To expect financial support from my husband

[PoisedUmberCrab]

….during mat leave.

background - just finished mat leave with
DC2. Situation was the same with DC1.

both work full time typically and contribute 50/50 towards mortgage, bills and all other expenses.

during mat leave my salary was 46% of what I usually earn (ie less than half). DH expected me to continue paying 50% of mortgage, bills expenses. His rationale is that he was not earning any more than usual.

this has left me in a hard position financially whereby I borrowed from my family to get by.

AIBU to think that he should have increased his contributions whilst I was earning significantly less than usual (and looking after our child on mat leave for a year).

Well done OP. You won’t need to pay him as he won’t have more than 50-50 care and if he has less than 50-50 he will be the one paying. Don’t let him bully you into withdrawing the divorce. He doesn’t get 60% on a joint mortgage despite his deposit and if he didn’t protect it, then you could take half of that if you wanted, so he needs to stop calling the shots. If he wanted to own 60% he should have got a tenants in common mortgage and paid 60% of the mortgage. My ex owned 60%, but never paid 60% funnily enough, but got his deposit back as I wouldn’t have taken 40% of it, but could have.

What a tit he is. Bill the idiot for childcare

I hope you’ve got good back up - he only has a low salary as it’s more tax efficient to take dividends. You need divorce help from someone who understands companies @PoisedUmberCrab .
I’d shed the stuff about greed - that’s his control talking. Make sure you get what you’re entitled to, a share of savings too as you’re married.

how you might’ve run your marriage finances based on what he’s told you is the norm isn’t how settlements work.

Don’t forget for two mat leaves you’ll have lost two years of pension contributions too @PoisedUmberCrab

the compounded returns lost on two years of not making decent pension contributions will be huge by pension age.

He no longer gets to announce his thoughts or feelings to you, shut him down. Any whining or threats, refer him to your solicitor, or his own, whoever is paid to listen to him.

Of course he should… why get married if you’re not going to act as one unit? You shouldn’t be borrowing money from outside the marriage if your spouse has the cash available.

Madness.

I'd love to see his stupid face when he finds out what's what.

I wasn’t paying a huge amount into my pension as I was focusing on paying off my student finance. I’m sure he will use this as a reason not to continue more

It’s worth running through a calculator because even £200 per year if you had invested it for 30 years is going to add up. You need to rejuvenate your thinking, marriage assets are shared assets and he has been leeching off of your

Yes prioritising debt is a common mistake mums make, know I did.

Oh wow, I had a similar experience OP. We decided I should not return to work until DC was in pre-school as childcare would cost so much and DH was earning well, we had no mortgage and DH also had rent coming in from a property. All our money was separate. We agreed he would transfer me the rental money which was £800 pm but I was still expected to pay half the bills out of it and activities with DC. It was better than shared account though as I'd have been expected to justify what I'd spent money on. I had several awkward mum and play dates where my card declined and I'd have to pay them back.

I’m going on Maternity leave next week and although we don’t have a joint account, the money is very much shared. We earn roughly the same on paper however he has been doing a lot of overtime over the last 12months so as a result comes out with approx £1.5k a month more than I do. That extra money has gone into savings for when I’m on maternity leave and earning 50% less, and has paid for a hell of a lot of work to be done on the house before baby arrives, had paid for all of the nursery furniture/pram/car seats and other expenses.

as it stands now, we both put 50/50 into bills/mortgage. Some come out of my bank however most come out of his, so it works out I send him money each month to cover my half after I’ve taken into account the bills that come from my bank account. We have both decided that during my maternity leave, he is not going to do overtime (or at least not the number of hours he has been doing as he wants to be home as much as possible) and I will not be sending him my half of the bills that come out of his account. So I only need to cover the bills that come out of my account (utilities/internet/disney/netflix).

we are both taking a financial hit this way over the next 12months. I will be taking home 50% less, he will be taking home less money and paying my half of the majority of the bills.

so in a nutshell, he needs to contribute more, the children are a joint decision and joint finance, and that includes your maternity leave.

Thanks all. He’s asked me not to contact him at all - interesting when we have two young children. He left the house for work this morning without helping out at all.

there was a response on her offering a direct message for a solicitor recommendation but I cannot see it - can anyone find it 🙀

This is madness.
I know it's too late, but in your situation I would have simply refused to pay anything more than 50% of my maternity pay when on maternity leave with the first child. I would have never ever stoop as low as to ask my parents to lend me money for bills while on maternity leave knowing that my DH is loaded... I'm shocked to say the least.

I lost my message but what I was going to say was you need to inform whichever solicitor you engage that he is liable to be a vexatious litigant
And that Shane or he needs to make it very clear to the other side that you will not be playing that game and any hint of it you will be asking for costs to be awarded.
His Solicitor shit themselves because they won’t want to be associated or tarred with that brush.
And if he does play that game, it is quite likely he will get costs awarded against him
The other thing Uk Solicitor needs to go in with section one of the children’s act
You’re not gonna get any child support out of this man.
You need to have a more generous share of the assets to compensate for that

And also download a parenting app immediately and then you need to ask questions in the parenting app like when will you be available to do your share of the childcare this evening? On the basis that you left this morning without helping?
No reply is a reply
If he refuses to download the app again, there’s your answer.
But you will only be communicating through that or in writing through email
Preferably though the app the courts like the app

I have recently just been through this. His actions from now on will only serve to confirm you are doing the right thing. It will tough, you will have self doubt….but each step they will continue proving you’re doing the right thing.

I spent loads on solicitors and to be honest, in the end they didn’t end up doing much. I would recommend going to mediation before going to a solicitor. You can also try McKenzie Friends, who offer advice for a much lower fee. Just remember, you will be entitled to a minimum of 50% of all assets.

He will need to disclose everything he owns and has saved. You want to go for a bigger share as the marriage has not been equal with the amount you have had to sacrifice.

also remember. The childcare arrangement and child maintenance are completely seperate, they are dealt with under different courts. Don’t let him try and cross over the two.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just have a joint account (and no other accounts)? That way it's not a question of who's paying for what. You're married, not flatmates.

You need to prepare an invoice for the work of looking after his child. It's half your child, so that's half the rate of a nanny at around £18ph.

With an under-1 you're probably looking at about 16 hours of full time care a day, if you don't charge for being on call in the night. So he owes you around £53k, plus whatever you decide to charge him for carrying and birthing his kids.

However, the best option all round is to get the best lawyer you possibly can and get rid of the bastard.

That's not how it works. CMS doesn't even look at the income of the resident parent. If you're going to be having the children the majority of the time, he will have to pay you. If it's 50/50 there will be no payments either way.

Don't you dare accept 50 50.

What percentage of childcare are you doing? 70%? More?

So the kids need a bedroom each and so do you, so that's a 3 bed house and 3 lots of heating, food, cars, clubs and food.

If he has them weekends, he needs a 2 bed home and associated costs.

If he wants 5050, he gets 50 50 of the weekday childcare and costs as well as weekends and school holidays.

Put his pension in the table as well as the properties.

YABU not to have discussed and agreed how costs would be shared while on mat leave with the child you both created, BEFORE conceiving the child. Now you know how he views money, don’t have any more kids with him.

You’re married. All the money that comes in belongs to both of you. As do the children and responsibility for them.

What a piece of work this pathetic man is.

Withholding money from you so that you have to borrow to fulfill basic needs (when you’ve just had a baby!) is financial abuse. Get lawyer now.