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...

No op, just no.

You have a child together and live together so you should be treating finances as joint at this stage.

You need to sit down with him and list every outgoing and categorise as his yours shared.

Then you need to work out an equitable split. He should not be maintaining wealth while you're in debt.

Have you looked at the cost difference of returning to work full time? I think you should be combining bills and each paying in an equitable amount to a joint account that takes into account the percentage split in your salaries.

5 days a week therapy is concerning - how long has this been ongoing? Most therapists recognise that patients/clients need processing time in between sessions and 5 days a week does not allow for that so this seems like an unhealthy dependency on his therapist which raises a whole lot of questions.

Yes I was trying to say this - is it all out there? Does he think she earns more and she for whatever reason has been trying to keep appearances up- paying £300 a month for a cleaner etc?

Also a flat? Why?

"Therapy" of some kind.

The 5 days a week is often done in psychoanalysis. It’s not well known but it is done - it’s often done on cases that need extreme personality changes, but there other reasons why.

edited to say: didn’t mean to quote you personally but now can’t change it! Just saw a few people questioning this and thought I jump in.

It does seem rather strange to have five sessions a week, outside an in patient setting.

No decent therapist would be doing that.

Aside from that, it doesn’t seem he is contributing equally at all to your joint child’s living expenses. Perhaps if he were to cover a set amount that would reduce your stress?

Psychoanalysis - the hardcore version of psychotherapy- is 4 or 5 days a week.

but he is absolutely being financially abusive op.

you can’t work fulll time if you both want your child to have that time with you (much better for them ime). And if it’s just because you can’t afford the childcare then - why are you responsible for all of it?

most people have to accept that they can’t put as much into savings when kids are small and things are tight. But th is is worse - because clearly in his mind they are his savings only.

the only fair way in a relationship is to split things in the same ratio as your respective earnings.

whether you would include his incredibly expensive therapy in the non negotiable outgoings is another matter.

but no, you are not being unreasonable, although I’m sure he will try to make you feel that you are.

ignore people who say you’ve been let off rent - that’s not how it works when you have a child, or when you’re partner is younger and clearly has far less earning potential.

I think you should put all of your collective bills (so not your personal spend on makeup etc or his older child's costs) into one account and pay them proportionally. That way you can tell properly what you are both spending. Right now you probably both feel hard done by because you aren't able to see the full picture. I think if you have debt he should be helping you pay it back rather than build savings.

You have to have a frank talk with your man, he probably thinks you are OK because you haven't told him otherwise! Men often need things spelled out to them.

Your debts are not huge, honestly, just don't add to them and they'll go down.
Both of you need to economise somewhere. He should not need therapy five times a week and you can cut down on hair care and dry cleaning. Have a fortnightly cleaner instead of weekly.

Where there's a will there is definitely a way.

and coats? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yeah, It is always the same, husband or bf not earning much and people are suggesting the poster LTB.

I don’t know that he’s not viewing his covering all the household bills as doing his part. Maybe he thinks it’s fair that he does that and OP pays for nursery and day to days spending as her wage is largely disposable income

@TheHotRock98 im a private thearpist and I’m sorry I see clients who are in crisis once a week. 5 x week is strange unless you’re on a secure unit as an inpatient. Are you sure this is above board? And it’s not an affair or something? Not necessarily with the therapist but as a cover for something else? That seems strange and unethical of the therapist to see a client that much.

Have you actually spoken to him and explained your situation?

So you pay no rent/mortgage/bills? Where on earth is £1500 a month going and how have you managed to get into so much debt?

Even with the increased nursery fees you have ~£1200 a month in free cash. The things you’ve listed that you pay for shouldn’t come to that much. I think you have a spending problem tbh. You certainly shouldn’t have a cleaner if you only work 3 days a week and are in debt!!

She’s hardly struggling, she’s got a decent chunk of disposable income and no mortgage/rent. The problem is that she’s overspending on luxuries by the sound of it, and he probably is too.

There are very obvious places that you can cut back. Pack in the dry cleaning, cleaner, expensive make-up, and haircuts to start with. It doesn't have to be forever, but at least until you've paid off your debt.

I think your partner should be contributing to some of your toddlers costs too. Childcare and all the day to day expenses shouldn't just fall to you.

It sounds like there are a few things at play here - you need to learn how to budget better and sort out your debts (moneysavingexpert is a great website) and you need to have a proper conversation with your partner about your financial situation and see what he says. I do agree that cleaning, dry cleaning and expensive toiletries aren’t essential though. It sounds like he covers a lot so I don’t agree that you are being financially abused.

Is it the debt that is getting you down or the fact that he earns more than you but isn’t paying your debt off for you? If it makes you feel any better, I was in about 20,000 grand of debt, so to me, 4,000 is manageable (I appreciate it’s still a lot of money though). Could you get it transferred to a lower APR?

But if you lived on your own you would get CM from partner and be able to claim various benefits like single person council tax and HB and also get help with the nursery fees etc

I think that it doesn’t pay to live with him. Move out and take control of your finances

If he does want to live together you need to get married

Living as you there is no loss on his part and he can keep the status quo.

Many dry clean clothes are washable, get some wool/silk wash and give it a go except for structured lined blazers, cut the cleaner and also stop washing his clothes to save you some time you can put to cleaning. If any cleaning task is something he particularly cares about, stop doing it. I would urge you to leave the floor covered in toys a few days a week and say to him I can’t afford the cleaner and I am doing all the cleaning so I haven’t time. Generally, look after you more and him less op, he is certainly looking after him more and you AND his children less so it’s the least you can do to care for yourself.
i think it is probably generally accurate that any middle aged man in therapy near daily who doesn’t contribute to childcare costs is someone women should avoid at all costs, but I guess you didn’t know the childcare costs bit before you had a child.

What that she pays no rent or mortgage and can't stop a luxury lifestyle?

If it's the one I'm thinking of, TBR low earning was contributing essentially nothing to childcare and was trying to hold her career back.

Although I would say leave this situation too. But I'm super suspicious of the 5 days/ well, 2k/ month, hours a week traveling time for therapy. And I believe in shared finances once you have a kid. It sounds like these two have just skated into their current financial arrangement and it's need some serious discussion.

"My partner earns around £93,000 a year. He also owns a property abroad"

.

This is not a healthy relationship.

If she would have more than £1200 a month disposal income living on her own after housing, bills, food and childcare (which she does now living with him) then there is something wrong with the benefit system.

I think you both need to sit down with an accountant or financial consultant; someone that can give you both some guidance and advice over money and what the average person considers to be a reasonable amount to spend on essentials, because it sounds as if both of you are frittering money away on luxuries that most people can’t or simply wouldn’t consider doing. I don’t know anything about your backgrounds, but both of you sound naive and in need of some practical advice.