To ask for more money

[lucyvic]

My partner gives me 700 pound a month.We have a 3yrd old and a 3 month year old.This is to provide all groceries for the family,petrol mobile phone for me.All kids clothes and activties.
I dont have any outside hobbies or vices that cost money but the money goes and I find it just a bit difficult to manage on.What does the average family of 4 need to live on !?

There are plenty of the Choogirl friend examples around so women who don't work do need to be careful. Really nice family men who after divorce or after they find someone else hide money away. What always surprised me is how on a first date they would think it would impress me to go about in one case how he hid it off shore. Others ensure they remarry and look after the child (as the new wife's income isnt' used to work out child support for the first family whereas if he worked his incomew ould be).

Or suddenly he has a mid life crisis post divorce so his wonderful £100k a year career is gone and he's finding himself working on a farm in the country so there's no money left for the family. Very convenient. Or people just die without enough life insurance. Two careers is safer and arguably better therefore for the children all round.

And plenty of us find it repugnant when women have only recently made their career gains that so many of them give those up to live off a man. If you're not married like the original poster your position is very much more precarious too if things don't work out and plenty of men deliberately don't marry you do they don't have those legal responsibility if they up sticks and leave.

OP must have clocked off for the day and her employer doesn't sound as if he'd pay overtime!

[/RANT]

Seriously! Some of you stay at home mums have got it seriously bloody easy!

As the man in the house, I have to go out every day self employed to work. I pay for the mortgage, cars(2), all bills, all maintenance to the house, meals out and other days out. I pay for the kids to be in nursery twice a week as well. I have to worry about getting a new job/contract/etc etc and paying for it all

On top of that my partner gets £1000 p/m, plus she gets gov child allowance on top. She has to pay for the food for the house and stuff for the kids. Anything else after that is hers.

She doesnt work, the kids are in nursery twice a week, she doesnt pay for the car or petrol and we pay for a cleaner on top. But this it seems is not enough. Oh no, can DH not help around the house when he gets home from work!!

Can we have a new bathroom, can we pay for a new holiday, can we get a new car.

Some people don't know they're fucking born!

So if you do have an income from your DH, if he does earn 100K (that isn't the takehome) and frankly you should count yourselves fucking lucky.

The pressure is tangible!

[/RANT OVER]

Gosh! Well it's good that the other side to the argument has been voiced. Personally I don't think that either partner is entitled to the other partner's income, whether he/she looks after the children or not. If that were the case, I know I'd feel like a workhorse being farmed out to earn.

Nor do I agree that the only fair way to live is to have one joint account. Why is that fair? DH and I earn almost exactly the same, and each have our own accounts and one joint acount, into which we each pay the same amount for bills, childcare, mortgage etc. Everything else we do what we want with. That way, a present from him is really from him and not from "us" to me. And if he wastes spends his money on crap things like cars and gadgets, that's his perogative.

CUKambassodor.

Dont tare all us SAHM with the same brush.

Wow CUKAmbassador.

With an attitude like that towards your DW/P, I'd say there's a lot of pressure on her too.

You sound like you feel you're seriously hard done-by.

Maybe you should consider taking a career break and let your wife go out to work. Then you can live the 'easy life' that you plainly envy.

Well Shodan

If only life was so equal hey!

I'd love to stay at home and look after the kids and let DP go out, but lo and behold destitute street would soon follow.

AIBU for voicing my opinion?

£700 a month is more than i earn going out to work PT at the min. id happily stay at home for that.

gosh, CUK, I feel very sorry for you that you can't stay at home because you outearn your partner.

If only women were paid equal money for equal work, eh?

CoffeeCarrotandCake; sounds like you got it right to me!

CUKambassador; Although to some it may sound like your tarring all with the same brush, I'm sure that wasnt your intention. You are just giving your situation. At least I hope you dont think all men who support their wives 100% are miserable. Some like it (in my opinion that is because they like to have control but as Ive siad before, that is for another thread!)

What I find refreshing is to hear a man admit that this is how they feel!! To me it does seem insane to have all that pressure on one person! And why are the kids at nursery..? When is your free time????

It sounds like you are very unhappy and IMHO I dont think this marriage will last forever, you obviously resent your wife and if that is the case you need to get out and find one with the same values as you becuase tight or wrong, hers are totally different!!!!!

tortoiseonthehalfshell - Yes I think you have an excellent point!! Grrrr to unequal pay!

CUK, I can see dh posting something like this (if he knew how to use mn!), altho he earnds far far less. He doesnt begrudge the money he spends supporting his family -family is so important to him - but I can totally see the pressure he's under, and how he would envy me being at home with the kids. The only thing I would say, though, is that even though your think your dw has the high life, of course she might need a bit of help when you get home! It dpends on age of kids etc, but sometimes there are some things you just cant do alone with kids around, and sometimes you just need a break from them. Maybe she just isnt giving you your fire-gazing time first?

Sorry, think I might have contradicted myself there!

The point is, I think that both male and female should be 100% equal in a relationship. For some this can mean that the women stays at home with the kids and it work fine. For some, CUK, it doesnt.

Whether thats because the man or woman feels unequal doesnt really matter. Everyone deserves to be happy in their home situation.

Mind you, no ones forcing him to stay...

CUKAmbassador

where have people complained??? maybe your wife is not happy, but what people on this thread have an issue with is people having to "ask" for money, and there a few women on this thread that work. dont fucking generalise as if we are all stepfrd wifes

I am in the same postion as you, I work FT and support my partner, child and my salary obviously pays for everything. I'm not bitching

do you and your wife communicate about money may I ask? does she understand how much comes in, whats spare? as if she is really asking for XYZ, clearly you are NOT equal partners in managing the budget? My DP would not dream of "asking" for stuff like a new bathroom and car, as he knows as well as I do how much money we have

its all sounds a bit 1950s stepford wife round your way TBH

They just should not marry women so dull and unambitious and expensive to keep that they beciome housewives. Talk about it in advance. Avoid the potential housewives like the plague. So what if your shirts get ironed? She won't be funding the school fees or buying the sports car. Go for the full time working women all the time. We're also good at managing homes and staff and are being good parents too.

Then men find these housewives convenient when married, those that will tolerate having one and the pressure that causes on the man but after divorce they then find surprise surprise that the housewife gets the children and money. If instead you had both worked full time then it's all a lot better and fairer and nideed most women with children under 5 work and alway shave done. You only have threads like this one because some people have stupidly chosen the Stepford Wife model. Of course it doesn't work on all kinds of levels. It's legalised prostitution in a sense.

So why does CUK want a woman like that? How did you get to the position of she not you at home or she at home and not instead she working full time and you both paying a daily nanny? Did you choose to marry a low earner for example and if so why?

Oh fuck off Xenia
There is things I will take but being told I'm a prostitute is not one of them.

(I manage our family accounts btw even though I'm a SAHM)

Xenia

there is a big difference between the stepford wife model,and couples that say "you know, for the sake of £400 extra a month, its not worth having us both work" and decide for some time that one parent stays at home to care for the kids

I dont have much time for the former, I do have alot of respect for the latter

But why don't they go and make a lot more money or is it because they're female that they can only earn the minimum wage and why is it always surprise surprise the woman who earns the pittance?

I dont know, my DP earns the pittance, not me. I'm MINTED In fact most of my female mates earn an OK salary, not hedge fund, but OK you know? This this vast cadre of women that dont earn much, I am sure it might exist but it's not how it is in my world?

As i said my partner has his own business also several houses no mortgages on them. I cant put a figure on it but he is in a very good position.Probably pays one of his employees 100K.

700 is not proportionate to what he earns at all.

Iam not materialistic or a gold digger .
I was previously independent with a good salary and career.
But i just find i go over the mark every month slghtly and trying to asses what is reasonable. As he gets very fiery about money.

He has money because he does a good job of keeping it. Yes he is tight with it too.

Getting some feedback beore i fight my cause.

But it will lead eventually to me returning to work i know. But want to be SAHM at least until they go to school.

Things will change.

lucyvic - You call him your partner but it's not actually a partnership. He's giving you the minimum he can and you arent even aware of teh family finances so he can get away with this easily.
Personally I could never live like this but then I'm one of those women who work full time and earn far more than dh does. I deal with everythign financial but we have 2 joint accounts and everything is crystal clear.
There is no such thing as my money or his regardless of who earns what and never has been.

lucy

well, given this (and this is my opinion) your partner is being tight. I assume he wants you to care for the kids and does not want them in FT care. but wants to pay you a pittance too? cheeky fuck

can you play his bluff? say that you cant surive on this money and you want to go back to work, let him know that a nanny costs XXX and that you expect him to contribute towards this? explain that your pension, savings etc are suffering and to have a secure finacial future you have not options other than return to your pervious career

good luck, sounds like you will have a fight on your hands

are you married, as if not even more reason to want to get yourself financially secure. how old are the DC?

Lucyvic - presumably you knew all this when you got together? That he earned a lot, but you don't know how much etc?

This kind of set up wouldn't suit me either, but it seems strange to allow it to happen and then complain.

You need to sit down and talk. Explain that you don't believe £700 per month is enough for food, your mobile and petrol etc. But, and this is the crucial bit, be prepared for him to disagree, and possibly suggest that you split things more evenly so that you have some responsibility for earning too.

There is no excuse for treating a partner badly, but I do think we all have to take responsibility for our choices. If you take the polarised roles, one partner sole responsibility for earning, and one at home, then both partners have got to be happy with the arrangement. And if not, then you have to be prepared to shift.

x posts there with porca.

I totally agree - if the DH wants his wife at home all day, then that gives her more leverage to say 'Hang on, I need more money for this'. However, has he actually said that? For all we know, he might be perfectly happy if she said she wants to get back to work.

I don't think you're unreasobalt to ask for more as its there. I think £700 is plenty to be doing with (ie its more than I have with 4 kids) but its all relative.

I find it hard to get my head round how you operate as a partnership though as it seems very one sided. I might be the SAHM but I get as much (if not more) say as to how the family income is spent. We discuss big purchases and I balance the books. You are not second best to him just because the work that he does is the work that happens to be paid from another source.