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?! ☹️

You should add up all the unpaid parenting you did and then give him the bill for that…

Don’t give him the money under any circumstances. Also tell him he has to birth his own baby as this one is obviously only yours as he’s made you a bill. If he disagrees make him a bill for his baby occupying your body for 9 months. Not to mention the nurturing. Also leave and claim child maintenance because I don’t know how he is going to come back from that tbh. What an arsehole

Definitely make him pay 50/50 for everything now. What a cheek! I always find it’s guys that earn less that their wives that are like this.

hi op,

here is what he owes you :

• hosting, growing and pushing out the baby he wanted too…(the amount he ask you +£1M)
• if I were you, I would forever remind him of him trying to make you pay for making a baby

he should apologize 🤷🏼‍♀️

Good luck 🌺

Husband has a hell of a lot of growing up to do and has to realise you are a family now and you do not o him 💩. He is covering costs of having a baby together.. wtf is wrong with his sorry bug wtaf 😳 I’m embarrassed for him.. he is going to get a shock as baby gets older on how much cost and days off with sick child.. he is being a twat if I’m quite honest. He needs a chat with his mum on what he is doing she will give him a wake up call if she doesn’t then she is your beginning of the cause..

He didn't mention this before as he knew you wouldn't agree to it and probably wouldn't have even had a child together. Even if he backs down, the words can't be forgotten. If he's worried about money, ask him how he feels about an expensive divorce?

This.

I’d start writing up much he owes you for cooking for him, washing his clothes ect.

Honestly what a bizarre thing to do!

I must be an overly reactive person because I wouldn’t be able to wait for the conversation to come up again, I’d be having it out with him. I wouldn’t be able to carry on normally after my DH had said something like that.

As pp have said, bill him for childcare, cleaning, laundry, meals, sex, transport. Then dump him. X

This is what I find so sad. Men with no sane or reasonable set of values who sire children but lack any sense of responsibility.

Send him an invoice for loss of earnings looking after his baby.

He is a prince of arseholes

Surely this was a joke?

Could his family have put him up to do this?

So sorry you are in this situation, of course he is the unreasonable one. Tbh I believe this is coercive control and financial abuse. Maybe give woman's aid a call if you can. I posted a similar post to you here about 7 years ago and really it was the beginning of the end of my marriage. We are not separated over 5 years and getting rid of him was the best thing I ever did. Ask yourself is he making your life easier or making life more difficult. Take care of yourself 💕

Same here. That would be it for me.
That level of abuse is intolerable.

I'm speechless. I'd just about buy that from someone who you had an ill advised one night stand with, resulting in an accrimonious and very distant co-parenting scenario. Even then he'd sound like an arse.
Your husband. HUSBAND. Not ex. thinks you owe him money for being on mat leave with his kid, even though he's the higher earner.
You'd be better off divorced. You'd get more money. And less ball ache from the worlds least responsible marital partner.

Too frequently appearing on these threads.
Lazy, entitled, abusive men.
Whose first response is greed.

He's jealous because you earn more. Going back to work you'll be earning more again so he wants what he feels he's owed. Absolutely shocking!! You gave birth to his child!! Is he for real?

Definitely bill him for childcare and everything else you've done while off on mat leave. It's also disgusting that he's actually kept a record for 10 months without mentioning it.

I would ignore it for now and if he mentions it again laugh at him. If he insists then laugh again and say you'll invoice him for childcare and pay the balance which will be a big fat f**k all!

OMG - how outrageous is that… you have spent 10 months pregnant.. that is hard in itself… then you give birth … would you be pricing things up if the tables were turned? and he was having to give birth? With such a stingy mindset… this needs to be a unique, once only experience. I would not have any more children with someone so mean minded. Perhaps you should bill him for sex, for domestic chores, for morning sickness, for giving birth, for child rearing services grrrrrrr

The man is a quintessential loser. Head firmly jammed up his derriere.

What a flop!!! And who on here thinks op is being unreasonable ???????????

Childcare would have cost him £1600 per month in some areas, so you can bill him for that. I would also be divorcing him, and making a cms claim to begin with. I’d go for half of everything after

And how much does he owe you for your loss of earnings whilst having his baby? For the extra housework you're doing?
I really don't get the financial split idea in a relationship.