To expect DH to support me financially on maternity leave and increase the share of mental load

[Iris10000]

This is a long post but I hope I will get some response and advice. I have been going in circles with DH and it’s apparent we have totally different outlook on running the household and associated responsibilities. The argument boils down to two items:

• money and what happens when my maternity pay decreases. Just as a background we have two DCs preschool age and 4 months. Before maternity leave I worked part time 4 days earning £72k. DH works 5 days earning £35k. We both get bonuses. Mine is c£10k once a year and his is £400 a month. DH refused to have joint account so I take care of all bills and he has standing order to my account. He approximately contributes 35 percent of all bills and kids expenses. Some larger purchases for DCs and household are financed from my bonus and he doesn’t contribute. DH has more savings than me as a result of not always contributing to all expenditure. I am fed up of being responsible for all finances and not having one pot. I don’t like the idea of my and yours money but DH disagrees. I asked DH if he could support me on maternity leave when my wages are lower than his and especially the last two months when I don’t get paid. I thought this is fair as I have been contributing to household expenses more than him and I am happy to do that as that’s fair because I am the higher earner. He said he doesn’t want to hand over all his wages and that I should dip into my savings. I feel very emotional about this as I really want someone to take care of me and stop feeling like I am the house manager and DH is my son.
• Spinning from the argument above there is another argument about the split of mental load. I fully expect to do more when on maternity leave but I also did more when I was working. DH is of a view that he already does more than any man and partner he spoken to in his workplace as they don’t even change a nappy. He also stated that he is tired in the evenings so cannot physically do more. He is of an opinion that I am unreasonably demanding and I should be more affectionate towards him as he doesn’t feel loved. This is totally irrelevant but crops up at every conversation I am trying to have with him so it’s always spun the way that I am the bad wife. Our split is as follows: DH - bins, help get older DC dressed and make her breakfast in the morning, being tidy which stems from his OCD tendency, play with both DCs when I cook in the evening, older DC bedtime but not bath, mow the lawns once every two weeks, iron his work shirts, play with DCs at the weekend, change nappy etc when we are all at home at weekends (yes he thinks this is part of his chores and counts). Me - preschool pick up and drop off when I am on maternity leave, meal planing, food shop, cooking, shopping for all household items eg bin bags, cleaning products and noticing when they need a top up, house cleaning every other week as we have a cleaner, buying, sorting, replacing DCs clothes, daily laundry, planning DCs activities such as swimming and taking them, all preschool admin and asking DH to take holiday for things like sports day or nativity so we can both go, looking after household finances, looking after DCs health (organise private health ins, taking to doctors, dentist when needed), changing beds, thinking ahead of the school holidays and organising clubs and my unpaid leave.

Spelled out by whom? Is the assumption here that women are aware before ttc the first baby that life changes after having children but men are not, and that it is the job of childless women to explicitly educate their childless partners?

Is this not setting up an assumption of incompetence/ mother as mental load manager and father needs to be told what to do and follow instructions dynamic as the foundation of the relationship?

Something is wrong with that...

Yes, of course couples should talk about expectations sah/ work, costs, religion, where to live, how many kids ideally, any big unusual things like already knowing you want to homeschool or move back to where you grew up or something) before having children, but both go into ttc the first child unaware of exactly what will take them by surprise about one another, as well as about babies and children!

You can’t have it both ways though. You’re either happy to have joint finances and it’s all family money, or you’re not.

Quockly move any savings to an account in your sole name....asap.
Talk to Women's aid too.

Any savings should be joint savings, and obviously he should cover more expenses while you're on maternity leave. How can he imagine you carrying his baby is nothing to do with him financially? The whole point of marriage is that you're a unit and you support each other. I couldn't carry on with someone who thinks like that.

Op get some more advice. Ask womens aid for their list of solicitors in your area. 50-50 for really young children ie under 2 is not recommended. And would he really want that, given how little he contributes to the DC now. If you act enthusiastic about him having 50-50 so you can use your free time to do fun stuff he would most likely back off any threats of it anyway. I’d also speak to gingerbread, the single parents charity

remember the longer you stay together the more you have to divide. Splitting when the DC are young means they don’t remember you being together and can be easier in them. Plus you deserve better.

100%. One day the hormonal veil lifts though and you wonder what the fuck you were thinking. Sadly you're already enslaved by that point.

Spelled out by whom? Is the assumption here that women are aware before ttc the first baby that life changes after having children but men are not, and that it is the job of childless women to explicitly educate their childless partners?

By both. She says this is going to be really, really hard and our life will be worse. He says this is going to be really, really hard and our life will be worse.

At that point they decide to go ahead or not. Most likely not since they both acknowledge it will be hard and neither of them really want to do all the graft and mental load.

If he doesn't want to share "his" money, stop sharing yours and subsidising him.

50% custody?

When your youngest is 4 months old, he doesn't pull his weight (and didn't even before you went on maternity leave and were the main breadwinner), and he thinks he's dad of the year because at least he changes the occasional nappy?

Seems unlikely to me.

You'd push for more than 50% on the grounds that you think it's best to stay in the house and be the resident parent, and for him to have the children every other weekend.

The fact that you're divorcing him because he's a useless sack of shit who doesn't pull his weight either financially or practically is likely to make a judge sympathetic to your point of view.

Given that you earn significantly more, why can't you do shared PL, he then stays home with the child and you go back to work. That way he can't complain.

What makes you think he’d want 50/50 when he does absolutely fuck all as it is?

Regardless of anything eise, if he thinks your reduced maternity pay doesn’t mean he should pay more temporarily then your increased salary shouldn’t mean you pay more long term either. He can’t have it both ways. Either the one receiving less money pays less or they don’t. It can’t apply to you and not him. So I think when you’re back to work you should make him increase his contributions to 50% - by his own logic! If you manage to stomache him until then that is 😂

I 100% agree.

If OP’s H doesn’t want to support her financially when she’s losing some of her income due to maternity and taking care of their shared child, OP shouldn’t financially support her H when she goes back to work.

=> 50:50 on all joint expenses.

It's amazing how the husbands of women on Mumsnet claim that none of the other men they know change nappies, and yet in the real world, I don't know a single man who would dare try to get out of changing their own child's nappies.

Your husband is a lazy, financially-abusive misogynist. Get rid.

That get my vote.

Doubles the family income and puts all the domestic load on him.

The sooner you divorce him, the less money you will lose to this user.

He wants to pay less % when he earns less.

So when he’s the higher earner he pays more.
no other option unless he wants a joint pot.

The chances of him wanting or indeed receiving 50% custody are very slim. From the sounds of him the only reason he'd even consider going for 50% is to avoid paying maintenance so even if it happened the likelihood of him sticking to it in real life is very, very small.

You can do better than this, @Iris10000 and more importantly, your children should be able to grow up seeing you doing better than this instead of thinking this is a good or even normal way to live.

Tell him that there is a direct link between not pulling his weight and not feeling loved enough. Nothing makes one partner feel cold towards the other like having to shoulder the financial and domestic responsibility alone

So he saying - the higher earner should pay more, unless the higher earner is him, in which case the lower earner should dip into their savings?

He can't have it both ways!

Given how much he's contributing to overall family life, he's not going to ask for 50/50 custody and actually it's not likely he'd get it with such young children and you being the principal caregiver. Lots will threaten 50/50 as part of divorce, but often they don't go for it.

In any case, his right to equity in the house will also depend on length of marriage, who is primary caregiver etc. It's not totally cut and dried.

But in any case, I'd be seriously questioning staying - what happens if god forbid you or the DC had some kind of problem that meant you'd have to stop work? He wouldn't support you, would he? He's showing that now.

I am assuming it's his baby, in which case, he is equally responsible for it.

Since he cannot go through pregnancy and birth, the least he can do is provide financially for you whilst you recover from that.

For your husband's information, this is what my husband did during my pregnancy and after childbirth:

• All the cooking, as I had bad morning sickness and the smells in the kitchen made me nauseous
• Anything requiring heavy lifting (hoovering, bins, etc.)
• ALL nappies when he wasn't in work
• Bath times after he finished work
• Taking baby out for plenty of walks so I could nap on weekends and in the evenings

In addition to equal amounts of playing, singing, cuddling and contact napping, despite working often 12 hour days in a very physical and tiring role.

None of my friend's husband's did any less.

Why you decided to have another baby with this horrible drain I have no idea but since it's done now, you need to whip him into shape and he needs to grow tf up.

Has he refused counselling because he would be ashamed to defend his approach to “sharing” in front of a third party?

Because he bloody well should be.

Would he ACTUALLY have the children 50/50
how would he cope with pre school pick up / drop off / nursery pick up drop off / activities etc.

say he actually had them from Sunday 6pm - Sunday 6pm would / could he actually do it ?!!!
by himself - not relying on his parents or any siblings esp female ones to do the bulk of it for him...

You need to figure out your finances. This isn’t some ideological argument. You literally have bills to pay and you collectively need to figure out how you are going to pay them.

Open an account. Work out how much your monthly outgoings generally are (mortgage, electric, childcare costs, average weekly food shopping). Add them all up. Don’t worry about holidays and days out for now. Look at your current incomes. Like what you earn this month. If you earn twice as much, you contribute twice as much. If your Dh earns 30% more, you work out what proportion you both need to put in. You both add, say, £100 extra or whatever for incidentals, like a birthday present for a friend at nursery or new shoes for your preschooler or whatever.

You adjust this as you go. When you have no income, your Dh has to carry the full load. Or he can take parental leave and you can go back to work. Life is tiring. Unless he has a health issue that causes pain or fatigue, a normal functioning person is able to contribute to family life outside of working hours. Hell, I have fucking cancer, and I’m still cleaning the house and cooking dinner and sharing the running around to evening activities with Dh.

Don’t let him fool you into believing this, but none of guys at work do bathtime nonsense! I don’t know any men who are coming home from work and doing nothing. The ones I know are parenting and sorting the house, often tending to work emails and other things late evening when kids are asleep. When our eldest was a baby, Dh was working a FT job, doing all the things to start up a business in the evenings literally with dd strapped to him, so I could shower and get things done, AND getting up for nearly every feed all night to make the bottle or change a nappy.

I literally did not make a night bottle until dd was 8 months old. I remember it because Dh had gone out drinking (a rare occurrence), then passed out at home, and I was really annoyed that I had to do it myself. Men are as capable of working on little sleep as we are. And many of them are engaged parents, who are changing nappies and taking toddlers to playgrounds and cooking dinner and loading the dishwasher. They may not boast about it to their mates, but it’s just a normal part of adulting, which most can do just fine. There is no reason he can’t, unless he chooses to, and I’d be making that very clear. Parenting and running a household is 50/50 when you’re both home.

Staying with him because you think he will get a bigger share of assets in a divorce is a false economy. Every year you spend with him will build up more assets he will be entitled to a share of. A share he can instigate taking by walking out on you at any point. If you are concerned about being financially worse off, staying with him is the worst thing you can do.

I understand about the kids and not wanting to be a part from them. But he really isn’t likely to go for 50/50 in the end, he’s too selfish. If you don’t ask him for CM at first, I’ll bet he’ll be quite happy to let them live with you and just do eow or similar.

Was the second DC planned, OP? If so, what were you hoping for and what made you think it would be different to what has happened? It sounds like this is all pretty predictable but you must have some wherewithal if you earn what you do part time. So this makes me wonder if you have some childhood issues you need to work through and should maybe think about counseling for yourself.