He just threatened to remove my credit card

[thirtyseven37]

We've only been separated two weeks and he's already threatened to remove my credit card. It's his account and I have a card. I use it to buy food shopping and stuff for the kids. We live together - he earns the money and I provide the childcare and housework. What can I do?

You don’t need to include him on the application if you are living separately- including separate finances.
With regards to the mortgage, it is generally seen as equal shares- 50/50, unless a court order (or similar) decides otherwise. Be aware you won’t receive any payments directly towards your mortgage. If after 3 months you still qualify, you may get SMI payments which is a loan towards the interest on the property

increase your hours/work more and pay for childcare like everyone else does.

I often wonder whether people would say things like this to a person standing in front of them.

Sorry you're going through this OP.

THERE IS NO CHILDCARE AVAILABLE WHERE I LIVE IN THE MORNINGS

The same person is being a dick on another thread too.

I'm sorry to sound thick but how can I have separate finances when we still need a joint account from which the mortgage comes out of?

My mother my nan and her mother and so on all gave the same advice to boys and girls.
Never rely on a man.
Never rely on a woman.
Have a pocket they know about and a pocket they dont.
Do it yourself make it on your own you then you owe no one nothing.
The best person you will ever know and never let you down is yourself.

Op its an awful situation you are in but you need to claim or increase work hours you have to make it work somehow.
And not rely on him anymore.
It's tough now and might be for a while but it will get better.
You got this.

Do get advice from actually someone who understands the rules . Living together when separated is complicated .

You don’t want to put yourself in the wrong by mistake .

Also I would see if there are waiting lists for childcare nearby . People often move on over school holidays which may help.

Just 3 months ago I was earning over £42k!!!!! I wasn't relying on a man. Then I had to quit that job to get my children to school. I want to crawl under a stone and not even bother going to work tomorrow. What's the point?

Why on earth wouldn’t you?? A credit card provides more protection for your payment if anything goes wrong and those reward points add up quickly. We use our credit cards for absolutely everything and pay them off in full every month. There are lots of other benedits available too depending on which card you have. Using debit for everything would cost us a LOT more.

You aren’t thick at all! If the account shows the mortgage is being paid then that’s fine. But everything else needs to be separate, right down to separate bedrooms, not doing their laundry etc. Might sound extreme but it could be investigated so better to make sure you have everything in place (not to scare you, but to make you aware).

Been on school breakfast club waiting list for 10 months

I’d put half the mortgage as that is what you will be responsible for. However, fuck worrying about paying it. Right now it’s coming out of the joint account your stbex is paying into. Unless he wants to default he will keep paying it. He can’t force you to pay, not right now. Get your finances sorted and by the time it comes to court you should hopefully be in a better position to hold your own.

You won’t get any sympathy on here, mn hates SAHMs especially ones who have been reliant on their husbands financially.

id also try and transfer some money into an account in your name. When my DH and I had a big bust up a few years ago, I realised I’d be in total shit creak as like you I just had a credit card I used from his account. So I moved the bulk of the money from our joint savings account into my personal account. When we made up I told him I was keeping it and going forward his salary gets paid into the joint account and we set up an AP to put money in my personal account each month. That way if we ever broke up I’d have something to fall back on until we sorted out the separation. We still do this now.

Could you speak to someone at school explaining it's an urgent situation in case they can prioritise the children on the breakfast club waiting list? Otherwise do you have any friends with children at your children's school who wouldn't mind them coming over in the morning once a week and who would accompany them in as a temporary measure, while you wait for the breakfast club to come through?

OPs not a sahm, they work.

The school have been aware of my situation and didn't step in to help when I said that I'd need to quit my job. I'm not a SAHM by the way as I work part time.

Sorry jump the waiting list because their dad won't share drop off?! How's that fair on other parents?!

You won’t get any sympathy on here, mn hates SAHMs especially ones who have been reliant on their husbands financially.
I think it's more hatred of the 'oh I couldn't let someone else care for my children' sanctimonious talk!

It’s not your credit card, it’s his - if you’re divorcing it seems reasonable to expect you to have a use your own account.
He should be paying towards the kids, of course

Do you not have your own account that your wages get paid into?

Yes I do

@thirtyseven37 That's good. Can you use the money in that?

I think there are services that can advise on benefits and you'd be better served by accessing one of those - at the very least, CAB might be able to point you in the right direction? One of our local churches does an "advice" morning which, if I'm understanding the flyer I saw the other day, includes potentially getting advice on things like benefit so maybe you can look out for those?

Obviously, getting a CMS claim in and sorted will take you a little time, but you need to prioritise that too. If you're still primary care giver, he needs to be paying you for that. Is there any chance he will be sensible enough for you to say, "look, I'm still doing 8/10 school runs, bed time, afternoon childcare eery day etc etc, so while we're sorting out finances, and still living in the house together, you need to keep paying the mortgage and the food bills etc?" But I'm guessing he's being a dick on purpose?

I would call UC to ask directly how you handle things whilst you are still living together to ensure you get correct advice.

I hope that seeing as childcare is not just your responsibility, you are not the one solely paying for it. Same with school runs, you say he is doing 2, so you are doing the other 8 (mornings and afternoons) .You can no longer afford to sacrifice your work to prop up his portion of childcare, so he needs to come up with solutions to cover his share if he cant manage it himself.

Is there a family who could help? Friends of your DC who could maybe do the morning run when stbexh won't?

Hi OP,
The amount of mortgage you put down doesn't really matter as UC won't help towards mortgage payments anyway.
You need to think about how you do this.

• you move out and ask for help with renting whilst the house sale goes through. I think you have to prove the house is on the market and you get 6 months to sell it.
• he moves out and continues to pay part of the mortgage. Can you afford half?
• you need to look at maximising your earning potential, can you work from home full time and use your lunch break for school pick up, then make up 3-5 pm when the kids are in bed. Us single mums do crazy things to make it work.
• how much equity is in the house? When it is sold will you get half? Is that enough to buy again? No mortgage will lend to you on £700 a month unless you have a large deposit. If you have the money from the house sale in your account, UC will expect you to get that down to under 16K.
• put your kids on the waiting list for afterschool childcare if that's what you need to do to pay the bills. If it's ofsted registered then UC pay 85% back.