Husband thinks I owe him money for maternity leave?

[LemonadeShadeParade]

I am so confused! So pleased advice me!

I took 10 months mat leave, and my work did not provide any enhanced mat pay because I had been there less than two years. So I've been living off SMP only which isn't very much! My husband and I discussed this would be the case before getting pregnant and agreed we could manage as we both had allocated baby savings and my husband has a fairly decent salary (though I am the higher earner of the two of us).

I tried my best to contribute but as the months went on and I ran out of savings I had to contribute less and less. Again, this was all discussed before we got pregnant.

I'm about to return to work.

My husband has now sprung on me, that he's been calculating how much I've been short every month, adding it all up and now thinks I owe him the total 🫤

E.g. (not the real numbers) If I usually paid him £800 a month towards bills etc and in March actually paid him £300, he put down that I owe him £500 for the month of March. If I paid him £600 in April, he thinks I owe him £200 for April. Etc. and he's totalled it all up for 10 months and said that's what I owe him for being on mat leave.

AIBU to be a bit ??? by this? Firstly it's not what we agreed but more importantly we're a married couple and this is OUR baby not MY baby. AIBU to think his role here was to support his family whereas mine was to keep the baby alive? I was too shell shocked to say anything before we were interrupted and didn't finish the conversation.

I'm so confused, am I wrong? I mean if he suddenly lost his job or got sick, I would support our family, is that not how families work? Doesn't the working parent support the other parent who's off work looking after the baby? I thought that's how this works?! ☹️

Charge him for childcare… 17 pounds an hour x 10h a day x 30d x 10 months

You’re the one in the right. It’s the point of being married - mutual support when needed. What next? Will he present your child with an invoice when they go to university/college for their accommodation fees etc?

WTAF?!

Where do women find these complete bell ends? I keep reading about more and more of them. Do they all live together under a rock somewhere?

As PP have already said I would tell him to fuck off with his spreadsheet and calculations.

I would ‘jokingly’ work out the childcare bill 5 times £45-£70 a week depending on where you live.
or perhaps 50% of that amount - you know HIS costs because you’ve either LTB and he has 50/50 custody…
never heard anything like it, seriously - is he having some kind of breakdown???
When I went back to work PT and told DW my earnings were all eaten up by childcare she told me to stop thinking about it like that - OUR child OUR shared money OUR shared cost.

Even if things get better with the two of you I would have an exit strategy in place for the future. It's very concerning that his behaviour has changed now that you are tied to him with a child. Don't ever forget this act of his. I wouldn't ever have another child with him. Honestly, I'd be kicking him out immediately but that's just me.

20 k for sexual services while getting pregnant, 100k for carrying your child to full term and birthing it. Another 50k for damage to your body whilst being pregnant and giving birth
Also 1000 a day ( 24 hrs) for maternity services and childcare and 50% of all maternity clothes, loss of earnings and my solicitors fees.

Present that utter fucking prick with that bill and then say "hmmm oh dear looks like you owe me what an fab idea dear."

How you haven't pushed him down the stairs after that is beyond me. Everyone here will swear blind you were with one of us lol

Honestly it wouldn't surprise me at all if it turned out someone in his family had suggested he should be billing me for mat leave. But it would definitely surprise me if he listened to it and acted on it. Especially after how far he's come from when we first met to now. I am sure he knows better by now that they have zero tact with finances.

4 - don't walk out, kick him out. It's your house too and it's his behaviour that has caused the problem, he can move out and you and the baby can stay where you are.

Gobsmacked. You were on mat leave to recover from birth and look after your baby. Not something you could have avoided. And like you say, you both support each other in providing for your baby, not just money-wise but bonding too, and whole family needs. Is he mad? Calculating it all that time. I'm sorry but this would make me wary and start to reconsider the relationship. Then when I left I'd hand him a list of everything he did wrong with dates and times.

I also came here to say this.

send him a bill for half of all things relating to carrying the baby, maternity clothes, travel to and from appointments etc, Then send him another bill for emotional and physical impact that you incur through carrying your baby including the birth. He may be joking but it's in very poor taste.

Jesus wept

Something I learned on mumsnet is that abuse often starts when the woman is pregnant or just has their first baby unfortunately.

what kind of family dynamics is this? you are starting a family together. What’s his is yours and what’s yours is his. joint finances. he sounds crazy. and selfish. arsehole.

All expenses should be split proportionally by income each month in a family

I’m not usually quick to say Leave. But frankly I think you should leave him.

he does not value your contribution to the home.
he does not value your contribution to birthing or raising your baby.
he definitely won’t value your on going contribution.

im sorry that this is happening.

if at this most sensitive time of mothering your contribution is not appreciated then it will never be.

OMG - just when I think I have heard it all and nothing else can shock me. Your husband has no decency, no integrity and zero concept of what YOU have sacrificed to give him a child. What a stupid, selfish arsehole. I would never forgive or forget this. He clearly doesn't view you as a family or as a team. He should absolutely hang his head in shame. And show him this thread. I'm embarrassed for him and disgusted by him.

WTF.

I would actually, because I can be petty, work out exactly how much additional money I had paid into the joint account from day one of being together in a financial relationship, deduct the amount you owe for maternity and invoice him the outstanding balance.

Excel would be my best friend.

What a plonker he is!!!

😂dont forget trauma fee, damage to career, and trips to counselling after this behaviour.

I am sure he knows better by now

Perhaps not. Old ways of thinking die very hard in my experience.

If this is out of character for him, I wonder if he was influenced by “alpha male” types on social media like Andrew Tate and all that sort of people, that could have warped his views somehow?

If someone in my husband's family had suggested this he would have been just as "WTF" as I would be.

Suggest that you could bill for childcare, wear and tear on your body, inconvenience factors to your body and social life (anti social hours payments, inconvenient payments), giving birth etc. I mean if he wants to go fully transactional you can as well.

What a stupid idiot.

Got to say, this would never occur to a decent man

Now you’ve had his baby, maybe a whole new side is showing itself? In my experience, this is the beginning of the end. He’s not on your team and never will be 💐

Prepare an invoice for all of the childcare that you have provided.
Discount by 50% for your half,
Deduct what he thinks you owe him.
Let him know the balance he owes you
Decide whether or not you are going to charge interest,

The other way to explain the bill for childcare is that you went on Mat leave and had you not then you'd needed to have had a nanny full time to mind the baby from day 1. That would cost incl tax and employers NI etc around 40k. That's 20k his share !