To think this is unfair or should I just accept it as I’m an adult too?

[Shortslothdancing]

I had some time out of work when my children were little as a sahm (biggest regret ever) and I’ve gone back to work in the last couple of years, 25 hours a week. I pick up about £1100 a month. Not great.
DH picks up (after tax) approx £5500 a month, he has a company car, a petrol card and a work mobile phone. Although he pays tax on those benefits. We don’t have a mortgage but he does cover the bills from his wages - around £1800 a month, including some of the food bill.
From my £1100 I pay for my phone, my petrol (I still do all the schools runs and taking the kids to clubs etc), my road tax / insurance, about £250 a month of food, kids’ clothes, birthday / Christmas presents (obviously an annual cost, but I try and save a bit each month) and the childcare bill for wrap around - it’s not that much, usually about £60 a month.
phone - £45
petrol - £200
tax / insurance - £50
food - £250
saving for birthdays and Christmas - £50
childcare - £60
clothes for children - varies but I usually allow approx £50 a month as one child is now a teenager and there are three of them.

pocket money for all three dc - £80
This comes to around £800 leaving me about £300 a month. DH is now refusing to pay for school lunches for oldest dc. Two younger ones have sandwiches. The oldest likes to get lunch with his mates at school. This is about £15 a week, so it’ll be another £60 a month.

this will leave me with about £240. I’m sure that is loads to a lot of people at the moment and I probably shouldn’t be complaining but it feels unfair that I am tracking every leftover penny vs DH with his £3.5k left after household bills.
I do all the housework and childcare even though I work 25 hours.
yanbu - yes it’s unfair
yabu - you’re an adult and responsible for yourself and should increase your hours / work harder / take a second job and count yourself lucky that you are overall in a fortunate financial situation.

Who is making the sandwiches?

This.

OP are you still on the thread?

Where does the other £3.5k he's left with go? Is that literally disposable income? Is he saving/investing any of it?

Typically it would be the case that all money gets pooled together into a joint account, then each of you gets an amount for yourselves to spend, and savings etc are taken from the pooled money - decided on together. Do you sit down together and talk about finances? Can you do this?

The alternative is to have a joint account for bills + expenses (including child costs). You then each pay in proportionate to your earnings. So if DH is making 5/6ths of the household income, he'd then transfer 5/6ths of the household costs into the joint account. You then cover the other 1/6th as you make around 1/6th of the household income. But this arrangement isn't necessarily the best one, given that it doesn't take into account your contributions in the form of time, labour, career stalling, etc.

Either way, the situation you're in isn't right.

What are you going to do OP?

This has obviously been going on for many years as the OP states she was ‘properly poor’ as a SAHM, the youngest is a teen and the ‘DH’ was quite happy to see her suffer and go without for all those years. It is unlikely to change now the OP has a bit of income herself.

The not wanting to pay for the teens lunches is obviously the OPs tipping point. Does your teen know? He must have noticed you struggling with money while his Dad has lots when you were a SAHM?

This awful man has no respect of love for you OP. He sees you as a chattel, there to be his maid, provide sex and the image of a family.

Now you have a small amount of independence with your job which will hopefully be a starting point, cut the bastard loose and be sure to have copies of all the financial docs including his pension and savings before you tell him you want him gone.

Are you afraid of him? Would he become abusive? Try to get advice from somewhere like Women’s Aid while you are planning your escape.

Sorry but this is disgusting! You are a family, all money should go in one pot and be equally for both! You are a team. He is a cunt.

The value she provides is at a minimum equal to the hourly wage she'd be paid if she worked full time and had an uninterrupted career track. Non of this minimum wage nonsense. Your pro-rata takes non of the sacrifice of mothering and home management into account. The OP provides value by work less hours. Neither your nor her partner are giving her credit for that.

A spreadsheet is the only way to get to the bottom of their finances together.

You need a spreadsheet to work out what's completely fucked up here?

If you want to start putting a price on housework and childcare you can, but it’s minimum wage and will move the needle only slightly.

Chilling!

“If you want to start putting a price on housework and childcare you can, but it’s minimum wage and will move the needle only slightly.”

it would be super convenient to decide that this is the only way to do things, wouldn’t it

YANBU.

On his salary he should be paying all of the bills. In my household we have a similar set up. My husband pays for all of the bills and then transfers me money so we have the same disposable.

I earn more than DH - 25% more, not the same difference as in the OP, and we work similar hours. I pay for more things for DDs and more ad hoc expenditure, and we pay in about the same for regular outgoings. And we split chores between us. Your DH definitely needs to contribute more!

We don’t have children, not through choice, but since we got married 16 years ago, we both firmly believed our finances were shared, children or no children.

At the start and for at least the first ten years, my financial contribution far exceeded my husbands. It has now flipped and at the moment our earnings are pretty similar to the OPs. And there is no way on gods earth that my husband would have me counting the pennies whilst he spent on himself or saved for himself (not that there is such a thing anyway as we are married). We have separate bank accounts at the moment but we freely transfer money to each other upon request and always have.

I don’t think I could be with my husband if he treated me the way OP’s husband is treating her. Yes OP, you probably should look to increase your hours, but only to help set you up to leave this financially abusive arse that you are married to.

Why are you still with someone who made you 'poor' when you took time of work to look after his children? In the nicest possible way, you need to work on your self esteem to see you are worth so much more than what he is giving you and your children

I suspect that could well be it. Women often put up with situations not realising just how dire they are. Once children get older they will see. It’s harder to hide from them. I hope you can get some real life support Op. You don’t have to live this way.

Well you'd be a lot better off if you split up, wouldn't you!
Try mentally starting from the position that the fairest way is that all money goes into one pot, bills come out, saving and personal spends are equal and agreed together. Anything else is you being fine over.
If he isn't agreeable to that, suggest to him that you need to maximise your income, will be pursuing full time, long hours, financially rewarding work. He will need to pick up childcare. If he objects, reflect that this is what he is doing to you. He can pay for childcare. If he's still not agreeable, start thinking about divorce - don't tell him though until you have worked out what you want etc, he will hide (more) money. Good luck.

Oops! Wrong thread.