When the joint finances suddenly aren't so joint after you've raised the kids....

[RachelBee]

Hi

Would be great to get some advice regarding finances.

My husband earns a very good salary and as his income has increased over the years I left my career and found myself taking the lead on childcare (including covering all the holidays), sorting out all the household jobs and admin, looking after his accounts for a few hours a week and taking on some relatively low-paid part time work so I can have some income.

We have a joint account but as it's my husband's earnings I try not to touch it. I have dipped into it every now and then but it would only to sort out something for the household and for the children.

We were talking about getting some financial advice so we could plan for the next few years and he made it clear that the money in the joint account was his as he had earned it. I was talking about getting a couple of ISAS - one in each of our names with some of the savings sat in the joint account - but he said he would only put one in his name not mine as I hadn't earned it. I felt rather shocked by this. He has also told me that he would only meet a financial advisor without me.

I've also been getting incredibly frustrated at not being able to make decisions about the house as I don't earn the money. We really need to update our house a bit. But he always says no.

I feel like such a fool. I'm always overdrawn after the school holidays and today he asked me how it felt to be my age and to be overdrawn. It felt so humiliating.

I would love to earn what he earns and to call the shots. I do try to see it from his point of view and when I do I can see I probably look like a freeloader.

I have two more teens to go and in the next couple of years I plan on returning to work full time and to earn my own money. I don't at the moment as I still have to do the school run (we live in a small village) and I still cover all the school holidays. We have no friends or family around to look after the kids. And I thought we have enough income to allow me to be here for the children.

So...I guess I'm asking for someone to tell me if I need a reality check.

Are there any rights about this or should I seek a financial advisor myself.

Is this common after women begin to reach the end of their child caring years and haven't earned much?

Actually agree. I got so cross with her for not using the joint account which is full of her money - because they are married - and so many women on MN do this, behave as though the joint account is only to be used for household and children but they must live on whatever pittance they earn/have saved that it makes me blow up! I will ask MN to delete it.
She needs to do what you say.

OP, you sound amazing. Your children will be thriving because of your support and presence in their lives. Don't ever apologise for the choices you've made or the things you have or haven't done. The only thing wrong in this situation is your H and his abysmal attitude towards you and your contributions and commitment to his world and that of your children's. He should be worshipping the ground you walk on.

Good luck OP. I think if you decide it's time to leave you will be in a very good position. I suspect that you could claim for the work you did for the business unpaid. I also think, and I may have missed this suggestion already, you need to have a very robust legal understanding of the way your husband's business has been structured. You might find you 'own' half of that too. Not to mention all the other assets... You, dear OP, have done very well in that respect, despite the suggestion otherwise from your H. What is his is yours too. Do not ever forget that and do not forget your worth.

I'd love to hear from you in 12 months to see how you're doing x

Just wanted to add
please don’t give HIM any inkling of what your thinking about the situation or try and explain and get him to change his mind.
He is NOT the person you once thought he was
he is a cunning man who only thinks of himself
Keep everything under your hat because if you let anything slip in an argument
He will be right on it before you know it

good luck, get everything you deserve. Keep thinking if what he said to you to stay angry to keep you fighting for what is rightfully half yours

Just quoting myself, annoyingly I know, to add that this denial is built in to liberal feminism, which (like most 'liberal' things) is just a beard/mask for capitalism, to ensure no-one looks too closely at what's really going on.

And now, even more annoyingly, cutting and pasting a previous post:

"I (genuinely, and not just to enrage or upset people) worry about the results we'll see in 20 years time of a whole generation in an industrialised (and if we could be honest with ourselves, poor quality, underpaid and under-educated in terms of child development) childcare setting, up to ten hours a day from the age of six months.
It's a massive social experiment and - with what we know about attachment - seems very likely to have a negative impact on all our wellbeings. The only reason we accept it is because capitalism has reached the stage where it's not possible to survive in many cities on less than two incomes - or at least, not at the standard of living that capitalism has told us we should expect*.
It's a massive con - what should have happened is that men should have been forced/enabled to take half the load - so both couples go part-time and care is split between them. That's child-centred, but also equality-focused.
I know lots will disagree, but what we have is horrible.
Twenty years ago it was very much not the norm, and I don't think anyone - women, men, and most of all babies and toddlers - has benefitted."

*Even though I know housing costs have exploded, I still stand by this. The fundamental idea - that for the first few years of children's lives you live incredibly frugally in order for one parent to be at home most of the time - could still work, even if families are in smaller homes, and rented ones rather than owned. It's shit, but it's the best thing for babies and toddlers and has huge emotional/psychological benefits.

It's not wrong for women to want to use their hard earned skills though.

The OP is obviously a skilled and competent person.

I like the Scandi approach that the state invests in good quality heavily subsidised childcare, reasoning that women who find work life balance easier will pay back plentifully in tax over their life cycle.

Also, not the point of the thread but this expectation that parents will pay out thousands on school travel (even when it's a rural or peripheral area with only a few realistic choices for education) must act as a real brake on some women's careers. There's another thread running about the cost of post-16 travel. As a Londoner, I've been shocked!

@thestudio @DrBlackbird Not sure this applies to 15 and 17 yo young people (the ages of the OPs sons).

I imagine they were toddlers once? And that it became the pattern where she was the caregiver and shitwork-doer that also suited him very well and enabled him to scale the giddy heights of whatever low-to-mid upper management role he has now. A role which would not have been possible for her to achieve, because she was committed after a while to wiping the children’s and, crucially, his arse, and the whole enterprise would have fallen apart without her.

My point is - it’s a good thing that she was at home for the children. She wanted to do that for their benefit (borne out by the research). But I 100% guarantee that the reason he was up for that was because he benefited massively from having a nanny, cook, cleaner, planner, shopper etc, who was both unpaid and sexually available (coerced, I would say, because she thought they were working as a team and that will have had an impact on her consent.)

She thought, rightly, that she was earning- ie being effectively paid because she was saving Team Op (which didn’t exist) what they would otherwise have had to pay out.

he disagrees now, in account of the fact that he is a cunt. More specifically, a misogynist cunt ( there is no other kind of misogynist obvs)

Then don't live rurally.

I don't get this argument. He has been paying for her accommodation, food, clothing, holidays, car and other expenses, so she has been "paid".

I fully agree that the OP's husband is being financially controlling, I am just objecting to this idea that you could invoice a partner for housework, when you have already been ginsncially supported to do this for 20 years...

Clarification: he would be paying for half, not the full lot; they're half her responsibility.

This is a bad idea. Surely he could then invoice her for all the years of accommodation, food, bills. Not a good path to go down.

OP-whilst your husband sounds at best delusional and at worst financially abusive, some of this is on you and is fixable.

You have access to a joint account you refuse to spend from. Start. Household and kids expenses. Or at least 50% of-or 70% of-proportion to earnings. You show him what fair looks like.

Your husband has thousands in the bank he refuses to share but you work for him for free doing accounts? You resign from this post tomorrow and tell him you need to get paid work to secure your financial future. Or he can pay you what he would pay someone else. Know your worth.

Your further restrict your earning potential because of a lengthy school run-stating it costs a fortune. But there is a joint account with thousands sat in it and the school run is a joint expense. Set it up tomorrow to come from there. Kids walk the remaining 15 mins home.

🙄

So he doesn’t pay you for doing g his accounts -stop doing it and tell him you can’t do it as you need a full time job to stop you going overdrawn

Why the face? That's the arrangement when one parent stays at home. One person pays for everything, including the SAHP's mortgage, food, clothes, lifestyle, and the other parent contributes by doing housework and childcare. That's the deal, no?

Agree with everyone else obviously.

But I really struggle with this “we live rurally” thing. Makes my heart sink. Just so limiting for women. Why on earth do people choose to live where one has to become a taxi driver to facilitate the DC also delaying their independence? Seems such a small life.

I have a friend in this position (though her Dh is lovely) but she can’t work meaningfully because she is driving hulking great teens to school and back twice a day. Then they get a dog which soaks up more of the women’s time. How can living there be worth it? I grew up rurally it’s shit for teens. Mine have been independently getting themselves about since they were 11.

I had an evil boss once who actually said “you are on my team but I am not on yours”. Sounds like you are married to him? He was on his third wife though.

I’m glad you have found some fighting spirit OP.

I think you should consider moving somewhere less rural, this will free up your time and help your kids to be more independent. If your H is going to be an arsehole you need to protect yourself.

Aye, and the time machine the OP would need to reverse this situation? Will you supply that or must she find her own?

@WallTree Well said. Does her husband invoice her for rent, food, cars, holidays, bills etc? Of course not. So why should she invoice him for being able to stay at home?!!

They have a father. He can do the bloody school run!

@Soontobe60 He can't because he has Big Man Job. It is the job of wife to stay at home permanently once a baby is born.
My EX-husband tried that one on me. Luckily I kept my career which was essential when I left with pretty much nothing.

I wasn't responding to the OP. I was responding to someone complaining that people don't understand how limiting living rurally is. It's a choice. Move.

@WallTree I agree. Controlling men like to live rurally as it isolates their wives from friends and everyday lives. It also makes it more difficult for them to keep a career/find work.
Stuff that! Don't put up with his nonsense!

@Robotindisguiseyou can put money into a pension if you haven’t earned it- but there’s a limit on the tax relief you can get.