AIBU to say it's difficult to know how to sort finances fairly in my marriage?

[Neocab]

My DH and I have been married for 2 years and still have no idea how to work our finances. We're basically avoiding making important purchases / doing important work on our house at this point because we don't really know how to approach the issue.

AIBU to think it is difficult to work out what is fair here?

I hear from various sources (family, friends and indeed here on Mumsnet) that married couples should:

• combine all finances and treat everything as shared
• OR have a degree of separation but make contributions to shared costs in proportion to income.

We don't do either, and I don't feel it's as simple as that. It is possible that I'm missing something though.

For background: DH is a fair bit older than me. We work in a similar field but he is a fair bit more senior. He earns almost twice what I do.

When we met, he already owned his house outright. I'd been saving to buy my first home and was about at the point where I had a good deposit together. I ended up moving into his house with him instead. Almost immediately afterwards I realised I was pregnant. It was unplanned and a huge shock, and I didn't know whether our still new-ish relationship would be able to handle it, but it did. He proposed shortly afterwards.

We have always maintained separate finances. We have a joint account for household bills, nursery fees, kid stuff, shopping and joint holidays. We each put an equal amount into it each month and if we ever have extra joint expenses, we contribute towards those equally too. I was the one who suggested this at first. I think I felt guilty that I living mortgage and rent-free in a home that I hadn't contributed towards financially at all and was worried about seeming like a sponger. I've always liked the idea of feeling really independent and didn't want to have a lifestyle that I could only afford because a man was topping my finances up.

As time has gone on, though, the situation has become a bit more difficult. For one thing, the equal contributions split means that my DH has been able to save a large amount each month easily, whilst I have been saving at a slower rate. We spend quite a lot on what I see as frivolities - more extravagant food shops and holidays than I would go for myself - but I don't feel I can complain about what my DH wants to spend because I come across as mean, so I keep paying my 50%. In fact until recently I was actually down on the amount of money I had when we got together because we even did the equal split thing when I was on MAT leave and I didn't get much due to being quite new to my job at the time. Don't get me wrong - I'm not penny-pinching massively (after all, I don't have any mortgage or rent to pay!). I can still afford haircuts and meals out with friends etc so I'm not exactly in a situation that requires anything more than the world's smallest violin.

Then there's our house (I still don't feel comfortable calling it 'ours' really - in my head it is his, no matter how much he assures me that he sees it as shared!). It is a bit ramshackle and needs a fair bit of work doing, but I'm stalling on it because I know DH will expect me to pay 50% of everything and I haven't saved enough yet for us to do what we want. There is a possibility that I will have to take out a loan to cover my 50%, which seems a bit ridiculous to me when DH has the money to cover the cost of all of it sitting in the bank. Again though I have this terror of seeming like some sort of freeloader and worry I'm being a selfish arsehole to think of his money as in some way mine too. He has earned that money and I have not.

Some other spanners in the works:

• DH has adult kids. They are homeowners and on their feet, largely thanks to his financial support, and he likes to give them frequent monetary gifts. In my eyes this is none of my business to comment on, but if it were my business, I would obviously still support it completely as it is what a dad should do with his kids. If we combined our finances or shared things differently, it might get in the way of my DH feeling he can give his kids money whenever he wants to, and I would hate that.
• DH is going to be retiring within the next 10 years, whilst I will probably be working for at least 30 (not just the age difference - also differences in pension types). At this point our situations will reverse and I will be bringing in a lot more money than him. I don't know how on earth we will navigate this financially.

What does financially fair even mean in a marriage like this? I have no idea at all. What I do know is that I seem to feel simultaneously guilty and annoyed about any possible arrangement we discuss!

And yes. of course, ideally I would have thought all this through before getting pregnant and before getting married, but I didn't. I am where I am. It was all so fast, so unexpected, and falling in love with someone older was never part of my plan.

Thanks so much for any thoughts. I have no idea what to do and I don't think my DH does either.

YABU - there is a pretty simple way to organise your finances fairly in this marriage

YANBU - it is difficult to know how to sort this out fairly!

Although it's still a fairly short marriage in the event of a divorce the aim would be to prioritise the needs of you child and then to ensure that as a far as possible both your housing needs were met. So I'm afraid he's already unlikely to be able to hold on to the house in any divorce unless he has sufficient assets to ensure you also have a roof over your head. For that reason I wouldnt personally fuss over investing in improvements, although I would keep a record.

Still if you wanted you could make him a loan, with interest, on the cost of the improvements, having the paperwork drawn up by a solicitor. This might satisfy both your insecurities.

@ViciousCurrentBun Why does it matter that you invest separately unless you are either planning the divorce, want to leave your assets to someone other than your partner or one is a spendthift?

It doesn't matter what you do, OP, as long as you are both happy. I have been married for well over 30 years, and we have never had a joint account or "combined finances" (excepting a joint mortgage, when we still had one).
After the first few years, my husband earned a lot more than me, but we never bothered to work out who owed what. Loosely, I have always covered "the boring stuff" (mortgage, food, bills) and he does "the good stuff" (investments, holidays, cars, capital items).
So, yes, because of his much larger salary (now pension) he will have contributed more, but I feel that I have always paid my way. Crucially, separate accounts mean that we barely need to discuss money, and have never fallen out about it - it works for us.

I see joint account as for marriages that are on a firm footing. Your sounds precarious. He is happy for you to run down your savings on MT and expensive holidays, and worry about money day to day. I’d skip the holidays and build my savings back up. You might need them. What’s the set up with the house if he dies?

Added to say, OP, your situation is much more complicated than ours, due to the age difference, kids etc. I think you need proper legal and financial advice re property, pensions and inheritance - it's not just about who pays for the supermarket shop.

You need to stop being so independent and thinking of yourself as "money grabbing". This doesnt work for you. Things like contributing half of the spend for luxuries/expensive food that you dont want is unfair and putting you under pressure. You have also given up the security of homeownership for yourself.

You are a married couple and you have a lifetime together...you need to both see that in this season, he is the higher earner with more assets and your access to that feels unfair. In the future, he will be retired and you will still earn, the 'imbalance' will be addressed then so you do not need to overcontribute now. You will likely as you said also provide care for him; this support would likely cost thousands if he were living alone.

In this set up you cannot make decisions together - for example it might be nice for you to retire early to enjoy time retired together before he is very eldery but at the moment you will have to keep working for financial reasons because he does not share.

You should be on the deeds to the house, you should get his pension if he passes away first. And day to day you need to find a fairer way to split costs. Many couples do it as a percentage of earnings - so say you both contribute 50% to joint account for monthly living, 20% to savings for house renovations, 10% to savings for a rainy day/holidays etc and keep the remaining 20% for personal spends (he could gift to his adult kids from this so this is not visible to you/he wont feel restricted). This gives you less for personal spends than him so an alternative is that you agree a sum for personal spends each month - just for example you both keep £400 and whatever the remaining income is goes into the joint stuff.

The point is that a marriage is a team not a you/me and you have entered into a committed life bound together, not individuals alongside each other as you are now.

OP isnt happy though. Thats why she started this thread.

The fact your name is not on the deeds is a red herring for divirce. It’s now a marital
assets ( on the basis you’re in England /wales). It doesn’t matter if your name is on it or not, that dies t mean you’d automatically get half it means it would be in the pot for division and you’d each get a share according to needs and other assets

he needs a will

if I was his adult children if not me happy that his assets go to you / he should imo make specific provision for them in his will.

What happened to the savings you had built up to buy a house pre child ?

But do you have kids and did you take mat leave?

Yeah, I kind of think this is the answer.

It's harder at the beginning, feels more unnatural. But it's what a marriage is. What if one of you became ill or your child needed full time care - the other would then be the sole earner. Is the other spouse then supposed to just live on nothing?

The big complication here as I see it are the older children, and that could take some talking through and maybe even seeing a lawyer to make sure things are fair to them, especially with inhheritance.

But however you manage the logistics of bank accounts and such, you need to stop thinking of your incomes as "mine" and "his", because it's "ours".

DH was earning more than me and still does, but less regular income. We have always had a bills account we pay into about equally these days. I couldn't have joint up finances completely because otherwise I know I'd have just felt guilty about spending 'his' money and never spent anything on myself

I think you do need more advice on the housing situation. Maybe that’s the most unusual aspect of your situation - your DH is concerned with securing his assets for retirement at the same time as being the father of a very very young child. It’s possible that he cannot satisfy both aims. If he was to put the welfare / housing of your child as his top priority, in the event of a hypothetical divorce after he has retired (and presumably will be on a fixed income), do you think he would choose to do things differently ? Would he really keep the house for himself and send you both on your way ?? There has to be some way to protect everyone, even if it means some comprises.

He should be paying twice as much into the joint account as you or he should be paying for all the one off big expenses.

Finances in a marriage or a relationship are, imo, more of a mindset thing than the precise arrangement of bank accounts and contributions, and you two don't sound like you're in the one-team mindset at all. It's understandable given the age difference, projected retirement age difference and his existing assets and adult children.

I think you need to agree some guiding principles and make decisions from there, perhaps with professional advice where needed.

So for example, you might agree now you're married that everything is 5050. So that is home repairs. Which will impact the value of the home, therefore you want that recognised and ringfenced through a legal agreement. If he considers the house 100% a pre-marital asset that he owns then he pays 100% for repairs. Obviously in reality that may not stand up to a divorce settlement, but that's why you take legal advice after deciding your guiding principles.

He suggested that we keep a record of anything I pay towards home improvements and that if we were to ever split, I could get that back plus interest. However I've got no idea whether I can make this legally enforceable. I need to get proper legal advice really.

If you divorce, the judge will decide who gets what. Just because his name is on the deeds doesn't mean he gets to keep the house. The priority will be housing your shared child.
I don't think there is any need for a loan and interest between you, but it would be a good idea to keep track of what you spend on the house in terms of major repairs and improvements. Keep receipts paid to builders, suppliers etc., and keep bank statements showing your payments, either lump sums to DH, or preferably you paying the invoices direct so you can exactly tie your payment to the invoice if ever there was a dispute in a divorce court.

In terms of splitting of holidays etc, he says he is happy to pay more towards treat type things like this and to make this more in line with income proportions, whilst day to day bills keep being split 50/50.

I suggest day-to-day shopping and bills are paid from the joint current account, but any holidays, meals out, or other 'treats' are paid from personal accounts.

Say he suggests going out for a meal. You speak up and say "sounds lovely, but I can't afford it this month, will you be paying?"
If he talks about a holiday to an expensive place, you say "I can afford X hundred for a holiday this year, so if we go there you will need to pay for most of it. How about I transfer you my X and then you can book it and pay for meals when we get there?"
In the supermarket, he starts adding steak and expensive wine to the trolley. You tell him "We can't afford for that to come out of the joint account with the rest of the normal shopping, can you put those through the till separately on your own card?"
You need to get used to saying clear and loud what you can and can't afford, and telling him he needs to pay for the expensive treats.

Alternatively - everything in one pot, as others have said.

Glad you've had a good chat but one thing is puzzling me, if he was so concerned about you not getting the house in a divorce, why did he propose, and why didnt he organise sorting out any legal protection before/after you got married, sorting the wills etc? Why did he even get married at all?

Oh dear, another of these threads when a young mum spends her own savings on a maternity leave. I was not born here, so I actually had to ask AI why this is a thing in the UK. Where I come from, assets are shared from the first day of marriage and nobody would understand why would a husband have a separate account and hoard money while the wife maintained herself an the child from her savings, like some kind of luxury personal hobby. I actually read that this is a Western, modern, individualistic thing where everybody has to contribute 50:50 and everybody pretends that woman can earn the same even when she has a baby, but the reality is economic disparity, but nobody talks about it, because otherwise we would have to stop pretending that women and men are not able to earn the same money at all times - but in this ideal West surely this cannot be true, right? So as a result women silently complain on online forums and divorced rates are sky-rocketing, especially when children are small and exhausted women have had enough. Most of this could be resolved with properly paid 12-month maternity leave and properly subsidised childcare, just like in Europe (UK is an outlier, actually, and offers young mothers next to nothing).

Op, I've read you're update and I'm pleased you felt empowered to start the conversation.

However what Im understanding from your update:
He will make a will, so what he wants to happen, will happen (which benefits him, but at least you don't have angry children to deal with).
He'll look at putting you as beneficiary on his pension (which benefits you at £0 cost to him).
He will may more proportionately for treats... Not pay for treats, not pay more proportionately into the joint account for everything else - just a bit more on meals out and holidays. What's that? An extra 3-4k a year?

Meanwhile he's STILL refusing you a stake in your own and your child's home, but you've moved to offering up your savings on the promise it will be repaid if you divorce. How much will you be putting in the pot now? More than he's paying on treats I'd suggest?

OP, you seem suspiciously grateful for the crumbs he's offering here, yet somehow, it appears he's come out on top. An extra few k on nice activities he gets to enjoy over the year, in exchange for access to your cash to improve his asset.

I'm sorry to be negative, it's not my nature, but looking at your update you're potentially worse off. Am I misunderstanding something?

In terms of splitting of holidays etc, he says he is happy to pay more towards treat type things like this and to make this more in line with income proportions, whilst day to day bills keep being split 50/50. This was what the first couple of posters suggested and seems quite fair to me.

This isn't remotely fair though? Not only does he vastly outearn you, but you're on mat leave with his child. He should be covering all the bills until you return to work, and after that it should be a fair proportional split.

I think that, unfortunately for the DH, he is going to have to reconsider his retirement plans or at least review whether they still work financially and fairly given that he is now the father of a very young child and married to someone who earns far less than he does, but with whom he has committed to share his life. It sounds as though he’s been very focused on his own plans for this stage of his life - but things have changed now, quite drastically. And he has to accept that his first responsibility has to be to his young child - not himself.

You need transparency on his income from all sources and on outgoings.

I would recommend that you split all the bills, living expenses and holidays according to your income proportions: he earns 72% he pays 72%.

Then you both set aside proportionate joint savings for your child. So if you want your child to have £10,000 a year savings, he pays £7,200 and you pay £2,800.

Similarly for family savings for big purchases like white goods, sofa etc.

All of these should be in separate accounts.We have one for all the direct debits that has no debit card and one for holidays and one for day to day living.

When it comes to your own savings, obviously get a pension and pay at least 0.5% a month in more. Better if your employer matches your contributions.

Build up a fuck you find so you have three months’ wages in it, so you can say fuck you to your job, your partner or your landlord/mortgage and have a buffer.

As it’s his house, I would get him to pay for the refurbishments but you could do it proportionately if you want. IANAL but divorcing wives have been given a share of property if they can show they have helped pay for improvements. In any case, you have a child so can expect him to have to pay to house you.

Right now, if he dies, you get everything as his wife, and you’ll get his pension if he hasn’t made an expression of wish, as it usually goes to the next of kin.

Financially you may be better if you pool everything and don’t compromise your spending, but don’t be resentful of he spends loads on his kids or his hobbies.

This is such a good question.

I never asked for marriage. In fact I was explicit that I didn't want him to marry me just because we were having a kid together (I was worried about him feeling like it's an obligation... perhaps you might notice my pattern of not wanting to ask for or seem like I expect anything in life, which is an issue I should probably deal with, but that's maybe a separate thread...). I was shocked when he asked me to marry him. And no he never once tried to organise anything legally to protect his property either. Surely if he were that worried, he would be the one pushing for is to see a solicitor and formalise stuff rather than defaulting to 'let's not think about it. It will all be fine.'

My best explanation for the inconsistency is that I think he's not a planner by nature. He's impulsive and follows his heart, and then occasionally feels a stab of panic in case he's gone too far and left himself vulnerable. He must have known that getting married was a commitment with financial implications - he's a smart guy. But perhaps they didn't register somehow?

Or perhaps something since we got married has shaken his sense of trust in our future, which I suppose is worth thinking about.

• combine all finances and treat everything as shared

Nope.

Always have a running away fund because you never know.

The only part that is complicated is that he has children he doesn’t share with you. If they did not exist, then you should be pooling your resources and getting equal amounts of fun money.
Since they do exist, it would be fair for him to earmark a portion of his assets from before the marriage for them.

Saves me typing it again