Becoming main breadwinner - how to manage

[Osakagirl]

My dh and I have very different attitudes towards money. My parents came from comfortable backgrounds, but chose a slightly alternative lifestyle with insecure incomes, but were around a lot and I had a loving, secure childhood, with some money worries.
My dh was adopted as a baby by parents who were well off financially, but his adoptive mum in particular wasn’t very loving. He is very responsible about money, but is obsessed with never overspending and being careful. His goal is for us to be mortgage free in the next couple of years with a nest egg. He does things like filling my isa every year thru our joint account and we have a healthy amount of savings.
I’ve worked in a low paid industry for a long time but have now turned a corner where I’m much more senior and now commanding a high salary.
DH’s career isn’t going so well - he’s in an insecure industry, he’s been made redundant and now he’s on redundancy notice. I believe that it’s partly to do with his bad temper - and ill humour.
He’s quite controlling about money - we have a joint account for our salaries. But he has a tendency to try to tell me how to spend my money. I do like nice things and buy a lot for the kids. But I work extremely hard and also put up with a lot from him like not wanting to put the heating on in winter etc.

I start a new job soon where I will be earning 15k more than him, more like 25k if I hit my bonus. Whilst I recognise that we both have to contribute to the household expenses, I’m pretty over having to justify my spending to him. We argue about this and my response is that it’s my money, I can spend it as I please (within reason). I think my career success at a time when his isn’t going well is playing on his male ego as well. He does as little as possible around the house, objecting to me paying for a cleaner etc (I ignore him).

So basically the tables have turned from him earning more than me, to me earning more. I’ve had enough of being told what to do about money, particularly when I earn more that he does. I’m tempted to put in the same amount as he does into the joint account and keep the extra in my own account (this would be around £800 pcm). How have others navigated this stuff?

Discuss things and split your total income into pots. Hopefully you can agree the relative split, eg

An amount for regular bills including sufficient heating in winter. You are not on the breadline so this is (more than) affordable.

An amount for other regular joint costs, eg groceries, petrol, family days out, DC clothes etc

Savings for household annual/irregular costs eg car maintenance, insurance, Christmas, holidays, white goods replacement

Savings for emergency fund/car replacement/mortgage overpayment (assuming the interest rate is still low otherwise just overpay)

Then whatever's left split 50/50 and send to personal accounts. This money is yours to spend on whatever you like or save without any judgement/comment either way.

If he's being made redundant, is there the possibility of him retraining?

This is really good advice from @Bjorkdidit

and he just needs to stop commenting on how you spend your personal spending money, and also what you buy from joint accounts on the kids

he may need some help to understand how well off you are as a family, so a financial advisor might be able to help here

Joint account and all in one pot does not work for every couple. It certainly wouldn’t for us. Maybe try a joint account for household costs only. Pay into that proportionate to income and then have your own accounts, where salary is paid and personal spending money is kept.

I get that it’s tempting to rub his face in it. But I think you also need to stay true to your principles. It’s not clear above whether you are doing a pro rata split of your income into the joint account. But if you are then I would suggest carrying on with it.

Do you have the same beliefs as he does? Do you want to oversave on the mortgage? If not I would also have a conversation about that.