DH lied about having a pension - should I be as worried as I am?

[williaminajetfighter]

I've been with DP for many years but he hasn't been very open about finances and only recently have we established a joint back account and have I started to encourage proper discussions and transparency regarding our finances and financial planning esp with 2 DC now. DP likes to keep his head in the sand...

Anyway DP told me he always puts money into a pension but apparently not. Turns out he has NOTHING in his pension and NO SAVINGS at all - he is 52 and has been working for over 30 years but admitted that he didn't think he could ever 'afford it' - his salary at the moment is circa 40k. Since starting a pension a few months ago he now has 400 pounds which will pay out - ta da - 5 pounds a day! Whether it's savings or pensions realistically he would now need to put away about 2/3 of his income every month to have any semblance of a nest egg.

I am absolutely gutted and have been worrying for months about this. He doesn't know why I'm so aggrieved but to me it's because I will have to 'carry him' in my old age and it impacts on the DC and what we can give him. I'm also cross that he lied and couldn't sort out his finances after our first DC came along (8 years ago!)

Would you be equally cross??? I don't know what to do - it puts SO much pressure on me and I now worry how we'll afford to send DC to Univ if they want to go.

If he has been assuming your inheritance will be his pension, it is only fair to end the relationship as soon as possible to give him maximum time to enact a new plan.

You sound as if you want to split up anyway and this is just another reason why you want to!

On its own, I would be concerned but I think I would take control of the joint finances and manage them better going forward. It's never too late to start saving and any saving is better than none! I have always managed the household finances including major decisions regarding pension contributions and investments - mainly because I am more interested in doing so than DH.

However, the key is that you need to find a balance which works for you. What is his response to your concerns about the financial planning for your family's future? How about working out your joint disposable income to assess how much you could potentially save and in which areas of expenditure you could trim?

I think it sounds like you're not partners at all. If you weren't going to inherit would you still want to split?

I can understand why you are annoyed but think that if you leave him it's not over this. I think its a complete overreaction.

Also over the years what has he spent money on if he doesn't save at all? I'd be more worried about that. Because if he's been funding your joint lifestyle you need to ask yourself some hard questions about why you let that situation continue. It must have been more extravagant than you could really afford.

If he did lie to you outright about what savings he was making for the dc or your retirement then you'd be right to be annoyed. It's not worth scratching your future together when the dc can fund uni themselves.

Not paying into a pension plan is stupid but more understandable as people get very confused by investments.

I think if a man were here saying he wanted to ditch his wife and mother of his dc so he'd be able to keep all of a huge inheritance, people would be up in arms. I don't think you should ditch him and leave him to a poverty stricken old age. Although the fact that you're willing to do that to him shows you don't love him. I think any divorce would result in a joint division of assets including any savings/pension pot of yours. So you better be pretty sure of inheriting anyway.

What have you been putting away in your pension? It's not all on him.

If you're not working or have no pension then I'm sorry but he doesn't earn that much to keep a whole family, never mind putting away for a pension

Op, I dont think you love him, that alone means you need to look long and carefully about your future. Hopefully, thanks to your dad, you and your dc's will be ok, money wise. But even if your dad spends it all, you have a good grip on reality and your finances. Your dh hasnt, at all and lies to you about it. TBH I think its time to think about splitting up, sorry to be harsh. And to me you arent splitting up because he's rubbish with money or has told you a lie, its because you dont love him enough to want to keep him.

It's impossible to say whether he has been totally in the wrong here without knowing more, for example, up to now what has the financial arrangement subtweet you both? Do you work, have you been paying into a pension and if so does he know this? You say he earns circa £40k, that could be a lot, enough to pay a reasonable amount into a pension, or it could be not enough, depending on your family needs, outgoings and whether or not you work also.

Also 30 years ago I think many people did still think the state would provide 'enough' in old age and it's only relatively recently that ordinary people have been seeing that this is not necessarily the case. It's easy to put it off and put it off if you are already under a lot of financial pressure.

Also just to echo what others have said, given that you may be likely to inherit a fortune,( even a fifth of the figure you have given would provide well for you both in old age) perhaps he did not feel the meds to set up a pension. If I was married and my DH was set to inherit this sort of money I would be a lot less lie,ly to place myself under strain in the here and now paying into a pension.

I agree with you that the inheritance has to be set aside. It cannot be counted on, your DF may live to be a hundred, gambling heavily or taking a young greedy mistress! You just don't know and it's horrible to be waiting for DP to die, we are in a similar situation ( not quite as much but reasonable sums) and, like you, it never comes into our calculations.
BUT with family money, are you and DP ( and the DC) used to a better lifestyle than 40K + your income can buy? So have things genuinely always been too tight to save?

You do not need to set money aside for University fees

How do you know your DH has not got a work pension?

If you regularly rabbit on about inheriting £5m from your dad are you really surprised that he's not bothered to put aside £100 a month?

the drip feed is that you don't even like the bloke and your relationship is, I quote, 'shit'.

so why are you wasting any more time?

He should not have lied. I very much doubt a pension pot of £400 will pay out £5 per day. More like about 5p a day if he's lucky. He has left it a bit late to build up any sort of pension that you could live on. But he won't be the only one. It's a pity because he is on a reasonable salary.

Yes, if the DP thinks he has a work pension, then he wouldn't be expecting paperwork and to make his own payments.

If he's 52 now, that would have been the norm when he started working.

He may not have much of one and have failed to check, but that would make this a sin of omission, not active commission of lying, so seems less heinous.

But if you don't like him much, that's irrelevant. Break up sooner rather than later and everyone can get one with it.

As far as inheritance, never wait for a dead man's shoes. I'm in the same situation (not 5m, but enough to make a difference) and I always felt that I needed to secure my own retirement. It's a good thing I did as I'm retired now and (thankfully) Mum is still living and is in a care facility the costs of which are considerable. DH and I felt this so strongly that we were both able to retire in our mid-50s.

I'd be furious. To deceive about such a basic life-need is unforgivable! It would probably be a deal breaker to me, even with a child involved.

I'd probably be grateful that he was my DP not my DH!! Financially, he's on his own, isn't he, unless you feel like being generous.

never wait for a dead man's shoes
Indeed
The £3m I was due to get in my 20s had all been swallowed by medical bills by the time of death so I received exactly nothing (the carers had stolen the jewellery as well)

How much do you have in your own pension pot OP - you keep saying you are not depending on your inheritance.... but you WERE assuming you could rely on your husbands pension.
Imagine the reverse 'my husband who keeps banging on about inheriting 5m in the next few years, says he wants to leave me because I don't have enough in my pension pot'.

Is he absolutely sure that he has no pension?

If he has been working for 30 years then he would have had to actively opt out of schemes at various employers. It might well be worth writing to employers' pension providers to ask if there is anything in his name.

It can happen surprisingly easily that savings/investments get lost or forhotten about - worth chasing up.

Branching
No employer I've ever been with has offered me a pension scheme.

But more to the point, why would he bother reducing his net income when his Missus has a dad as loaded as that?

Thx for everyone's comments. I HAVE been putting money aside for my pension for over 15 years and to make up for the time I didn't in my 20s have put more money in as AVCs. I won't have an amazing pension but it should be enough to live on if I keep it up.

I certainly wasn't expecting any man to look after me and apologies if that's what I implied. If that was my aim in life I would have gone about things a whole lot differently!! I also have never banged on about money from parents and have been relatively discrete about that situation until recently when Dad keeps talking about it. I've also put 100 pounds/month away for each of DCs.

I was cross not because I was expecting someone to look after me but because he has been so childish as not to plan for his future. I think I will need to check to see if he has something in a pension pot somewhere but I'll leave that for him to do, which inevitably he'll never do....!

Thx all again.

I can sympathise to a certain extent. I received a substantial inheritance through my mother's estate. I always knew I was going to receive it and DH knew I would receive it. I have, however, always made it very clear that the money is not ours to spend as we please- it's a legacy from my great grandfather and I have a moral responsibility to manage it properly so that it will be passed down to the next generation.

DH seemed to agree with the general idea pre-inheritance but did take a bit of adjustment when it became reality. My IL's didn't help either- I remember one day when he was going on about buying some expensive Jaguar, his mother said, "Go on, you deserve it". I spent the rest of the day spluttering on my high horse that there was no way in hell one penny of my great grandfather's money was going to be wasted on a fancy car because DH "deserved" it.

We've reached an amiable agreement now. I have the responsibility of managing the money and we jointly agree where we can take some income from the capital. With the recent pension changes we're looking into possible blends of some of the money into his pension fund to minimise various tax impacts (and then we wouldn't touch the defined contribution part of his pension, making it a chunk of the estate instead).

IF he's been counting on your inheritance to ease both your retirements, he's rather silly, but I don't think it's all that unusual and I do think you should have a decent conversation about your overall goals for the money (making the big assumption that you do inherit a significant amount one day).

out of interest OP,
how much of a pension would you have been happy for him to have accumulated by now?
and what would you have been willing to sacrifice over the last 20 years if his take home pay had been 10% lower?