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

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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?

The law is quite clear on this one , CB goes to the Mother- so it is entirely up to you whether it goes into the central pot.

You both need to look at the household outgoings if they are more than the money going into the joint pot. There may be economies or more care on some expenses which will solve the shortfall.

Is this pot solely for mutual household bills or does it also cover occasional petrol, take aways by one of you etc resulting in costs being a bit fudgey? If its mutual bills only then heating, lighting etc will be little different with or without a child. Food bills will be less but the notion that a seven year old's food bills outweigh the unpaid labour you provide is laughable. I can easily see the maintenance and CB being swallowed up by basic child costs and more on top from your personal income.

You both need to look at your overall budgeting before putting the child's income into the joint pot. Then if all the costs are agreed and essentials for mutual benefit kept in, individual benefit items come out of individual accounts (so eg Sky Sports is not an essential, a basic tv licence or Netflix sub could be, the odd bottle of wine or beer between you shared, one partner including their booze when the other is teetotal would not be) you should see if you both need to put a bit more in the pot.

What isn't reasonable is for him to benefit from the economies of scale in housing and unpaid domestic labour and also want the child's money to subsidise the joint pot. If you were married I'd say its more sensible to look at the total and ensure that you each had equal leisure and you each had equal splits of the shared surplus cash each month rather than him keeping a much higher disposable income than you have.

I would suspect he’s no longer happy with putting more money in than you and wants to up your contribution (which is fair enough really, it’s 2 of you and 1 of him).

When DP and DD both lived with me I decided I’d pay 2/3 precisely to avoid this sort of whining from him down the road. It never happened, but still.

Ultimately £1650 really isn't a lot to cover the cost of rent, bills, food shopping and all other joint costs for three of you in a three bedroom house. I'm not surprised your joint account is starting to become short and the money you are paying in isn't enough.

I don't think the child benefit money should necessarily be paid into the joint account but I think you do need to acknowledge that your partner is paying disproportionately more than his fair share and consequently you should increase your contribution a bit to the joint account.

If he doesn’t take your ds and buy him shoes and ice-creams and trips out and run him or school and ask him about his homework then he doesn’t see him as his proper family either. He can go jump. What would happen if you put the child benefit in and ds needed shoes and a present for a birthday party? Could you just take it straight out again? Or would that generate attention and questions about spending? Fuck that.

I suspect he's prob a getting a bit pissed ds's biological dad is only putting in £180 a month where he is paying £350 a month more than you. You do make a point of saying he earns more than you .... but that's not the point. You have the responsibility of a child and seem to have suggested that child's dad could pay more but you feel you have agreed now and will leave it. Meanwhile stepdad is stepping up and maybe he feels he wants to save more or whatever. Maybe he wants to buy you a ring.

I am married with 3 kids, been together 20 years.

we have a joint account for fixed monthly bills, which I manage, my DH transfers me a monthly fixed amount to cover his ‘fixed’ share which is related to his income and affordability and transfer enough into the joint account to cover these bills. Otherwise we use our individual accounts for any other spends including food. I am the breadwinner so I end up paying for most things. He uses his individual account for day to day things too.

what I’m saying is there’s no fixed way of living together as a family, you do what suits you but I would say the child benefit goes to you if you’re doing the vast majority of the child spends (I don’t believe child benefit should be going to heating bills explicitly!!)

i thinks he’s in the wrong. Not his child so not his money. Child benefit is for the child and you’re spending it on your child not nights out and frivolous things. Does he also think the child maintenance should be joint as well? Don’t give in.

Yes it does if you live together. OP would get universal credit if living alone with her son. She doesn't living with her partner because his earnings are taken 8nto account. The state assumes he is helping to support the child, rather than financially behaving as if he was in a house share with a friend.

I dont agree with the reasoning he has put forward, but i do think you arent putting in your fair share.

In your calculations on splits you have excluded the additional 'income' you get, but there's a small additional cost to the household budget by having a third person, so you're gaining on both sides.

As the £1,650 isn't enough for bills, I would say it would be fair for you to be putting in £750 and he keeps at £1,000.

Then you are putting in 43% of total income and he's putting in 45%.

Housing yourself and your child for £750 inc bills seems like a good option!

I think if your previous way of doing things means you are short on the bills, then it’s not working and you need to figure out why. I would guess food costs are not a tiny bit of that amount, and given you have 2 people and he is just one that seems worth addressing. Your food costs are only going to go up - wait a few years and your son will out eat the rest of you.

You get to work part time, have extra income not considered in your split and cost more - that’s just a fact. Your son is your responsibility and you have the £280 a month in recognition of that. I’d think that should be plenty for the odd birthday party and supermarket clothing shop plus covering his own food, etc.

I do however think this might be a bigger issue. Is he happy to have your son there basically 100% of the time? Is it proving harder than he thought?

Yes, because all household income is assessed and impacts regardless of where it is spent. There is no expectation from the state that anyone other than the biological parents of the child are financially responsible for them. From what OP has posted it appears she is banking the child maintenance and child benefit and using it separately for the child’s expenses, but she’s not taking into account that her partner pays a higher proportion of the bills. The fact that he earns more is irrelevant because despite the fact that he has no legal obligation to do so, whichever way you look at it he’s contributing to OP’s child’s expenses.

He has £1200 a month to pay for his own bill (car, phone, savings, pension, Christmas etc)

You have £1080 to pay for the above, plus everything your son needs.

He sounds completely unreasonable and I would reconsider a future with him

Sometimes you have to get transactional, when the man you live with starts demanding more of your time, labour, income because bills have gone up. Otherwise you get walked over and poor.

@WeDid2 OP would be very unwise to marry this man.

And your children suffer.

But if you have £280 pcm from CB and CM and spend roughly that, where is YOUR contribution to your child's upkeep? By keeping all the CB and CM for the child related expenses but putting none into the cost of housing, heating, washing and feeding your child you are really doing quite well out of this arrangement.

But in the end I think you and your dp need to decide whether you are all-in as a family or not and clarify Dp's role - his expectations and yours, in respect of your Ds, How you run your household as a team how you work as a family, and so on.

Do you end up doing more domestic work because you work fewer hours?

And he wants more of OPs money.
The partner has a good deal. Lots of personal spending money on a not high wage. Does not do his share of coming and cleaning.

Meanwhile OP does school run, childcare, majority of cooking and cleaning and has less money to spend on herself and her son than her partner does just for himself.

I feel very old fashioned in these threads. I come from a pretty poor working class family that was traditional. Men back then didn't do much housework, but they did work and it was normal to give their wage packet to their wife. Because they recognised that money was short, but kids came first.
Obviously not all men, there were abusive and alcoholic men. But your ordinary man did not try and cheat the kids money away.

It sounds like all the money you receive in CB goes on the child's genuine needs anyway so I dont get the issue. Presumably theres no CB left so what is the issue?

Hmm you’ll get a lot of differing opinions on this. When now dh moved in with me and dd (4 at the time) we decided to pool all our income (which includes pip, dla and child benefit) and gave ourselves an equal and same amount of spending money. Everything else in the pot - ie dhs salary etc. I don’t work due to disabilities, so my income is much lower than his but we see ourselves as a family and it’s fair we should both have the same standard of living. We have since had a child together and have been married 17 years. Works well for us.

This is what we did. It works well for us, but it only works if you have the same values around money and how to spend it.

Except your view is based on a family where the children are shared children, and OP’s isn’t.

OP doesn’t score points for doing the childcare and school run- it is HER child, not his.

Same with money, if this was a shared child then of course those costs should be shared as a household, but it isn’t the case here. This is a child with two parents to fund their living, and the partner isn’t one of them.

They don’t live as just a couple. There is a child who costs money. The two people responsible for that cost are the mother and the father. They should fund it completely if they can.

And honestly if they were just a couple I would say 50/50 on living expenses. If you want more disposable income, reduce your costs or increase your income. Don’t live off a man.

But OP said she decided to move in with her partner because it benefited her financially to do so. Now he has realised that and is asking her to contribute her fair share. At the end of the day the child isn't his, he's OP's.

Ok if I have got my maths right…
Your partner receives £2200 each month and puts £1000 into the joint account - leaving him with £1200.

You receive £1450 wages, £108 child benefit and £180 child maintenance = 1738 total income. You put £650 into the joint account leaving you with £1,088.

You need to show your partner these numbers. You have less remaining income to pay for the needs of 2 people than he has for just himself.

The cost of everything is going up. If there is no longer enough money in the joint account to pay for everything it would be reasonable for you to both put in £100 more each. You will both be left with less money for clothes, leisure, treats and in your case school trips etc - but that’s what the cost of living is doing to families.

If your partner thinks that you and your son should struggle while he has more discretionary spending than you both then it is time to LTB. If that is the case you would probably be better off (including financially) alone.