Please bear with this – it is quite complicated but I’d really appreciate other people’s views.
My OH now earns less than half of my salary and he was made bankrupt 2 years ago due to a failed business (he did nothing reckless, it just failed and he spent too long trying to prop it up personally). He is generally poor at managing money although has made big efforts to rein things in. I manage all of the money so that a) it all gets paid and b) I can sleep at night
At the moment we each have our own bank accounts and I have another account that is dedicated only to all of our household bills. We cannot have a joint account due to his bankruptcy – I have an excellent, unblemished record whereas his is as bad as it can be so we can have no financial associations.
He pays all of his salary into this “bill” account (it is like a joint account but not) and uses one of my credit cards (as an additional account holder) for his spending and joint things like grocery bills which I then pay in full out of the money he pays into the account. It means he has no cash, but also means he can have no debt.
I also have a horse which is expensive so although on paper I earn a lot more, I have an expensive commitment that costs as much as another mortgage, so my disposable income after I pay 50% of the household bills is negligible (usually less than £50).
I also have all of the liability because he can have no credit, so the mortgage etc is based only on my salary and we have a small amount on a 0% credit card from our new bathroom (circa £3k left to pay off).
The non-horsey might say “get rid of the horse” but that is not an option, she is an older horse, had lots of injuries and aside from OH she is my best friend. She is with me for life. Getting another after she is no longer with us will be a different decision but that is hopefully years away.
Currently we pay house bills and groceries inc. mortgage (which is in my name only) 50/50. Arguing about money (lack of) has become a huge issue in our relationship – much worse than the bankruptcy itself oddly.
Currently we can’t TTC as I just don’t see how on earth we can find the money. He can’t contribute more, I can’t afford to earn a penny less. It is not like we are on dreadful pay either (I earn around £48k, he earns £22k) but we have a large mortgage and no savings now.
On almost every post about money I see people pay a proportion towards the bills that is based on their salary (although more often than not the wife earns less and does the childcare)– but there is just no way we can do this as the sums don’t add up. So do you think it is “fair” that we split bills 50/50 or should I be paying more? At the moment I can’t see any way forward. If we had a child there is no way by OH would become a stay at home Dad, so I’d be the one working full time still to earn the money to keep the mortgage etc. But that would mean full-time childcare, so another £800pm to find. We qualify for absolutely diddly squat (no tax credits, no child benefit etc).
Feels such a mess. And I am approaching 40 so not as though we can afford to wait.
Does anyone have any pearls of wisdom or been in a similar state?