Husband lied about his salary

[Truecrimemama]

apologies if anything similar has been posted before but I’ve looked and can’t find anyone in a similar boat.

ive recently found out that my husband earns significantly less than he’s always disclosed to me, for context we don’t share finances or a bank account and I’ve actually never questioned him about it because why would he be lying. Ive always believed that he earned 40k a decent comfortable salary for where we are in the north of England. And combined with what I earn a very good joint income. it actually turns out my husband earns over £15,000 less and I’m shocked although a lot of things are starting to make sense.

For a little bit of context my husband pays all the bills and I pay for everything else, things like all of our clothes, everything for the kids, any extras we need, things for the home, and my own personal bills and holidays for just a few examples. This has always worked out. The problem has been that my husband had always complained about ‘not having any money’ and money has always been a huge point of contention any decision that we should be making together about matters to do with the house car or money he will completely blow up and then storm off. He’s always been right but him constantly claiming to be broke has really started to wear thin. I had a suspicion he was hiding something from me so I have offered multiple times to also on top of everything else I pay for to pay a share of the bills, on the provision that he shows me all his ingoings and outgoing plus any savings he has so we can make a proper budget. He has always point blank refused.

anyway last night we got into another huge argument about money and he shouted at me and stormed off for a couple of hours. When he got back we sat down and discussed it properly where he said that he only earns 25k a year take home pay after tax and deductions on the 40k a year. He had always framed it that he earned 40k take home and I believed him, I knew this wasn’t right and there was no way he was paying 15k a year tax. So for the first time I googled his salary at his company and for his exact role his pre tax pay is £31,000 bringing his take home pay to that £25,000 he was talking about.

when I goggled the company he works for I also saw that all employees had a pretty significant one off bonus during covid that he never told me about. His mum had also given him a sizeable amount of money About 20,000 which I do know about but that he wont touch or do anything with, so when an unexpected expense come along such as something going wrong with the car he will then complain about how it’s left him short, and that he’s got no money, when I point out the money his mother gave him he will act like he’s just saving it for her and that it’s not really his to spend! Which I’m not quite sure I believe

ive always felt like my husband is financially controlling, tight and a Scrooge when it comes to money, I’ve always felt like he uses money as a stick to beat me with, saying things like he might lose his job periodically or that his role will soon be decommissioned, I’ve suggested him to go for a promotion in the company if he’s worried about that but he always said he’d rather take a pay cut than take on a more senior role and work more hours. I'm totally at a loss and feel so stupid for just taking what he said for the past 10 plus years at face value

just looking for some validation really and to see if anyone else has encountered anything like this before.

OP it doesn’t matter at this point whether he WANTS you to sit and do a breakdown of the finances, you NEED to. If you want to make any kind of changes away.

Without more information there’s absolutely nothing you can do, or any advice anyone can give you. You need the full picture, and from there you can decide what to do, none of us, nor the company website, can give you the full picture.

Do you have access to the accounts which the joint bills come from? Mortgage/utilities etc?

This is not just about the wage and him being opaque about finances.

There are a whole load of red flags:
Big age gap
You marrying young
Lack of financial transparency
Repeated refusal to talk about finances
Fixed roles within the household
Pattern of abuse from his parents which he seems to be adopting
Not being open about his ex wife and why that relationship broke down

There are probably more but those are the ones that popped out.

You need to talk about all of the above. If he keeps obfuscating around the above, you need to be clear on the consequences.

I could not remain married to someone I didn't trust. He needs to realise that his behaviour is not acceptable.

There have been lots of threads lately from younger women who marry considerably older, divorced men and struggle with financial imbalance in their relationships.

A divorced man 15 years your senior seems like a very odd choice of partner at 20. Were you particularly vulnerable?

The picture you painted of his parents made me think he was in his 60s, not 45.
No seat belts? Not relevant but seat belts were compulsory in the 1970s so I assume you mean they were breaking the law or had a car so old it didn't have seat belts.

So what are you going todo?

If it were me, I'd ask him for access to his bank account. That's the way you can see his salary. If he refuses, you need a serious chat about why he won't.

You can't carry on like this. As you say, if you were unable to work, there may not be enough money for your family.

That's after tax and ni he gets £25k. It's extortionate how much they take from us in taxes and they still try to get more out of you through gas and electric hikes, council tax rises, petrol and fare increases and there will be another interest rate rise. Food hasn't gone down and income hasn't increased. NHS every 5 minute are either crying out for more staff or are protesting for more pay in a crumbling system. The leave brigade wanted to protect their rights to benefits and have the council and DWP pay for every thing in their lives so they can play on playstation. This has got to be holiday boredom or families are now feeling the squeeze of their decision to fuck themselves over and it will never get any better. It weren't broken before Brexit and now it is and this won't be the last thread over families who are struggling.

OP also needs to be asking and told about his pension arrangements, if he's mid 40s not much more time to get that right if he's been shilly shallying around there too

From what I’ve read so far it seems like there are communication issues between you and your partner. I do wonder if he said his salary was £40k and then further down the line he realised you were thinking about salary after tax which from my experience no one ever seems to do, including myself. Perhaps it just became awkward for him to make this clear which isn’t great but it is also kind of understandable. His pay grade could be £31k but then he could have had incremental mini yearly pay rises that took him to £40k. I don’t understand how his salary wouldn’t be clear though when getting a mortgage together? I would say from my experience when people talk about their salaries they are generally always talking about their PRE-TAX salary.

I'm sorry OP, you married a liar. I absolutely couldn't stay with him, especially when he's been lying about something so important to the stability and welfare of me and my children. You'd be better off going it alone. At least you would know where you stand financially.

Also I can appreciate how he probably expects more from you financially as you start earning more money. I think I’d be the same tbh but hopefully not communicate that in a resentful/passive aggressive way.

Have you actually been able to verify that he still has the ~£20k his mother gave him? Why did she do this? Has he been using this money, (possibly used it all up), in the process of trying to cover up the deceit over his real salary (or on something else you don't yet know about)?

I have always shared a joint bank account with my wife - we have free access to each others phones - all passwords to everything are stored in one database. An unexpected inheritance I had was split between me and my wife - just like all of my bonuses (some were as large as £10k) and redundancy payments. I don't know how relationships work without this level of trust and openness - I appreciate there are inherited financial complications when people marry for a second time - there is often some kind of financial imbalance that is hard or impossible to level out but it shouldn't stop there being complete transparency about what each person has in savings/investments, pension and earnings and also agreement about what money is spent on things - if you're in a relationship surely you make spending (and other important) decisions together and you need all the financial (and other) facts to do that.

I'd be very unhappy and uncomfortable about his lack of openness and honesty: I think commitment is everything - either iron him out or chuck him out.

What the actual fuck? You feel sorry for the main who has deliberately lied to his wife for the entirety of his relationship?

His poor little patriarchy feelings are irrelevant -if he wanted to earn more, as OP said he could have gone for a promotion but he said he couldn't be bothered with the extra work and stress. He can't feel that bad about his "paltry salary" if he's sat in the same job for 10 years.

Op stepping up - she already earns nearly the same as him (his ACTUAL salary not his made up one) and does all the housework, looking after kids and covers everything outside of the main bills and even offered to contribute towards these despite at the time thinking she was earning less than half her husbands wage. What more could she possibly do?

I might feel sorry for him if he admitted he panicked at the start of the relationship to make himself look good and then didn't know how to admit the truth and in the meantime had been struggling to pay the bills on less than he said, had used all his inheritance or sold possession to cover the gaps.

But instead he's been "boasting" about a salary he DOESNT EARN, presenting himself incorrectly as the big breadwinner yet expecting her to cover a disproportionate amount of household expenses including paying him back if he buys his own kids a pair of socks, stressing her out about them not having enough money (which is directly due to his lie because OP is working off the assumption they have a £78k annual income rather than a £46k one!), and sitting on a £20k inheritance he doesn't want to spend!

'ive always felt like my husband is financially controlling, tight and a Scrooge when it comes to money, I’ve always felt like he uses money as a stick to beat me with'

^ Yet he has been paying all the bills on his £25k salary whilst you do what? Hardly sounds controlling to me. What are YOU contributing? You say you buy clothes - how often are you doing that for the family? i doubt it's every month. I think you need to check yourself before complaining about your husband who has been paying your bills for the past 10 years - now his salary is not what you thought that changes things in your eyes - maybe that's why he felt the need to lie in the first place because you're so material!

@Truecrimemama The advice varies from sensible to hysterical nonsense.

Ask for his last P60 showing his annual gross income and any bonus.

Insist you sit down and discuss finances, keep insisting, if not,

Ask for a divorce because, honestly, he sounds like an anti-social PITA, you have outgrown him in every way.

Good luck, aim high and set yourself and the children on a better path

I think if I confront him it will make a huge issue.

It IS a huge issue. Lack of financial transparency is a fundamental problem in your marriage.

In a divorce,half that inheritance would be yours ,it's family money ,why is he hoarding it ..

Why are so many people making up implausible excuses for this man? He’s flat out lied for years.

He’s so “traditionally minded” that he can’t bear to be matched by OP’s salary and still wants to skive out of the domestic load. Not impressed by this AT ALL.

His ego must be pretty fragile to be so evasive about this.

Does he have savings and investment income that takes him into 40% tax? Or maybe he feels 20% tax + NI is a lot of money coming off his wages.

I guess it used to be normal in some families that the wife didn't know how much their husband earned. My father always gave his pay packet straight to my mother, who handled all the bills (she also worked full time), but I remember other wives that it was a complete mystery to. Seems like he is a bit stuck in the past when it comes to family finances and acting more like his father's generation.

The main issue is “bragging” about a £40k salary.

Also when I say pre-tax I mean salary before taxes are taken off!

I divorced my first husband for less. I couldn't knowingly be in a relationship with someone who lied to me. I don't tolerate lies.

^ Yet he has been paying all the bills on his £25k salary whilst you do what? Hardly sounds controlling to me. What are YOU contributing? You say you buy clothes - how often are you doing that for the family? i doubt it's every month. I think you need to check yourself before complaining about your husband who has been paying your bills for the past 10 years - now his salary is not what you thought that changes things in your eyes - maybe that's why he felt the need to lie in the first place because you're so material!

wow are you bitter? I can taste you through the screen, I pay for all of the holidays, I pay for all of the things in our home? Trips, clothes, decorating, I offer to split the bills and pay off the mortgage he refuses! Because that would mean sitting down and discussing the finances. If you want to comment vitriol then please read the whole post and not cherry pick.

i also do all of the child rearing and household chores, diy, decorating, ferrying of the children, cooking all the while working as well. If I didn’t have to do all of that I could increase my hours and pay for the lot but my husband refuses, on the provision that he’s already earning more than enough.

you nasty person

@Carpediemmakeitcount Oh for goodness sake! A quick google, or a read of the posts here will show that the net income for £40K is £31K.
The rest of your rant is off topic :)

And it's all beside the point.
The point being he's never shared his financial details.

@Truecrimemama You are only 30.

You deserve better than this. You have married a man with baggage and issues.

What do you intend to do?

OP has clearly stated he doesn't have a student loan, any plans and no credit cards. OP I think he might have started the lie because was embarrassed about earning so little and then never got around to telling you the truth because he knew it would show him to be a liar. I'm astonished he can manage to pay all bills on about £25k though. Maybe you could contribute to paying one of the bills as he can't have anything left at all for himself each month. How does he buy you gifts?

He won't be open and honest and discuss your joint finances. So, you only have options that are within your direct control.

Stop offering to pay extra, pay off mortgage, etc., Without accurate information about your family finances, you aren't in a position to make good choices.

Review your own finances and security. What is your pension status for example? What is your job potential?

And, please do a credit check on both your finances.