To be cross that dh expects me to pay for exactly half of household expenses when he earns twice what I do?

[theredsalamander]

Our finances are very separate. This worked fine when we were just a couple who both worked full time but now we are married with two children and I work part time to spend more time with the children I think it should change.

We've just run out of oil, (heating) and it will cost £1100 for a top up. Normal joint account balance never has enough cash for such a big payment in one go (over a year, monthly payment accumulating enough maybe). I have no savings, have very little spare cash (eg I rarely go out as I can't afford drinks/taxis/new outfit etc) but he has lots. It would take him three days work to earn enough to pay for the oil, he has enough in his account to pay for it already anyway.

His exact words "Oil is a house cost that we budgeted for and not an addition which I am happy to pay for"

Now I am rubbish with money, I will absolutely own up to that, in fact one of the reasons I am so skint is that I am trying hard to pay off a loan. Without the monthly loan payment I would be much more comfortable and would be able to contribute more to family outings trips etc- he pays for all "extra curricular" activities holidays/outings/meals out/etc, but I can't pay half of the oil cost. I do not want to "owe" him the money I want him to pay it so I am not in debt to my husband as well as the sodding bank.

AIBU? Or because I am rubbish with money is he right in not financing my obligations whilst I am paying the loan back?

I am posting this at work and wont be able to log in for a few hours but hopefully you will be able to give me some perspective on my return!

Thanks in advance.

YANBU.

If you are a partnership with children you should both have equal spending money to do as you please with.

virgiltracey - because it's his money, not mine. He earned it, I didn't. If we had a truly joint account, I would feel constantly as if I was using "his" money and would be super frugal and not spend a penny of it on myself! By having a separate account, I know I'm making my family contribution and I don't feel remotely guilty about how I spend the rest of my money. And I want him to feel the same way. Although legally I know if we divorced I could take him to the cleaners, I wouldn't and vice versa if the tables were reversed.

Perhaps the easiest way would be to put all earnings into a joint account and then each have a separate account into which an allowance is paid for non-household expenditure? After all, you both agreed to you going part-time so he has to expect to subsidise expenditures which would normally have been split.

I do find this separation of finances odd. You should be one family unit. I happily remind my husband that he endowed me all his worldly goods each time I raid his wallet rather than going to a cashpoint. Of course, I also remind him that I endowed him with nowt but my good looks and pleasant company :o

Seriously though, I think you both need to sit down and have a talk about how the finances will be handled in the future. And if that doesn't work, invoice him for the time you spend on housework and childcare till he does get the message.

Good luck

I went to school with a girl whose Dad had a really good job but her mum worked part-time in an opticians. They were always getting the phone/electricity/gas cut off because he did not see why he should have to pay for them. I thought, even at the age of 12, that this was highly abusive and besides he used the electricity/gas/phone too.

Anyway, they inevitably got divorced and 20yrs later he is now living in a really shitty (surrounded by druggies) studio flat provided for by the council.

Call me old fashioned but aren't couples supposed to work as a team and try and make each other happy???

northerngirl41: I second that

I know a couple of mums at the school that live like this - I just don't get it. As far as I am concerned once you have kids there is no my money/his money - there just is the money (or not!). Obviously if you are going to buy something bifglike a new car you talk about it first, but nobody should have to justify every penny, and if you need house stuff it should just be piad for out of the money.

ChristinedePizan - my DH earns around that, and the slack gets picked up on by me working part-time and doing my 50% share, and him paying for a nanny to do his 50% share (including late nights/weekends overtime if necessary). It's a perfectly fair arrangement.

It only becomes unfair if he's not either doing or paying for 50% of the childcare, which I suspect is the case here. But rather than just saying she's useless with money and that he should give her more of it, she needs to insist that if he wants to split everything 50:50 then he needs to do/pay for 50% of the childcare so she can go get a better paying job or do more hours.

If she's that useless with money, giving her more of it won't actually solve the problem...

YANBU, OP. We have separate finances - incomes paid into our separate accounts - but pay into a joint account for household stuff, and our contributions are in proportion to our incomes , so I pay just over twice what DH does. We both have savings in our individual names (to use tax allowances etc), plus some in joint names which we use for house stuff. Neither of us would dream of behaving like your DH.

It's horses for courses on whether you have joint or separate finances - ours started out separate because I was a poor student living on my overdraft and DH was earning, and I didn't want him to be subsidising me. After that we just never saw any reason to change it, just changed the amounts that we were paying into the joint account as things changed. If either of us had ever had no income at all, though, we'd probably have gone for pooling everything.

It sounds ridiculous to me. DP and I actually do have more-or-less separate finances, by mutual choice, although he earns more than me - this is because I chose to earn less (quit job to do PhD instead) and don't expect him to subsidise that.

However, if the reason I earned less was because I'd gone part-time or taken time out to care for his children and keep his house, then you bet I'd expect him to contribute more to the household costs. Because that's the deal, that's how marriage and parenthood works - you should both be thinking of what's best for the household and the family as a whole.

If he is doing 50% of the housework and childcare then that's a different matter of course - but if not then he's being completely unreasonable and illogical. Sharing everything equally means exactly that, not just the part that benefits him personally.

Before we had the dc we used to split all the household bills 50/50. They all came out of a joint account. When we had dd I went part time and stopped paying into the joint ac completely. We have separate accounts for our salaries and personal expenses.

I have my own salary and the child benefit. Dh pays all the bills and also gives me £800pm for any other expenses I may have. He works away during the week and this amount covers day to day expenses (eg, things the dc want, bits of food I need during the week and petrol for my car).

I think it would be fairer to you if household expenses were paid on a pro rata basis in line with your income.

I would never have married someone who treated me like a glorified housemate, much less had children with him.

DH and I have seperate accounts still. But the majority of the household bills come out of DH's account, inc mortgage and childcare. I also have access to DH's account whenever I need it to move money across to mineif need be. As mentioned in another thread DH earns more than 3 times my salary even when I was working full-time. We keep two accounts as I have direct debits and financial commitments and so does he and we just felt it easier to do so. I also like having my salary paid into my own account so I always feel like I have my own money and don't feel like a completely kept woman. However in mind we both see our individual money as "our" money. DH would never deny me and I would never deny him. Sharing is what marriage is all about after all...

This is just so wrong. I would question whether h had any respect or love for me if this was his attitude to finance.

bill him for his share of the childcare and housework you do. you know, everything above the 50% that is your responsibility but you are doing. That's his 50% you're taking on.

Bill him for it.

It will pass a message.

Hopefully you will be able to talk about the situation.

YANBU, OP. This isn't just wrong and unfair, it's financial abuse. You shouldn't be paying 50% of everything when you're only working part time! I suspect your husband is using your "legendary rubbishness with money" as an excuse for keeping you short of cash

I also find it hard to understand having seperate finances when you are married. What happens if, as has happened to us, one of you becomes disabled and too ill to work? Does the earner continue to keep most of their money, whilst the other is on benefits?

We have always put our salaries into a joint account and then have our own "pocket money" accounts where we put exactly the same in every month. In our 22 years together, I have been a non earning SAHM for 7 years and he has now been retired through ill health for 10 years.

That didn't quite come out right.

I was a SAHM for 7 years, have now been back at work for 15.

Thanks for all your responses to date. A couple of things I want to respond to straight away before going back and reading everything properly:

I used to be a bit head in the clouds with money- but not now. I don't have an overdraft / credit cards/ store cards etc etc and stick to a tight budget. (no choice!) About 50% debt accumulated whilst dh was student and I was sole breadwinner before dc and careers- not suggesting that all of this was householdstuff, but more importantly I paid because he had no means to. It was my choice though, and that's just what you do when you are long term.

Joint decision for me to do part time hours.

He doesn't fritter cash, is self employed and worries about contracts drying up at some point and so there is a significant buffer in his business account in case we need it should his work dry up for any length if time. This seems sensible to me. He does have a bit of a car habit but I dont begrudge him this, he works hard so why shouldnt he spend some on what he wants? (not silly amounts, he likes to tinker and buy/sell car bits and bobs)

Joint account budget was set before we moved here, we had no experience of oil so what we reckoned on spending isn't enough. I can't afford to increase my contribution and so it has stayed as it is- I've dug my heels in each time we need oil and say he'll have to pay. Did buy one lot but could only afford to do so because I'd just had a bonus- was a smaller delivery than this one and I used my whole years bonus on it.

And a few of the comments have made me realise that He cruelly earns at least three times as much as me.

A! Not "cruelly earns" - "actually earns" oops!

Oh mate, you supported him (and got into debt doing so) when he was a student and now he's like this with you? I'm afraid I have no words, you need to sort this out, if necessary you could show him this thread as a start.

i would be reminding him of the fact that the debt of the loan was when he was studying and asking him for some finacal commitment to get it sorted...... as he likes every thing 50/50 i would split the orginal loan amount

Can you post in legal as good advice there? Agree spousal support unlikely but are there no assets to split

It has been suggested before on here that he's a bit controlling, but when i look at the overall advantages/disadvantages scenario things are okx