AIBU or is he?

[gettingabitnervousnow]

I am currently on maternity leave with DD 8 months.

To give you a bit of background, DP have been together about 6 years. During most that time I have supported him financially, paying the majority of the bills, everything for the house and now everything for DD. He has lost his job several times and it always seems to take him months to find another ? now if that was me I would do anything in the meantime until a proper job came along but he seems unwilling/able to do this. He also ran up a considerable amount of debt behind my back in the early years ? every time I would find out about a new creditcard debt or loan I would beg him to tell me about everything so we could sort it out but he would just get aggressive and tell me it was none of my business, despite the fact he was expecting me to support him and we were planning to have a baby.

Anyway a couple of years ago I had had enough (more with his inability to be honest with me than anything) and we split up. He moved back home and spent the next few weeks begging me for another chance. He sent me long letters going through in detail how he saw he was in the wrong and what he planned to do about. He assured me he recognized how important security was if we were planning to have a child blah blah and how if he needed to he would two or even three jobs to support me while I was on maternity leave.

In Jan last year we agreed to give things another go and in April last year I fell pregnant with DD. Two months later he got sacked again and didn?t manage to get another job until two months before I went on maternity leave ? I was tearing my hair out at this point.

In fairness since then he has stuck at this job but the initial period of a guaranteed commission has finished so he isn?t earning as much as he was. Last night I brought up the subject of him getting a second job as he has been talking about since we got back together. I only wanted to talk about things but as usual he just started shouting me down, telling me how unreasonable and selfish I was to expect him to get another job while I am at home all day. He says I shouldn?t be meeting up with friends for coffee/lunch all the time if we are that hard up.

In fairness I do probably go out quite a bit during the week but I don?t spend that much and I pay for it out of my own money, as well as still paying half the bills plus everything for the house/DS/when we go out. He knows that I am only getting SMP and so if he expects me to pay towards his debts or his half of the bills it will have to come out of my savings.

AIBU ? when I read it back maybe I am, we are a couple after all. I probably sound materialistic ? I promise I?m not. I don?t want/expect him to earn a fortune, I don?t care about flash cars, can?t remember the last time we went on holiday ? all I want is a nice home for DD and to be able to able to provide her with everything she needs. To be honest it?s not even about the money, more our differing attitudes to life. I?m independent and willing to work hard for what I want whereas he seems happy just to get by even if that means other people picking up the slack (I ran up a few debts when I first left home (nothing major) so I worked on a Saturday too until I paid it off ? its not rocket science to me). He always says that he wants a nice home/life for DS but doesn?t seem willing to put in the effort to get it. . The stupid things is, id be happy if I even saw him trying to get another job ? I just want him to want to do the best he can for his family.

Aside from this, we just seem poles apart on most thing ? the worst thing is we don?t even seem to be able to discuss things, he always get defensive and angry and twists things round. I don?t want to bring DD up in such an atmosphere and have asked him to stop raising his voice but he always says I make him shout as I don?t listen to what he?s saying.

Ooh that's awkward. I don't think either of you ABU to be honest. I thought you were until I read you split things down the middle and pay for everything with SMP / your own savings. Don't see why you should pay for his half if that's how you choose to arrange things.
So you pay for your half of everything out of less than £500 a month and yet he needs a second job to match that?? Does he have a load of debt?

so I suppose I'm saying he is...

why does he have so much debt? Is it to fund stuff that has benefitted you as a couple / family?
I struggle to see how people organise their finances like this TBH. If DH got into debt because he did some studying then it would be our debt, but then any salary increase he got as a reslt of that would benefit both of us too...don't suppose that's the case here?

you 'make him shout'? Riiiiiggghhhht. He sounds like a git. You'll end up spending the rest of your life supporting him and his slack work ethic. Think you'd be well rid of him, get your freedom to find someone with a similar attitude to yourself.

My sympathies are with you to be honest. What hours is he working now? Perhaps he should look for something better paid?

What worries me more about your description is not being able to talk to each other and having differing attitudes to life....I think it is this that will cause you problems in the long term. Would he go to relate with you?

Sorry you are having tough time.

i think in all honesty maybe he should go back to his parents again his going back to his old manner with you and if you allow him to treat you this way he always will

you don't need the stress you need to think of you and unborn baby you have every right to go out what was he doing when he wasn't working and wasn't even pregnant you should not pay his debts you didnt get into debt with him he done it himself he is selfish not you and you need to get away from him in all honesty

when the baby comes the stress will double with no sleep etc he doesn't sound like he will help in that situation at all you need calmness and no stress and he and you don't sound like your in love at all or should be together im sorry if i sound harsh but you said yourself you seem poles apart maybe your trying for the sake of the child but the child would be better away from a stressful home life and a happy mummy if that means being on your own do it

sorry the baby is already here lol well baby could benefit from not listening to all the rows in all honesty he is who he is you have to accept him for that or move on he wont change

StealthPolarBear - I pay my half out of SMP and savings so his share is more than £500 per month, but yes he does have big debts. It was around £15k in all and not a penny of it was for things that benefitted us - mainly pub and betting I would say (although in fairness he has stopped both now) - also he is so bad with money he would forget to pay things all the time and incurred loads of bank charges and fees every month.

If he had run up the debts on things for the house/us, it would be a different matter entirely. As it was I lent him about £5k at the time (before we got back together) to pay off the immediate stuff.

I knew someone would pick up on the seperate finance thing but it is purely because he is so bad with money, its certainly not how I want things but I wont put our home at risk.

Snowflake - it varies but roughly 9-5. TO be honest I am not sure what he could do that would be better paid? He has talked about getting a trade and starting up on his own but obviously that would take time to build up and deep down I am not sure he would be very well suited to being self employed.

Thanks for all your support everyone - I agree that the most worrying thing is that we can't talk about anything and the effect this will have on DD. Whatever happens my main concern is protecting her.

Yes, I can totally see why you have separate finances in this case!
And for debts like that then yes he should completely pay it off himself - you have been more than fair!

Thanks SPB - I agree generally it would be odd to have seperate finances!

Also to be fair to him re the shouting, I probbaly made myself sound a bit of a victim there when its not like that. Before DD I would certainly have stood my corner and shouted right back but I don't want her to grow up in that sort of environment.

I would definitely discourage the self-employment plans - I don't think people with this kind of attitude to work are suited to the long hours, self-motivation and lack of structure (says me, self-employed and taking a 'mumsnet coffee break'!).

He sounds like a nightmare, the lack of respect that the shouting and inability to talk things through implies would really get me down and make me feel very alone.

I think a 9-5 job sounds quite reasonable though, if he manages to stick to it, and is helping out with childcare and housework at evenings and weekends. Would he manage a discussion on how to increase his commission in his current job, now it is no longer guaranteed, or would he consider that an unreasonable thing to talk about too?

Mmm. it seems to be the issue is that he doesn't make an effort. On MN there are lots of threads about men not taking responsibility ito of the house ,bringing up DC etc etc and this is just a different version of the same to me.

I have a lot of sympathy. DH grew up in a family that had originally had no money, then had plenty of money and therefore overcompensated - so he never had to lift a finger at home, never had to have a job as a student, never contributed, got given a car for his 18th birthday and a generous allowance throughout university etc etc etc. As a result, he had no idea about money and was simply unable to conceive of doing crappy jobs because there was a basic financial need.

However, he learnt. It was hard and he racked up lots of debt and did that thing where he landed up paying bank fees because he was too scared to log onto his bank account, or go in to talk to them and couldn't face it. But slowly but surely, he figured out he had to take control because even if I was happy to pay the majority of our household expenses, that only worked if he demonstrated that he was making an effort to the best of his ability.

He still earns a fraction of what I do. But he finds extra work on an ad hoc basis for extra cash. We took a loan, in my name, to pay off his debts and he pays that. He has cut back his spending significantly and hasn't bought himself so much as a new pair of underwear in months.

What it comes down to (and I'm sorry this has been so long) is that he has stepped up and taken responsibility for his finances and is doing his best to sort them out. That means the world to me and has made our relationship a lot stronger. I wish he'd be a bit more generous with himself now in fact, but he's determined!

The alarm bells went off in my head when I reached your last sentence - "he always says I make him shout as I don?t listen to what he?s saying." You MAKE him? That's a total rejection of responsibility for his own actions, and very worrying. What else could he claim you MAKE him do?

He's not behaving like an equal partner (and I'm not talking financially), but a recalcitrant child.

Sounds like he's getting a bit panicky, because for the first time he's feeling that the pressure of responsibilty for being the breadwinner rests on him alone while you are "not working".

him questioning your spending, and saying you are at home all day (doing, presumably, nothing ???)

I think that, aside from the finances, the biggie for me is whether he can be a mature partner in raising your DD, whether you can discuss and resolve differences as a parental team.

yanbu