Money in marriage

[superplumb]

I won't write war and peace but I'll summarise.
Husband walked away from an amazing job opportunity which doubled his salary back to his job working 6x a week for 1800 take home a month. The job he left was 60k plus and would've been life changing. He said it was too hard.
I'm on slightly more than 60k but I've worked bloody hard 3 lots of exams in work, applications sideways moves etc lots of stress.
When he started his new job he left me and kids. Said everything got too hard wasn't happy at home etc etc. He left that went back to his old job amd wanted to come back home. We are trying to work on things but I'm really struggling with the pain he caused. We do have children so im trying for them.

Now the money. I've decided that I instead of all my salary going into the joint account to reduce the amount going in to match his and to put the extra back I to my own savings account. I feel aggrieved that he's gone back to his comfy job while I have to work my arse off to top up the account. He moaned and said he'd have no money left and I'd have loads ( I wont)
I've spoken to friends and family and all have either the same or different views.
I feel a lot of resentment for lots of reasons. Thanks

I have a lot of sympathy for your position. It's a lot more nuanced than simply restricting the benefit he gets from sharing your income.

He's broken your trust. He wanted the marriage over and actually left, curiously enough once he was set to earn a higher salary due himself. He returned claiming to miss you, but it sounds like he missed your income once he decided he couldn't hack his higher paid job. That is huge and you are right not to roll over and take it. Do you think the marriage is effectively over? If so that is what you need to progress.

I think there's a huge difference between the higher earner sharing income when the lower earner is taking on a load in a different way (picking up the domestic slack).

Other posters have picked up on his stress/ mental health from the new job which may be a valid concern. However the fact that he left so quickly, during training and before actually doing the job indicates he just didn't give it a chance. Plus as you said, he's happy for you to do a pressurised stressful job as long as he benefits from it and not pick up any slack in return. He sounds like a user.

However I do think you need to be careful with just putting a limited amount in the joint account. What happens if he does tit for tat and there isn't enough money to pay the bills? The last thing you need if you're going to separate is to end up with a trashed credit rating just as you need to get a sole mortgage.

If you want to try staying together but have semi separate finances you could try putting proportionate amounts into the bills account. It might stick in the craw a bit that you're subsidising him when he's capable of earning more but it also means your disposable income will be proportionately higher than his. Some mumsnetters will still say this is abusive but it's what we do in our house and it works fine for us. (There are reasons why it works well which I won't bore you with.)

The children being SEN does make everything harder. I find it hard..but I stayed. He didnt

Option 4 - which I have seen talked about elsewhere, is to have no joint account and a division of bills, such as 'I'll pay this bill each month, you pay that bill and get the weekly shop'.
IMHO this is a recipe for disaster - there is no transparency and no joint liability. It breeds resentment and confusion.
Off topic for this thread though.

OP think about this carefully.
If the marriage is likely to end in divorce sooner or later, do it ASAP.
Because any savings and pension you are putting aside now, before divorce, he will have a claim on. The longer you leave it the more he could take.

Op is not paying all the bills. In her very first post she proposes to reduce what she puts I “to match him”, therefore making it 50:50 when she earns more. She then goes on to confirm in other posts that this would leave him with no money and allow her to save.

she would be punishing him for splitting up. She should either pay her fair share, or not be with him at all

you’re entitled to make your own choice on what you do with your salary.

I'd love to know what the MN response would be if married man said that.

I think I have been paying more than my fair share. I've earned lots more than him for over 10 years. He has also had weekends away nights out.. I havnt. I also do 90% of all home and kid stuff.

I just wonder.... Would it not be financial abuse if I can earn same as my husband, so I will leave him, then actually decide I don't want to work as hard as he is since I can just use his income. So I will quit my job and use his salary without asking him about opinion? Just expect it will be fine?

Also the part that he does lack money for night outs...really? For me it is abuse that he would make decision on his own and just expect she will pay for his "fun". He should sit and discuss. As partners do.

For me it looks like he wanted more money and left, but then decided it was easier using her money so he came back.

He's working 6 days a week! He's not exactly sitting on his arse. Imagine telling a woman who worked 6 days a week that she must do lots of housework and childcare because her partner earned more than her.

But if you divorce won’t you have to split any savings etc?
I think I’d divorce him now so he has no claim to my money then co parent together

I agree with you OP but honestly I can't understand why you are still with him.

He left you and the kids (when he thought he could earn enough on his own to live on) and then came back to you when he decided he needed your wage? He sounds awful and flakey.

Do you not have the MN ick?

^

I would too

To be fair I told him he needed to do more work because he was sat on his arse and we were overdrawn at one point. He then got an extra contracted day and I got promoted twice after sitting horrific exams ...he just kept on with thr 6th day.

I get the people saying it's got to be proportionally fair - but that goes for work hours, effort in the house & mental load too.

It's not fair for OP to be doing so much more without getting any benefit - I don't blame you @superplumb for being resentful

I don't know the exact figures for your finances but as an example, I would say following is fair based on a proportional split

You earn £4k month
He earns £2k month
Total bills £4.2k month
You pay £2.8k and have £1.2k left to play with
He pays £1.4k and has £600 left

However - this only applies if he takes on equal amounts of housework, life admin, parenting etc!

And - depending if you really want to be with him for the rest of your life after how he treated you...

It sounds like there are deeper issues than just the job. Maybe you are not compatible anymore.

This sounds like a lot more than money, it sounds like you are overwhelmed with having all the responsibility on your shoulders. Look after your own mental health so you don't burnout. Advocating for SEN children is emotionally exhausting. Not giving him any access to your wages isn't going to fix things or make you feel any better, it's just another thing for you to manage and constant reminder that you don't feel supported. I think you should seriously consider ending the marriage, don't stay in it for the children. Sometimes it's better for children to have parents separated rather than live in a household where the parents are unhappy.

This marriage is doomed. He's walked away when things were hard and you're always going to resent him for it. It sounds like he may be depressed. Has this been explored? It's easy to have a go at him for walking away from more money but maybe he was just really struggling and it was too hard.

Before I met my DH I was earning around £60k, living on my own with no kids. My job involved a lot of travel. I worked really hard to get to that point in my career.

I now have 3 stepkids, 2 are now adults but my DSD is school age. I took a lower paid job so I could be home more and available to help with the school runs. I've actually really enjoyed having a less stressful job and not having to travel as much. I had the opportunity for a promotion a while ago and thought about it but ultimately decided to stay in my lower paid role. I just didn't want the stress of management role again on top of the travelling and now managing family life. Our lives would definitely be a lot easier financially if I went back to the higher paid job but my mental health would suffer as would quality time with my family.

My DH is a joiner and was making decent money but the work was taking a toll on his body. He was given the opportunity to start a new career but this meant starting from the bottom on less money. I supported this decision as his health is always more important than money and he was really interested in this new career path. We struggled financially for a year or so but he's now making good money again and loves his work so it was totally worth the sacrifices.

My DH leaves the house at 6am and busts his ass each day while I work shorter hours from the comfort of my home. Sometimes I feel guilty for not earning more money when I could but my DH has always reassured me that I have nothing to feel guilty about. I do more of the household tasks since I'm home more and he recognises that as work too even though it's unpaid labour. He's even told me I actually work more hours that him when you count all I do at home. He's also always told me if I wanted to go back to my previously role then we'd get a child minder and a cleaner.

All the decisions both my DH and I have made regarding our careers and finances have been discussed between us. Ultimately our health and wellbeing is more important than money. As long as we have enough to cover the bills and enjoy life we'd much rather each of us were in a job we liked and that allowed a good work life balance.

It doesn't sound like anything has been discussed between the two of you. You seem very disconnected from each other which I understand since he walked away from his family etc. But has it always been like this? Do you discuss career decisions? Do you check in on each others mental health and stress levels?

This here is the problem. The earning potential is just a red herring but the real problem is that you put in more effort than he does yet he gets more fun time.

My DH works longer hours and makes more money than me but I do a larger share of the housework. We both have equal free time for hobbies and generally night out and trips away are together.

Why aren't you planning nights out and trips away too?

So when he earned more, he expected you to pay half of all the bills, but he has changed his mind now that he earns less than you? You also pick up everything at home? Some real double standards on his part. Maybe he should get a second job like you had to.

This. It's so true.

Women are allowed not to work in stressful jobs and encouraged to work part time or to take long term mental health sick leave but that never applies to men.

Some people really struggle with stress/change etc and it can make them feel physically ill. He might have secured the job but it doesn’t mean that he was good at it and would have been successful in it long term. It sounds like he struggles (you also mentioned that he left home because it was “too hard”). On the other hand I do understand your resentment especially if your job is stressful too.

This... but also i do find it fascinating how accepted it is on here for a woman to take a much lower earning job and be subsidised by her husbands Big Job and higher salary. He must share his earnings because they are married and its family money. But if a man does this he's a cock lodger, despite the fact that he is working, full time.

In this case, OP is the higher earner and still does all the 'wife work' at home. When she was the lower earner, she still had to contribute pay half of all their bills and took on two jobs to be able to do this.

I agree and their wouldn't be a single person telling OP this was OK if she was a man posting. You're either together or you're not. If you're
going to try then try, not this, this isn't trying and if you can't step back from the resentment then you need to call it a day because it's not going to work. Early days isn't the same as once you're married with kids. The financial relationship changes over time. Though I can see why you want to do this, if there's money left after bills both partners should be getting a share. Proportional input to joint account will still leave you with more money to spend and save OP.

If your hours are longer then he needs to step up and do more of the chores and childcare. How much you each earn doesn't effect how much unpaid labour you should each put in, contributing so that you have equal free time and equal child free time is what's fair. If it's a case of he won't do a fair share of childcare and other unpaid labour and wants to have more time off, more of the money and you doing everything else the only way to resolve that is to leave. If you're done it's ok to be done, you don't need to stay for the kids. If you want to try then you both need to sit down and discuss all of it reset who does what, share out the resources of the marriage, free time and money fairly and see if things can be fixed. If he's unwilling to change anything then you know exactly who he is and you can work out if you want to be with that person or not.

Then why are you with him?

There must be an awful atmosphere in the house. You resent him and the kids will feel that.