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...

Sorry OP, but your spending is unreasonable and you need to cut back to get yourself out of debt.

You have a good deal here, not paying anything towards housing and bills, and effectively having £1200 disposable income per month. You won’t do better on UC so you can ignore that advice. Also, paying all household expenses proportionally would amount to a lot more than £130.

His therapy sessions are a red herring. His paying for them, however expensive and pointless, is not affecting you. Unless you expect him to cut back and pay for your professional hair appointments and expensive make up instead, but that would be unreasonable.

You have £1k disposable income at the end of the month with zero household bills to pay- the only thing you pay for is nursery.

I have a six figure earning professional job and have grey hair and the only thing I dry cleaned in the last 5 years was an outfit I wore for my son's wedding and a suit I had an interview in.

Even if people combined the income, and took the same amount of "fun money" (I know people have said about the 5 times a week therapy, but presumably he would view that as health and therefore essential expense), you would be unlikely to get more.

You don't have to live on beans on toast or wear sackcloth and ashes, but could you make some small sustainable changes - maybe get your hair done slightly less frequently e.g if every month, maybe every 5-6 weeks, look at some cheaper makeup while still keeping a few luxury items etc ? I bought my nieces make up for Xmas last year and was flabbergasted by the cost of their preferred brands.

Not paying towards mortgage and utilities...sounds like you've got a good deal and therfore he's contributing quite a bit towards family life?

I too would ditch the dry cleaning, regular hair cuts, reduce cleaner, scrap the vitamins and reconsider make up/creams you're buying.

I think the problem is he’s accumulating wealth and you aren’t. You’re doing the bulk of the childcare and paying for all your DC’s incidental expenses. If you walk away, you’ll be in a really bad position. Have you tried explaining this to him?

My DP and I aren’t married and I’m a SAHM but we’ve set things up so if one of us wants to walk away everything is split 50/50. The house (he paid for) is in joint names and any excess money is split 50/50 into savings accounts in our individual names. I did contribute a couple of £100,000 from a property sale but that’s all in the mix now so it’s equal.

If you ditch those you'd pay off your debts in no time.

I don't think I've used a dry cleaner for about ten years...your clothes must be v expensive to require that all the time? Is there more savings to be had there? Sell stuff on vinted?

What does he say when you tell him you have no money ?.

She's living rent free! How is that being conned?!

Op have you spoken to him and explained you are struggling? What did he say? If you haven’t spoken to him, why not?

This might be easily solved with a conversation.

She’s far from being conned. I’d say he is. If the sexes were reversed he’d be called a cocklodger

I would really love to hear his take on all of this.
I imagine if I was paying all housing costs etc whilst my partner complained over £1000 per month wasn't enough for the luxury makeup she liked I would probably be wondering if I was better off alone than without this obvious hanger on.

I can see how the therapist affords 2 months holiday per year!

On the face of it I think the financial split sounds fair.. your partner pays all housing costs, I assume he pay the bills as well as you don't mention bills amongst the things you pay for. You both pay towards food. You pay childcare. Age 2 your child's clothes don't need to be expensive- get a bundle on vinted. I have never dry cleaned any item of children's clothes, and it is quite possible nowadays to get smart work clothes that are machine washable.

If you split it sounds like you'd be far worse off even with child maintenance due to costs of housing/bills

Your earnings sound low for a professional job. Have you looked to see if you could get a higher paid job?

Your DP needs to step up. You need to share with him how much it costs for your DC to go to nursery etc. He needs to cover some of that. Your earnings are massively different and he needs to contribute more. He's an AH to think his savings take precedent. They don't.

5 days of therapy? I think he's got another family somewhere that he's supporting.

The two posters who quoted the whole of the long OP please don't! It just fills pages with the same text, very annoying.

My response exactly.

He definitely should be shouldering some of the financial responsibility but your spending is ridiculous on your salary.

£68 a week cleaner
Expensive make up
Hair cut and colouring

You're taking the piss a bit suggesting that he pay off the debt you accumulated by living beyond your means.

Agreed. Perhaps he should be sharing more, but you actually don't bear any of the real expenses bar childcare, which is low.

You are choosing to spend the rest. You work very part time for example, why have a cleaner?

She's used all of her savings on her maternity leave, while the father of the baby has, as said, built wealth. She's then had to go part time and that's what has put her in debt. He's bagged a younger woman and took the piss.
@TheHotRock98 sit him down and tell him you can't afford the cleaner. It's a joint problem, as is childcare. You can't afford to live on part time wages. You are going to be dumped on your arse, in your 40/50s. He's played you for a fool, unless the pregnancy was accidental and he's been honest that he didn't want another child. If you are a partnership, he doesn't get to decide to build his savings, while you get deeper into debt.

To be fair, he's also had to use some of his own savings to deal with redundancy - a redundancy which therefore doesn't seem to have financially affected OP at all, and which makes a pretty good case for why he should be building up good savings, as the sole payer of all essential bills.

Yeah, she wouldn't.

It would have been better if he'd have asked himself if he should keep his hands off someone nearly 20 years younger and if he couldn't support her while pregnant, the pregnancy shouldn't have happened. He's paying his housing costs. The OP gets to play, live in cleaner, full time child carer and shares his bed. She's been hoodwinked and is waking up.

I earn significantly more than the OP. Work 50 hours a week and dont have a cleaner or dry clean anything. I have my hair cut a few times a year and dont buy expensive make up.
The OP is living beyond her means and expecting her partner to fund it.
Sbe would be significantly worse off without him especially in London.

Interesting that you didnt know that your psychoanalytic therapist runs a 5 day a week therapy.
You dont seem to know much about psychotherapy.

Look at what you would get if you left and lived alone with your daughter. You would get UC towards rent, childcare, living expenses and then £600 a month in child maintenance.

a quick condensation with ChatGTP on this estimates between £3687-£4087 a month because of his maintenance, contribution to rent and being able to claim back childcare costs.

In my opinion this means you would be better off if you didn’t live with him but not necessarily by a lot, although the added independence and lack of resentment would be worth it. Personally I would discuss this with him and if he isn’t willing to even up finances then consider leaving.

Income source

Approx. amount

Take-home pay

£1,500

Universal Credit

£1,300–£1,700

Child Benefit

~£117

Childcare reimbursement (85% of £200)*

~£170

Child maintenance from your ex

£600

She must be on roughly £40k or more depending on student loan and pension. She only works 3 days per week.

This sounds depressing OP and not much of a partnership.

I think keeping separate finances is fine - DH and I do and it’s worked well but in your case you’re at a significant financial disadvantage because you’re taking on the costs of your shared DC whilst also having limited your earning capacity.

that said it all pales in comparison to the issues of your DH having 5 hrs of therapy a week at a cost of £2k pcm. Do you know why he has the therapy? I’d be alarmed by this.

He’s either lying and doing something else or he’s got serious issue that he’s grappling with or he’s being totally taken advantage of. even for a serious issue this number of hours would generally be unethical