To be unhappy DH prioritises £10K/year hobby over our joint savings?

[Loopylampshade]

I love my DH very much but I feel he doesn’t prioritise our joint future as much as his hobby. This hobby costs him more than 10K a year, which is fine because he earns a good wage and it makes him happy. However, we are also refurbishing a house for which I have done 90% of the work & organising so far, as he despises it and says “you wanted a fixer upper - I just wanted a new build”. He will of course also benefit from the financial value that gets added to the house by the refurb. He recently agreed to pay a £1K decoration project & to take it off my hands. However he now said it also means he won’t contribute for 2 months to our joint savings (which he could easily afford if he would just pause this hobby for 2 months). This is our safety & holiday fund. Am I being unreasonable for feeling that he prioritises his personal happiness over making a sacrifice that will benefit us both (albeit I care more about the refurb than he does)? Perhaps I am already a bit frustrated because he also earns more than I do but we do split mortgage + bills 50/50, meaning I don’t have as much disposable income as he does. Is this a common thing for couples to argue about? I am just sad about it all

I think fundamentally it boils down to you thinking of money as his and yours. Ours is all joint then we jointly choose what to spend it on. The hobby is what he wants and you resent it, the house project is what you want and he resents it. I think you should have a discussion about what you both want and take it from there.

The problem you've got isn't the hobby, it's the fact you aren't acting like a married couple. You should either be pooling all resources into one pot and both taking what you need and can afford from the pot for your hobbies and the refurb or you should be splitting your money fairly so that you both have an equal amount of disposable income. You absolutely shouldn't be contributing half when you earn less. And you should both feel supported in the things you enjoy doing.

Do you have children? If not then I would genuinely suggest splitting before you do. I can assure you that you'll be miserable with a man who has this attitude once you're on maternity leave.

Well he sounds like a massive dick! You're married & share a life (& a house!) together - what are you going to do if you have kids? Will he give you an allowance like a teenager? Twat. The 'subsidising' & 'get a better job then' comments would be a deal breaker for me.

He sounds like a shit partner.

You know when you divorce, he will benefit again from the money that’s gone into the house?
Whereas you will lose half of it again to him.

Be smart with how you’re spending your money here.

I think to his mind, as he didn’t want the fixer upper and you really did, he’s viewing that as your expensive hobby.

If it helps any, my DS and DH go rock climbing together and they are wonderful people. We've been married going on 48 years, and if he'd been an ass, I'd have dumped his butt.

Since my DH is older, they don't go camping/climbing as often. Plus, DH had prostate cancer, which put things on hold for a bit.

I will agree that many are twat waffles, but it seems, for the most part, the friends of DH and DS are pretty nice too.

I sort of agree with this.

I don't think 2 adults without children/illness or disability necessarily need to split everything proportional to income, just because one earns more. I think it comes doen to different priorities

Op could earn more but chooses job happiness (dont blame that, I would too) but maybe partner chooses extra money over that job happiness... neither is wrong but I don't necessarily think he needs to pay extra to the pot because of that.

Also he prioritises his hobby over the house renovation. Does he really even want the painting etc to be done? You admit he would have been happy with a house needing less work

I would question how compatible you both are long term op, as it sounds like you do want different things and that may get worse down the line

No its not fair, my husband makes 4x what I do. We put all of our money in a joint account and then take out equal savings amounts to put in our ISAs and equal fun money (so its not as if we don't have seperate bank accounts to do as we please), the rest pays for mortgage, bills, renovations, childcare and left overs go in the joint savings for holidays and the general "shit goes wrong" fund. When we got married we decided to be a team, my husband wouldn't be happy if we lived totally different lifestyles where I had to scrimp and save, whilst he was pissing money up the wall on hobbies.

I hate hearing about married couples who live completely separate financial lives. There's a reason you get half in a divorce. (Thats not a LTB suggestion btw, but I do think you need to have a word about how unfair your financial situation is) xx

How on earth is splitting bills 50/50 fair when he earns much more than you? And by refusing to discuss it he's showing how nasty he can be. It never ceases to amaze me if the women I see here in this situation. That's not a marriage or a partnership!

I don’t think you sound super compatible. My husband and I also don’t have an awful lot in common on the face of it but we do have the same core beliefs. I’m not sure you do. There are plenty of different ways to have a good relationship and nothing wrong with having different hobbies and passions of course - but you have fundamentally different ideas about money and relationships and that’s not a great start.

Who is paying for the house refurbishing? If it is you, then you are being cheated, big time! If you were to divorce, he would get half of what you've put into the house to fix it up, plus the increase in salability.
I hope you are/have protected yourself. Do you have children? If not, please don't because he will leave you with all the responsibility.

10K/year for rock climbing? I know at first it was expensive, until the gear was all bought, etc. and there is a bit yearly to upgrade/replace/maintain pieces, but he must do a fair bit of travel to get to 10K.

What’s your wage discrepancy OP? If he’s on £100k and you’re on £40k then a 50:50 split is diabolical but if he’s on £70k a you’re on £60k it’s different.

I’m on the fence with your predicament too. You want the financial security of the home being completed and savings in the bank, which is important and sensible. He wants to live in the now and enjoy his hobby and all the mental and physical benefits of that, which is also important and I also understand!

Can you try and find some middle ground? Is a 2-month savings pause really the end of the world so that decorating can be done and he can continue his hobby? As a side; do you have a hobby? Is the free time/hobby time equally shared?

Sell up the doer-upper, move to Sheffield where you have Stanage etc on the doorstep (no more travel to pay for plus a big Decathlon for kit) and hey presto you'll feel loaded..

Difference is, his hobby is unlikely to end up gaining them equity in a house. We made about £50k profit on our renovation project in the end after 2 years. I was OP’s DH in that I didn’t want a reno but wanted a new build, but we couldn’t afford a new build at the time with what we needed. I ended up with £25k basically as a result of my DP’s insistence on a renovation, so I’d say he’ll change his tune when they come to sell!

Your husband is contributing plenty to your lives and your home, you are being greedy to want more. It is fine for savings to wait a couple of months, you are getting other things you want instead.

You wanting the home decor of your choice is not more important than your husband wanting his hobby. Your husband is right that he shouldn’t have to subsidise you.

He sounds pretty selfish to me. Are you planning to have children? This would ring alarm bells about how he would behave when you were on maternity leave. There have been lots of threads from posters with financially abusive husbands who insisted on them contributing 50% for the joint pot even when their wives/partners were on Statutory Maternity Pay.

It sounds as though his hobby takes up most of his leisure time as well.

If this is the case then you should be getting any uplift in the house price post renovations. It's your money funding the renovations.

I reality though I couldn't stay in a marriage with someone who was so selfish.

If they both work full time and earn different salaries the household pot should be proportional.

I'd hate to think the scenario if there were kids in the mix. There's no room for selfishness when the family has grown.

Seriously, he spends £10K a year on rock climbing???? Or does he actually spend £2500K a year on climbing and £7500K on overseas travel and guides?

I’m a retired climber, and a great deal of my climbing was in the UK. From Cornwall to the Highlands, we have so much excellent rock climbing (and Scottish winter (ice) climbing, but that is less reliable than it used to be).

But I agree… taking on a do’er upper should be a joint decision.

I feel the same! You're married, surely it all just goes in one pot? We do this, I earn a lot less, but my DH and I talk through our spending and respect each other. Although our salaries are markedly different, I MAY eventually get some inheritance while we will probably have to support my DH's parents soon. But as it is all joint, it's no problem. We are a team. Our kids knoe we are equal despite Mum earning way less. I just dont understand why people get married if they don't want a full partnership. Just stay a couple but don't marry?

I go rock climbing, there’s no way it costs that much a month

This.

It actually sounds like doing up the house is your expensive hobby. You said it is perfectly liveable but you want to upgrade it and for it to be cosy. But that doesn't matter to him. How much are you spending annually on the house and how much of it is cosmetic not essential?

you really need conversations about your shared and individual finances as tbh he is taking the P here. Do you have /want kids? He’s really showing himself to be v selfish indeed and it doesn’t sound like he will disrupt his own lifestyle.
if you’re doing a lot of the work yourself while he is away you’re saving thousands in effort. Would he know if you ‘invoiced’ him?!
you already know how much his hobby costs: so why is he being evasive?
youbsaid upthread you wish he was generous: that isn’t the right language here as he isn’t treating you or doing you a favour! You wish he was fair, or on the same page as you when it comes to investing into your shared future…