Maternity Leave and money

[Lch207]

Hi,

I am currently off on maternity leave with my first son. I’ve had a tough birth and first few months but did receive six months full pay, part of which I used for a family holiday and part I saved in the hope of not ending up in debt.

We have moved to a more expensive house whilst I am still off and things are really tight. My husband expects me to still cover half of everything now I’m on statutory pay (soon to be £0) which will leave me in debt. I also do all of the nights, cleaning, cooking, managing bills etc. Am I wrong that this feels unfair? If I try to bring it up he just gets angry and says he works really hard.

I don’t know what to do and it’s really upsetting me. Has anyone been in this situation and can anyone advise?

How can you pay half if your not earning any money? Thats no logic.

Sounds like you need to sit down and have the child costs conversation.

Whats the plan for when you return to work? Because you could do that now. At this point Mat Leave is a nice to have, not a must have. If as a household you can afford it then it’s definitely a nice to have. It means one person can do tye majority of the night stuff and not need brain at work level the next day. It means child has parent, not child care etc. It’s also often financially similar to going back to work with childcare at this point. Which most parents see the cost of as being a shared cost.

If you’re both in the view that childcare is a shared cost, then unpaid / reduced pay mat leave is actually a childcare cost. As the alternative is using child care.

That bit passes a lot of parents by……

So basically he gives 50% financially and nothing else

yiu need to push back and tell him that if he wants a 50% financial contribution he does 50% of the cooking cleaning the nights (because him working doesn’t matter does it because you are also contributing 50% so everything is split down the middle.

or he wakes up to what being in maternity leave meabs

or you leave him

Why are your finances separate, you’re married? You made a baby together 🤷‍♀️ If he’s going to be funny about it and make you ‘contribute’ then tell him your hourly rate for childcare. Otherwise, contribute nothing financially and tell him that currently, your contribution to the family is raising your JOINT child which allows him to progress his career whilst you’re not able to. You’re missing out on things like pension contributions whilst he’s still getting them, and he still wants you to pay. Madness.

He’s being an arsehole. You are raising a family together. You should be pooling your resources together and sharing not divvying it up like flatmates.

Ok…
so did he contribute to the family holiday?
what was the plan, financially wise to ensure you would be ok? For example were you going to go back to work sooner but changed this plan or just misjudged savings and overspent?

sounds to me like your husband is under pressure and simply cannot afford it? It’s not uncommon to not be able to afford a family on a single wage, especially as you’ve mentioned moving and into a more expensive house.

You should have not made a child before you agreed how it would work. Brushing off or not.

Yeah he is a bad person. Of course he understands- it’s hardly a mystery or difficult to understand.

you know he’s being financially abusive. He knows it. He also expects you to clean up after him and be his domestic servant.

Tbh I would go back to work and let him pay half the childcare

What a scumbag.

What was the point in getting married if you're basically living like flatmates?

He'll watch you go into debt and keep all his money for himself? Sounds like a lovely life partner.

Who buys all the baby bits? I bet you do.

You're current job is looking after a small baby, thats your job not cleaning or cooking for him certainly not if it's leaving you in debt. Tell him you don't have time for housework as you're looking for spare cash to pay the bills. You better not be doing his laundry!

It blows my mind when people decide to have a baby, the biggest decision you’ll probably ever make as it involves creating and looking after a new human being, but have no plan of how they will fund it, how the relationship dynamics work. You have created a baby together, but he doesn’t seem to care for you at all. Who would leave their partner to pay money they don’t have due to a decision they took together. If he were to lose his job, would he expect you pay the bills (when you are back at work) or prefer to risk losing the house?

You’re supposed to be a team, doesn’t sound a recipe for a happy family life to me.

what was he expecting when you both decided to get married? Did he say any vows?!

He’s not a bad person

Be under no illusion. HE IS A BAD PERSON.

Hes expecting you to pay 50% of all the bills whilst you are on maternity leave HAVING HIS DAMN BABY.

HE IS A BAD PERSON.

Stop making excuses for him and get angry. Be mad. Be annoyed that the man you made marriage vows with expects you to pay 50% while youre not earning and birthing his damn child.

I can't really comment as I have always been the higher earner. So my mat leave pay paid the bills, paid foe the baby and he always just contributed a smaller percentage that went towards the joint costs. He always contributes 25 percent.

What is the difference in your earnings? And why did you decide to move and increase your costs?
I have always thought that percentage calculated by earnings is fair. Considering its me that wants to live in a bigger house, drive a nicer car and go on the more expensive holidays I book for us. He has tried to say we should reduce costs but i dont want to. So I am happy to pay more as i earn more and I want moee of the stuff.

You are being ridiculous as you don't know her earnings. She could be on 200k a year, and him on 50k a year!

If she was on £200k a year I doubt she’d be worrying about getting into debt when her Nat pay goes down to £0

Fairly crucial to know your comparative salaries (when you are not on maternity leave).
If you normally earn substantially more than him but only pay 50% it's not unreasonable of him to expect you to pay 50% now the tables have turned.

If earn roughly equal amounts, then yes, he's being totally unfair. TBH I'd get yourself back to work quickly, after a discussion about sharing chores and childcare 50/50. If he won't agree to that, then I'd suggest considering whether you have a long term future.

It's unfair, vile and abusive. Ultimately you should not have had a baby with him or at least had this discussion beforehand. Bit late now really. He's shown you who he is now your essentially trapped, unless you have family who can help?

Fair point but the poster also said she saved while on mat leave though too..
I would have thought all these calculations would have been done before going on mat leave though. I wonder what they thought was going to happen when they also moved house and increased their costs while also dropping to one income??
..

The quickest way to make him understand is to say I can't afford that so I will go back to work.....so your half of nursery fees is £900 (or roughly there about) as that is what he is saying.

It's not about him working hard it's about you looking after his child on mat leave!
Get this sorted now especially if going back part time to work anyway.

You shouldn't be 50/50 on bills if your salaries have a discrepancy either.
Either all into one pot and the same spending money each per month or done on a ratio of salary income.

Well the first thing to do is stop doing anything that helps him out. I can understand doing more housework etc if he is paying the bills but if he expects you to pay half then he does all his own washing, cooks half the meals etc

What happened to your savings? If I felt my partner had plenty of savings but was pleading poverty, I wouldn’t be happy at paying 100% of bills.

I think you need to go back to work and your husband will have to pay his share of childcare costs.

JC another post where the father expects the mother to "suck up" all the costs of parenting. It's his child ffs! How can he expect you to pay "half of everything" when you're looking after his child?
Have the conversation with him and tell him he needs to step up. YABU if you didn't have this converstaion with him before you agreed to have his child.

Probably went on 50% of mortgage and other outgoings when on SMP.

But that won’t happen will it. And he wont do half the domestic chores. Also why she should have to save to cover her lost patients mutual benefit of looking after their shared child and making his bloody dinner and cleaning his toilet.

Yes obviously it’s unfair to ask your wife to cover half the bills while she’s not making any money because she is raising your baby.

What on earth did he expect maternity leave was? And does he realise your debts are his debts too?

Stop doing anything for him. If you’re 50/50 on money you’re 50/50 on house too and baby is more than 50% of that.