AIBU for thinking my financial situation isn't sustainable and I'm heading for an almighty fall and mental health crisis

[TheHotRock98]

Hello,

I'm afraid I used chat GPT to help write this. I was asking it what I should do and asked it to convert to an AIBU query. This was inspired also by a thread by another MNer a couple of days ago. It frightened me as our situations were a little similar, though she sounds a much better/ more together person than me...

I'm 39 and my partner is 54. We've been together several years, live together in his home (he owns it but still has some to pay), and have a three-year-old together. He also has a 14-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.

We're not married.

I'm really struggling financially and it's affecting both my physical and mental health. I feel like I'm constantly on the verge of panic.

My finances are:

• £173 into my overdraft (my limit is £200).
• Around £2,042 on a credit card.
• A loan with about £2,000 left to repay.

I work three days a week and my take-home pay is £1,500 a month.

Our three-year-old goes to nursery for two of the days I work, and my dad looks after him on the third day. I'm with my child on the other two weekdays.

My partner earns around £93,000 a year. He also owns a property abroad which he rents out. I believe the rental income is around €900 a month (I think that's right )

As far as I know, he has savings in both pounds and euros. I think the euro savings are around €70,000 (sorry I don't know if I heard him correctly at the time but it really sounded like he was saying this, could have been €17,000 I suppose, and this was a while ago anyway), although I don't know the exact figure and I have no idea how much he has in his UK savings. He says both have taken a significant hit because he was made redundant previously and that he's trying to build them back up. He's now back in full-time employment and has passed probation.

He pays the mortgage (it's his house), child maintenance of around £600 a month for his older child, plus additional costs for her (school holidays, school trips, etc.).

He also has therapy five times a week at around £95 a session. From what I understand, his therapist takes around two months' holiday each year, so he pays for roughly 10 months of therapy annually.

I don't pay towards the mortgage, but I do pay for childcare for our three-year-old (currently £130 a month, but it's due to increase by around another £200 a month soon).

I also pay for a lot of our toddler's day-to-day costs - clothes, toys, days out, little treats like cake or ice cream, and I buy some of the groceries, although not all. Also things like presents for other children when we go to their birthday parties.

On top of that I have my own regular expenses:

• contact lenses
• dental appointments and hygienist appointments
• tampons
• toiletries (deodorant, moisturiser, SPF, face wash, body lotion etc.)
• vitamin supplements
• dry cleaning for work clothes
• haircuts and hair colouring because I have a lot of grey hair and work in a professional environment.
• I do also but and wear make up, and not drug store either I'm afraid I do like the department store stuff (I know thats bad given my financial situation and living beyond my means etc. )

I suspect I might have ADHD (so as yet undiagnosed) and I'm aware I'm not naturally good with money. I'm sure that's contributed to some of my debt, so I'm not pretending I've managed everything perfectly.

Recently we've also had unexpected household costs. We had a plumbing issue affecting the flat which cost me £190 to sort out(I thought it was important, he thinks otherwise and the call out was unnecessary ), and our oven broke and had to be replaced, costing him around £500.

Before payday this month he told me he only had around £1,600 left in his current account because of various expenses. He says he's trying to rebuild his savings after the redundancy, so I appreciate he has financial commitments and isn't sitting on endless disposable income.

At the same time, I'm in debt, living in my overdraft and feeling like I'm sinking while trying to cover childcare, my own costs and many of our child's day-to-day expenses.

What I'm struggling with is whether this is simply how it has to be because we're not married, or whether it's reasonable to expect someone earning around £93,000 a year to contribute more towards the costs of the child we have together when I'm earning £1,500 a month and ending up in debt.

Can he reasonably say that my debts are my responsibility and refuse to help financially? Or should we be sharing the costs of raising our child in a way that reflects our very different incomes?

I'm genuinely asking because I don't know if my judgement is being clouded by stress. I feel like I'm spiralling and I can't carry on like this, but equally I don't want to be unfair to him if I'm expecting something unreasonable. I had a health scare recently and thankfully all came back clear and fine - but reading the summary of my consultation with the Dr she said I seemed stressed and tearful though I didn't cry. I don't even remember that, I had my toddler with me so I was listening to what she was saying while caring for him.

Also.i.paynfot the cleaner to come once a week (68 pounds) but I do.all laundry and ironing of clothes and bedding. He does 85% of cooking, but I do the clean up afterwards....

If you've got this far thank you. I don't know how I've fallen so far, when I started maternity leave I had around £8000 in the bank...

Not by much!

The little bits and pieces after all your housing costs, utilities, insurances, food shopping are the smallest portion of most people’s outgoings.

If OP can spend 12k in a year or two, on top of at least all her statutory maternity leave, on day to day frivolities she clearly has a huge spending problem.

She has spent like 40 grand in less than 2 years on life outside of bills and food?? That’s not “life” that’s a huge spending addiction.
8k savings
8k statutory mat pay
4k debt
and a year’s take home pay 18k

But she doesn’t, and she isn’t. And l said upthread if it were me, I’d be putting my child in nursery full time, going back to work full time and looking to move out ASAP instead of waiting for the inevitable break up and walking away on the bones of my arse. Odd that no-one seems interested in why his last relationship ended.

His share of what? She doesn’t pay towards much at all. He pays the mortgage, council tax, all utility bills, all upkeep. It’s not skivvying when she’s cleaning her own home.

If they sit down and work out their outgoings I have a feeling OP may just keep schtum - she’s including tampons and contact lenses in her list (that must be £25 a month max) whilst he’s got mortgages (on a London property), council tax, utility bills, £600 in child maintenance.

Yes he is feathering his nest.
If they were married though, he could not just say the nest is all his the way he is at the moment.

😂 are you actually joking?
£500 a month beyond bread and water is now a spending addiction 😂
We spent £1000 eating out in 2001

he could and would because he owned it before the marriage

The £12k was spent over three years if the child is now 3 but there is long term overspending happening with no attempt to resolve it.

I suspect that the £2k loan was a consolidation of a credit card debt and overdraft to reduce the interest cost. But spending habits were not changed and she now has credit card debt and an overdraft again.

But it isn’t her own home is it ? It’s his. And the maintenance he’s paying for a child from a previous relationship means that potentially at least one other woman has come to her senses and realised she’s on a hiding to nothing by staying.

Once you share a solely owned property with a spouse, legally, things can and do change. Courts take into account how long the marriage has lasted, whether there are children, whether a spouse has contributed financially to the home’s maintenance/improvement. As soon as you use your home as your main marital residence it starts to become a joint asset in any divorce proceedings.

Well I said "What?!!!!" out loud several times during your post. This is an absolutely ridiculous situation OP.

OP on the face of it it seems like you’re living a wealthy lifestyle on a part time low paid salary. It doesn’t seem like you ever had conversations about who was going to pay for everything. And your partner doesn’t seem like he intended to subsidise your lifestyle apart from providing a place to live and utilities.

Have you tried speaking to him about it? Does he know you can’t afford your current expenses and are getting into debt?

Personally if he won’t spend a bit more on you and the toddler then I’d feel I’d have to cut my expenditure or get a better job. I couldn’t spend money on dry cleaning, expensive make up and hair treatments if it were getting me into debt.

She is spending far beyond £500 a month, that’s very apparent from her figures.

We spent £1000 eating out in 2001
Literally no idea what you think that has to do with it?

All these thousands of post and only three from the OP

I have a similar situation and cannot make it work. He’s increasing savings whilst living in my house and paying only ‘rent’ - bills and food are entirely mine. He stonewalls me when I discuss how I’m falling behind. Or tells me to work longer. In mid 60s and working full time.
nothing to add except solidarity with you.

It’s insane to me that someone on 93k would be okay with his partner stressing over 4k, but it’s about as insane as you doubling down on keeping up appearances and spending money you don’t have on things you don’t actually need.

You can easily cut back shedloads, OP. An awful lot of dry clean clothes are actually washable on a delicate cycle, especially if you don't spin them dry but get them out wet, hang them carefully, and let them dry naturally. Ditch the cleaner or at least cut her hours. There's only 3 of you, the place can't get that filthy.

High end cosmetics and skin care is a huge waste of money imo, and I say that as someone who used nothing but Clinique or Estee Lauder for years. I had to switch for financial reasons and found that stuff from the supermarket or Superdrug was every bit as good, better in some cases. (I have sensitive skin and mostly use L'Oreal.) And dye your own hair, or find a cheaper salon! I'm not in London, so things tend to be cheaper, but I pay £68 for a cut and colour, and the only person who's ever done a better job on my hair was Molton Brown trained and charged £60 30-odd years ago.

However, none of this alters the fact that your relationship is bordering on financially abusive. There is a massive disparity in your incomes but you are bearing the entire cost of some things that should be joint expenses, eg cleaning. I wonder what he'd say if you told him you can't afford the cleaner any more and that he'll have to take on half the chores?

Re the debts, speak to CAB or similar. They will be able to advise you on how best to proceed. However, if you weren't forking out so much you'd easily be able to manage the repayments imo. And take the cards out of your bag and put them in a drawer at home, so that you don't rack up more debt.

Council tax, water, electricity, gas, internet, tv, service charge - all dead money way in excess of £130 a month childcare

Reworking @Honeyhonayboos spending estimates, since going on maternity leave the OP - who is not responsible for rent, council tax, utilities, most food etc has spent 56k in 3 years on life outside of bills.
8k savings
8k statutory mat pay
4k debt
36k - this is 2 years take home pay at 18k per year

56k over 3 years is 1.5k per month on mainly discretionary spending. If she had only spent 1.4K a month she wouldn’t have a £4K debt. Small overspends do add up and a) stop you getting into debt and b) allow you to save for the future.

What sort of mental health issue does he have that requires daily therapy? How long has this been going on for/ expected to continue for?

Its hard to give advice without this context as if he is seriously mentally unwell this could impact on so many aspect of the situation.

The issue is what she’s spending it on. On the surface it really doesn’t look as though she’s splashing the cash. It’s day to day expenses that she could afford before she went part time - sounds more like she hasn’t cut her cloth according to her means. The main point here is that OP has disadvantaged herself financially by having a child, while her partner has just carried on as normal. It really does need a sit down conversation between the two of them to get things out in the open and figure out a way forward.

But he pays ALL the costs to house etc his youngest. OP doesn’t pay one household bill does she?

That he should pay for his child. Otherwise he will have another £600 + per month taken from him in CM

Hardly a luxury lifestyle if you propping up someone else’s self absorbed lifestyle

Has anyone sat down with this guy and told him he needs to get a better therapist or his problems are so severe he needs more intensive psychiatric help

Or are there sessions so he can sound off about himself for a hour each day

Something isn’t adding up.

£93,000 per year after tax NI and pension and £600 CM etc doesn’t sustain bills and mortgage etc and £95/day on a therapist

The childcare will soon be rising to £330 per month, and again, utilities may be dead money but he would still be paying them regardless of who else was living there. The mortgage payments are an investment for his future. And why the assumption that he would be paying for TV/internet if he doesn’t use them.

Everyone has said mostly how the spending can be curtailed.

But I really wanted to say how sorry I feel for you, I do remember at age 3, the childcare costs are so crippling and many women find themselves shouldering them whilst their husbands pay for ‘everything else’.

I really just wanted to reassure you, that once your child starts a free school, you will breathe a huge sigh of relief!

You just need to get through another year, you are nearly there!

Definitely consider going full-time to increase earnings, and even look to be promoted. Don’t let your own career fall by the wayside, it’s important whether or not you marry/share finances.

But OP isn’t contributing anything to household bills. She doesn’t pay mortgage, maintenance, council tax, utilities - none of those