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?! ☹️

I would confide in those close to you though. It’s important to have people around you to react to what your husband tries on, so that you remain grounded yourself, rather than be gas lit by him into thinking it’s a normal thing to do.

For many of us, the abuse in our relationships began when we had the first baby - it’s a pattern. Your husband may have been lovely before, but the power dynamics change when you stop work and have become dependent. You have unconsciously become devalued. So definitely do not tolerate any nonsense at this early stage and nip it in the bud.

Since you suspect his family is in his ear with their weird ideas, I think it’s worth reconsidering whether to be open with your family too, so he can see that most people consider his proposal ridiculous. He needs an opposing view to his family’s beliefs that doesn’t come from just you.

Yuk op, I can see why this had upset you. However, putting rage aside, perhaps this opens up a conversation about money, as going forward you now have a child and might want to consider how things are funded.
Do you want to continue to put same amount into joint account? Or do you wsnt to pool all of your money, each get same amount of spends and then plan how to use the rest of your joint money? Or some variation? This might be a useful time to consider this, as with a child comes all sorts of extra expenses and considerations.
He is a knob for totting up what you owe him though, interested to know what he was thinking!!

Just be wary of keeping his secrets incase it is the start of abuse, which, as said, is common after birth.

Bill him for growing a baby and renting your womb **

Hes either mean and awful or thick and stupid. Neither is great though the latter has less malice I guess.

Why are you pussyfooting around him, just ask him! And then if you think he is being serious then you need to tell him where to go!! That is not a kind partner even asking this. You are supposed to be a team. Imagine if it was the other way round, and you asking him to pay back things he couldn’t pay, that you sorted out, if for example he was on long term sick etc

Agreed, please invoice him for womb rental services and damages to your body, in incubating and delivering his children!

Calculate what childcare costs full time at a nursery and bill him back for 50% of that cost.

@LemonadeShadeParade this is disgusting. I don’t even have any words to describe how this thread made me feel. Makes my skin crawl how your HUSBAND could say this

This!!! What an unbelievably cunty thing for him to try to pull. WTF.

Well nothing he can say will erase that scribble now. I’d be massively concerned he isn’t who I thought he was. Look how many people are outraged, and I outraged. This is one of the worst things i’ve read on here, and there’s a lot of arseholes out there.

I think this is the worst thing I have ever heard

Really feel for you OP. Congratulations on your baby. I hope you enjoyed your Mat leave. What terrible thing for someone to say, let alone your husband! I’d text a close friend about it too so you have real life support. But we’ve all got you 💚

OP, you need to have a frank discussion with him re this. This is seriously off the scale unreasonable

I don't find this surprising because I read on here time and time again about women who seem to pay their way through maternity leave even using their savings to do so! I have no idea what goes into people's heads like this. You are married. His job is to tide the family over while you are unable to due to having a baby. It is bloody ridiculous and he needs some home truths!

I'd have literally laughed in his face and obviously assumed he was joking. What an arsehole

What an absolute bastard. Ditch him asap

Well, childcare costs £2000 a month. So he owes you £1000 a month for every month you have been on mat leave. That is for 10 hours a day… anything beyond that that’s not split 50/50 would then be in addition to…
who owns whom what now?

Add up how much all those days/hours you were on maternity leave would have cost you in childcare if you had gone back to work immediately & bill him back. Guarantee he will “owe” you more.

In all seriousness though, he’s an absolute prick. This is disgraceful.

I really couldn't come back from that.

I'm absolutely astounded.

If he truly thinks that, you are absolutely fucked. Do not make excuses for him/his family background etc etc

Have an extremely serious conversation with him immediately. Explain the absolute disgusting point of view he has and how he has irrevocably disrespected you.

He needs to literally beg for your forgiveness

I'm absolutely disgusted

You could also just say: "No. Now whaddya gonna do about it?!!"

Ladies, we have a late entrant for Mumsnet Twat of the Year, 2024 and it's a strong one!

I suspect in reality he has always relied you on you emotionally, for life skills and for financially.

He's making it clear he expects you to continue to do that. He's rejecting the role of father as provider and partner.

I'm hoping he's just having a wobble and being a new father his head is up his arse because if not then it's really not on to be saying you owe him. Wtf? You have carried and birthed his child and he pulls a stunt like this 🙈

If you each pay a percentage of costs that's proportionate to your income then you should have been paying the percentage of the costs relating to your SMP while you were on maternity leave! That would have been fair and in keeping with your previous agreements. Based on that you have probably been overpaying and he owes you ;-)

Are you not seriously challenging him tonight on this?

My sister saved the money she would have been contributing before her maternity leave so she could contribute exactly the same during maternity leave with her first child. Her husband was fully on board with this.

She returned to full-time work after her first child.

After her second child, she went part-time/self employed, she and her husband ended up in marriage counselling and the counsellor at one point said to him "you do realise your wife has no money?".

She left him eventually.

They've been divorced quite a while and my sister has a second husband.