My husband wants me to pay more towards the bills…

[ZiggyNiko]

I’d really appreciate some outside perspective because I’m starting to feel like I’m being unreasonable, but I’m not sure.
My husband earns around £4,000 a month and I earn around £1,500. I only work 3 days a week because our youngest isn’t at nursery yet, so increasing my hours isn’t really an option at the moment.
We don’t have a mortgage, but my husband wants me to take over the council tax and electricity, which come to around £500 a month combined.
I already pay approximately £500 a month for groceries, as well as paying for our two children’s activities, days out, clothes, and various other expenses for them.
When we go on holiday, say a £4,000 holiday, I’ll usually contribute around £1,000. Even that is difficult for me on my income.
My husband says he runs out of money every month, but the problem is that I have no idea where his money is going. He doesn’t seem willing to sit down and go through the finances with me and explain what he’s spending it on.
What really bothers me is that he somehow has the money for an annual £1,000 golf trip, while telling me that he doesn’t have enough money and that I should take on more household bills.
I’m not saying he shouldn’t have hobbies or spend money on himself. But given the huge difference in our incomes, and the fact that I’m working reduced hours partly because of childcare, I feel like our finances should be looked at as a household rather than simply splitting bills.
Am I being unreasonable for thinking he should be contributing significantly more to the household expenses?

You should be putting it all in one pot, you’re a family.

How long have you been married and how long has he been taking advantage of you this way?

Let me guess, during maternity leave you kept covering your portion of the bills with savings / maternity pay?

It’s hard to say without knowing what bills your husbands pays. However I can’t imagine not putting all the money in a pot, paying bills, saving some and sharing the rest.

This is financial abuse. I suggest you get advice from Women’s Aid on what you should do.

We’ve been married 18 years.
Thankfully he hasn’t been asking me to pay for any bills while I was on maternity leave but I still paid for groceries, my older son’s activities. His nursery fees. Now our son starts reception in September he says I should use that money 500 towards paying bills instead.

100% this. Why people get married and don't share finances is beyond me. Normally its the woman getting a bad deal when joint accounts aren't used because they are normally the ones giving up their careers for childcare and undervalued.

You need to both sit down and list out uour total outgoings and pay proportionally towards them. Or both salaries into the one pot. Whatever you do, do not agree to take on those extra bills yourself.

Could you organise child-care and go back to work full-time now and explain to your DH that he will need to contribute proportionally to child-care, as well as his share of nursery pick-ups/drop-offs/cover for days they are ill, etc. Also, he will no longer be able to take his annual golf trip as you will be working full-time also and won’t be able to do child-care by yourself.

What exactly does your DH pay for?

There is no way I would be working out my “contribution” to anything, let alone a family holiday. All our money is joint and everything is paid out of that joint pot. I do all our financial stuff but sit down with him every now and then to show him the accounts (he doesn’t bother with internet banking so literally would have no idea if I didn’t tell him!)

Tell him that you'll only consider paying more when you've gone through all of the household finances. So he either gives them up or things will stay the same.

If he wants you to pay council tax, electricity and groceries, what is he paying? Those are my 3 biggest monthly expenses.
I'd be very concerned about where his money is going - is he squirrelling it away, or something more sinister, like gambling??
I think you have to say to him that you're not in a position to take on the extra bills, as you already pay for groceries, and expenses for your DC. Ask him for an open and honest conversation about money.

Well you both need to go through the bills. The fact you dont know what's being paid is a bit worrying.

What does your husband pay for?

Well you say no until you sit down and discuss it properly and see where his money is also going.

Just say sure, lets sit down and do a spreadsheet together and go through all our bills so we can figure out what our outgoings are too. If he says 'you need to pay' you respond 'sure, once we've sat down and got that spreadsheet together'
Do you get any paper bills? Where does he store them?

No, this isn’t on at all.

when Dd was younger mine and Dh’s incomes were similar to yours as I was part time due to childcare. Dh paid all the direct debit type bills and I did groceries. Basically people need to pay proportional amounts I reckon. So if he earns 2.5x what you do (I am estimating) then he needs to pay 2.5x bills compared to you inc groceries and kids activities, etc.

have you got a big house because £500 for electricity and council tax sounds a lot? The two of you do need to sit down and firstly go through essential bills type expenses to get an accurate figure. And then I’m afraid dh needs to write down what he’s spending money on. Is his 4k before tax? So then see what he’s left with after tax, see what he puts towards bills, etc. add in stuff like petrol costs….so all essentials. Then how much is he left with/should he be left with a month?

He doesn’t hugely out earn you - you should be paying a little less than 1/3 the bills and expenses. So how much does he pay? If he’s expecting £1000 from you for bills then he is BU unless he’s paying approx £2000 for bills every month.

He should also contribute towards paying for your days out with the kids.

Maybe an unpopular opinion but if I had a husband earning multiples of what I did (and especially if my unpaid labour was propping up his ability to earn that amount) I would hope that he would gladly cover the bills

Everyone organises things a bit differently but I'd argue that the fair outcome in a LTR - especially with kids - is that both partners have equal spending money once all bills etc are covered. I earn more than my DH but we both have the same amount of personal spends - and I don't include anything DSD needs in that amount, her needs come out of the shared bills.

I think it's unreasonable of him to ask this of you, and unacceptable to ask without any transparency about where money is going.

Did you have enough money coming in to cover nursery fees and groceries throughout your maternity leave?

Who owns the house you live in, or do you rent? Whose name is on the paperwork, and do you have access to his bank accounts, investments or any other financial paperwork at all?

1000 for him to take an annual trip isn’t excessive, it’s less than 100 a month. For me I would be more concerned about where the rest is going.

I would just tell him you’re happy to pool resources. Have all money and bills going into one pot and then you can both spend from that. Bet he changes his tune about how much you should contribute when you get full disclosure of his finances.

Alternatively, maybe your bills are so high that he does need the money. If you are spending 500 on bills and 500 on groceries that still leaves you with 500 a month for yourself, how much does he have?

Personally I prefer that all of our household spending is done on a credit card with a set limit, we pay it in full from my husbands account, then from my account (which is actually a joint account) we move the spare into savings and anything left over is just top up money for if we spend extra on our card and want to reduce it a bit to leave more room.

We’ve always pooled though as have been living together since age 20 when we had a child about to be born, we didn’t really have financial independence of each other as both lived at home with parents until that point with no real bills

He shouldn’t “contribute” to his own kids’ activities. They’re his kids. Surely his main focus and where his money should primarily be going to?

I don’t actually know what he’s spending on expect (at the moment) council tax £300, electricity £200, car lease £600, his phone £20, vape £40. That’s barely £1200. Like some of you said we need to do out income and expenses spreadsheet to see what’s going on. I can’t afford to take on those 2 big bills while I’m paying for groceries and all expenses with the kids.

Why are you paying for all the kids’ expenses? Did he not father them?

I think I've known of too many "secret money problem" husbands who kept their wives in a state of financial terror whilst disappearing thousands of pounds a month on gambling, coke etc that I simply wouldn't trust a man who insisted on keeping loads of money to himself whilst he ensured that I "paid my way". I might just be embittered, though.