To be fucking livid - DH, lost money

[Jamtartforme]

We’re skint, in the red every month. 2 kids, mortgage has gone up horrifically, nursery fees, COL, I’m sure many of you will know what it’s like.

DH isn’t lazy, he pulls his weight around the house but only when it comes to ‘obvious’ tasks. Such as washing up, or walking the dog. If its a task you can’t ‘see’ or doesn’t need to be done as part of routine - for example, arranging a birthday party or applying for school - it won’t even register. I do 95% of the mental load stuff, minimum.

This has caused a few rows between us, his point being I don’t let him do anything because when he does do it he fucks it up. But every time I do he just messes it up - he forgets medical appointments, fills in forms wrong, or relies on me to spoon feed him instructions to such an extent that I may as well do whatever it is myself.

Fine, I said, you can deal with the tax free childcare account for nursery. All good.

Fast forward to this evening and I discover that not one fucking payment has been made from the tax free account since last year. He’s been making the payments from our account and just assuming the deduction was being made because he had given the nursery our tax free code. He couldn’t be bothered to look into it all properly and work out how to use the account, even less actually work out how much we should be paying with the deduction, and now we have lost 2 fucking grand in the last year that we really, really do not have.

How angry would you be? I’m livid and can hardly look at him.

Sorry but the actual implementation of getting those benefits is vastly time consuming. Who for instance do you need to speak to about being declared vulnerable so your gas and electricity don’t cut off? Who do you speak to about debt relief? Who do you speak to about single person council tax reduction?

Its not like there’s a single place you call and all your questions can be answered and all of it dealt with. Again, I’m not a slouch and I’m highly educated (to masters level). I didn’t grow up in the UK and find the benefits (and tax) system absurdly confusing- at least compared to Australia it was so much simpler.

And yeah, why the fuck has he got that many savings if you’re in the red every month?

sorry, he sounds like a cock lodger. I couldn’t bear being with a man like that. It would drive me to tears of frustration and resentment.

Yes I came on to ask the same. Why are you saving if you are struggling to eat each month?

But I agree with you being furious about the 2k.

I must say, in spite of your DH being incompetent, he sounds a good man. I'd love to be more organised, proactive, and able to manage the finances, household tasks etc better, but my brain has never worked well with these things ever.

Coupled with possibly having undiagnosed ADHD/autism, and having parents who literally molly coddled me hugely as a young child, I am the type of person who will drive most of the posters on this thread insane with frustration.

I drive my DH and myself insane with frustration over my poor proactive abilities, lack of foresight, and missing appointments, bills etc. I missed a direct debit payment for car insurance on my account last year, and my DH went mad as the car is in his name so it impacts his finances. The direct debit had gone out fine through the year before it was missed as I was in the red that month.

So, I understand that some people are crap at life administration, finances and general ownership of things. Not that I'm making excuses for the money that's been lost for the OP, that would drive me mad and I'd be livid too.

But if I knew someone was going to bugger it up to that extent because they couldn't be trusted as it wasn't their forte, I'd be making sure it was done properly.

Savings, of 2k? Yet in your op you're apparently in the red every month and struggling? 🙄

I did. My late dh couldn’t be trusted to pay bills, do any housework, check paperwork or actually do any diy or repairs throughout the house.

I was unwell, prior to giving birth to my dd, and spent several weeks in hospital before she was born.

I came home to a house that looked like a tip with (among other things) a sink full of dirty dishes, floor covered in crumbs and a huge pile of dirty washing. Also there was a letter from my building society, saying that we had not increased our payment for the mortgage, as they had instructed us to. The letter with the instruction (dated over a month ago) was also sitting in a pile of opened paperwork. There was also other important letters in the pile. One regarding an unpaid utility bill and one letter about unpaid council tax, which they now wanted paid in full as we had missed a payment (I had specifically told him to pay this when I was rushed into hospital), plus another letter saying that our house and contents insurance had lapsed. I spent the rest of the afternoon I got home, looking after my dd and sorting out all the things he had opened, looked at and then put in a pile for me to deal with when I came home, whilst making him clean up his mess.

After that, I went upstairs to our bedroom and there were no sheets on the bed, as I had been rushed into hospital after taking the used ones off and before I could put clean ones on. Grossly he had just slept on the mattress and used the duvet and pillows without a cover. Due to having had an emergency c-section, I couldn’t make the bed up, so I just went into the spare room and set dd’s crib up in there and left him to his own filth! Oh, he did come up and asked me what was for dinner!

Phew, at least he's paid up. What does he plan to do to tackle his uselessness in the future?

He isn’t lazy, the chores in the house are divided 50:50 and if (for example) I want a night or weekend away he looks after the kids without hesitating.

That's not a plus, that's basic. Do you look after the kids without hesitating of he's not there?

Clearly he's made a mistake though. Adults are allowed to make mistakes. There's no indication he asked for detailed handovers, ongoing coaching, support and regular check ins - he clearly thought he'd got it right but hadn't. An accident doesn't mean he doesn't deserved to be treated like a partner. You are treating this like he has watched money be wasted in order to punish the OP or something - that's completely fictitious. The OP is making a similar mistake.

It wasn't a 'mistake' it was him not bothering to check how the scheme worked.

In what way is asking someone to do a task and leaving them to do it controlling?

Surely it's the polar opposite, if the OP was a control freak they wouldnt have wasted £2000

We have a joint account and a personal one each. Our joint one has been going under by about £50 by payday, in a good month we break even. Our savings are for our own expenses like hobbies, and also rainy day (eg we will both pay half towards an emergency plumber. DS needed a new buggy last month as we got the old one down from loft was covered in mould, that sort of thing).

He has nothing left now anyway, that was pretty much all that was in there (I looked). We were in a really good place with savings a couple of years ago but obviously they’ve been dipped into for food, etc

I do wonder whether I should send it back though, honestly if it was me on here saying I’d made a mistake and had sent DH my savings to make it up to him, would that be fair?

Or misunderstanding how the scheme works. Much more likely.

Presumably because they both have personal money - like most people - and he’s chosen to save his instead of spending it. He does half of everything, how is that cocklodger territory?

In most successful relationships people play to their strengths. It’s pretty obvious that this kind of life admin isn’t part of his skill set so the obvious thing to do is to ensure his 50% contains the stuff he’s good at. Leaving something so crucial to someone who’s endlessly displayed inability in this area is just setting them up to fail.

Considering how the Op's described him I doubt that.

This sounds incredibly frustrating, but if he is a good partner in other ways, maybe do what someone upthread here suggested - get him to sort out his own mess? Like, if he missed vaccinations, get him to sort it out - get another appointment, remember it and take your DS? Or would he just leave it and would allow your DS not to be vaccinated?

I'm not saying you are a control freak, but if you "curate" everyhting he will think there is a safety net so he can relax and not bother. Maybe if the responsibility was fully his, he would step up?

If, however, this would mean there will be no vaccinations, no birthday parties and there will be more important staff not done due to him not being bothered, I would seriously think about why you have someone like this as a partner - this shows he doesn't consider these things important, as I'm sure he remembers all the stuff important to HIM very well.

how are you struggling and "in the red" as a family each month when he is squirrelling away ££££ in savings?

@Jamtartforme we all make mistakes. The key here is was this just a mistake or was it just another way he chooses to not complete a task fully causing real world consquences?

You should give him more. Pass birthdays, dentists and doctor appts to him to handle from now on. Give him a written fact sheet of what you know and then leave him to sort those things on his own.

He can make mistakes - that is human but if he totally gubs it all up then you know he did so out of choice and I would question the so called partnership if that is what happens.

If you got a phone call from Tom Hardy one day and vanished off to live a life of tongue baths and bed time stories on a deserted island, your DH would HAVE to bear more of the emotional load and labour involved in family life.

But why would he when you do it and you take over? He knows he just has to mess up a few times and you will get frustrated and take it all on again.

Don't let him. Add more. Let him deal with the consequences as well. Don't you lift a finger unless he specifically asks you for help and only help, don't take over.

Not really? She's described a man who does 50% of the household chores, doesn't think of children's birthday parties months in advance and forgot a doctor's appointment. The same man who successfully set up the scheme, passed on relevant information and also gave her oversight of what was going on, and was convinced he'd done it properly on an ongoing basis.
There's no evidence he thought 'I can't be bothered to work out what to do' and evidence to the contrary, that he misunderstood what he needed to do going forward.

Are you reading a different thread? 'Successful set up the scheme'?
🤔 That's the opposite of what he did!

Maybe give him back half as he did at least try to do right by you. It does sound like it was a genuine / stupid mistake but a mistake nonetheless.

But he did? The first payments were made in July 2022. It was after that that the mistake was made. Have you read the thread?

If you split the bills 50/50 then I'd give him back half, he's only cost you 50% of the 2k

I read it as OP set up the account – it’s got her phone number attached – and he took it over.

This is correct

I've had a look through and agree it's ambiguous - OP does say she told him to deal with it all though.

Regardless, he passed over the number to the nursery so he has set up the first month successfully - the mistake is still not realising that it has to be claimed monthly, manually.