Should all be 50--50 ? Is this fair ?

[financesplitting]

So I'll try to be a bit precise but also a bit vague, as to not be too outing.

My husband and I own all major assets 50-50. We've always put down the exact same amount of deposits on our house and flat / cars etc.

I used to make more money than my husband for a while, but he's overtaken me and I'm also currently on maternity leave, so my pay packet is a smaller than usual, as I don't get commission, just my base salary.

The situation is as follows- I feel like I pay for a lot of our day to day expenses- all food shopping pretty much, nappies, children's clothes, take aways usually, all cleaning stuff.

My husband tends to pay for stuff like tools and kitchen pans occasionally, that kind of stuff.

We pay our mortgage and bills completely 50-50.

We've recently had some work done at our house and he paid quite a bit for that, plus bought some large items like a TV. I also paid for some big stuff, but he paid a bit more than me.

I also pay all of my son's nursery fees since January.

Whenever I bring up that I feel like I pay more stuff than him day to day, he says he also pays for a lot of stuff.

But the fact remains that he's making double what I am making on maternity and I have basically no savings as I spent most of it on the house and I'm unable to save much now due to me paying mortgage, car, nursery fees and basically all food and cleaning. Plus cleaner and Gardner ! I forgot to mention that I pay those too.

I feel like if I bring it up, he'll just count all the extra big ticket items he bought for the house that we didn't split. Is that fair ? Maybe it is .

Why are you paying for his shirts to be ironed?

Hahaha I don't know, do you have any more details ?

He definitely gets annoyed if takeaways are late but I wouldn't call it blowing up. But maybe it was me.

So, he works a 40 hour week.

You are responsible, every single hour of the week for a baby and a toddler, all domestic tasks, including his shirts(!) AND also expected to pay 50% of the bills.

What does he do? Where does his money go? Do you even know what he earns? Where is your lie in? He treats you like a slave.

It's worse than stingy. It's nasty. He's sabotaging your ability to communicate about it and make a plan that is fair.

He works way over 40 hours. He works more like 60 plus hours a week.

I don't know how much he has saved.

It sounds a miserable marriage at the moment the biggest factor is that you aren't a team.

His complaining and nit licking are unacceptable.

If you wrote down how much free time and how much sleep you get versus him who would be getting the most?

Him a little bit more- sleep definitely him. But generally neither of us is having much down time.

*He works way over 40 hours. He works more like 60 plus hours a week.

I don't know how much he has saved*

You still do double his hours.

Do you really know anything about his finances?

Does he have to work 60 hours or is he choosing to.

I.e. is he is a career where 60 hours is absolutely required (like a doctor) or is he is a career where he doesn't have to work 60 hours but if he doesn't do so it may damage his career expectations.

Because if it is the latter then he has expected you to damage your career expectations with two maternity leaves, so its about time having children actually impacted him as well.

I don't know how much he has saved

That's not ok. You should both know exactly how much money the family earns and how much is saved (be it accounts, shares, pensions, etc). The content of accounts should be transparent to you both. Again, this is basic family life.

In the (in your situation quite likely) event of divorce, this will all be split between you. If I were you, I would be getting a print out of all financial holdings. So when he tries to hide money from the court, you have proof.

He cannot work less at the moment. It's not a choice in any way.

I know how much he earns.

Oh, and him being paid more/working 60 hours to advance his career is not beneficial to you if you are not a family, financially. His gains are made on your losses.

Far better for you if he earns less, if that gives greater scope to your own earning and career progression. So when maternity leave ends, put your career in the centre again. And this means him reducing hours and paying for childcare.

This man will avoid paying maintenance/hide savings and assets/avoid any childcare responsibilities, if this is how he behaves while you are married and supposedly in love.

What are you getting out of this marriage, OP?

Do you love him? He sounds like a bully with all his complaining at you for not looking after him like his mother. You should leave and see how he likes having to suddenly be a grown up in charge of his own food, cleaning up, laundry etc.

Can you leave for a couple weeks and stay with family? You'd get more help, have a chance to rewind and your child husband might just realize what a huge contribution you make to the house.

Also, can you sit down and look at each other's bank accounts, then ask him if it's fair?! You must be spending around £1500 a month on food, cleaning, gardener, cleaner and nursery fees?! And he thinks buying a TV from time to time compares?! When he earns double? Insane.

You say all assets are owned 50/50, but surely savings are assets too. We have separate savings, to maximise tax allowance but the understanding is that they are jointly owned.
I think that if you don’t have openness about finances how can you plan for the future? How do decisions about holidays and pension contributions and home improvement work if you don’t know what savings you have? There’s a power imbalance here that isn’t fair at all.

Okay so if you want to stay with him then a change of his mindset is needed.

You are equal people and equal parents therefore you should put an equal amount of time into housework, ironing, cooking and childcare.

If he has chosen a career that pays well but doesn't enable him to fulfil his side of the workload he needs to pay to outsource that.

Which means he should be paying 100% for the ironing of his shirts, that should never be your expense.

He should be paying 50% for the cleaner, 50% for the food and takeaways, 50% of the childcare

Otherwise what he is fundamentally saying is that he believes regardless of the fact that you usually work full time (ignoring the dc for second) you are wholly responsible for the housework, cooking and ironing purely based on the fact that you have a vagina and he doesn't. Because the only reason he would expect you to pay 100% is if he believes that ironing his shirts is 100% your responsibility despite you both working full time.

So every time he refuses to pay for these things he is saying 'fuck you I am more important than you'

Whatever you do, do not give up your job. This man is financially abusive and doesn't not see you as an actual human being who is equal to him. I think you are a household appliance/employee to him at the moment.

What would happen if you stopped cooking for him, stopped arranging for, and paying for, his shirts to be ironed, stopped all of those tasks he expects you to do and pointed out that because you work 168 hours a week (because you are 'on call' during the nights) and he only works 60 hours a week, he is now wholly responsible for that stuff.

Because if he is working 60 hours a week, and sleeping 8 hours a day (which is more than you are getting) he still has around 50 hours a week he could be pulling his weight.

Where as if you are say getting 4 hours of sleep a night, and looking after the baby 100% of the rest of the time, he is getting 50 hours and you are getting 0. Doesn't look very 50/50 to me....

To be honest I pretty much despise him since we had children

Surely this is the problem you should be focused on? Yes, your money set up is all kinds of fucked up, but its hardly your only issue

There's two issues here where it's obviously unfair to you:

(1) You aren't contributing to household expenses according to your incomes. Dh and I don't split things 50/50 as our incomes aren't the same. There was a time when I earned more, and now dh earns more. I pay about 1/3 and he pays 2/3. Personally, I'd never just want to have one joint account that all our money goes into. I like having my own money and savings.

(2) Household expenses should come out of the joint account. Things like new pots, children's clothes, food, nursery, medicines for children are household expenses. The only things I pay out of my personal account are things like my car insurance, phone bill, clothes for myself, holidays for myself, a coffee on the way to the train, etc.

If you aren't setting things up this way, yes, you're getting the short end of the stick.

Op. This happened to me too. My lovely husband turned into a ferocious beast. You need to start stockpiling evidence of his income and get rid of him.

This just seems ridiculous! You certainly shouldn't be paying the full nursery bill.

My husband and I pooled are money as soon as we had our first child because its just too complicated any other way. We budget and save every month and spending money is available for both of us regardless of how much we contribute to the pot. Your husband sounds like an idiot honestly if he can't see this is unfair and it sounds like he is gaslighting you. Maybe to get through his skull you need to write it down and show how much you pay monthly vs him and how much spare money you each have. Tell him what's been bought in the past is now irrelevant and things are changing moving forward. Tbh I don't know why you are accepting this behaviour, just tell him it stops now.

@coodawoodashooda sorry to hear that.

He never shouts or anything really. But he always manages to turn everything around to make it my fault / short coming or having done something wrong / made the wrong decisions - apparently I make a lot of wrong decisions according to him !

I'm not sure where to go from here. He's not happy either. It's a battle ground, we argue all the time. He hates his life, because I make it difficult for him by not having everything ready for him / keeping the house like he would like etc. and also complaining that he doesn't spend enough time with us and that I'm on my own with the children a lot. Apparently that's the price you have to pay for success, he says. He also often says that to be successful, men need wives and children that basically leave them to focus on what they need to do career wise. Apparently I am not one of those wives and that makes his life difficult.

I didn't really realise properly and kind of took it as his savings are also my savings I guess, if that makes sense. Because I see it like joint money.

He is happy. He is keeping you down and turning himself into the King of a very unhappy Kingdom where he gets to be the commander. He is accustomising you, slowly, to making you try everything you can to please him. I guarantee you'll never achieve this. By trying to please him he will use all of your actions to find a way to criticise you. He will then offer you breadcrumbs of appreciation which will become smaller and less frequent. You will be so greatful that these breadcrumbs will become glimmers of hope. Its a fkng nightmare op. My xh tried hard to break me and nearly did. You have to quietly line things up and get out while you still see value in yourself. Look up gaslighting, hoovering , breadcrumbing, dog whistling and economic abuse.

He also often says that to be successful, men need wives and children that basically leave them to focus on what they need to do career wise.

@financesplitting the thing is here is that in order to do so there needs to be some compromise and sacrifice. He is asking you to do that as well as at the same time pay 50/50 towards everything.

Those two things cannot co-exist. He cannot have everything. And that is where I think you either need to reach a compromise that works for you both (and doesnt involve you doing all the housework/childcare whilst paying 50/50

Yes some men have those wives but that tends to be where the agreement is that the man earns and the woman is a SAHM - I dont think this is what you want.

For us the decision was made for me to drop down to 3 days a week when DD was born - but that has been as the expense of my career. I havent minded because I still get to work and spend time with the children but I havent been able to further into the more middle management roles.

Or you work a much more 50/50 model where everything (including housework and childcare) is shared 50/50

Personally all 3 when married should have pooled resources and equal spending money but that just my opinion.

Here it seems that so much power has been given to the fact he works 60 hours a week but he isnt giving anything.

I am not sure this is salvageable

OK here's a plan for you:

1. Move the childcare bill, and any other regularly paid bill onto the current joint account. Work out what needs to be paid in and split it fairly. (To me this would be on percentage of earnings that month - so you earn £200 he earns £800 that money then you pay 20% he pays 80%)

1. Set up a second joint account (so that spending on it doesn't interfere with the mortgage getting paid) estimate a figure for food, TV replacement, carpet or whatever else has been bought in the last 3/6 months and both pay into that. All household/ baby/ todder/ food etc costs then come out of that. When it runs out you either agree to top it up fairly or stop spending that month. That should even out the finances AND allow you to recoup some savings. (I would also expect him to transfer half of nursery costs paid so far back to you).

1. Look at the household chores, the childcare, his working hours and balance things up. Add up how much time you spend in a week actively doing something with or for the kids, how much on household chores etc. You need to be careful with this to reflect the truth whilst making it believable to him. So e.g. if toddler is at nursery and baby is having a nap and you spend 15 mins chatting to a friend I wouldn't count this (there is an argument to count it as you are still responsible for baby), but if instead you spend that 15 mins putting on a wash etc then of course it counts as household time. When you have this figure, alongside his working+commuting time then you need to balance. He can take his share himself or HE can pay to outsource - his choice but not your responsibility to pay (not a joint expense - especially if he insisted on 50/50 for joint accounts).

tbh though, the fact that you are here, that you have been posting for some time and your mum is trying to protect you says you should probably be looking to get out, rather than balancing with this 'great lord manchild'.