To wonder if I’m being unfair

[cowsaidmoo]

I am married and have two children, age four and 18 months.

I work three days a week.

I pay for the nursery fees, children’s activities including swimming lessons, most of the food for the children and most of their clothes.

DH pays for everything else: mortgage, bills, etc.

Around the house I do pretty much everything. I cook, do the cleaning, laundry, etc. It is me who is on night duty and I do all the nursery drop offs and pick ups and will do when school starts.

Dh does stuff around the garden, DIY tasks and any car maintenance.

Is this unfair?

Impossible to say really. Do you have equal access to money, and equal leisure time? If not, then it's not fair.

You need to measure it time spent and money spent there’s no point of listing other jobs does his gardening and DIY take longer than your jobs or is it the same?

The same with bills, are you paying out equal amounts?

I don’t think that’s possible.

What’s not possible?

Can't comment financially as I was a sahm at that stage, so DHs salary covered everything. That was how we both grew up and how we wanted it.

Regarding the chores, I have absolutely no interest in garden, cars, outside maintenance etc., so I was more than happy to do the general housework and laundry and leave the stuff I didn't like for DH.

So I can't see a huge issue, but it's what works for your relationship, everyone is different.

To know if it's fair we'd need to know what the income and outgoings for each person are. Eg if mortgage is £1500, childcare £300 and he is earning 3 times what you are then it would be fair, if you're earning the same then he would be paying proportionately more, if your salary is 1/20th of his then you would be paying proportionately more.....

In terms of workload, again is he working 5 days and you 3 or is he working 6 days, are those standard 9-5 or is he working 6-8 every day of the week.....

Clearly one of you doesn't feel your arrangement is fair or you wouldn't be asking the question, so who is questioning the arrangement, on what basis and what discussion have you had about it so far?

It isn’t possible to divide up exact finances and leisure time or whatever. I just worry because DH is paying for most of the ‘important’ things I suppose.

It may or may not be fair but when things are divided like this it is a lot more work to keep things fair because all those bills vary. Simpler is to pool income, deduct the bills (and any savings you want to put aside) and divide the remainder between you.

Time wise, it is harder to make an easy division but you can do similar if you make sure that if one of you has some personal time put aside for a hobby or similar the other also has a similar time for their preferred activities.

Create a spreadsheet list every single Bill and expenses, including everything for the children and the property.

Then list out the cost.

Ideally this is all.paid from one account but can be done from two accounts.

Then work out your income, both wages and any other income, child benefit etc.

Then work out how much money is left from the total income after all.bills are paid.

Divide the income left by two.

That is your money each.

Then take that money off your salary as your spending money and everything else goes into the joint account.

Husband then does the same.

Then do the same to list out your spare time and make sure you have the same time off from work and children