Husband wife two kids- who pays for what?

[mumtoboys12]

Husband earns 3 times what wife earns. Wife earns 1600 a month.
Husband says I'm taking advantage of him and he's a cash cow as he pays most of the bills.
I pay for childcare and all food shopping.
I also did the same on maternity leave earning no money so from savings.
Husband pays mortgage and bills

Is this fair? Or am I taking advantage?

Pool it all
OR
Pay in a ratio that matches your earnings (e.g. if he earns 90% of the combined family income then he pays for 90% of the combined family outgoings)

No other solution is fair (assuming kids are his of course). Of course you should both agree on things like you working part time, the cost of the house / childcare etc.. You can't expect him to foot the bills for things that you don't both agree are needed.

He spend more money than you however, he earns more and do not contribute with house chores or childcare. I would think he is a cow but a stupid one. If you spend roughly about 2/3 of your income he should be spending other 2/3 of his, if he is spending less than that the cow is taking advantage of you.

1. Your husband is abusing you financially (and emotionally and verbally)

1. Your husband is delusional if he thinks any other women will find his behaviour attractive.

1. You will probably be better off financially without him. You will definitely be happier and healthier and that will be better for your children

All earned income is joint. I can understand if you have savings/inheritance money, that you might keep ownership of that, but day to day stuff is definitely shared, particularly if you are married. There should be no arguments about who brings what to the table! Otherwise , there is no point to being a family! It makes you sound like you are a house-mate !

Gods sake, why do you even have to ask. Either all money in one pot, or you contribute relative to your take home pay. All shared costs split including childcare.

I find it so odd when people are married with kids and don’t share their money.

DH and I pool our money (he earns 3 x what I do) but I do work part time as we have a young child.

We are a family, a team, and see what we each earn as ‘ours’. We are working and earning for ‘us’, to enjoy and build our lives together as a family. Without our family life, the money doesn’t really mean anything. Neither of us takes the mick, we plan our spending each month and chat through big purchases.

your husband doesn’t sound very nice to me. He’s the unreasonable (and selfish) one.

I don’t want to derail but genuinely interested in the logic that all earned income should be joint but inheritance (unearned income) should not. By that reckoning if you married someone with a trust fund who didn’t work that should contribute nothing. Always find it interesting that people think that unearned income should be treated more favourably than earned

All those posters saying "Do it this or that way" aren't getting the fact that this prick DOESN'T WANT TO! He wants to keep his money separate and to end up with extra cash to spend. He has no intention of changing and the OP has no leverage to make him change.

She has 3 options:

1-live with the status quo

2 -Magick up a 6 figure job

3 -leave.

There's really only one option isn't there?

A lot of the posters seem to be focusing on who pays what in what percentage - I think this situation is more about equality in the relationship and respect.
Joint account for all household bills - that includes both cars.
You are married - with a young family. Equal ownership of the house. Recognition from him that you are now part time as you have children together, saying those things to you is wrong.you need to redress the balance here. New year resolution should be talking to him and saying from now on we are putting everything for household into one joint account and our savings are also joint. How can a couple live together and not know how much one of them has saved or not have access to this information. I see this a lot on here - I have been married over 30 years and I know exactly what our finances are and so does my husband. I grew up in a family where my mother controlled the money ( she had money in savings from a small inheritance) and constantly berated my dad for not earning enough.
Or wanting money off of her for things like car repairs as his earnings were lowish .even though it was the family car. The property deeds were in her name too. When she died it all had to be put into dad's name, which caused a lot of stress to my dad as he legally owned nothing.
.

I don't understand this logic either.

In my marriage I am bringing in all the earned income. However DH will be having a sizeable inheritance.

Like fuck am I saying then 'oh darling that's all your personal spends' after years of him living on my earnings.

To my mind what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine.

Ah, he's one of those is he.

Only sees "contribution" in terms of money, rather than time, emotion or energy invested.

I wonder how he'd feel if presented with a bill for all the stuff you do - the stuff he'd have to pay a housekeeper, cleaner, cook, nanny etc. to do if you weren't there.

Same old same old. Interesting that it happens to be the thing that HE provides that he values most highly. (Edit: Indeed, the ONLY thing he thinks has any value at all)

OP what is he spending his 1500/2500 personal money on each month? Is he overpaying on the mortgage / saving up for family holidays / personal savings? It seems odd that he was previously happy to pay for your car insurance but has now changed his mind and is demanding it back from you. Is there something else going on, that he now needs the money for?

I can’t imagine this really. He is very unreasonable. We have always pooled money. But friends that split always factor in differences of income and childcare costs (actual or the saving of them by someone not working to care for them). His method is basically an abdication. If you’d be better off divorced you know something is seriously wrong.

Just seen the verbal abuse. Please leave him.

Have a joint account out of which all expenses come is the solution. There is no his money and your money, it is the family's money. A DH who thinks his DW is freeloading on him needs a kick up the fundament now, to understand he is talking utter rubbish. If it isn't sorted then the marriage is heading for trouble.

Honestly I just don't get the 'not sharing ' s bank account. I know OP has asked several times but there's no way I could have married a bloke who saw it as 'his money'.
Everything of ours is ours. Both wages one account, spare into savings , joint and own isa. Equal money is put into his and mine even though he earns more than double what I do.
We are not a partnership, like a company with assets, we are a family.

So combined household expenditure is £3,300. Of combined household income, his share is 75% whilst your share is 25% (as he earns three times what you do). He is paying for 70% of household expenditure while you’re paying for 30%.

You are paying (slightly) more than your fair share of combined household expenses based on income.

However what concerns me is that he is paying for the capital elements of your household and - and making sure there is a record of that - and making you pay for the consumables.

If he decides to end the marriage, the non-consumables (the house and its fixtures and fittings) will still be in physical existence, whereas the consumables which you’ve paid for - the childcare costs and the food - will no longer be in existence.

I’d be concerned that if the marriage comes to an end, he will try to claim a bigger share of the property and the fixtures and fittings, by arguing that he paid for them. He’d be able to use the significant savings he’s built up - thanks to you deprioritising your career, your income and your long term financial security, and thus permitting him to prioritise his career, income, and long term financial security - to pay for lawyers to screw you over financially get him the best deal

His use of the phrase “cash cow” whilst benefitting from your free labour in the form of childcare and housework worries me. That suggests that he sees your marriage as a short term arrangement not a lifetime commitment, and that he sees you as Domestic Help In Human Form that he’s paying for, not as his equal partner.

Also any man who expects the woman who’s risked her life to provide him with offspring to fund her maternity leave from her savings is, at the very least, lacking in chivalry.

You need to protect yourself by increasing your hours back up to full time.

Also make sure that he’s dong his share of the childcare and domestic labour so that you’re not running yourself ragged to enable him to have Very Important Career untroubled by any domestic duties.

Course it's not fair.
This is not how families work.

@HoopLaLah this is an excellent response

I guess @Mikimoto doesn’t use the supermarket then. What an embarrassing comment.

So you both put about two-thirds of salaries to household expenses, assuming he has c. 4.8k a month? That seems a fair share. But you are married, a partnership, a unit, so no-one is free-loading, and both partners have an equal right to the money coming into the house. Why on earth did you use your savings when on maternity leave? I was for many years what is now called a SAHM (before I had children I earned more than ex-DH and put down the deposit on our house, but he gaslighted me into changing professions so I ended up earning less than him, to put things in context). I considered his salary my income and my salary his income (and so did he), and we set us up a joint account to which we both had access - both salaries went in (when we had two) and maternity allowance, etc when we did not (but not what was then called Family Allowance, which we considered to be mine to spend as I wished on the children). I paid all bills, food, childcare, car tax, mortgage etc. from that joint account and also set up savings accounts for holidays etc. Never, ever would I have expected the attitude your DH displays. He should be ashamed of himself and if his attitude does not change, I'd divorce him.

Yes but would he agree to pay half the childcare?. Would he then agree to take on half of the child wrangling and house work and mental load?...I very much doubt it.

I expect DH to pay for things I say are necessary or that I want. We have a joint account out of which everything is paid and which I use to buy my clothes, books etc. as I wish - he can do the same but prefers cash and if he wants anything off the internet I do it. Works perfectly well. All the money is 'ours' whichever account it is in. I don't ask if I can spend £15 on a book, though I probably tell him (unless it's a present for him) and he doesn't ask if he can spend whatever on a meal out or if he goes out with his son (we are a second marriage with our own children, but none jointly).
I don't understand couples who who do not share their money. Weird. Also suggests someone has a lack of commitment, which sounds true of OP's H.

You're paying more than you fair share percentage-wise it looks like.

He's being gross thinking he gets 3x the spending money you do. You're either in this together or you're not. He's not.

This.