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?! ☹️

Quite

Calculate what salary you have foregone for rhe tine on maternity leave and bill him for half it description "incubating and gestation your child and subsequent related childcare charges"

Show him this thread.

I'm praying that I've just misunderstood or he's delivered a terrible terrible joke.

For everyone asking why I've not bulldozed straight back into the conversation, I need a bit of time to cool down, check myself, find advice and this is obviously going to be a disagreement so not something I want to do in the heat of the moment.

Please bill him for your labour and delivery charges. How many hours pain were you in? That’s got to be chargeable at more than your current work rate. Plus of course your 9 months of carrying his child. There must be a daily rate for that.

I’d agree, then counteract a bill for carrying a child, birthing a child, childcare (i know maternity leave isn’t childcare but if he’s acting like this then I’d look up local nursery charges and bill him)

you are supposed to be a team. I’m so sorry

Charge him for incubating the baby for nine months, then add on for ware and tear😂.
Seriously I would be so disappointed with my husband if he said this.

There are various ways of managing money I see on here from couples. But I'd say the most common is something like:

Put all the incomings in one pot (family money). Pay all essentials (1) from this (mortgage, bills, food, childcare). And also agree as a team how much of it to spend on desirables (2) (new kitchen, holiday, how expensive a car, family savings).

Then keep an equal amount back each that is your own (3) and (4).

(2) can create vigorous discussion (like when your wife wants to include a wine fridge in the new kitchen for an extra 300 and you don't....). But that's being married!

This all means that whoever is the higher earner gets no more 'fun' money than the lower earner: (3) = (4). And I'd always say that's fair even when I've been the higher earning man. You're a team.

So as long as that's gonna be true when you're back as the higher earner. Then it should also have been true while he was the higher earner by default during your mat leave. I imagine him being 'paid back' doesn't make any sense in that context. So tell him he's a knob and that you're a team. Maybe showing him this thread will help his self-awareness!

It really is.

This ...is insane. I'm not married, my partner has told me my 'job' whilst on maternity leave is our baby. As in he thinks I am working full time looking after our child, he is covering the bills and any thing else I need whilst on maternity leave. He also said, I should take my pension contributions from our joint account as I lose them during mat leave. You said you spoke before mat leave, what was agreed then?

This ^

I'd offer him the opportunity to perhaps have a rethink about his decision. And remind him that, if he can make a unilateral decision to 'revisit' and renege on the agreement, then you are free to do the same.

If you make him aware that, in the meantime, you'll start totting up your costs accrued to date, i.e. childare, reduced pension contributions, etc., it will focus his mind on the matter.

This is awful, OP. I read posts like this and think what is the world coming to and can the bar possibly get any lower?

Obviously you know he is 100% wrong here. I think you need to give him time to think about his position and how he sees his role in the family - both as a husband and a father.

Id also have a discussion about how he sees the family dynamic operating once you’re back at work. You say you’re the higher earner - I’d be worried he’ll expect the domestic set-up to carry on as it’s been during your maternity (ie you doing all childcare) but with the additional of you bringing in the majority of the money (AND paying him back for maternity leave).

I honestly can’t advise you what to do. Just to say that I couldn’t judge any reaction you have to this as being excessive. This isn’t just behaviour that kills attraction and respect - it would kill basic liking & trust. It’s a totally extraordinary way for a grown-man to behave.

And stop paying for all the groceries of everything else is proportionate. They should be too.

And bill him for your lost pension contributions!!!!!!

Sounds like you have some further financial lessons to teach him. What a brass neck. I have no idea why you used your savings to pay into the joint account when on mat leave. Unless money was too tight to pay bills from your mat money and his salary? If he can't understand what a marriage and having a baby together means then I foresee further problems in your future. If he was so useless with money before you met him/sorted him out, then it may be fair to assume he needs educating about this too. What i don't understand is why you have allowed the payments from your savings. If you were the brains financially in the past then why didn't you make the decisions on this and sort it out? He's obviously a giant manbaby that's incapable.

If anyone can give me some good sentences to use to help him understand why he's so wrong, I'd appreciate help on how to phrase it because I can just see myself getting my words muddled and eventually just telling him he's a twat!

Hi husband, I’ve been thinking, how about I return to work full time to be able to pay you back what I apparently owe you? You quit your job and be a full time stay at home dad. That means you’ll have to look after baby all day, clean the house and get dinner ready for when I come home. BTW, you’ll most likely owe me money down the line since I’ll be covering most of the finances with my wages. We can set up an Excel spreadsheet later on and calculate it down to the penny?

(P.S …. He’s a twat!)

This is horrifying, OP. Can you message him now to clarify it was a joke? Then at least you can give him a bollocking for the terrible, inappropriate, unfunny joke, but not have to worry about preparing to leave your marriage!

Can you text him so you can control what you say without getting caught up in emotion?

"Hey - what you said last night is really playing on my mind today. You didn't really mean that I owe you for my maternity leave did you??! Because that doesn't make any sense - I was looking after our baby and my income dropped considerably as a result - I wasn't off on holiday!"

Once you have a child, this sort of approach just doesn’t really work in my mind. You’re a family unit and your success and financial stability is a joint effort.

Where I think it falls down with children is spending on them. Is a baby class joint spend or the spend of the person who takes them, who pays for childcare? What about clothes, says out etc. there are just so many areas where it makes life really hard to try and split spending.

Yes I was going to say that at full nursery or private nanny rates - his 50% share so he can not argue. I bet he owes you money!

cheeky fucker!

What stands out to me is that you seem to have agreed from the beginning to still pay half for everything, as you both had savings? It says in your OP that you were fine until the savings ran out, didn't you agree in advance that he should pay more because you were 'earning' less?

Maybe he thinks you both agreed to 50:50 it and you've basically borrowed money off him to fund your half? No husband worth anything would even dream of asking for that back though, but at the point you began to struggle with whatever your agreement was you should have had a conversation about fair contributions.

I went back to work and my DH took parental leave for a good chuck of our DD first year, but we worked out in advance what he would be getting and how we would split the bills, I basically covered the bills during that time.

I think you need to ask him what would happen if he became too ill to work, or lost his job, would he still expect to have to pay half for everything??

What a tosser.

@FoxtonFoxton indeed- I'm staggered at the number who see marriage or even living together like some kind of convenient business partnership that enables them to 'get a home' and where everyone keeps track of the numbers -

If anyone can give me some good sentences to use to help him understand why he's so wrong, I'd appreciate help on how to phrase it because I can just see myself getting my words muddled and eventually just telling him he's a twat!

I'd go the other way. Instead of you trying to explain to him, make him explain why he thinks that's fair and reasonable. His answers will be very instructive as to his approach to finances going forward.

WHAT

THE

FUCK

What did I just read? What does he think getting married is? What does he think being a husband and father is? Has he no pride at all?

Bollocks to that.

Don't give him chance to back peddle.

I'd be holding him to account for this one.
Laser focus on 'what the fuck did you just say and give me one good reason why I should ever talk to you again'