I feel like I've messed up my life

[ToddlerIs2]

I got a degree and a decent job straight from Uni but was always awful with money. Spending it makes me feel better so I never saved the way I should have. Moved into my own place and met now DH. Earned more so didn't want to combine banks, I've had bad experience with a parent being terrible with money and it made me wary. All good, although no savings but decent life. Got pregnant, intending to keep working but she was a really poorly baby and we spent two years in and out of hospital, so I took redundancy which covered me for a while. Just as she was getting older and more independent I was going to look for work but finally fell pregnant, with twins. Then COVID. So no return to work.

Now they're growing up and our UC will end May. I have no savings. No wages. I get carers but it's a tiny amount. I have 4k on a credit card. DH will have savings just over the threshold so we're understandably not entitled to IC once we get that money.
And as we've never shared money, he's a good saver and I'm appalling with money, I don't feel like I can now just tap that cash pot.
Of course he'll cover all bills but he doesn't know about the credit card bill because that's been my shame to bear.
Working is obviously the right move as the kids have just started full time school but I'm so overwhelmed with the complexity of having childcare in place before I get a job and affording that given we won't get any financial help and how long do I have that in place for before I even manage to get a job after a ten year career gap? And how do we afford holiday care 8-6 for 10 weeks a year? How do I get them to childcare and back when I don't drive and can't afford to learn? I'm 18 months off finishing an OU degree that I hoped would get me into teaching and all I can see is me sitting at home every day asking DH for pocket money so I can go for a coffee once every few months.

And I know, I know. This is what I deserve. I should have left my infant in hospital and gone to work. I shouldn't have made myself reliant on someone else / the state. I should be a fucking grown up and save my money and have investments and income streams. I should accept that I can't give my younger kids the attention my older one got at their age and that it's perfectly normal for them to be away from me 8-6 every day. That I shouldn't be entitled to keep up my volunteer work because paid work is more important, regardless of how much my identify is shaped by it.

But I'm so scared and overwhelmed. I'm scared of working again and coping with that and the kids when it feels so much to organise and do and I don't know where to start and I will be that parent working in a low paid job whilst my sister / sil is home with their kids full time because it's so important for them etc....

I just hate myself and the mess I've made of my life.

If you've not been working how can you have separate funds and expect to live?! My mum didn't work for about 12 years when I was young so the income that came in via my Dad's work and benefits was family income. They weren't paying for childcare because she didn't work so they saved there but then she had access to the household income and never had to "ask for pocket money". Surely that's the only way being a stay at home parent with a working partner can work?!

Because i got the UC in my name, he got his wages in his and then when he paid me his share of the bills he added some to even it up

I think op sounds very lacking on confidence and self esteem and by writing that paragraph was trying to pre-empt any harsh criticism from our collective nest of vipers. So she was blaming herself before everyone else had a go and it wrongly came across as a bit self-indulgent instead.

It makes me wonder op why you are so lacking in self belief and so hyper-independent emotionally and ashamed of not being perfect? Once you are in a better financial position, a therapist could maybe help you with that.

Op going to work will be good for you. Start slowly and get as much advice and support as you can. And lean on your dh a bit. Tell him the truth, it doesn’t sounds as if you spent the money on anything wildly extravagant.

You mention being scatty so you spent money on taxis and take outs. Presumably that came about because one of your dc had high care needs and still has some? In which case your dh should be contributing to paying off your debt. Presumably he ate the takeaways too?

Finally, it sounds as though your dh is a supportive man, but just to check, are you afraid of the consequences of telling him op? And does he step up at home with cooking and other household chores?

Give yourself a break fhs! 😀. Be kinder to yourself and write an action list! Good luck!

@Babadook76 but that was before she became a stay at home parent. When the circumstances changed, the financial arrangements should have too.

Why are you beating yourself up so much? You know, I spend a lot of time on here and people are brutal...you sound as if you've absorbed all their judgment and it's become your inner voice.

No normal, kind person is judging you. You've been through a terrible time. You are allowed to ask your husband for help. Be kinder to yourself or you're going to end up making yourself ill x

I totally agree, except the refusing to work. It's only the last two years it would have been feasible and we both agreed the priority was to finish the degree without me sitting down to start studying at 9pm as I'd done previously as it was making me ill. When I've mentioned work since he's pressed me to focus on finishing the degree. He is totally innocent in this but he isn't pushing me to work because he isn't paying my share.

The volunteering is a red herring. It isn't anything I could be paid for, is a handful of weekends a year and some odd bits here and there, and then stuff in the week with my kids. I had two years away from it when we had eldest and then stopped a big chunk of it completely when we had the twins. I'm hoping that when I apply for jobs, it'll help having something on my CV rather than just a gap.

Thank you for getting that comment.

I don't know. We established in my last therapy 🙄 that my self esteem is crap but I don't know why. I worked from GCSEs, through Uni and immediately after despite a MH crisis. I worked aty last place a decade and they were willing to keep me on by giving me an unpaid year, which is a huge compliment but I feel like any confidence I had from that and the goodwill and belief they had in me then in my 20s and 30s, it's just dissipated. I've always felt like a cuckoo in the next tbh.

I'm not scared of anything except the anticipation of letting him down and how I will feel l, of not being good enough. He is good, he does more than his share of it all Inc kids and has time off so I can do stuff / buys me "time away from the kids" presents lol. I just have so much shame even writing this makes me want to cry. I don't know HOW to say the words. Maybe I need to write it down and then when it's right I can leave it with him.

And he hasn't always eaten the takeouts lol, if he's home he pays. But I'm alone all day and I comfort eat. Jesus I just sound better and better don't I? So sometimes a naughty KFC cheers me up and makes me feel I'm being kind to myself when in the long run I'm not

I completely agree with you. But nothing she has said has suggested that how he manages the finances are in any way unfair. She repeatedly states again and again that she is awful for overspending. She also has said she has repeatedly pushed to keep their finances separate, she’s not asked him to have full access to all his money, and if I’ve read it correctly she would be worried having access to his money due to her past history of spending. He’s covering everything including in her list ‘kids have more clothes than they need, he pays for my taxis because I’m scatty and late, he pays for takeaways to cheer me up’ etc. She also says that he’s very emotionally available. He sounds like an amazing father and partner imo. On the other side of the spectrum you’ve got the op who is finding herself up shit creek due to her own poor choices, and has said herself this is her being too ashamed to ask him to bail her out, which from the sounds of things he actually would if he even knew about it

You're being very hard on yourself! 4k on a credit card after being out of work for 10 years is nothing. See if your DH can help to pay it off or transfer it to a 0% deal and pay a set amount each month rather than the min payment.
Work seems a lot to organise and it is when you're out of practice.
Can you get a job for the hours when your DH is not working, just as a start? Evening work in a supermarket or a pub? It would give you a distraction at least. If it's too much with the exams you can always leave or ask for unpaid leave. A job is not a prison sentence.
Even if you got a daytime job, childminders can do school runs and can your DH do his bit too with drop off and pick up?
Teaching is a good plan, don't talk yourself out of it before you've even started. Teachers love to complain, justifiably so usually, but most do at least a few years of it before packing it in, which would pay your debt off.
You haven't messed your life up at all, it's easy to feel sorry for yourself when others look more secure, but they haven't had the same road to travel as you.

I will never ever understand these posts where people are happy to get married and have children but can't have a conversation about money.

Stop self-flagellating, bite the bullet and draw up a plan. £4k is barely anything in the grand scheme of things. Make up a list of things that need doing, things that need paying for, get a joint account to make things more transparent. The draw a line under it.

Reading between the lines (I’m happy to be corrected), they’ve arranged their finances and spending around her oh’s wages, and the op receives benefits and carers allowance (plus maternity and anything else on and off). When her oh had a pay rise I believe he started transferring even more into the pot to even it out. The op keeps mentioning overspending and being ashamed to tell her husband. I’m guessing that she’s pissed far too much money up the wall, and they both know it and now she’s embarrassed. There’s a horrible tone to this thread implying the husband being financially abusive when I don’t think that’s the case at all. I don’t think there’s any excuse to go for that many years without working, most mums do have jobs

Jesus you are awfully hard on yourself. You sound like an overachiever given what you have accomplished, why is a 4k on a credit card “your shame to bare”.

There is a real lack of perspective, balance and self reliance to a completely detrimental level in your mindset. After 5 years of child rearing including a very poorly baby, you only have 4k debt, now that has become your priority to get back into work and work with your life parter to clear the debt. You have achieved, you have done nothing shameful. I think you are projecting the shame from your frivolous parent into your own situation. You are not them.

Your split finances were fine UNTIL YOU HAD A CHILD. That point it should have changed. It still can. Your debt is due to you but working due to you raising his dc. So his savings are actually your pay that he never paid you for providing childcare.

Those savings need to pay off the debt. Your debt is not likely due to overspending. They are due to you paying half of everything whilst not earning anything.

Going forward it now has to be shared as you took a massive hit on earning potential by looking after his dc.

OP, if he’s got £16K in savings, taking you over the UC cut off, and you have £4K debt, then it’s only logical to pay that off. Call it a 0% loan from him to you until you’re working in your new career, if that helps your pride. (You don’t need to though, you should just move to family money from now on.)

It’s easy to spend money when you’re with the kids all the time and it’s easy not to spend money when you’re at work all the time. Stop beating yourself up.

Op you definitely need to get out the house when kids are in school. You want to get into teaching, could you volunteer in the local primary for a hour a day doing reading with kids? That will reduce your temptation to order KFCs etc and get you experience.

But ultimately you and him need to talk.

So your husband knows you don't work
He knows your the childcare for the children, presumably so his job isn't disturbed
Yet he hasn't at any point put the family money in a joint account.
So you must of done a joint UC application..did that not go in the family pot either
This is a very weird set up
You need to open a joint account and get all money paid in and all bills coming out and what's left you share .
Or your husband takes over all bills and gives you an agreed amount of housekeeping
One or the other ,or he is being abusive