents ran a business together, everything was a partnership, finances, childcare, household chores, so I knew I stood a good chance of him having a world-view of men and women being on an equal footing. It was all he knew in his formative years.

I know it's an unpopular view on here to point all this out to someone who's already in the situation, but it's important to know this for the next time. Just dump and run, rebuild your life and never put yourself in a position of complete reliance, protect yourself first and foremost.

@winched

When I read these types of threads on MN I always pretend I'm reading them as if you were a man.

Honestly I don't know.

Yes you seem to do the majority of the housework but he (I assume) works full time and pays for everything else? You paid for a £10k extension but I assume since there's no mortgage he's paid at least ten times that? Lots of the income your post is claiming as "yours" is actually really family money i.e CTC.

I'd be saying you were definitely not U if you'd given up your career for the children, but you didn't contribute anything for 2 years before having the kids?

I've been in both positions and found staying home with the children is much easier, especially as you must have had years with only two at school. People wonder why there are so many of these threads and so many women putting themselves in these (what seem to be, from outsiders perspective, daft and precarious) positions. The answer is clearly because most people jump at the chance to have everything taken care of financially for the price of weekly housework and looking after your own children. Why else would so many people do it if wasn't such a cushty deal? It's usually when the kids grow up and the working partner starts (rightly) complaining that the non-working partner starts to think it's unfair...

But regardless of who is being unreasonable here, your situation is precarious AF and you need to get your youngest into nursery and start earning a wage. If your DP does 50% of the family/ house chores then contribute toward bills, and if not then put that money aside so you have something to fall back on.

I totally agree, it's a dodgy situation, but you can't really act as if you've been hard done by since you've benefited from the situation as has he.

Also I get that you can't put them back in, but surely you'd have realised after the first or second that having more kids with this guy probably wasn't the best decision.

At that point

That’s fine, shall I bill you for all the unpaid work I’ve done around here? It’ll be more than enough to cover the rent you require...

Shoving an invoice in a man's face for the cost of childcare, household duties, shopping etc is all very well in theory on MN but completely pointless in reality.

Don't bother. No man will give a toss x years down the line, after the fact, if they're an abusive arsehole, they won't get it, it's been the relationship all alone. Ain't no way they'll change, or accept that message now! Shutting the stable door after the hose has bolted springs to mind.

Everything else aside, his comment of you living rent free is true if you aren’t contributing to the house payment. £15k in rent would have housed you for a couple of years at most in a modest area, certainly not 14 years.

As for the title of your OP

Maybe you should be grateful I let you live here for free

It speaks volumes, doesn't it. You're a lodger, living in for free, but good for being a skivvy as far as he's concerned.

It's that MN duck, it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck.