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AIBU?

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Original poster

Is it DH or me? (money matters)

198 replies

Alwaysforgiving · 24/02/2022 07:29

My DH and I have been together for 5 years. Over all this time there had been a real lack of transparency of what happens with his salary/money. He has children from a previous marriage. Throughout all of this year's, I've been the one paying most of the household bills. The percentage has varied through the years, but the best we ever got was about 60/40. I've always put all of my salary and my trust money in the joint account (big mistake) and he's always put in whatever he's been able to at the time. Also through the years, I've covered big expenses. I bought him a car (with my savings) and thanks to my savings and my family's help we've been able to get our mortgage for our first house and then for our current home. In the past, he's misused my credit card, and has lied about his personal finance situation (mainly being out of his overdraft). Over all of these years I've always wondered what does he actually does to his money and raised my concerns every now and then and things have improved but never to the full transparency that I would want. So we've reached a breaking point and I've told him the household would pay for his debts but he most close his current account, but he didn't want to close said account. I took his feedback and then suggested the household would pay for his overdraft, he keeps his joint account, we start getting paper statements (for transparency) and his salary gets paid to the joint account. I think considering everything I've done, and his constant lying for a year he still got a decent deal. To which he said that he didn't want that to happen because he wanted to pay CM from his account (as matter of dignity) and he'd transfer the rest. I said that didn't give me the transparency I wanted and I still had to rely on him transferring his salary. Then I lost it as I couldn't comprehend how he had the pizzazz to "voice his opinion" in a matter that quite frankly I've had enough. Thanks for reading!

OP posts:
Merryoldgoat · 24/02/2022 11:27

We’ll I think paying a third of our goings is too much given he doesn’t bring in a third of the income.

The other way round and everyone would be outraged.

dworky · 24/02/2022 11:28

You live in an environment of financial abuse & you need to escape it.

BluebellsGreenbells · 24/02/2022 11:28

What does he do with the children?

Does he see them, take them out, buy them treats?

SallyMcNally · 24/02/2022 11:40

@Alwaysforgiving

Because he gets paid weekly (and they have no sick pay so it varies widely when he's off), I never have any clue about his salary.

He only pays £200 CM, and he's paid at most about £1200 in 4 weeks.

During those 4 weeks, his actual salary would be closer to 1550, so what he does to those £150? And this is this year.... Last year he would only contribute with £1000, so what did he do with those £300?

I actually don't think this is super unreasonable. I mean you have a massive salary disparity. Assuming he is paying into some sort of pension which would reduce his take home pay then a couple of hundred pounds of personal spends doesn't seem that outrageous.

How much do you live to your income level rather than his. I know that you spend more but presumably if he was alone he wouldn't have such an expensive house/holidays/lifestyle. How much does he push for this rather than you? Ask yourself if you are pushing him to live beyond his means and then resenting it? Do you quibble with him over purchases made from the joint pot so he doesn't feel like he has autonomy over his personal spends?

I would hate to have all spending come from joint account as I would feel like I was being judged on everything- even though our income is joint we have our personal accounts separate and transfer our spending money there from joint account.

I do think that paying all income into a central pot and then dividing fair spending money might work better. You would both have a degree of privacy over what you want to spend your own budget on and the freedom to spend it all on coffees/lunch out or save for luxury purchases.

As someone in a relationship with a (smaller) salary disparity which is likely to grow much bigger over time I am very conscious that when we make decisions based on joint income they are not the choices I would make alone. If we decide to go on big holiday somewhere/ eat in a fancy restaurant that I couldn't afford solo that's great but if he wasn't happy to make up the difference I would be happy with a week self catering in Spain/ Nando's/whatever was in my means. I would be really sad if it transpired he was resenting me for things he had encouraged me to do.

BluebellsGreenbells · 24/02/2022 11:45

You would both have a degree of privacy over what you want to spend your own budget on and the freedom to spend it all on coffees/lunch out or save for luxury purchases

But he doesn’t have that - he has typically £200 a month spare money that OP wants to know what he’s spent it on.

It’s this £200 she wants transparency on, not the £1500 that goes into the joint pot / CM

Pinkpantslady · 24/02/2022 11:49

Hi
I can only imagine your frustration. I am very sensible with money ! My husband who is much older is not ! After we got engaged I found out he had 30k debts !!!!! Once he took his head out of the sand and I helped him sort his finances
( CM , car loan , credit cards ) he cleared the £30k in 4 years . Now we have a spread sheet with all of our outgoings !!!!! The only thing I don’t contribute to is CM.
Other than that we have every outgoing written down and we pay those ! DH pays CM. We. It’s know what we have to spend !
At certain times I felt angry he had debts as it left us with less disposable income which meant I had to work FT after DS1 but the fact he is fully transparent and asked for Joint account to help him made me feel secure and safe .

I’m sorry but there is no way I would bail/ support fund a fully grown man who refuses to be transparent with me .

Take a step back and re read your OP as if you were talking to a dear friend . You would see red flags a mile off.

Pinkpantslady · 24/02/2022 11:52

People can make mistakes and get in debt ( I did at 18 and learnt a hard lesson ) but what you can’t do it expect someone to bail out . He is also showing a complete lack of respect by showing you transparency ! I’m sorry OP but he is having his cake and eating it .

Original poster
Alwaysforgiving · 24/02/2022 11:53

He's actually the bigger spender of the two.

OP posts:
Cocomarine · 24/02/2022 11:53

Having his cake and eating it, yes.
But don’t forget it’s OP paying for said cake too!

worriedatthemoment · 24/02/2022 12:06

@Totalwasteofpaper he makes 26 k not 75 thats the op
He couldn't put in 2k as he doesn't being that home

SallyMcNally · 24/02/2022 12:07

@BluebellsGreenbells

You would both have a degree of privacy over what you want to spend your own budget on and the freedom to spend it all on coffees/lunch out or save for luxury purchases

But he doesn’t have that - he has typically £200 a month spare money that OP wants to know what he’s spent it on.

It’s this £200 she wants transparency on, not the £1500 that goes into the joint pot / CM

I know! I think it's a bit controlling at the moment and I suspect that is why he wants to keep back a little bit for himself. It's basically £50 a week
worriedatthemoment · 24/02/2022 12:08

Surely the easiest way is you divide the bills etc equally taking salary into account as big differences , my dh puts more into bills than me as i earn around £10000 less
Maybe also a set amount for savings as well so you don't have to buy cars etc just out of your wages
Then what each of you have left is your spending and thats up to you what you spend on I don't think that can be dictated , I wouldn't be happy if my dh queried my purchases unless it was from family money/ savings

Original poster
Alwaysforgiving · 24/02/2022 12:13

I don't get to keep that £200, I literally out absolutely everything into the family pot, and that was this year. It took 4 years to get to this point..before that he'd keep up.to £1000 and still be in debt.

OP posts:
Original poster
Alwaysforgiving · 24/02/2022 12:20

The other kids live with us about 50-40% of the time, all of their expenses come from the joint pot.

OP posts:
PaddlingLikeADuck · 24/02/2022 12:22

This is so confusing.

So is it a case if you both get £80 a month for personal spends and everything else goes into a joint account?

So he has his £80 but he also keeps £200 of his wage to himself, whereas you don’t, and you don’t know what he’s spending it on?

RealBecca · 24/02/2022 12:24

I'm not trying to antagonize you but you're being quite controlling about making sure he isnt creaming a small amount off the top and I think it's because its easier for you to deal with that than to deal with the far bigger issues.

You appear to have tunnel vision and think that by doing it this way means you'll be back in control and it will solve the issues.

It wont.

Your solution ignores that he isnt a solvent partner.

I had a boyfriend once, together 7 years, and in the end I saw through his deflection and that the issues upsetting me were representative of a bigger problems. It was a living example of being able to take a horse to water but cant make it drink. For example, I'd get shitty that he would organise a trip to go to the pub with friends because he say he couldn't afford to go out or do anything with me. Id bring it up and he would tell me I was being controlling so
would drop it and ignore that he was capable of organising things, he just didn't want to with me. He was showing me who he was. We were in the end stage of our relationship but after 7 years wasted I didn't want to see it.

Does any of that ring true? It seems like you are fighting about this £150 you think hes syphoning off, he says you're being controlling and actually you're bankrolling a huge amount of his lifestyle and he is acting resentful.

SallyMcNally · 24/02/2022 12:25

That I can see if frustrating. And I'm not saying he sounds like a prince among men don't get me wrong! But I do wonder if you would both be happier if you arranged things differently so that you could both have a degree of independent money.

What are your outgoings? Do you put any money into savings?

I would say you should-

Work out bills/joint expenses and pay proportionate to income
Save proportionately for a holiday/Christmas/rainy day fund
Put money proportionately into longer term investments
Work out what's left over and assign a fair amount for personal spends each month which you can keep in your own accounts.

You could either do this by putting all income in together and transferring it back to personal accounts or working out what needs to be transferred in so that you both have personal spends left over.

You would need to decide if you are going to count his income before or after maintenance and how to work out what to do if he is off sick etc.

Also I think you should encourage him to increase his earning potential if possible. Can he look for new jobs, retrain or is there space for progress in his current role?

Ultimately though if you are really unhappy then you don't have to stay with him. Do what's best for you and your baby.

Original poster
Alwaysforgiving · 24/02/2022 12:26

@PaddlingLikeADuck

This is so confusing.

So is it a case if you both get £80 a month for personal spends and everything else goes into a joint account?

So he has his £80 but he also keeps £200 of his wage to himself, whereas you don’t, and you don’t know what he’s spending it on?

Yes basically! All I know is that he's acrued more debts even though I've paid them in the past. And I've always put all of my salary in and have never kept any to myself (even when I was on a much lower salary, and I needed to do it that way because we couldn't cover our bills otherwise) and he never has.
OP posts:
MacaroniBaloney · 24/02/2022 12:27

^^ as above but he also is still in debt with over draft and loan.

Op yiu need a sit down convo and review last 3 months to see where his money goes.

Original poster
Alwaysforgiving · 24/02/2022 12:29

That's basically what we agreed on this past December/January. And I was fine/ok with that for the most part. Until I figured out that he'd been lying about his finances for the past year.

OP posts:
MacaroniBaloney · 24/02/2022 12:31

I'd also divert my trust fund into a seperate account so he can't spend itxand revise all budgets to live off actual earnings too.

And only have one joint account.

Otherwise I'd have to split. He's going to beed you dry and get into nore debt otherwise.

BarbaraofSeville · 24/02/2022 12:38

I don't think putting everything into the family pot and then spending on personal items from there is doing you any good OP.

I agree that it sounds like your DH has an overspending issue, but I think it would be a lot easier to agree a personal spending budget, separate that money, and then both of you spend/save it as you see fit.

If you don't spend all yours, just save it in your name. Don't put it back in the pot, because it sounds like you have a reasonable amount of spare money, so I don't think it's necessary for spending to be restricted as much as you're trying to do.

Could you have decided what is a reasonable amount for personal spends based on what you want/need, and you're trying to restrict him to that amount, even though you can afford a lot more?

BarbaraofSeville · 24/02/2022 12:45

And I've always put all of my salary in and have never kept any to myself

But why are you doing this when you don't need to any more?

You say all your outgoings are around £3k, and your income must be way above that. You must have enough spare money to save a decent amount and take more than £2-300 pm in personal money?

Original poster
Alwaysforgiving · 24/02/2022 12:58

We've always struggled (to an extent) so we still need to pull the money to furnish the house, update our cars, her life insurance, etc... I think we still have a couple of years left until we can actually start saving money

OP posts:
worriedatthemoment · 24/02/2022 13:02

So stop putting it all in the family pot and just put a fair share in each ( yours will obviously be a bit more ) for all bills and also a separate savings then keep the other money at least you will have some to yourself as well
If you earn 75 k and him 26 k and outgoings are 3 k you will have money left

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