My husband wants me to pay his ex’s share of school fees

[CheeseSheep]

DH thinks I should contribute towards his eldest daughter’s school fees and I’m really not sure if I’m being unreasonable here.

We’ve been together eight years, married for six. We have two DDs together, aged 7 and 5, and he has a daughter from his previous marriage who is now 13. She was five when we got together so I’ve known her most of her life really. We get on fine, she’s a nice enough girl and I have never had any issue with her being part of our family, but we’re not particularly mother and daughter if that makes sense.

His eldest currently goes to a state school, because her mum has never been particularly keen on private education. Our two girls go to an independent school, which is the one DH has now suggested his eldest should move to. The fees for DD1 are £22,140 a year and DD2’s are £19,080 as she’s in a younger year group. The fee for DSD would be £31,500 but could possibly get a 10% sibling discount, so it’s not even exactly the same amount as the girls.

Apparently she’s been having a difficult time socially at her current school and has been asking about moving. I don’t know all the ins and outs as obviously I’m not involved in the day to day school stuff, but DH thinks a fresh start would be good for her. I haven’t disagreed with that at all.

The problem is he’s now decided that the school our girls attend would be the best option. He spoke to his ex about it and she’s apparently not against her moving, but she doesn’t want to pay private school fees and says she can’t afford them anyway. DH says he can cover most of it but there would still be a shortfall and has suggested I pay towards that. He hasn’t actually said an exact figure yet, but from what I can work out it would be around £10,000 a year after what he says he can pay.

I was a bit taken aback if I’m honest. I work full time in property management and earn a good salary. DH earns considerably more than me through his business. We have a joint account for household expenses but keep our own savings separate. I’ve always been quite careful about having my own money and I don’t think that’s particularly unusual. I have no problem with DH spending his money on his daughter, he’s always done that and I wouldn’t expect anything different. But I don’t see why my savings should now be used to pay her school fees.

DH says I’m looking at this completely the wrong way. His argument is that our girls benefit from his income and that because we’re married, all three children should be treated equally. He said he doesn’t understand how I can be happy paying for our girls’ education but suddenly have an issue when it’s his eldest. I said that’s not the same thing as I’m their mother and their education is something we decided on together. He thinks that’s a horrible distinction to make.

What has made it more awkward is that his daughter apparently knows about the possible move and I don’t want her thinking she’s somehow less important or that I don’t want her at the same school. I’d be perfectly happy for her to come here if DH and her mum can sort out the fees. I’m not trying to exclude her.

But equally I don’t think it’s fair for DH to decide on a private school and then expect me to make up the difference because her mum doesn’t want to pay for one. Surely that’s something he needs to work out himself?

He’s now saying I’m being selfish and making a distinction between the children that he would never make. Am I being unreasonable to refuse to contribute? I feel like I’ve been put in a really uncomfortable position.

I think it’s between the two parents and not you. But despite the logistics of it, personally I’d consider paying for the 5 years remaining (50k?) for the relationship factor. This is your family. And they’ll be around for longer than 5 years.

What on earth are you doing with the other £190k, plus your savings and property income?

I would imagine that a significant chunk of this is skimmed off by HMRC.

Regardless of all the other issues I would say taking on an additional £10k of non essential outgoings per year which would have to be met by savings is not wise for someone on your salary level. I would simply say that to him- you would be over extending yourself which is not financially wise.

Why would it end at GCSEs?

And she's likely to be asked to contribute towards DSD's university costs, too.

I would say No I think ,He is being very unreasonable Im afraid. The problem is what happens in 6th form or Uni as well ? You are paying for years! I also would not be too happy with her joining your DC school .Tell him if he wants to pay for private its between him and his ex !

I think your husband is pretending to be a bimbo. He can´t make a distinction between the three because he IS the father of the three. You aren´t the mother of the first and never will be, you get on, fine. But her education is between him and his ex, nothing to do with you. Should his ex win euromillions, when she dies, will your daughters inherit. No. Just the eldest will. Sorry but he is trying to gaslight you.

I don’t think education ends with GCSEs.

I don't really understand how he cannot pay the full fees for his eldest on his current income. Where is the money going?

In any cases, I think both you and your husband are right. At the moment, his contribution to his younger daughters education is much higher than for his eldest. So he needs to redistribute "the pot" of whatever he has available to pay for his eldest fees.
That could mean that your share goes up, not because you're paying for DSD, but because you're paying a bigger share for your daughters.

I also agree with you that with your difference in income, that needs to be sustainable for you too and it shouldn't mean you have to use your savings.
Ultimately if you and your husband can't afford 3 set of fees, then you either need to reconsider all children education setting, or you need to find extra money by cutting somewhere else (which, again, should be doable on his income).

But presumably SD’s mum doesn’t refuse to get SD birthday presents on the basis of her getting the same level as your DDs do from you.

Eg, you and DH spend £250 on all 3 children so SDM doesn’t get anything for her. I doubt that is happening, so SDM gets £250 from you and £250 from her mother and partner, so she gets more because she has more parental figures in her life.

I don’t think SDM can expect you and DH to cover the full school cost. She’s receiving maintenance (hence benefitting from DH’s income as well) and has equal responsibility over schooling decisions as DH. But with that responsibility comes responsibility for the costs.

However, unless the 75/25 split for your shared children’s fees is based on take home, your husband is paying significantly more proportionately for their schooling aa you aren’t accounting for deductions and child maintenance.

Actually, I should probably add a fourth option, that the DH finds the funds to cover his eldest child's school fees by reducing expenditure on other things. E.g. by deciding not to fund family holidays or reducing the budgets available for food, leisure, pocket money or whatever,

You earn 1/3 of his salary so you should split everything 1/3 and 2/3. If you did that could he then afford to pay for his eldest?

@U53rName Yes, they'll be in the 45% tax bracket if this is all income. That's a huge chunk.

The only case I've seen that was similar to this (wasn't private school but a different money issue), the step-daughter's mum had died. I'm not sure if the step-mum legally adopted her, but she definitely acted like it was all one family, and the girl got exactly the same as her step=siblings, and it seemed to work well.
But this is much trickier, as you say her mum both doesn't want to-and can't-pay for it, and it's a different situation. Instinctively I want to say all the children should be treated equally, but then, because her mum is still around, and presumably not close with yours, it is difficult.

If you paid 10k more towards your 2 kids then he can afford to send his other child. Pretty simple really.

I have three DC and only one goes to private school, it sounds like for the same reasons as your SD wants to so I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with that. However, I did offer all three the chance to attend and could have sent them all if that was what they wanted or I wouldn't have sent my youngest.

I also understand you having separate savings and not wanting to dip into them if you had to pay 50/50. As long as your DH has an equal amount of savings I don't see that as an issue.

I would say as the parent of three teens they only get more expensive. Driving lessons, uni costs, car insurance etc etc, it can be a huge bill if you choose to fund it, and if you do you'll have to do it for all of them. That on top of private education is a massive financial burden, even with your good salaries. I would look at what is affordable long term factoring all of that in.

Agree with the poster who suggest you and DH split the costs of your own children 50:50 and then he can work out whether he can afford for the eldest to go. The fees will increase over time - and what about sixth form? You will have DSD and your eldest both in secondary at the same time if she does sixth form there…..and then there may be Uni costs….
Really don’t see that you should effectively pay for DSD from your savings but as you are so wedded to private education for your daughters, you should pay half. However, whether that is sustainable if you are on £60k is questionable unless you have prospects to earn more.
Your DH is unfair to compare himself with you over how he views the children as he is the father of all three so they are clearly equal in his view.

I think you should calculate your split of school fees for your shared children based on:- for you your after tax income and for him his after tax/maintenance/his contribution to his other daughters school fees. I think that would be more fair.

Your DSD has two active, involved parents. Whatever your relationship with her, you're not one of them. Her actual parents, together, are not able to find a way to finance private school for her and it sounds like that's mainly because one of them isn't interested in doing so (if it was genuinely unaffordable, a scholarship might have been an option).

If you had significantly more money than your husband and could easily spare it then I'd say it could work for you to pay part of the costs, the way a well-off grandparent might do if the school was otherwise unaffordable for the parents. But I would only do that if she and both parents were 100% receptive to her attending this particular school AND your having a role/say in her schooling, which can get awkward.

Your husband's assumption that you should pay, will pay, and must pay is really "off", and his comments about his financial contribution to his other daughters don't make a lot of sense. It's also not fair if he has basically told his daughter that this is a done deal and she now thinks you are holding it up - if she genuinely wants to go to this school it's her mother who is preventing it. It actually sounds like regardless of who pays what, the mother would prefer her daughter stay in public schooling which can be a strong preference or ethical conviction for some people.

He’s now saying I’m being selfish and making a distinction between the children that he would never make.

But they're all his DC so there is no distinction for him. He's parent to all three. His DD1 has two parents and neither of them is you. If he truly believes he'd pay school fees for a child who he isn't the parent of, he must have way more money than he's letting on.

He's not sharing his higher earnings with you, since you have separate finances. It's more than a bit cheeky of him to attempt to co opt your money to pay for done thing that's his responsibility. More so to present it almost as a fait accompli.
I get why mum isn't keen - she never wanted private education in the first place and therefore doesn't want the bill. This is your husbands idea, so he should pay. Or if he can't afford it there is more than one state school she could go to.
If you two pooled all money I'd think differently but he seems to want to have his cake (more income than you) and eat it (using your money to pay his commitments).

Or it could be that she's open to it now seeing as she's been having a difficult time socially at her current school and has been asking about moving, and now the ex is saying he wants to send her to his other daughters school

Op can you clarify what your property income and savings are? Because I don’t understand why they’re not being treated as ‘income’ alongside the 60k?

Actually completely agree with this. Your DH's responsibility is to see that his 3 children benefit from his income/wealth in a fair way, and actually the best solution is to level the playing field across the board....small reductions in spending in a few areas (which essentially means small reductions in spending on your your shared DDs in a variety of non-school related ways) will quite quickly make up the shortfall and go a long way to creating more balance in the way he treats his 3 children.

For birthdays DH and I buy presents for DSD together and her birthday is treated just as importantly as the younger two.

Nice of you both. Can you answer the question about whose choice it was to send your DD's to private school? Because clearly your salary alone couldn't cover it...

I agree with a PP on what a waste of money private primary school is - unless you are above a 300k household.

I suspect your aspirational desires are coming to bite you now.

I think that’s partly why I’m uncomfortable adding another set of fees into the equation. It’s not that I don’t want DSD to have the same opportunities, it’s that I don’t think we should commit to something we might struggle to maintain for all three children.

Is he saving the same amount for DSDs future education needs, or just spending much more on the younger two?

If he was saving it, he should be able to use it now when she needs it the most (for example now till GCSE). If he is spending much more on the younger ones with the idea to keep it up for many years coming, he is in a pickle now. He really needs to find the money for his eldest (paying the fees fully himself but for less years). If he can't afford that, he can't afford to pay 3/4 for the younger ones for that many years.