Is this financial abuse?

[AnteatersAreCute]

How should I handle this?

I want to divorce my husband. My soon to be ex will not give me information about his finances and never has throughout the marriage. He made a great show of making one of his accounts into a joint account with me, but there is no real reciprocal transparency on his income / outgoings. He has spent most of the time as self-employed, even when using family assets to support his business, offering no transparency, whereas I have a limited company with accounts freely available.

For context, he has been convicted for fraud, albeit a long time ago.

He is now asking me for originals of all bills for a one year period up to now to establish if he should pay me more. We still share a house until it is sold. I cover everything and he gives a sum that hasn’t covered anything close to half his share for several years now. I now am into my overdraft each month as my outgoings start to outstrip my income.

Is this reasonable for him to demand bills from me like this.

It will be a lot of admin for me to pull together, he’s paying way below what is average for a household anyway, and going forward, bills are going to be a lot more than they have been in the past, especially water, energy and internet. I have sought the best deals where I can but everything is going up faster than my wages. And if we manage to sell the house, there may be exit fees for broadband and energy contracts.

I have been living like this for so long I have lost perspective of what is normal. Help!

I have just instructed a solicitor but they cannot see me until January.

You’re splitting up - don’t trust him.

I bet he wants the numbers to work out what his bills will be post split and he’ll argue that he has to pay you less because of these bills he’ll have.

If he’s contributing towards bills like energy, water, council tax, etc I don’t see why you couldn’t show him?

No need to show him anything. ExH refused to do a financial disclosure until I served notice on him through the court and he had to do it as part of the divorce process. Divorce law has changed a bit since 2011 but there must still be a similar provision.

If you want him to pay a proportion of the bills then you should show him how much they are. The past 12 months would be reasonable. I can’t say it would be something I would relish doing but it won’t take a long time as most of the information (statements) will be available online.

Being married doesn’t entitle you to have access to his financial information. Getting divorced does as part of disclosure. But married people can run separate finances and many do. It is financial abuse if one person in the marriage deprives the other of any means of making money and any autonomy over their living expenses.

There is nothing that screams financial abuse. You have an income and he has an income. There is a joint account he pays into. You manage the bills. He is willing to contribute to costs as long as you show him what these are.

The fact that you overspend on your personal account might be an indication of abuse. But if you aren’t telling him how much to contribute then it’s not entirely his fault.

I don't understand how he doesn't already know, if this is for the family home. He's trying to give the OP all the work.