Wife is the higher earner

[Notsureanymorepri]

Husband has a decent salary (£70k gross), in the last 2 years my income has grown to 500-600k (mainly due to variable compensation) from around 110-130k. we have always split all expenses 50-50 and kept our finances separated. we have a relatively frugal lifestyle. No debt, mortgage paid off. The cost of nursery where we live in London is £2.4K/month for our only child and due to brexit he may have lost 10 years of pension contributions abroad so is in catch up mode and I agree this is a priority. he now feels under financial pressure at the prospect of booking holidays and did not sleep for days when we found out that the results of the state school we were aiming for have plummeted and we MAY need to consider private as an option in 2 years…i have spoken about me paying for the holidays or me contributing more to the joint account but he doesn’t seem keen. What options could I suggest to make it seem fair that we adjust our lifestyle a little bit if reasonably affordable at household income level without making him feel bad about himself (I am proud of his career and he does have an important job) please?

@WickDittington
I can attest to the fact that the psychological damage to me, and my friends who experienced similar, is long lasting.

We weren’t near a private secondary level school, and my parents didn’t want to board me, but the contrast in behaviour and decency between my prep and state school was stark and I was wholly unprepared for it.

I imagine your parents decided to send you to the schools you went to to enable you to get on with everyone in life and because of their own negative experiences at private. But subjecting you to that environment when you were so different in background to all the other kids, it must have been very tough on you.

Were they not aware of the bullying? After hating school himself why was your father so pig headed to keep you at a school where you were bullied?

@Clappity this was a long time ago when bullying was not well dealt with. My parents were concerned, particularly on the Sunday nights when I was in floods of tears about school on Monday. I was asked by concerned teachers about what I was doing that might have provoked the other pupils. They were not uncaring, but there were no tools back then for dealing with bullying.

And as upper middle class "rich" people (we weren't - there was affluence but not a lot of cash as such) I wasn't supposed to be a victim. It was just a total mismatch between class-based cultures.

But it made me very resilient once I realised I wasn't an unlikeable prat.

I'd be on your husbands side in this I'm afraid. Having been the lower earner and the higher earner, it was far more stressful as the lower earner when it came to spending decisions and financial commitments. If we couldn't afford it on just my own salary, we didn’t do it, as I had seen too many people getting overstretched before covid and then really suffered when their jobs went, or they got ill but not enough for disability payouts, etc. Commission-based salaries are unreliable and usually tank as soon as there's even a whiff or a recession on the horizon. The only thing we couldn't do on just my salary is the mortgage, and we still bought sonething far smaller than we could have with our budget to make it more manageable.

I'm glad we did it this way now - DH is going part-time for health reasons and my job is being cut, but I have savings & breathing room to find something else.

It's an educational choice that's it. I sent my daughter to a lovely private school we struggled and I think some of the mothers there thought I was the hired help. I don't give a hoot she is now studying to become a chiropractor. My daughter was always hard-working, but the thought of leaving her at the mercy of the state education system may have had a different outcome.

Bullying is still not dealt with today and there are no new tools in dealing with it. I homeschooled two of my children at home we used online schools because of the bullying my second child went through at school. She was self harming and blaming herself when it wasn't her fault. She is better now that she's older and she doesn't have to tolerate bullying or rudeness from anyone.

Thank you all for the insights and advice, very kind of you. I have managed to agree that I can contribute to his pension and maximise the benefits, a very rational thing to do so easy to accept. Next, I will introduce the possibility of a proportional contribution for non necessary spending like holidays etc. If we conclude that a pre-prep for is the way forward, I will propose a similar type of contribution as well, also because we are not entitled to any benefit just because of my income. Pooling the funds entirely is not an option, just too distant from a value perspective (financial independence is very important for me, I just could not cope with the anxiety of not having control over my finances and therefore my freedom) and also not very practical, but I can see why in many other cases it is the best choice. Thank you all again

Good luck, @Notsureanymorepri Uour situation shows just how much sex-based stereotypes still persist - no-one’s fault really, but still difficult to negotiate.

@Notsureanymorepri

This all sounds very sensible, sort the pension issue so his mental health recovers and you can enjoy life. Then Proportional contribution relative to income 👏

I agree entirely, pooling income is not a great idea!