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.

What does he own that he can sell to pay back the money he lost through his own stupidity. It’s a lot of money. I start with the tv, subscriptions, his smartphone whatever he has of value he can sell.

Who sits mums down and shows them how to do everything and checks the first few times?
I've obviously missed out on this service...

@Alargeoneplease89 I guarantee if this was written people would be calling you a narcissistic bastard and maybe shes ND.

This isn't aimed at you OP, I would be frustrated and gutted to lose 2k but some of the PPs are bloodthirsty for a man's blood.

Yes, my thought exactly.

I can see why you’re frustrated, I’m not defending him. But in most relationships there is one person who is more suited to dealing with stuff like tax, childcare vouchers, finance. I fully admit I am shite at stuff like that. The childcare vouchers, 30 free hours stuff boggles my mind, so my DH does it. I wouldn’t necessarily divide chores 50 / 50, let him do all the practical stuff and stick to the stuff he doesn’t fuck up. He can take on more childcare, housework while you put aside time for school / nursery admin.

They can start paying from the account from now but the previous money is lost.

If their bill is £1000 a month they need to pay £800 into the childcare account, have the government top it up.to £1000 and then pay the nursery. He's been just paying £1000 direct to nursery each month. So that £200 a month is lost now.

It's a really easy scheme to navigate.

you shouldn't trust him with something so important

Why? Why not? Surely a grown adult should be able to either do a task or ask for help? Surely all the ad hoc stuff is important in some way - booking a holiday, sorting your child's birthday party and gifts. It's all important. Should he be absolved of doing it all?

well if you didn't show him how, how was he supposed to know how to do it?

Who showed her? How would she figure it out? Is he to be spoon fed everything he doesn't know? How does the person showing him how know? Does he approach new work tasks I the same way - wait for someone to spoon feed him it?

you should have checked he had done it right

Why? Is he checking she has done stuff right? Should she have to check all his stuff he does? Is she his mother? His boss?

So is the money still sitting in the voucher account? It can be used for future childminders and other registered childcare, as frustrating as it is to have not been used this year for the nursery.

@Robstersgirl the money will have come off their wages pre-tax and gone into the childcare voucher account. It then should have been paid across to the nursery to deduct monthly from the nursery invoice. This is the bit that he hasn't done so the nursery bill has been being paid in full due to his incompetence. The £2k is what they should have paid through the vouchers but have now essentially got an account with £2k in it they can only use for childcare vouchers and have paid the nursery fees from their wages after tax.

Why should she? "Respect" isn't an automatic, regardless of a person's behaviour.

Can you get a refund from the childcare provider and then repay the money from the tax-free childcare account? We did this once when we accidentally paid from the wrong account - it was with our childminder though so it was easy to ask her. Still it shouldn't make any difference to the nursery and it's not fraudulent as you are entitles to TFC and have been paying into the account?

Wouldn't catch me with a bloke - I am a single parent and I love it - I deal with all of my own life admin and take 100% of the mental load because I couldn't trust a bloke to do a simple task such as this.
In answer to your question, I would be livid - particularly as you're struggling every month.

It doesn't work like that any more, the tax free childcare is no longer vouchers and taken off employees wages.

Oh dear. Sounds like you’ve set the bar far too low and you’re happy to live with a loser. Why don’t you value yourself more?

Not blaming you at all, but didn't you notice the nursery payments coming out of your bank account every month? I literally check my account daily!

No because there's no money in the tax free childcare account.

I would be absolutely livid. He’s not so stupid as to not be able to comprehend the instructions, he just couldn’t be bothered

Of course you can do those things. You might not want to, you might find them boring or difficult or tedious - but as an adult of at least normal intelligence who can post on mumsnet and hold down a job, you can definitely do basic life admin.

If you were single, would you really just sit in your house with no energy and no wifi? Or presumably you wouldn't have a house as you wouldn't be able to work out how to buy or rent one?
No. You'd just get on with it.

Same as the OP's husband and the childcare bill. If actually wanted to pay it properly he could have read the website, googled it, called a helpline etc. Couldn't be bothered.

I think you're right to be angry but some of the responses here are really inappropriate - including yours asking him how he intends to make it up to the family finances. If you both have oversight (and you do, you've been looking at the bills and have access to the account to check if you think something is wrong), then its both your responsibilities. Posters asking 'what is the point of him' are equally unreasonable - there is more point to a partner than their financial contribution.
OP you clearly don't see your DP as a partner - you speak about him like he's a child. That issue is all yours and is one you should seek to address, because you've allowed your resentment to change the rest of the dynamic.

Have you used the tax free childcare system? Because OP clearly gave him the login details - and he figured out/was told how to confirm eligibility for the 30 free hours. I would expect any half competent adult with login details to be able to figure out that system in about 2 minutes. It genuinely wouldn't occur to me to explain it in detail.

Fair comment, but the OP knows her DH’s level of competence. I think she knew, maybe hoped, he would struggle, so that he would appreciate just how much unseen work she’s doing. It was risky play.

OP's 'standards'? Are you kidding? Pissing away a couple of thousand pounds of much needed money because he couldn't be arsed to actually follow up on their child's tax free childcare account isn't about doing things to OP's 'standards' !

I get your frustration, I’d be livid too. However, everyone has a different skill set and by what you’ve posted it seems your DH pulls his weight in other areas.

My DH sorts all bills and life admin out, simply because he is far more efficient, works from home at a computer and is something he doesn’t mind doing. I pick up most of other stuff such as food shopping, laundry, meal planning etc, because it suits me.

i think you need to be realistic about your expectations.

Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. Together you divide household tasks including mental load so he owns the whole of the task, not you asking him to do something. So he might own children’s health so any GP letter inviting them to vaccinations goes on his pile, he makes the appointment, he buys the calpol, he takes them. If he misses the appointment he rearranges and still takes them.

You have weekly check ins to make sure neither of you is overloaded, and to discuss stuff that got missed – is it because an area of the household management is new to him and he needs a handover? Handing over isn’t infantilising – I never clean the dishwasher filter but if I’m taking over dishwasher so DP takes over laundry, he needs to show me all the things he does dishwasher wise, just as I show him where my jumpers are kept so he puts them away properly after a wash. After the initial split of tasks there’s much less “this task entails” and you both just get on with it.

With this system you stop being the household manager making lists and delegating tasks: you decide together who has what tasks, you decide together what those tasks entail (in our house, bins is all the bins in the house, from kitchen to wastepaper basket, ensuring we have bin liners, taking the wheelie bin out, and there recycling, and the tip), and what the minimum standard is, ie kitchen bin overflowing so the liner breaks and stuff spills on the floor isn’t OK and the mess doesn’t belong to the person with the cleaning task on their list, if the bin person forgets to put out the wheelie bin the night before they get up and run out in the rain in their pyjamas even on a hangover to make sure it’s collected. Ownership.

Let him fail, stop picking up the pieces. If there’s something in his personal budget that covers the £150 he’s been spending on childcare that he didn’t need to, he foregoes that £150, it doesn’t come from the family budget.

Sigh, all these men (and it's pretty much always men) who find life admin/household tasks etc difficult. No they don't they just don't want to do them/don't care/think it's below them, what would they do if they lived on their own? Oh yes that's right - do the life admin.

Meanwhile the majority is women seem to be right on this stuff despite never being shown how to do it nor being reminded or told. Oh yes but silly me that's their lady brain working. It's not it's women putting their children/family first and getting in with life.

By 'be realistic', do you mean accept he's lazy and can't be bothered to think about things, so you will have to be his manager for the rest of your lives?

As long as you’re splitting all the childcare and house work then that seems fair to me.
I think in couples there will always be one that is more in the driving seat with regards to hidden type things and thinking ahead eg with school admin and other forms and things.

It’s a partnership but that doesn’t mean you each will be 50/50 good at everything. It’s ok that you have different skills, abilities, strengths and weaknesses.

To the spoon feeding pitch fork angry people who keep quoting me, there is scientific research that shows men and womens brains function differently.

"A woman’s hippo­campus, critical to learning and memorisation, is larger than a man’s and works differently."

Same if my DH showed we how to do some DIY, as many times as he shows me how to, I simply can't see straight or visualise what he's on about. Yes I'm sure there are plenty of women that can do DIY but we look at our strengths and weaknesses as a team and delegate jobs because it stops fuck ups.

As OP said her DH isn't lazy but doesn't do "invisible jobs".

@femfemlicious 😂know the feeling!