AIBU to still be icing out DP?

[Lei8133]

long post warning
So… DP and I go halves on everything household related i.e. Rent (R), Council Tax (CT), electric, etc. The rent is paid monthly via my account and DP (volunteered) is responsible for paying the CT monthly. At the beginning of each month DP will deposit half the R money less half the CT into my account along with half of any other expenses due etc. Last week we received a letter from the council stating that the Council tax was overdue by £832… usually DP collects the post, but on the occasion I happened to do it.
Now as I opened the letter and started reading it obviously I was shocked and said something like “Wtf!” Because given that DP deducts takes half the CT money from the R each month I assumed it was an error. Anyways DP comes over snatches the letter out of my hand and joins in with the confusion. Anyway, I know DP always makes a note of the payment ref when CT is paid so I asked to see this, just to confirm it was an error, so that I could build ammo for my letter/call to the council to complain…. Right, so now when DP gets me the CT bill, he’s going over it and saying “oh, I must have forgotten to pay it… there’s a gap there and there. Oh, I must have messed up” or something to that effect. It transpires that he had failed to pay the CT 4x; Aug, Sept, Dec and Jan…?!?!??

Naturally I was and am pissed and I can’t face talking to him. He apologised and gave me some bs about “not understanding” how it happened?!?! Thing is this is the second time he has messed me up financially… Dec 2020 he was unable to cover his half of the R!!?!?!

He’s not great with money, but has gotten a tad better with my help… however I think what has upset me the most is the fact that he basically stole £400 off from me and has allowed me to potentially get in shit when effectively I paid my half. Plus the fact that he can’t even explain to me what he did with the extra cash he obviously had…

He has said he would sort it out and has set up a payment plan to clear the debt, but I just can’t face talking to him yet, it’s really upset me. It makes me feel like he doesn’t care about me or our child if he can easily put us in jeopardy like that… AIBU?

Can't believe how many posters are blaming you OP for not arranging all the finances ... seriously? You need a partner you can rely on, who is an adult and not one who expects to have no responsibility. People who are crap with money can either learn to became financially astute or deal with their own messes IMO.

I once paid £2 council tax less than was due because of a typing error in my banking app. Within a week I had a bright red default letter. I find it very hard to believe this was the first letter, in which case he must have known before this that he was in default.

I would dig further on this OP I can’t believe it is as straightforward as he is claiming.

OP I had a similar situation years ago. I demanded to know from then DP where the hell my money was, he did what your DP is doing and minimised, feigned confusion and carried on lying to me. I left him for it.
Unless you can get to the bottom of what happened to your money and your DP is HONEST about it, leave him.

@LIZS

So where is the money and how has he sorted it? £832 does not really match with four missing payments and the outstanding balance to March unless you are in a small property. Clearly you no longer trust him to do as he commits and until he demonstrates he has not squandered the money you cannot move forwards.

I was also confused about this comment. Our council tax is about £110 pm, so £832 is about 7/8 months worth for a 2 bed semi. We don't even particularly live in a cheap area for council tax.

Some areas of London are famously cheap, less than £1k pa for a band D property. So £832 could quite easily be the rest of the year's bill even when significant in arrears.

I would be exceptionally pissed off about this. But you don't have the luxury of not being able to face talking about it. It needs discussing.

Something very similar has just happened to a close family member in America. It turns out that the husband has not paid the rent, that the car (which was in our family member's name and she thought was fully paid off and was just at the garage for repairs) had been repossessed...and that's just the start of it. Their child had been in hospital and had not been covered by health insurance - although was supposed to have protected by the father's insurance, but the father had stopped paying.

The father is very loving and hands on. Nobody had the least suspicion. It all came to light at the weekend. Now we are finding out about court cases being filed and goodness knows what else.

If you take on all the financial work for your family do ask yourself what it means for the trust you have for your partner. Can your partner get into financial mess or distress that would affect the family and drag you all down even though you are looking after the family affairs?

Mess can be cleared up - but broken trust is a huge issue. Please go carefully with that one. The ability to deceive, to deceive again and again and to put you and your family at risk is enormous.

For our family member there will be divorce, possibly even police involvement. In other cases, with genuine remorse and and long term transparent, consistent work to rebuild then perhaps some situations can be salvaged. My personal suspicion is that these situations are incredibly rare. Just brushing the problem aside and making the innocent partner take on all the work is not likely to be successful.

Really wishing you all the best. I don't wish you the pain our beloved family member is experiencing.