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 agree with this post. Why are you borrowing from your Mum to pay for the wedding, why isn't billy big bollocks covering his share of the wedding costs?

What will happen if you have children and are on maternity leave? Will he expect you to fund your own maternity leave from your savings, or return to work full time asap because he doesn't want to support you financially to stay at home with your DC?

Honestly, it doesn't sound like he will ever be supportive financially when you take the earnings hit to have children and this would be a massive red flag for me, along with his dismissive approach to your mental health when you were working as a lawyer. I agree with carrying on paying 50/50, but don't borrow money from your Mum, don't go out for expensive meals, don't go on expensive holidays and do separate food shops. I personally would cancel postpone the wedding, I don't think you are singing from the same hymn sheet regarding finances and being supportive of each other's choices.

You presumably hope to be married for a long time and there will usually be ups and downs, changes in circumstances and goals during a marriage and ideally you want a partner who has your back and will ride with the change in fortunes etc and face them together equally, this man doesn't sound like he would be like that, he sounds selfish. He also seems very inflexible and to want to keep the good stuff for himself alone - that is not a life partner, that is a flatmate. I really think you should take a long hard look at this man and think about whether he is really the life partner you want to have children and grow old with. Divorce is messy and expensive.

Your username is how i feel about your comment?

She is your husband in this instance, a little less extreme, but the principles are the same.

I'm in no way bashing the OP, I've always said I'd rather be in a job I love earning less than dreading going to work. But you need to cut your clothes accordingly.

The OP is not married, has no children, and they went into it 50/50. Yes, they may be getting married, but up to this point, they are equal partners.

The wedding arrangements!

Borrowing from your mother and you presume you will pay her back when your income increases.

This sounds like you are taking complete responsibility for this. Are you?

He's got over 3,000 a month to spend and you have to borrow from your mother to pay for the wedding? Is that his half too?

Have you even discussed repayments with him?

And if you spend pay rises on a wedding your monthly situation won't get better.

Doesn't sound good.

And OP, for the love of God, don't be coerced into a life of poverty while your husband lives it up because you're worried that if you don't accept financial shit for life, you're somehow a gold digger or an otherwise bad woman.

I wonder if he realises that a lot of people on good salaries are feeling poorer these days @AnyPomegranate. We earn a lot more than you and are not feeling as well off as we’d like (these kind of comments don’t go down well on MN but it’s true!) our biggest issue is nursery fees (just a casual £3.5k per month and not even full time argh) but the COL has gone up massively.

I think the fact that he wasn’t on board with you getting such a low paid job makes it hard to ask him to pay more, although I think it’s a shame he isn’t willing to- what he planning to do when you have kids (if this is on the cards!)

Maybe remind him that your relationship is much more than finances and definitely more than the sum of its parts. My husband earns a lot more than me and always has done but we never ever talk about ‘his money’ it’s always been ours. Were you generous/ sharing when you earned more? Did you pay more than half and treat him?

OP, I have a lot of sympathy with finding the stress and long hours of fee earning tough. I’ve worked at MC and US firms, and frankly it’s rubbish.

At 5-6PQE I became a PSL - currently £120k FTE, genuine 9-5, super low stress.

I would never have quit law at 1PQE though - I had a mortgage to pay (property I bought alone as an NQ). I’ve taken significant pay cuts for quality of life, but couldn’t contemplate a pay cut to £35k while living in London with a partner who wasn’t 100% on board.

You essentially can’t afford this pay cut, and your partner isn’t happy to make up the shortfall. If you needed to leave London to make the career change work, that should have been agreed before you left your job - and it wasn’t.

I don’t get a good feeling about your compatibility I’m afraid - I think this is showing up major differences between you. Tbh I can understand he’s peed off that you’ve slashed your earning power (without his support) just as you’ve taken on a joint mortgage. 10 years to earn £90k in the field you’re now (both?) in is a long time for him to pick up the slack. Separate food shops for a couple sounds impossible!

Do you think he’d be up for leaving London in the longer term? Hope things settle down!

Why are you and so many posters equating someone working full time and contributong 50% to someone sitting on their arse contributing nothing? And why if they're splitting the bills 50/50 can the higher earner unilaterally decide to increase their spending and yet OP is being told to "cut back"? If it was OP insisting on fancy dinners and wasn't putting into the pot you'd have a point but I genuinely can't understand the logic of what you're saying.

👆🏻 I do genuinely feel we've got to a point that woman are so afraid to be seen as gold diggers that a lot of men are financially taking advantage of and potentially abusing their partners if theyr left with no money because if you ask for anything but 50/50 you're a gold digger / being subsidised etc etc when you're actually asking for it to be split in a way you both retain some financial independence

You can afford 1500 on 35k salary and would pay that for a nice shared house room in London if you split... can you keep that salary if you move away?

So above that you can opt out of fiance s meals out etc . Don't drink the expensive wine it will last longer. Etc . Propose the cheap b and b .
Until you married what is his is his what is yours is yours. How much mat pay will you get? Plan to return to work after 6 months

I voted YABU - are you compatible you seem to be going into a marriage/partnership where you both do as you like without taking each others pov into consideration? You said your partner wasn't supportive of your salary drop/less work demand but you did it anyway..you want to leave London he doesn't so will you just accept that?
There's nothing wrong with the choices you are making but you can't expect someone else to finance them. I work part time and have not gone for promotion because the hours/lifestyle suit. However I do that knowing I have to cut back and can't just spend money as I could if I worked full time at a higher level

My DH and I do percentage of income. It’s the only fair way. Every year we put all our joint expenses and updated take home pay into a spreadsheet. We have a formula that calculates what we each need to put into our joint account to cover bills. It’s based on what we earn. We then put that amount into the joint account and keep the rest of our pay in our own accounts for fun money. We’ve used the same formula for our whole marriage. When we got together I earned a quarter of what my DH did. I now earn 5 x more. The formula has always stayed the same. (My contributions have skyrocketed!)

It sounds like he married you for your earning potential and perhaps why you married him too. I would part ways because a 50/50 isn’t the type of marriage you appear to want nor sustain given higher paid roles are going to require more burn out from your end.

This is super common in London, people engaged for almost a decade, together because they can’t afford to live in the city alone so it’s easier to get a partner and join incomes. I would be careful about whether this is what you want the rest of your marriage plus children to be based on primarily.

• He has a slightly bigger share in the property to reflect the deposit we put in - it's split 55/45 I think.

What happens if you split and sell? Does he get 55% of the equity and you get 45%? If that’s the case it seems unfair to pay 50/50. You both should have ring fenced your deposits and then paid 50/50.

Luckily they are not married, only engaged and no children, only thing shared is a joint mortgage, so should be relatively easy for them to separate if that is what they decide.

It is the situation.

She says the split is down to him paying the deposit.

So that is fair. There is a ringfenced deposit % and then they pay the rest equally. If they decide to sell then once you account for the increase in value and the ringfenced deposit % he would receive more because he has paid in more.

I'm not, I said the principle was the same to that specific post, and it is.

OP has asked to reduce what she pays in so she can keep up with the lifestyle of someone earning 90k, a wage which she was earning, or close to it until she decided to take a different job, take out the reasons why she moved jobs, she now earns less than half of her previous salary, that was a choice.

Now, if they had kids and she was working part-time and her earnings had reduced because of this, and he was unwilling to split, I'd be the first to look at how strange that situation is. The simple facts here are that she now earns a lot less and is asking a boyfriend to cover her because she doesn't have as much disposable income. Rightly or wrongly, it's not the higher earners' fault, and they are under no obligation to bump up their payments to help.

I've read countless posts on here, where men are struggling with M/H, and the advice is still LTB, he's not good for you if he can't pay his way etc. And women wonder why young men protect their income.

Without context of the relationship, ie how long have they been together, age, etc it's hard to guess to much. If they were married and had kids, I'd feel very differently and my words would be very different.

The solution is you realize that you will never be partners in this relationship and he will always look out for himself. Think about what will happen when you have kids and go on maternity with low pay, he will still expect you to continue to pay 50%, or if you have to cut hours to look after the kids or something.

On one hand yeah he can claim he wants supportive of you chasing jobs but as a husband and partner you should be in it together and work things out together not he live as a £90k earner while you struggle to keep up.

I will advise you to consider ending the relation if you're not able to sort things out before the wedding, couples counselling is also helpful and please please please don't bring kids I to this yet.

I also know you will most likely make excuses and find reasons to stay in the relationship and make it work and unfortunately things will only get worse if he has such a selfish attitude now during the honeymoon phase.

Yuk - his response would be it for me. He's so tight that he's not willing to give an extra 200 a month on his current salary? To help out the woman he supposedly loves?? Nah, I'd be done with him. I'd find another job to increase my salary and move on - without him.

OP has asked to reduce what she pays in so she can keep up with the lifestyle of someone earning 90k

You must have just skimmed over the info provided then. She didn't earn 90k and isn't trying to love the lifestyle of 90k. Her partner is insisting on leaving the lifestyle of someone on 90k with her finding half of it.

it's not the higher earners' fault, and they are under no obligation to bump up their payments to help.

Again explain logically how it's not fair? She has bumped up the % she is paying of her salary while he has bumped up their expenditure. They're already paying different proportions of their salary in a way that has unequal impact on them and yet that's fairer to them different proportions in a way that has an equal impact on them - how?.

I've read countless posts on here, where men are struggling with M/H, and the advice is still LTB, he's not good for you if he can't pay his way etc. And women wonder why young men protect their income.

Again associating someone paying 50% (the same as the higher earner) with someone not contributing - why? The principal is not the same at all.

This is how I see it too. He didn’t change the goal posts the OP did and it seems like he didn’t get a say - so why should he be worse off financially. There doesn’t seem to be marriage or children involved.

If he has a greater share in the property, then he should be paying a greater share of the mortgage.

Maybe he should backdate the extra mortgage you have paid.

I voted yanbu but some posts have given me pause for thought: he didn’t want you to take a cut in wages which is a way of him telling you that he didn’t want to subsidise you. Fair enough. You went ahead regardless and expect him to do something that he didn’t want to do. Presumably his job is stressful too (most are) but he chooses to have a certain lifestyle. I agree that you might need to split up.

I don’t think they are compatible, he wants someone who can jointly provide the lifestyle he thought he was signing up for.

Instead of abusing her partner and calling him childish names, why aren't they having a wedding they can afford.

Getting married is actually really cheap. All you need is a couple of witnesses and however much it costs for the certificate or whatever you need.

It's the wedding that costs money marriage is extremely cheap. And if they can't afford it and need to borrow money, then they shouldn't be having a big wedding.

No it isn't? This is not a situation where the deposit has been ringfenced. It is a situation where a property is held unequally due to unequal deposits and then for some reason contributions have continued equally. This means that, after the initial deposit, OP will continue to pay monthly mortgage payments of 50% but when the property is sold she will only get 45%.

Ringfencing the deposit would be a declaration of trust which says that when the house is sold, they will both get back what they initially put in (for argument's sake, say it was a 100k deposit, OP paid 45k and partner 55k) and then anything in excess of that is divided 50/50 to reflect their equal contributions.