My partner who is the father to our 18 month old daughter and I have been together for 5 years lived together almost as long. I am a nurse and work 3 12hr shifts a week. During the first 3 years I rented the properties for us to live in in my name, paid all rent and all bills and bought him personal items e.g toiletries, clothes etc which he did not ask for but I guess came to expect when he was not working. I have sorted out every financial issue, non financial issue, looked after my two children (now 11 & 13) from a previous relationship including all homework, plays, the usual!!! Done all housework by myself, he's a chef and does all the cooking (no cleaning up after himself!) When he's around.
The situation changed when he started working full time 70 hours/week yes the money he made was good and he gave it all to me but we didn't see each other. Now he works part time , opposite to my shifts so we can share the child care for our daughter. That's all we share though, he does pay for two nursery sessions a week which is about £200 a month. I continue to pay rent £750 a month, all bills including Xbox membership for him, our mobile phones, sky you know the fun stuff as well as clothes, for kids, electric, gas, food, water, broadband! Now its in writing I feel the word MUG should be tattooed across my face! Any hoo, in reality it's not about money, he contributes as much as he can if he went back full time our child care bill would be too much.
Now we are looking at a mortgage, I am providing a 12,000 deposit and 6000 toward legal and decorating, furnishing new pad, and our finances will remain the same, I pay mortgage instead of rent plus all bills whilst he pays nursery and the occasional bit of food shopping and treats (takeaway or coffee out). He talks of going away to work as he did before we got together to make more money ( as a relief chef you get short jobs where hotels are short staffed and you get much more an hour through an agency), making more money to make overpayments on the mortgage and pay it off quicker.
Firstly I'm not sure this will happen, so therefore secondly should I get the solicitor to draw up an agreement reflecting the fact that I will pay the mortgage and supply the £18,000 going into the house and it's purchase? if we split I am not prepared to lose all my inheritance, my full contribution to the mortgage payments and the money towards the legal exp and decorations etc. Am I being sensible or focussing too much on being money greedy? My ex husband was a bugger with money and we signed a financial order when we got divorced so he could protect his army pension in case I made a claim! I feel sad I have to look at this as we are happy and love each other very much.