AIBU to expect dh's money to be OUR money

[damnedchilblains]

I'm a sahm and my husband is the breadwinner. I'll be studying next year and after that hopefully a full time job.

I've always believed if you are both working than you should put some money into a joint "household" account for the bills and groceries and children etc and then the rest is yours. However, I'm not working at the moment, but looking after the kids. I can't work because my although my ds is in full time school (reception) my dd is only in part-time nursery (15 hours) and I can't get work for this period (I've also looked for evening work to no avail). I have to add that he doesn't get a large wage but it is enough for us.

Anyway now the background's out the way, I was put out a little bit by my dh declaring he bought something with his money and I would not be able to have access to it (namely a car).

AIBU to to expect that things he buys (especially big things) should be ours. I should add, that I get child tax credits and chb and this is used for nearly all of our food shopping, as well as my own bills (mobile & catalogue), and pretty much everything the dc's need. AIBU???

YANBU - DW is a SAHM, we have a joint account, she can spend whatever she likes from our account (I just keep the money flowing into it), anything we own is ours anyway.

First of all, giving up MN for lent???? Surely that comes under a mental health issue.... But then, I don't know that I could give up chocolate or wine either... I could give up smoking for lent - which sounds impressive, until you know that I don't smoke anyway...

We have one main account that DH's income goes into automatically. That account is in my name only. Mostly just because I deal with the finances. All tax credits or child benefits also go into that account. I pay the bills and household expenses. DH would rather I just take some money out of what's left after essentials are paid for and we split it between us for our own personal stuff. Anything else we discuss. DH used to take care of all the finances, but when we had kids and I became a SAHM, I offered to take it over as I have a bit more time to deal with it.

Hi Liamsdaddy, I can see what you are syaing, though I really do think that once married and with children, which is obviously the case here, there is no way anybody can claim not to be a family and the finances have to be re-thought on that basis.

Things were so different when DH and I married, hundreds of years ago, and there were very few couples who lived together for any length of time before marriage. Indeed, among my contemporaries, I don't think anyone lived together prior to marriage at all, so everybody bought/rented property jointly and most people I knew, just paid all their income into one pot, paid the bills from it and then decided together what to do with the rest. But also in those days, there was much more of an assumption that once children arrived, the wife would stay at home until the family was completed before going back to work. And as maternity leave/benefits were not as generous as they are now, finance really had to be sorted out together because once you had stopped work to have your children, often the woman had no income of her own and few of us had any savings we could dip into either.

I think there is a lot to be said for being more financially independant as people tend to be these days, but there are times, such as the OP, when it does seem to go belly up and then cause problems.

Reading this thread I realise how lucky I am. DH has always earnt more than me, but when we bought our first house and got married we set up a joint account. We both paid our wages into it and then took 'pocketmoney' (for want of a better word) out into seperate accounts each month.

When DD was born I gave up work and we lost my wage. I do feel guilty for spending money on myself but this is definitely not because of DH.

As I said, I feel blessed.

So, no, UANBU at all.

I needed to see if I could do it...I did. But my kids were on serious mumsnet watch.

Hell what a tool! Charge him the going rate for every SERVICE you do for him!

No conversation tonight - he was too tired apprently