dh and money

[user011]

hi,

my dh is apparently skint again. we have this conversation every month but he is appalling with money although I don't personally see where it is going.

when we get to this stage, he tries to stress me out with it too. he blames bills, says he gives me "too much". we split the bills pretty much down the middle but he gives me an extra 100/150 because I do most food shopping/buy things for our child.

he will start complaining he cant afford the extra 100/150 a month. he earns about 400 more than me a month. I'm not even sure where to begin with the unfairness of it tbh. he smokes as well but apparently this is "only 15 to 30 pound a week" depending how much backi he buys. this is an essential purchase though evidently.

now I'm sitting here waiting for him to return home in a bad mood and start whining about how unfair life is, how it is my fault because of the bills, life is shit bla bla.

I also cant work out where it all goes but am suspicious its gambling. he has the sky bet app and I often hear him watching horse racing.

I dont even know what my am I being unreasonable is, I guess am I unreasonable to suggest that its nothing to do with the extra 100/150 he gives me a month and everything to do with his own lack of budgeting!?

Hi OP. Sorry to hear about your situation - there are so many red flags around this, the biggest one being the £100k being frittered away - that could have transformed your lives.

If he is not living an extravagant lifestyle, he most probably has an addiction. Only he can sort that out. He needs to 'own' that and seek help. Please get him to be transparent on what he's spending and the debt he may already have - if he won't do this, I am afraid you might have to leave - it's not fair on you or your child. If this carries on, it will ruin your lives.

You need to insulate yourself - isolate your money, start saving. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Okay so he says he doesn't know where it's gone this month but it's gone.

Fair enough. Do you sit with him and write it down and then he'll know.

Get yourself a credit check - use experian or clear score. That will determine whether he has taken anything out in your name. If he has you absolutely need to get his access to your details blocked and make him pay it off quickly. You can do this through experian if you report something as not yours.

Does he pay for family days out? Anything that enriched your lives as a family? Babies are relatively cheap in this regard as opposed to say, teenagers, but it's still strange to see your cash after bills as money for yourself rather than family money.

It's usually
essential bills
non-essential bills (tv subscriptions etc,)
child's needs
family needs
own needs/wants

I think for your own benefit - as if others are correct he is beyond saving - look at your account, write a list of everything you have paid for the past 2 months. Work out what you have actually paid out. I'm sure you will find it comes to more than double his contribution. Then next time he moans tell him you have put in £900 or whatever yourself so he is not paying extra.
Remember that you have ensured you have cleared bills, paid housing costs, sorted out your little one etc so him moaning he has no pocket money is just like a teenager moaning to his parents he has not money... its pathetic but its irrelevant when it comes to real life.
Not sure I could put up with a moany teenager for a partner - certainly not a gamber though.

@user011

unfortunately I dont own, no.

he inherited nearly 100k in 2017 and he said he would put that down on property but 4 years later it is all gone, with nothing to show for it but a 9 grand van and a holiday to spain.

Omg. This is terrible

If he says he doesn’t know where his money goes then say to him let’s look at your account and write down where money goes

My DH is the same - absolutely s**t with money. So I drew up a detailed spreadsheet of our outgoings, gave it to him and told him to tell me where savings can be made. We did come to an agreement and, because I had the spreadsheet set up I now track our spending, approximately, and when he moans I print a copy and give it to him with the same request to tell me where we can cut back. It did take a bit of effort in the first instance, but not now.

Please be careful.

If he has spent 100k in 4 years, he is used to spending over 2000 pounds a month on top of his wages. He is going to want to keep spending that much money....I would guess he is going to get cash advances on his credit cards, use loan sharks, borrow off family and friends etc etc

As you are married, half of all of that debt becomes yours. Can you get some advice on how to protect yourself financially in this situation. Otherwise he can divorce you and leave in in a pile of debt.

OP, as others have said, I would have been out the door the second that the £100K wasn't spent on a house deposit....

This man does not want to provide for his family, he wants to spend every penny on himself, whether gambling or not.

If you do intend to stay, then start a spreadsheet record of every penny of spending on both bank accounts, you can download 'csv's of the bank statements and analyse them. If he refuses to co-operate, then that tells you everything that you need to know.

If he does cooperate, then ongoing, you need to split all spending on family bills, food, clothes etc, 50/50, and pay the proportion of those costs relevant to how much you earn, then try and save some, and split the rest so you have equal spends. His baccy comes out of his spends not joint family finances.

Cut all joint financial ties though, so you control the family finances in a separate bank account to your own one, and do a credit search on yourself to make sure that you are not on anything that you are not aware of, loans, credit cards etc. I have seen that and worse in the past....

I'm a sober alcoholic. When I was in rehab they told us that people got addicted to gambling more quickly than anything else and that it was the hardest addiction to get clean from. But you can do it - DS2 has a friend who stole £3,000 from his mum to fund his gambling obsession but he's well over a year clean now - so there is hope.

It definitely sound like gambling. You would probably have some inkling if it was drink or drugs. Please don't feel you have to support him in giving up gambling if he promises you he'll go to GamAnon. The problem is his to confront. I think I'd be planning a divorce.

I'm so sorry OP. I can only imagine the stress and anguish.

I hope you follow some of the great advice from PP. Personally I would insist on taking over all financial matters myself - you get to see his full accounts, and take it from there. If he has really pissed 100k up the wall then I could only stay if I had full control of his accounts, and gave him a set amount of spending money each week/month.

I really feel for you. He has been incredibly irresponsible and unfair towards you and his child.

It always breaks my heart when someone spends an inheritance on complete and utter crap. In virtually all circumstances the person who's left the money has had to work so hard - it's so disrespectful to just blow it like that.

If he's not a gambler in the full sense of constantly chasing his money/ being unable to stop them he is a chronic fritterer.
To have burned through that he's got used to living beyond his.means every month and now the pot is empty.
Is he the kind of person to spend a fiver on lunch at work, then buy a coffee, buy a magazine, tags, expensive chocolate at the petrol station. Just generally never consider what all his small (and generally pointless) purchases add up to? Be the big man buying rounds and shots?
To get through that amount with nothing to show would be a deal breaker for me.
I lived with a fritterer once. The reduction in stress when we split was incredible. I still can't work out where it all went and neither could he. Just endless poor choices

We put everything in the joint account and have the same amount each per month. DH earns more than me however we are a family unit and he considers it family money. If he does lots of overtime I also get some of it as he understands I facilitate his overtime by doing the child care when he works on his rest days

You're a marital unit, not housemates

To clarify - we have the same amount "discretionary spending" money each

Good lord, if he's a gambler don't have a joint account!!!

I bought a house at auction for less than 100k.
That's so depressing-thinking of how that money could have set you up.

If you have a child, you should have joint finances.

However, you can trust him financially.

So really you shouldn’t have had a child with him as this was never going to end well 🤷‍♀️

But you are where you are and he won’t change.

*can’t trust him financially

he inherited nearly 100k in 2017 and he said he would put that down on property but 4 years later it is all gone, with nothing to show for it but a 9 grand van and a holiday to spain
No idea why you stuck around after this. It would have been a deal breaker for me.
Walk away. Your life will be significantly better.

OP, if he is really, really gambling, leave him. Please, because of your children if not because of you.

My father was a gambler and it ruined our life. We had barely enough to eat, because to gambler his addiction is everything. It will always come first. It is your job to protect your children because with a gambler every day is a little bit worse then day before.

Jesus no to the joint account! He'd blow the lot!

Oh dear. This is not good. You have a child; you should both be open and honest about finances by now. He's definitely got something else going on. You know already that it's probably gambling.

How does £100k 'disappear' in four years without you even asking where it went?

@user011 did he explain where the 100k went? I’d be inclined to refuse the £150 next month and when he says he’s skint it shows it’s not because of the £150 he’s giving you. If you’re married why don't you pool all your money?

Sorry chick but you mentioned gambling. Check bank statements PayPal etc. I found out last October my husband had gambled my entire wage for months. I couldn’t understand why things were not being paid etc. 1k is a lot to lose especially if he has nothing to show for it.