To be annoyed at partner's seeming obsession with money?!

[anonljs]

NC for this.

Title is probably not the best but I don't know how else to express what I'm trying to say, and it honestly feels this way to me...

Partner and I want to book holiday for August. He will need to work some overtime shifts between now and then for us to afford to save for it. We've worked out the minimum number of shifts we need him to work in order to comfortably pay the bills and have extra for holiday - it will include working an extra weekend every month (we have worked out that if he works just one extra weekend plus extends other mid week shifts, we can meet the target we need for holiday). His contracted hours already include EOW, so we only have 2 weekends a month as a family anyway. With the overtime we would have just one weekend a month, but we accepted this as a short term sacrifice for the holiday.

He now wants to work all weekends a month including extending mid week shifts until 9pm in some instances. I also work almost FT hours, so this already adds pressure to me in terms of all childcare falling to me after work until 9pm, on top of losing every weekend of family time for 2 months. I'm not happy with this and I think he's taking it too far. We need some sort of balance. If he does this we won't have a day off together at all in the next 10 weeks until the holiday.

For context, from our approximate calculations, we are talking about the difference between a take home pay of around £2,900 versus £3,300. If he took home the lower amount, added to my salary too, we would still be well on target for holiday plus a little bit extra. I think he's lost sight of the goal and is now just trying to bring home as much as possible, but at the expense of family time and our relationship, which is equally if not more important to me than money.

AIBU??

@Octomore

I'd honestly be happy with a campsite / caravan type U.K. holiday. Just need to convince DP that this would be equally as lovely!

Yes I've pointed out that this plan involves him doing zero parenting and funnily enough he doesn't see that as a problem. 🙄

To be fair you are giving him mixed messages. You currently live with the agreement that he regularly work a few overtime shifts to pay day to day bills, causing less family time and less parenting, so that you are living “comfortably” and not struggling. Then you’ve mutually agreed he should work even more overtime to fund a holiday abroad (objectively a luxury), resulting in hardly any family time and hardly any parenting by him.

You’ve reached your limit when he now has suggested he temporarily work for two months as much overtime as humanely possible resulting in no family time and zero parenting. That’s ok you’ve reached your limit, but it’s been a pattern in your partnership that he is the one expected to work more than FT to fund the family’s extra wants. In this situation, he wants the holiday abroad, you’re happy with a cheaper U.K. holiday. So, from his perspective he may feel that it’s ok with you to have him work all this overtime to fund something you want for yourself or the DC, but not when it’s something he really wants. That’s a bit unfair tbh.

Since he really wants a holiday abroad, I’d not dismiss that but instead defer to say next year and have a realistic plan in place to save up for it. I think too that you might want to wean yourselves off depending on him regularly working overtime to fund life’s extras. You’ve both not prioritised him spending time with the family or parenting before, so it is understandable that he thinks its not his priority either.

Personally I wouldn't book a holiday without having enough in savings to pay for it in full at the time of booking (even if I still paid on a credit card to get the added protection).

I get that we all make different financial decisions, but as you asked.

@Discovereads

That's not true, not even close.

From my point of view it's always been a priority to have him home for family time as much as possible. There is a minimum number of hours overtime that would enable us to be comfortable each month - both of us have always been on board with that. But I'm the only one of the two of us who sees the need for balance, ie. yes, I accept the need for some^^ overtime, but I also see the need for him to be home so we can be a family, too. In other words I value both the money and his time and presence at home. There's a "sweet spot" where that balance us struck each month, and thus far we've been able to find it.

With the holiday talk, he's tipped the balance too far imo. We again found the new "sweet spot" (it means more hours at work of course and less at home which has been accepted by both of us as necessary), but he has unilaterally decided he is going to work more than that.

I'm not sure how I've given mixed messages. My message has always been : "I accept that you need to work extra on some weekends and evenings, but please can we ensure it doesn't reach a point of you never being home and us never having family time". My message is still the same as that, regardless of the holiday.

Be careful if booking your holiday through a travel agent on your credit card - I think there's something about the section 75 protection not being valid if booked through a third party.
Also make sure you take out travel insurance as soon as you book. Things can easily go wrong before you travel.

@Discovereads

You'll also note that I say "zero parenting". I was never happy with "zero parenting". I was happy with reduced parenting, yes - I accepted I'd be doing slightly more at home on the agreed overtime shifts. But to be doing absolutely everything single-handedly at home for 2 entire months, all evenings and weekends, around my own job? No. I was never happy with that. That's why I simply don't agree at all that I've given mixed messages.

@Solmum1964

Thank you for the tip. 😊

Im probably not being clear and I apologise for that. By “mixed messages” I mean that you both have a partnership which has always prioritised his work over family/parenting time. You talk about balance, but a true balance where work and family time are of equal priority is generally FT work vs Substantial evening and weekend parenting/family time.

Under normal circumstances, you both have agreed on FT + some overtime vs less parenting/family time. This fundamentally prioritises work over family time/parenting. It’s not balanced despite you calling it a balance and the sweet spot. It’s unbalanced in favour of him earning more money for the family.

Then you’ve both agreed to unbalance things even further by him working FT + more overtime vs hardly any family time/parenting for the holiday.

I agree you were never happy with his suggestion to unbalance things even further where family time/parenting goes to zero. I’m not saying you were ever happy with this extreme end result. It’s just that his working OT has been a constant pattern of being higher priority than his family/parenting time in the relationship. You’ve been on this slippery slope a long time of deprioritising his family/parenting time in favour of working more than FT and his suggestion, while the illogical extreme was almost inevitably going to happen at some point because wants (unlike needs) tend to mushroom.

@Discovereads

I take your point but I disagree with this part:

You’ve been on this slippery slope a long time of deprioritising his family/parenting time in favour of working more than FT

We haven't really, because our child is only 1 and I was on maternity leave until quite recently. So I didn't notice until very recently how little time we get all together as a family and how stressful it is trying to keep everything running at home by myself a lot of the time, whilst also working myself. It's only come to light in recent months how hard it is to have him home so little, and I've tried to tell him this on multiple occasions but it results in arguments about us "needing the money" (even if we are Ok on fewer hours of his OT). I've tried to get him to see my POV in terms of how hard it is to have him absent so often at work, and he doesn't see it - he remains focused on us "needing the money".

In other words, we may be at the start of the slippery slope you describe, but it's not for want of trying on my part. Essentially, I want him home more than he wants to be home. If we were less financially "comfortable", well... it's something I'd have to accept if it meant he was home more and we had family time.

I would be more worried that the current flight cancellations and problems would still be there in August, OP.

Could be wise to avoid this year if you haven't already booked.

YABU.
It's already June, and it'll be mid-June before you actually commit to anywhere. I can imagine that most decent places are already long since booked up. You've left it very last minute to organise a holiday that you can't already afford.

Personally I'd just book something now that you CAN afford, without all the overtime. And next year start saving and organising yourselves a little bit sooner.

Plus, as all this extra work is falling on your DP, I don't think it's unreasonable of him to decide when/what hours he'll work to pay for this holiday that I assume you both want.

Plus, as all this extra work is falling on your DP, I don't think it's unreasonable of him to decide when/what hours he'll work to pay for this holiday that I assume you both want.

And the extra work that it adds to my shoulders by default, because I'm single-handedly doing the childcare for our child whilst running the household? Is that not also relevant? Why do I not get a say in any of it, when this is the case?

Fucks sake why did you post? Honestly you both sound shit with money given your incomes. If you wanted to post about him not getting his hands dirty with family life then fair enough but you've just clouded it with some convoluted issue where it's obvious you need to maximise earnings in a short space of time.

It sounds like he's keen for a holiday, but not at the cost of his peace of mind - which is what getting into debt would cause him.

Things change, jobs get lost/redundancies happen (which also might be why he's so keen to be seen as a hard worker - less likely to be the one who gets selected for the chop), spouses start taking out credit that can't be paid off in a month and then something else happens, like Covid did for many.

But working to have the money in the bank beforehand would make it possible for him to breathe more easily - no thousands of pounds on a credit card racking up interest, freedom to use the card in the case of emergencies because it's not already maxed about, that kind of thing.

Contrary to what some people including my ex who got himself into thousands of pounds of debt on credit cards think, a holiday is not a fundamental human right or entitlement. It's a treat that comes when you have spare money knocking around. A lot of spare money. (About £1000/week in spending/petrol/parking but not clothes, suitcases or anything else that you'd need to buy in advance based upon a holiday in the rain a caravan that cost £350 for a week in 2003). He's not going to be able to relax and enjoy a holiday costing thousands if he's worrying about how it's going to be paid off, particularly as minimum payments mean the debt never, ever goes away.

He's got good reason to be anxious - you're taking a risk on there being the money to pay for it afterwards and there's children to consider. He knows what it's like to be financially screwed and doesn't want to go back there as a result of your 'innocence'/self belief that it'll all be fine. And it's putting extra pressure on him that he probably doesn't need.

Maybe it would be better to say you'll book for next summer when you've had the chance to save more?

@ChateauxNeufDePoop

Jesus Christ, aggressive much?!

And it's literally there in my OP (about him being involved in family life! It's 2 sides of the same coin: the more her works, the less he's home to help out and be part of family life!

Here's the relevant paragraph from my OP to help you:

"He now wants to work all weekends a month including extending mid week shifts until 9pm in some instances. I also work almost FT hours, so this already adds pressure to me in terms of all childcare falling to me after work until 9pm, on top of losing every weekend of family time for 2 months. I'm not happy with this and I think he's taking it too far. We need some sort of balance. If he does this we won't have a day off together at all in the next 10 weeks until the holiday.*"
*
How about you go and be unnecessarily aggressive on someone else's thread?

@NeverDropYourMooncup

That's a balanced and reasonable post, thanks.

I'm not sure about the "innocence" remark - wasn't sure what you were getting at with that.

But the rest is food for thought, thanks.

If you're sailing this close to the wind now I'd open another account and put holiday money in it. Then when you have 3k saved book the holiday.

I'm planning ahead with the strong feeling food and utility costs are going to romp away this winter so we're going to book a last minute break discounted in September maybe

@justasking111

DP's holidays are set by his work, so we only have August this year as an option (or December over Christmas time).

That you don't appear to have an appreciation of just how wrong things can go - whereas he knows to his cost (literally) - or of how destructive it can be to have those worries in your head all of the time.

Your belief (possibly because you've never experienced the contrary) is that you'll just be able to pay it off over a couple of months afterwards and it's not a problem if you can only afford to make the minimum payments for a bit until then - but his experience is that it can snowball until everything falls apart.

Perhaps his ex was very much a 'it's not a problem, the minimum payments are covered and it's only for a couple of months, you're obsessed with money instead of living' - you are not his ex, but his experience has been that the odd thing adds up, then there could be a missed payment, then fees, then letters...it takes a huge leap of faith once you've been stung once to hear the same things from somebody else. And there are no guarantees in life where jobs or health are concerned - nobody expected lockdowns that would leave entire industries dormant for months. Fuel bills are increasing, food is becoming more expensive, council tax is going up, interest rates and rents are increasing - he knows how finances can turn sour even before Covid or Brexit impacts fully hit.

It's probably nice to have that belief that everything will be OK - but not if it is at the cost of somebody else's sanity, which is what wondering whether you'll still be able to make the rent at the end of the month could be doing to him.

The sleep of a person who knows the bills can be paid and the children will be fed even if they end up out of work tomorrow is something I think you can only truly appreciate if you've been in the situation where they can't.

A friend who works in the public sector is an optimist money wise. Her OH who isn't in a safe profession is much more cautious. It does cause friction

I had that thought as well. A friend of mine went away to Spain, due to return home this morning, but their flights have been cancelled. Cannot get another flight home until Thursday. Her two children will miss 4 days of school, and she and her partner will miss 4 days of work.

OP, there's no telling what travel will be like in August, but it's worth thinking about if your DP's company picks his holidays and then you're stuck abroad.

If your take home each month is 2.5k, you’re on about 40k, right? That’s not an insignificant salary.

At the risk of being hugely patronising, it might be time to sit down and assess your finances and expenditure.

The whole thing sounds absolutely mad to me.
We went away for two nights once to a b and b to the sea because we couldn't afford anything else that year.
However, we started to save really small amounts that year on top to give us more money for the following year.
That was a good decade ago.
Now we have more money for holidays ( not vast amounts) and we would not spend that much on a holiday?

Personally I would simply go somewhere much cheaper that you can afford without this crazy scarifice of time.
And start to also save incrementally for next year and again, do something you can afford without punishing yourselves like this.

I'd suggest , you forget this holiday, simply do something low key and cheaper here or drive abroad.

Wait for easy jet flight for next year and book somewhere then, all inclusive? ! So incredibly expensive. .
Book flights when they are first released and then look for accmd after.
Self catering, some times eat out, cook in..take it in turns.

47k. I have pension & student loan deductions taken off too.

But yes, perhaps we can make some cut backs somewhere!