Not sure how to feel - AIBU

[Sarahzzx]

Hi

me and dh have been married for 10 years and together for nearly 20. We are 41 and 42 with one DS.

dh handles the bills etc. he earns 3x my wage and pays the majority. I contribute £250 to our joint account towards the bills and mortgage etc.

we Built up quite a bit of debt about 5 years ago in the region of 50k. Not going into how/why but we both agreed that it needed to change. Dh was particularly worried as he had tried to shield me from the full extent. He ended up on anti depressants etc.

last year I ran up a bit of extra debt which he balance transferred for me and aid off.

yesterday I found out that we still owe about 30k in total. I raised this with dh and I admit I was a bit angry.

he feels that I’m being unreasonable for the following reasons-

1. I never ask him about the debt, or show any interest
2. I have been happy for him to pay off additional debts etc that I have accrued
3. he makes all of the payments from his Salary
4. that I need to accept that it’s a joint issue and not money that he has spent on personal frivolity 5

AIBU to feel annoyed with him?

If this is real you should be ashamed. Your husband is totally right. And start helping to pay off the joint debt.

Sounds like he basically doesn't trust you with money and from the sound of it with good reason. He's basically funding the family in order to avoid dealing with your spending and your contribution is a token. You have almost 1000 a month of your own but still build up debts, that's a lot. You need to take responsibility for this and help sort the finances. Have a word with him but if this is your track record it make take time for him to accept your serious about it.

It sounds as though your poor husband needs to start standing up for himself. He has a wife who’s taking him for a fool.

YABU to only contribute £250 when you're £30k in debt! What a mess no wonder he's depressed.

What did you think would happen? He'd wave a magic wand and £50k would be paid off overnight?

Its time to grow up, you're the adult too. Get involved with the bills, have the difficult conversations about your family's spending, jointly agree a plan for paying the debt off. Don't leave it all on his shoulders.

What are you spending all the rest of your salary on? Or are you saving it? Why are you not paying off more? It just doesn't make sense

I can 100% assure you that there is no drug/gambling issues. we barely even drink!

My DH earns about the same ratio as you and I put 1300 a month in. Him about 2900. Wtf

Then why are you putting so little into your debts and leaving everything up to your husband?

If you clear £1400 and put in £450 what are you doing with the remaining £950?

I assume you may be paying:

Phone
Getting to work
Personal grooming: hair and make-up
Children's bits and bobs

I'm not clear whether you are paying for food or not.

How much does your husband have left?

Why didn't you save up for home improvements?

Kindly, communication needs to work both ways so you have both been unreasonable. It's sounds like you both need to work through your current situation and make a plan. Then you need to review your position on a regular basis.

I did IVF so understand how much you can quickly run up debt

That being said you are being completely and utterly unreasonable. You should know how much debt is remaining and to be honest you don't sound like you have a clue about how money works if it was £50k 5 years ago and you've added to the debt since and only paying £1300 a month off it's not likely to be £0 now is it?

I feel sorry for your husband TBH. If you'd pulled this with me I'd be suggesting you take on additional work to even up the salaries you earn and then you can start contributing to paying off the debt yourself

I do pay for a bit of food and also for things that crop up for DS

I think that part of the probem is that despite the debt ,we actually live fairly comfortably. We do have some disposable income, however I can see that this needs to be put towards the debts.

Time for an honest conversation and taking joint responsibility for both how the situation has arisen and how to address it. I would suggest that you throw everything you have at the debts and stop living 'fairly comfortably'. It'll only be for a couple of years - look on it as short term pain for long term gain (clearing the debts and the atmosphere).

If you'd contributed £500 a month for the last five years towards the debt, you'd have cleared £30k by now.

So your husband pays for those other things?

You're so unreasonable, and it's worrying that you can't see that.

But do you actually budget for those things? I.e. plan that as a family you have £X on food per month, £X for children’s clothes, £X for sundries. And if something unexpected comes up, but you’ve spent your X for that month, you wait for next month’s budget to buy it?

You take home £1400, you need to start paying your £250 and at least another £500 towards the debt and apologise to your husband for being unreasonable when he is contributing an awful lot more than you have to jointly accrued debts, having little personal money for himself (while you have plenty) and then building up even more debt yourself which he again has paid off, whilst blaming him for not paying things off quickly enough!

You need to pay more into clearing the debt. You've basically just left it all to your OH. You need to sit down and tackle it together. The remaining £950 you have means you can afford to put more into the pot to clear the debt faster.

At least it sounds like he's minimised interest charges but it also sounds like you could do with reviewing your budget, prioritising essentials and debt repayments over discretionary spending. Along with learning more about where your money goes in general.

Work through www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/ together and do everything that is relevant. Then do regular reviews together at least every quarter to see how things are going.

Terrifyingly you dont see the potential resentment this builds up in your husband- thats corrosive dynamite to a relationship.

You sound entitled and passive leaving your husband stressed to pay a lot of your debt.

You need to step up, get a job and pay more.

My big worry would be what if he was sick, decided to split or lost his job. You would be up shit creek. Adult up quickly.

Honestly, if this was a post from a woman saying her husband was contributing so little to the household, keeping £950/month for himself and “a bit of food”, and was blaming her because their massive debts weren’t being cleared fast enough while he left all the stress and worry to her to the extent that she is on antidepressants, she’d be told to LTB.

If this thread was the other way round op I'm pretty sure people would say it's financial abuse

Of course. But this is mumsnet!