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?! ☹️

Bill him for the childcare you've provided, thus affording him the opportunity to work.

Tot up how much childcare you've saved and bill him for half.

Also, tell him to fuck off.

Calculate what must be an atrocious amount that you will charge him FOR GROWING A BABY INSIDE YOU and squeezing it out of your flaps... and then add the child care.

Then give him divorce papers because he's a knob.

I’m speechless. So much for being a team.

Well I think a full time nursery place is approx £1,400 a month these days so expect he will be the one ending up owing you!

I cannot fathom this. So every month, he's opened up his spreadsheet or his little notebook like Scrooge, and said, with finger raised, ah, it's £200 this month, and written it down and added it up in a 'carried forward' column and now he's totalled it up and presented you with an invoice. What a cunt. I would be mortally disgusted and done.

I’m not being facetious here, but as you’re married, do you remember what promises you exchanged at your wedding? It might be worth reminding him of those and if it was a Christian wedding service then you’ve got him bang to rights. As I recall, it’s something along the lines of “All that I have a give to you” etc etc

He's being an arse. As others have said, send him a bill for his half of the childcare.

He sounds awful. I'm sorry for you but that's not marriage.

Another one saying add up how much childcare would have cost you all this time.

Even if he had something if a point (which he absolutely doesn't), he's moved the goal posts and reneged on a joint decision on how this would be done.

Does he think babies care for themselves and you were just taking the piss when you were sustaining this new life he created?

"Doesn't the working parent support the other parent who's off work looking after the baby? I thought that's how this works?! ☹️"*
*
Yes, that is how it works. You both created the baby, your "contribution" if we have to split it up was growing the baby, giving birth and the care of the baby, his was the financial support.

What a twat! Is he always so mean, or is this a new development?

That's what I thought!!!

Couldn't agree more

We pay something like £68 per day for childcare (private nursery) 7.45am-6pm.

Bill him.

Find out how much surrogacy costs in places which allow it and bill him for the cost of growing his baby in your uterus. Add in money for nutrient depletion, production of breast milk, hours spent breastfeeding, loss of earnings while on may leave, and some figure for the changes in your body (stretch marks, larger waist, teeth out of alignment, ribs moved out of place, wider hips etc) and any clothes that no longer fit you.

I bet he owes you a lot more than you owe him 🤔

Honestly, what a first class prick he is. Do you think he has told any friends or family what he’s asking you for?

How cruel. You and your child are his family and of course he should be supporting you both. He seems to think it was a financial transaction?
I would look at protecting myself as you go forward. Sadly he has shown you a side of himself he seems to have hidden to date. Tread carefully.

Add up the hours you've spent in primary parent mode, times it by the going rate for a one-to-one childminder, and present him with your bill.

What a pratt!!

This is so bad it's almost unbelievable!! I hope you find out he was joking!!

You say you're the high earner. Maybe he wants to lord it over you while his income is more than yours. He's a twat.

Did you find him at the bottom of the barrell OP? Jeez taste really scummy behaviour.

If he wanted an earning wife he shouldn't have made a baby with you (he scuppered your earning power - maybe can you sue him)... He should have hired a surrogate (in theory to illustrate the point, not really) and a nanny for his offspring and see what that would cost him.

Cone back and tell us how he responds when you bill him for half the childcare.

If he gets it, and admits that he’s been a bit of a tit - perhaps because he’s heard that he should do this from a mate - then you can have a sensible discussion and move forward.

If he doubles down and is still insisting that you owe him money, he needs to understand that he’s facing a divorce because this is no marriage.

Ok. He’s batshit. And you really didn’t see this coming? Either way, this needs nipping in the bud right now op, before all costs to do with Your Joint Child become yours…

I would say this had better be a joke.
If not.
I,'d say ok. I'll prepare my bill for 50% of the childcare costs for the duration of my maternity leave, plus 50% of my lost earnings and a lump sum compensation for the physical damage to my body and I'll be using that towards my first appointment with a divorce lawyer.