Partner says my Child Benefit should go towards his bills as well

[PrimeCrush]

Been arguing about this since yesterday and wondering if im being unreasonable.

Me and my partner have been together 3 years and living together about 18 months. I have a ds who is 7 from a previous relationship, he lives with us full time and sees his dad alternate Saturdays. My partner has no children of his own.

We have a joint account for rent, bills, food etc but dont put all our wages in there. He earns more than me so he puts in £1000 a month and I put in £650. We agreed this when we moved in and its been fine up until now. We both keep the rest of our money in our own accounts.

I get child benefit for ds and it goes into my account. I use it for his school stuff, clothes, shoes, trips and all the little things that seem to come up constantly when you have a child. His dad pays £180 maintenance a month which helps but it doesnt cover everything and he buys him presents separately as well. Ive never really thought about putting the child benefit into our joint account because its for ds.

Anyway our joint account was a bit lower than usual this month because a few bills came out close together and my partner said I should start paying my child benefit into it. His argument is that ds lives here and uses the heating, eats the food etc so its not fair that I keep that money to myself when we’re supposed to be a family.

I said I already pay £650 a month towards the bills and food and he earns more than me so thats why we agreed on different amounts in the first place. He said thats not the point and if we had a child together the benefit would go into the joint account so he doesnt see why it should be different just because ds isnt biologically his.

I do get what he means to a point. Obviously ds uses things in the house and my partner does buy food he eats and things like that. Im not saying he should have to pay for everything for my child. But I also dont think the answer is that money I get to help bring up ds should automatically be used to cover bills when we already have an arrangement.

He reckons Im keeping it separate because I dont see us as a proper family. Thats not how I see it at all, but now Im wondering if Im being unfair.

Should child benefit go into a joint account when you’re living with someone who isnt the child’s parent?

This.

I'm surprised by all the posters deriding OP's partner because however you cut it....he has a point and OP paying only £650 into the joint account isn't enough to be a fair share. At the moment OP is benefitting disproportionately from the current arrangement.

Of course, if you were acting like a "proper family" then all income including child benefit and maintenance would go into one big pot and you and your partner would each take out the same amount of spending money each month.

You should NOT be paying the same, that would not be fair or proportionate. You do not earn the same. Just disregard that. Listen to @Constantrunner.

She hasn't even had one child with him 😳

If child benefit goes into joint pot then all DS costs should come out of the joint pot as well.

@LoveWine123 if OP and her partner paid fifty fifty, op and her son would be living on far less than she would get if living alone and claiming universal credit. Her son would suffer as a result.

Some women do put their partner before their kids, hopefully OP won't.

And OP kids get more expensive as they get older. This won't get any easier.

Also I strongly suspect you are doing more than 50% of the housework and cooking. Maybe charge for anything over 50%

The issue with this is, if you take child benefit as the traditional to pay for the costs of raising a child- food, drink, housing, electric/gas/water, toiletries, household costs, then partner is actually subsidising OP and her child with the current bill set up. He’s paying more into that pot than OP is while actually not having any legal responsibility for that child or any access to the money that the government provided via child benefit for that purpose.

Not saying I agree with him necessarily, but he’s currently paying more for the actual housing, food, basics of that child than either OP or the child’s own dad is.

“paying a big proportion of his pay into the joint account for bills, but is only 1 person. Whereas OP is paying less but the additional cost of her child is still included in the joint cost.”

Actually they’re both paying in 45% of what they earn, so in that respect it’s equal. And he gets to keep £1,200 every month for himself, she gets to keep £800.

You also seem to be forgetting that the cost of housing, council tax etc would still need to be paid whether or not a child lives there. One 7 year old would cost very little extra from the joint account in terms of food and any extra power/water above what they’d pay for a couple anyway. All other costs are paid by op herself, not from the joint account.

Does DP do any childcare? Does he do any school drop offs or pick ups? Maybe he should consider stepping up in this regard so that OP can work longer hours and have more money to contribute to the pot.
Otherwise it seems to me that it's DP who doesn't want to be a family.

What was your living situation like before? Are you generally happy in the relationship? My instinct from reading your post is that your partner is probably not all that great for you at the moment.

IF he were taking on the role of a father-figure to your child, so, doing lots of school pick ups, managing his work schedule around yours to ensure that one of you is always around to collect, care for, and cook for your son THEN I could understand the rationale of putting the child benefit into a joint account.

BUT it sounds like he isn't really in that role, and that you are caring for your son while living with your boyfriend. In that case, keep the child benefit separate. It sounds like you will be the only adult in your son's life who will be putting him first, so please continue to do so. Sending you strength.

I agree in the current circumstances 50/50 wouldn't work, but I do think you need to get past the fact that it was fine when it was agreed and things have only just now started to change. Things are more expensive now, notwithstanding DS was always going to get dearer to feed and clothe as he got older, and you didn't make your original agreement with late 2026 prices in mind. The ground has moved under your feet without either of your permission, it is what it is, and now you'll have to do some renegotiating.

If the CB and CM is all going on stuff for your son every month which doesn't come out of the joint account and there's nothing leftover then that is fine because there would be no difference between those costs paid out of your account or the joint account. But if you have any leftover then perhaps you ought to be putting it into the joint account as a contribution towards your son's living costs.

I will try and find it but there was a thread a while ago where the OP got some quite generous maintenance from her son's father but as her partner earned well and paid most of the bills she put most of the CM into a savings account for her son. Her partner had raised that she ought to allocate a modest amount as a contribution towards the household living costs. (I think it was complicated by them also having a child together who would not end up with a chunky savings account.) She was pretty outraged but most posters thought the partner had a point.

She has one child already. If she had a child with this partner it would be another child for her.
I was advising op to never have a child with this partner as her son will be treated badly. The partner has already made it clear he wants to preserve his personal spending monies by taking child benefit from the son to pay for the rising cost of bills.

A decent person would say well bills are rising, I will pay a bit more in each month.

She has one child already. If she had a child with this partner it would be another child for her.
I was advising op to never have a child with this partner as her son will be treated badly. The partner has already made it clear he wants to preserve his personal spending monies by taking child benefit from the son to pay for the rising cost of bills.

A decent person would say well bills are rising, I will pay a bit more in each month.

I think it’s not very fair he’s subsidizing you and your son who needs his own bedroom etc, you could pool all income but then school shoes etc come from the family pot. I think this would only be fair if you did 5050 rent and bills

If they were acting like a “proper family” then the “partner” would pay towards all the child’s costs but he doesn’t. Can’t have it both ways.

Actually, speaking as a single parent to DS15, who was basically left to raise my son alone almost from day one - you couldn't be more wrong when you say that I think that OPs son does not matter. Of course he matters. Which is why instead of relying on a boyfriend to subsidise her sons needs, she would be better served ensuring that she and his father-who frankly are the only people who owe him anything - are in a position to provide him with what he needs. Increasing her hours and getting more money from his biological father is not about making sure her boyfriend has more spending money, it is about ensuring that she is able to meet her sons needs. Working part-time is a luxury that many mothers, especially single mothers can't afford. I work full time, while running a part-time business, because my son matters and the most important thing that I can do for him is to ensure that we are self-sufficient. As for her child support, not everyone goes through the CMS, and if her relationship with her ex is as she portrays it, she should be able to say to him (in the same way that she can say to her boyfriend) she needs more money to meet his needs. She admits that he could pay more.

It's one of those mixed responses. I think he is unreasonable for him to ask you to pay the child benefit into the joint account but he isn't unreasonable to suggest it's time to look through expenditure and whether the current balance is where it should be.

We did a percentage (I'm currently a SAHP) but it wasn't a direct comparison but we factored in difference in take home pay alongside our costs.

It might be worth a review of all of your finances and include impact of having a child in the house. Yes he uses heating but if you are all in the house and heating it to the same temperature you would without him there, the cost isn't impacted by him being there. If you have to have the heating several degrees warm maybe it would count as him having an impact on energy costs.

Same with food, what is the cost of him beyond the food you would pay for the two of you.

Go through all of your expenditure, those that the joint account covers, what the child benefit and maintenance is currently used for and so on, then come up with a fair plan. It might be that you keep as it is but adjust the amount you both put in, it might be that the maintenance and CB go into the joint account but now all of the child spending comes out of that or it might be something in the middle where there are £30 a month extra costs and £30 of the combined child benefit and maintenance goes into the joint account.

@PrimeCrush how is the housework and childcare split? I am willing to bet that you do the majority of both. In which case, he should contribute more because he is getting a housekeeper and chef.

A decent person would say well bills are rising, I will pay a bit more in each month. By that logic, does it mean that OP isn't a decent person? Because I think her partner is concerned by this exact question - she isn't offering to put in a bit more for the bills each month.

The crucial bit is that with inflation the partner’s costs have risen, too.

If the joint account no longer covers essential monthly bills then they both need to increase their contribution.

We moved into a new rented house together, neither of us owned a property.

A rented house with an extra bedroom for your child.

Is this an expense you've overlooked?

How much of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping does he do?

It' difficult. But is you are contibuting less than he is to household expenses so he is subsidising you. And he feels resentful. I don't think you can syphon off money and say it doesn't count. It all counts.

All child benefit I received for the children when they were younger went into a separate account. Uniform, school trips, pens pencils etc came out of that account. Any money left over after the school year went into savings for the children.
All other family holidays, presents for birthdays and Christmas husband and I paid for. The money was for them. I know not everyone can afford to do that but he is being tight!

I disagree. This will allow DP to keep his disposable income intact, while also giving him a say in what OP buys for her son. At the moment, she pays for things for her son out of ring-fenced income that she controls. In future, depending on how controlling DP becomes financially, she'll have to ask permission or risk a row each time she wants to buy her son something.