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?! ☹️

Please come back and update us op. I read your latest reply and I'm not sure if it's strong enough really. You deserve much better. Are you heading into an abusive and / or dependent situation? Please be careful.

More likely the person hit the wrong button.and doesn't know they can change it

When you earn more you subsidise him and don't keep a tab but when he is the higher earner he keeps a tab which he expects you to repay. That is just so fucked up.

This in bold.

Start playing 'No Charge' by Dolly Parton on loop in your house...

one of the 1st things I thought was the song No Charge

”When you add it all up the real cost of love - no charge”

Tell him you'll pay him back when he manages to push a grapefruit up his arse.

How about you do your own calculation pre-maternity showing how much more you earned than him. Then present him with an invoice. See how he likes it.

How are you this morning op?

When you say he calculated what you ‘owe’ him, how was that presented? Did he just say it to you or as in your OP where you detailed it, was it presented that way? If the latter I don’t think it was a joke.

I think calculating your earning losses, your childcare savings, money saved on formula if you breastfed, anything you personally bought for the baby or yourself i.e maternity clothes, etc and then showing him what 50/50 looks like for him going forward is the best route.

I have to be honest, I don’t think I could ever see someone that did this to me as a partner again. However out of character this is, this line of thinking is devaluing the absolute life changing experience of becoming a mother.

He sems to have forgotten that you're married.
Maybe show him the wedding photos?

Bloody hell. Right this one is easily sorted OP. You now go through and do a monthly invoice for all childcare services rendered and housekeeping ad hoc work covered by you. Like proper high end rates as its been done properly by you not low rates. And send him the bill. What a *!

This is very much a 'when it's your money, it's our money, but when it's my money it's my money' situation. As a partnership, the cost of bringing up a child should be shared. That means, during maternity leave, he has the biggest wage - so he should be shouldering most of the bills. You shouldn't have used your savings, whilst he's no doubt carried on saving (at least if these 'debts' are paid).

Why are you paying all the groceries? Surely that should come out of a shared purse?

Even if its put on a monetary basis, how much time does he actually 'help' out with his child (and give you some time off)? If you calculate the hours that you spend doing childcare (probably about 18 hrs a day, given broken nights?) compared to him (30 mins?) and then put the same costs as you're going to pay for nursery in terms of £ per hour, perhaps this will mean that he owes you money from all the months that you've been working so hard being a mum?

However, going forward, he needs to realise that this was the move of a complete twat and that he deserves to be extremely apologetic even if it was a 'joke' as its not remotely funny and completely disrespectful towards you and your child.

dont forget to add in the wages you've missed out on.

Bill him for loss of earnings

Joking aside, this is an issue that really needs to be resolved.

Assuming the child was planned, what did he think a healthy family financial dynamic looked like? Does he understand what the motherhood penalty is and how having a child affects a woman's finances? Does he think that his financial profile is more important than yours?

Does he attach value to your role as the mother of his children or are you supposed to become "lesser" than him?

How did he expect to have a family without taking on additional responsibilities?

It's better to have the difficult conversations now and set things out for how this will work rather than to let resentment build or, worse, allow yourself to be hung out to dry.

When a woman has a child, this is often where the power imbalance starts and it can be the beginning of the end unless addressed swiftly.

Don't forget to throw in a charge for carrying baby while working

If you're breastfeeding, add on a Boob Tax as well as time spent with baby latched

Your time is no less worthy than his

He needs to fuck right off.

Any updates op? I hope you managed to resolve this. I wouldn’t expect to be billed, even given everyone handles finances differently. Maybe it is genuinely a case of his upbringing or he’s really stressed about money, and he genuinely thinks the financial arrangements carry on as per usual.

You’re both in it together, and it’s not like you’ve been on holiday. It would make me angry, but sounds like he hasn’t really thought this through properly.

If your bills are usually paid by % of income work out your % by your maternity pay as this was your income at the time, He has benefited from your paying more for years. He is definitely in the wrong here. You have had time off because you delivered and recovered from child birth and took care of your joint child. Make sure that things for baby child care and class fees come out of joint account the baby’s his too he might as well realise how expensive they are. Food is not a just you bill either that’s a joint household expense. It’s time to reanalyse your finances now and make it fair.

What an a$$hole! Doesn’t bode well for the future OP if this is his attitude. I hope for the sake of you all that it was a bad joke.

Add up your lost pension contributions during MAT leave (and if you go back part time, work out what you're losing out on), then make sure you add on the student loan interest (if you have one), then you have a starting point for what he probably OWEs you.

Oh, don't forget to add on the vitamins you need during pregnancy and post, also the physical cost to your body for having baby - at least 10 chiropractor sessions. As a starter for 10.

What an absolute joker! I hope you tell your friends about this.

Personally, I think all finances should be shared in a marriage but you have chosen not to do that.

I can kind of see his logic or why he might feel his contribution during your maternity leave was unfair on him. Having separate finances benefits you most of the time as you are the higher earner. If he had to contribute a larger percentage or amount of his savings for the 10 months that you were on maternity leave than you did, I can see why he thinks it is unfair. The arrangement has benefitted you when you were both the higher and lower earner.

I’m not saying that I agree with him or even that the figures even add up that way (I’m assuming neither of you actually know whether he has ended up contributing a greater percentage of his income over the entirety of the relationship because of supporting you through through your studies and maternity leave) but I can see why he might feel like that. Has he actually paid more this year than if you split bills by your usual formula? Did he contribute more of his savings than you did? It could be argued that the amount contributed from savings should be split based on your normal incomes.

I wouldn’t assume that he is a financially abusive monster if this is the only time he has behaved like this. You said he was supportive when you were a student. How are you planning to split childcare costs? Is he paying his fair share? IME as soon as shared finances get a bit complicated, unless you actually sit down and do the sums, both parties feel like they are the one getting the raw deal.

I was just thinking, imagine if she did divorce him at some point - he'd be after every penny. Some (most?) men are very worrying.

I do think that some men have a real issue with two individuals becoming a unit that is marriage, especially when women are earning the same if not more than them. Going forward they expect to remain the same, each paying their share, individually financed. Unless they do the initial baby care, their lives are also not affected to the same extent ie they go to work, same time, same way each day. They don't have to consider a helpless baby every time they leave the room or the house.

My ex-husband certainly didn't consider that our child was both our responsibility when we had her. Looking after her was doing me a favour. He also didn't consider the cost of childcare to be his responsibility. Complete lack of empathy which contributed to the demise of our relationship. I don't think this is an uncommon issue.

It might be worth having some counselling for you both to deal with this issue before considering the nuclear option. Empathy can be learnt and it seems like some reprogramming and a third party pointing this out may get him to realise how wrong his thinking is.

Curious to know what his parents relationship is like. He has no idea of the contract which is marriage. His job is to provide for you when you are on maternity leave.