To feel like this

[giraffes2021]

So me and DP been together 8 years 2 young children

I now work 3 days a week so he's main earner, not married, I pay nursery which is like £800 for 2 kids and my own bills such as car insurance fuel etc DP pays for mortgage etc.
Obviously he has a lot more disposable income than me, he's a bit more sensible than me always has money in the bank he's always been the higher earner. If I need money I ask etc and he'll give me money but it's just a crappy feeling always having to ask or say I need money for x y z or just not being in a position to be able to put a bit of cash aside. Obviously my income has dropped as I only do 3 days - isn't it just a shitty feeling as a woman or am I overthinking ?

I didn't go on the mortgage due to stamp duty but I know that if I said I wanted to go on it he wouldn't have any issues we only did it in his name out of easiness. He would also have a deed and a will made up I guess it's something I need to get done ASAP and a will

Re marriage DP isn't keen on the whole wedding idea he said he'd be quite happy for me to just change my name haha or a registry office how romantic
Conversations need to happen

Joint accounts are excellent because everything becomes family money and since it's family money, you're less likely to be frivolous with it because it's not just your disposable income.

DH and I have one account, I am the main earner and all our income goes into the account, with a set amount also going into a joint savings account.

Neither of us take the piss with it, the only accounts we have separately are a credit card each as it's the only thing we have to keep Christmas/ birthday purchases secret from one another!

@giraffes2021 I also didn’t go on our mortgage for financial reasons but he proposed the day we moved in and we were married within 6 months so I would have equal security of our home.

I would just do a registry office wedding then. That will solve lots of your issues if you also then got a joint account for bills etc set up and equal spending money.

Good luck.

You don't seem to realise that he's calling all the shots.
If he loves you and values your relationship he will want to protect you. He will want you to be safe and secure especially if anything happens to him.
My husband earns a high wage, mine is low. Everything has always been pooled together. I am solely named as benefactor on all his death in service and share benefits, he insists on having extra life insurance for himself as I would not have his earning potential should the worst happen.

By leaving yourself vulnerable you're also leaving your children vulnerable. Get yourself on the mortgage, then discuss joint accounts and pooling the income.
You've got to be prepared that the person you love could shaft you, it does happen to people unfortunately.

Well that sounds simple enough then. Tonight tell him you want a registry mariage and ask him for a date. Although isnt there something about assets you have before marriage not being split in the event of a separation? (Not married hopefully someone else will know)

For our budget we did a spreadsheet with all of our regular expenses, everything we could think of, even the gym fees. Then we looked at each of our incomes and subtracted that amount from the total to see our extra each month. That leftover divided by 2 is roughly what we each have as disposable income each month. The money for the regular budget is direct deposited from each of us into one account, split by proportions of who makes more, then the disposable income goes into our individual accounts.

So basically say our income overall is 60/40, we also split the regular expenses 60/40 and have an equal amount each of what's left to save or spend as we see fit.

It works for us.

Also, for additional color, there have been times when I've been the higher earner and times when he has been, and we always balance our the budget this way. The higher earner always covers a higher share of the joint expenses, proportional to earnings.

Please wake up and protect you and your children. There’s a useful guide on CAB re difference between cohabitation and marriage.
You’ve fallen into trap of paying for donkey work (childcare) and him paying for assets (house)
If you split he’s got a house and you’ve got nothing. He’d only have to pay cm.

When we got together my OH and I opened a joint account and everything went into that. We spent as we needed and only discussed with each other if it was a big spend about which we needed to take a joint decision.

I could not bear having to ask for money.

It was swings and roundabouts as there were times when I earned more and times when he did - it all balanced out.

Go back to work full-time and split all the bills 50/50. You will feel much better.

Tell him you want to get married
Tell him you will be happy with a registry office wedding
Forget the romance romance means fuck all if you split up and have a suitcase of clothes to your name and a tiny baby :

There is nothing romantic about getting married and signing a legal contract in which you are happy to share everything you own with your partner in sickness and in health 😂

Marriage is the important bit it’s a legal contract between two people .
A Wedding is just a big party and a shit load of money spent on other people .
I am always amazed how intelligent independent women fall for this shit from their partners

So tell him you want to get married ASAP
Don’t mention the house because he may then start saying you only want to marry me to your hands on my house

But If he disagrees, gets defensive, wants to put it off because he now wants a big wedding - which may will never happen you will have your answer he knows exactly what he is doing and it’s not in your best interest
As his partner you have absolutely no say over anything financially
Your children do - but you won’t even get the house if he dies

You sound very naive OP.
If he dies intestate then yes children inherit but the logistics of dealing with that when you don’t have access to bank account and aren’t his next of kin aren’t straightforward.
No bereavement support payments (widows allowance) or money towards funeral.

Daily mail link but gives you an idea.
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7334313/amp/I-never-felt-marriage-important-day-Paolo-died.html

Obviously there are ways to protect not just marriage but you need to discuss with him and address.

@giraffes2021

I didn't go on the mortgage due to stamp duty but I know that if I said I wanted to go on it he wouldn't have any issues we only did it in his name out of easiness. He would also have a deed and a will made up I guess it's something I need to get done ASAP and a will

Re marriage DP isn't keen on the whole wedding idea he said he'd be quite happy for me to just change my name haha or a registry office how romantic
Conversations need to happen

It’s not about romance.

@giraffes2021

I didn't go on the mortgage due to stamp duty but I know that if I said I wanted to go on it he wouldn't have any issues we only did it in his name out of easiness. He would also have a deed and a will made up I guess it's something I need to get done ASAP and a will

Re marriage DP isn't keen on the whole wedding idea he said he'd be quite happy for me to just change my name haha or a registry office how romantic
Conversations need to happen

Amazing how many men 'just aren't keen' on getting married when not doing so benefits them financially at the expense of their partner.

For goodness sake do the registry office marriage. You can have a big celebration later if you both want one, but marriage takes care of all the big issues in one sweep.

At the moment, you have no financial protection should you split up.

If he died, you could be cut out of the funeral arrangements- that happened to a MNetter after a long, long relationship. You also wouldn't have any right to his death benefits.

You and his children need you to be married for all sorts of boring but essential reasons!

Others have already suggested it but DH and I put our salaries into a joint account which pays for the mortgage, bills, a mobile phone and car each (and petrol). We each have our own bank accounts that we send an equal amount of "spending money" to.

We get the same amount of spending money regardless of who earns more. At the moment it's me, previously I earned a lot more while DH went back to uni for a year. In the future DH will likely be the breadwinner as he now has a career with good prospects and we're TTC so I might go back to work part time after maternity. It works really well, neither of us ever feels we have a higher financial burden or less security.

My God.

@Flouts1

So let me get this right Your not married Your not on the deeds You work part time You feel like you don’t have enough money but your DP has plenty and you have to ask for money

Your DP owns the house
He is self employed
He benefits from the childcare you do at home on the days your not at work

Trust me he knows exactly what he is doing
He is protecting his interest in his house
He’s not stupid he has a live in housekeeper childminder cleaned & cook and someone to share his bed with .
And it’s not costing him anything because he would have to pay to live somewhere

If you question him about the house getting married or going on the deeds I bet he will get defensive
If he does then you know he is completely aware of what your position is and I expect he won’t budge on it

If you split up at the moment you walk away with nothing apart from what is yours
He’s self employed so don’t count on child support
Honestly I really wish schools could teach some of this shit to kids
You have literally no more rights to anything he has than a complete stranger in the street would

Great post.

I cannot believe how utterly naive some women are on here.

Somehow these men ALWAYS manage to pay the morgage.

FFS wake up🙄

What I hate is the ‘lol - aren’t I silly’ tone. Urgh.

Why are these types mostly always self employed

Christ some lovely replies on here think I get the point

I have just done your calculations and based on all our bills etc I am paying just shy of £200 less than I should!! Haha

So if your paying £800, plus personal bills.. and that’s 200 under 27%, that takes your total bills to approx £4000 a month on a 55k salary?

Anyway surely that can’t be right. Personally I’d put all money into a joint account and split the difference. Oh and get on the mortgage ASAP. Hopefully it works out for you

@giraffes2021

Christ some lovely replies on here think I get the point

I think the replies are from people who are generally worried that you could end up in a really really shit situation if you don’t do something about it. If it stays like it is you might have another child become more dependent on your DP and then in 20 years time you split and you have fuck all and your DP has a fully paid for house.

We don’t know you but probably most of us have seen exactly the same scenario posted pretty much every day😂
I swear instead of schools teaching about gender and being able to change your sex it wound be far more beneficial to explain stuff like what a marriage really means and the plus and downside of it legally about the importance of having a Will if you have children or a house
Oh and also teach about compound interest that probably more important than getting married 😂😂

I hope your partner understands how vulnerable and disadvantaged you are because of your set up it really truly only benefits him at the moment .

If you ask him to get married or put on the deeds of his house and he gets defensive or try’s to put you off or similar then you know he’s is absolutely 100 percent aware of what he is doing and he doesn’t care
It may not have been something he deliberately did but in all honesty if I were him I wouldn’t be adding my partner to the deeds or getting married if I thought I could potentially lose everything at a later stage

@Beautifulday345 it's more like around 3.5k a month when we add it all up that's nursery being 800 a month at least for 2 then food house cars etc.

@Flouts1 well we've spoken tonight I've told him how I feel he said he completely understands, said we will look into getting wills drawn up/joint account - thing is I want to get married and I think he does too (just not asked yet ha) and I would like it to be a nice small affair we just can't afford that right now and I know people saying just go and get married but I'm not going to force him to marry me right now incase he fucks off as it's nice to be asked!