For wanting my partner to pay more of the mortgage?

[AnyPomegranate]

My fiancé makes about £90k pa plus bonus. I used to earn extremely well as a lawyer but decided to career change as I loathed the work and long hours. I now earn £35k with good future earning potential. We live in London and pay about £3000 pm for mortgage/bills which we split mostly 50/50 (see below).

Currently I'm about £200 short per month. I'm doing my best to increase my income and reduce expenses, but ultimately £35k doesn't go far in London so I'm finding it a little stressful. Part of the problem is that my partner isn't making it easy to budget - he insists on staying in London (I want to move) and because he earns well he wants to regularly eat out, go on holidays, buy what he wants in the food shop etc. It feels silly to say that I'm finding it hard financially on a household income of £125k, but obviously the vast majority of that money is my partner's and not mine.

I was reading online that some couples split bills as a proportion of their income, rather than 50/50. So today I asked him if he would mind paying a little bit more of the mortgage so that I have enough to break even, just temporarily until I'm able to get a promotion. He told me no, it was my decision to take a pay cut. He also pointed out (reasonably) that the bills have gone up so he's already paying about £200 more than me as it is (the bills come out of his account so I wasn't aware).

I can see his point of view so I'm not sure if what I'm asking is cheeky or reasonable. Please be gentle, I'm aware that I'm in a privileged position compared to a lot of people.

I don't really know what the solution is apart from separate food shops.

Oh, call me old-fashioned - well I am old but do keep up to date with how couples these days seem to split finances - but how on earth can you intend to get married when you're contemplating having separate food shops?

You did rather test your partner's love for you when you gave up your big legal career after taking out a mortgage - imagine if a guy did this!

@AnyPomegranate you mentioned he owns slightly more of the house - that should be reflected in the % of mortgage you pay, unless you aim to eventually pay in the extra to bring you to 50:50?

Or unless he’s ringfenced his share of the deposit while they share the remaining equity equally. Which is definitely what I’d do.

Why the fuck are you considering marrying this person? What happens when/if you decide to have a family? Will he expect you to pay even you’re on maternity allowance?

tell him that expenses need to be proportionate as of now, that you need equal amounts of fun money and that you can’t afford to use up all of your money on the mortgage as before.

be firm now, it’s crunch time

@Westfacing mine did, mine did exactly that started a new career at the bottom and worked his way up. The first couple
of years were very much me supporting him until his earnings where back and then we decided to have a baby and go on maternity leave and over time his has grown.

we were in it together and made sacrifices together in terms of lifestyle and holidays and all were joint decisions

There's a difference between ring fencing your deposit and owning different shares of the property though and again opinions vary on this when marriage and partnership are involved and when one partner is left financially vulnerable and short of money with this split, while the other isn't and they get to financially benefit more when they split as well.

She is trying to cut her cloth accordingly, he won’t let her.

Yep, either works, as long as it’s properly reflected. Have done both in my time!

Not her share of the mortgage though…other things like she said the holidays etc…she needs to say no.

This is not the situation though? She says the house is held 45/55, not just a ringfenced deposit. When it comes to selling, therefore, he will receive 55%. Makes sense that he would pay 55% of the outgoings at least. Although I am of the view outgoings should be proportionate to income.

Yep - Little bit muggy.

Amazed it was agreed she'd pay 50% for 45% equity at time of purchase given they are both lawyers.

Changing career is one thing but it has to be a joint decision.

But then I can't, as ever in these conversations about family finances on MN, get my old head around percentages per person, etc., when couples are in a marriage and bringing up children.

Unless one partner has a drink/gambling problem surely to god incomes are for the family and used as such, not dished out according to earnings.

It's all very well young women paying percentages, equality & fairness and all that, but later it will likely be the woman who loses out financially in the long run, as she is the one who will give birth and have primarily responsibility for the children and this will affect her career and earning potential.

Would you say the same thing if both partners were fairly high earners and then the man gave up his job for something less stressful and earned less?

Would you expect the higher earning woman to pay for her male partner's choice to earn less?

If you are getting married and creating a family this mine is mine and yours approach is likely to fail because there is a lot of extra cost involving child care maternity leave income loss etc.
I get why he things like this now, he was reluctant to you dropping your career, and he see the finances as separate. But the key here is if he is going to continue like this in the future.
You need to have a proper conversation about the future now before is late.
Do not assume you will earn more in the future if you are going to have kids. Maternity is stressful and more if you work full time. I know what I'm talking about because I am single mother working full time.
Think about the future as a whole and if you are not in the same page about finances think about leave the relationship before you get stuck with a single income and kids. Everything is possible.

if he's not able to work with you on this budget I doubt he's going to be the most supportive person as a life partner. Set aside a day at the weekend to do some life planning and see if he's serious about it all. If not go live somewhere cheaper and nice by yourself....

He sounds incredibly mean. I wouldn't get married to him if I were you.

Health comes first, always.

You sound lovely OP - caring, hardworking, ambitious and pragmatic.

A loving partner would want you to be mentally well and would support you in making changes to your life to ensure you stay well. You of course would do exactly the same for him.

Together you would work as a partnership to find solutions to your housing and lifestyle following a change of career due to health issues.

You deserve to be with somebody who prioritises your health and well-being over throwing whatever he wants in a trolley.

As a PP wisely said - you don't need separate food shops, you need separate lives.

Sure, that approach will really help 🙄

I can't believe you're still going to marry this man, he cares more about money than he does about you.

Borrowing money for a wedding with a man that doesn't sound supportive (having in mind you were stressed and miserable...you just didn't change job cause you lazy)

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 everywhere

You definitely need to start saying no. No I won’t come on holiday with you, I won’t go out for a meal, I’ll do my own food shopping. It’s fine for him to say the salary reduction is your responsibility, but not ok for him to then block the steps you need to take to make the books balance. If he doesn’t want to be with you without those extras then that says a lot about who he is as a person. To be honest his lack of understanding or support would be a pretty big red flag to me, is he going to say the same if you reduce your hours due to children later?

My understanding was she was only asking for him to cover more of the mortgage because he was refusing to cut back elsewhere. If she wasn’t having to try to keep up with his other spending she would manage the mortgage. There is also the point that she wanted to move and he refused. Cutting her cloth accordingly would be moving, he won’t let her, as I said. She needs to leave him. He clearly values material things more than her mental health. Thats not a man to marry.

She’s asking way too much of him.

Key to all this in my view is that OP - as she says herself - wants the same lifestyle as him which isn’t unreasonable. She has likely done the basic maths and worked out that even when her earnings improve she would be much worse off as a single person even out of London paying off a mortgage by herself. On her current salary of £35k that would be even tougher. And I think that way of thinking is why she’s reluctant to end the relationship or have the conversation that may lead to that.

We also think the replies would be very different if the op was talking about her partner who had done this. If a man quit his career less than a year after qualifying and wanted to downsize and move out of london and have her pay for more things.I can only imagine what you'd all say.

The truth is, you only get one life. If she's quit law after having qualified less than a year ago, then she's pretty young. Unless you qualified later in life, but she doesn't say that it sounded like a first career. So she's in her twenties.

She already hasn't lasted a year in a career with stress and anxiety and having to leave. Sorry but that's just an early career. Speak to any doctor a year out of medical school. It gets better with seniority and experience. She wasn't willing to stay the distance or even try.

Now she's got a very reduced earning capacity. She wants him to pay more of the mortgage. She wants him to move out of the city. She wants she wants.

this is probably a young man in his twenties two.Why should he if this is not what he wants. He only gets one life too. Everyone saying her health should come first and he should support her. Does he not matter. I could understand if they d been married for twenty years and had kids in this happened, but it's very early days. They already want fundamentally different things, and it's not going to work.

it sounds as if the op knows exactly what side her bread is buttered on. She knows that she wouldn't be able to afford to buy a property alone without his money.

It's a hell of a burden for him to take on someone with stress and anxiety who can't work a stressful job.And expect to pick up all the tab before they're even married and before they have children.

Just a quick update - he's crunched the numbers to see how much we were each paying on mortgage + bills per month and he's paying £1550 and I'm paying £1480. So he's not quite paying £200 more like we thought but he's still paying more.

He said that while he does want to support me, he's sad that he doesn't feel as well-off as he wants because of our expenses. He feels like I was unreasonable in taking the pay cut I did and I could have found a better paying job elsewhere. He did say that he wants to support me and put forward a proposed split where I pay a bit less.

I think his views are reasonable - in a way he was signing up for a certain lifestyle and I'm the one who went back on the 'deal'. I just didn't anticipate much I would hate law (or how much interest rates would rise!). I don't really feel comfortable accepting his proposed split as I worry (given what he's expressed already) he'd feel resentful about it. I think I'll just continue paying 50/50 but just be firmer on turning down meals and holidays (I'm still not sure what to do about the shopping situation!).

There's been a real split of opinions in the comments which proves it's a tricky issue. The whole reason I posted on Mumsnet in the first place is because I could see both points of view and wasn't sure who was right. I completely appreciate why people think I'm being unfair here. I made my bed by taking the pay cut, it's just the lack of control I feel I have over our finances that I'm finding hard - back when I'd just graduated/hadn't started in law yet I was renting in London on a much lower salary than I'm on now, but I felt better off because I had complete control over outgoings, could save money batch cooking etc.

Thanks all for the input, I appreciate it