Do husbands support wives financially during maternity leave?

[DogsAndGin]

Hi everyone,

Pregnant with our first baby and starting to think about saving up and preparing for mat leave.

Currently, DH earns more than I do, and we spend the same proportion of our income on bills etc, and then the rest is ours to do with what we wish.

However, when I go onto mat leave, I will be getting about £800 a month on average across 12 months. If I am very careful, this will just about cover my direct debits and responsibilities, and will leave me with absolutely nothing at all for any spending money, birthdays and Xmas, trips out etc.

This will be too tight, so, looking at my options:

• I can’t save anything in advance (every spare penny is going on home renovations).
• I don’t have a job where I can get any overtime or bonuses.
• I could sell my car (would probably get £2000, plus save on insurance, tax, mot, fuel).

DH’s income will remain largely the same throughout baby’s first year, as he’ll only take two weeks paternity leave.

So, my very naive questions! -

For those of you in the same situation, (married/cohabiting and both full time employed) - is there a way families tend to make this inequality in loss of earnings fairer?

Do husbands tend to support their wives financially during mat leave?

Neither of us want to put baby into nursery during their first year, and I don’t think that would be cost effective anyway.

DH refuses to take more than 2 weeks paternity leave, so we can’t split the leave (and loss of earnings) that way. Both he and I want for me to stay with the baby for the first year.

This! Your husband sounds so coldhearted. It's his baby too!

So you have his baby and lose earnings but your DH wouldnt want to be funding your highlights... Does he realise its not just you that should be affected by the change and a bloody hair do and highlights are bloody essential.... he sounds like a tightwad

So he thinks you should go without anything personal while you stay home with your joint child? When he wants you to stay at home too?

Nice.

Honestly I can’t believe you’d even have to ask this! You’re BOTH having a baby - a fair & decent partner would want / insist they pay their share which includes supporting their child’s mother while she is off work looking after their baby!

The fact that you haven't talked to your husband about this is very worrying?? Of course he should support you. It's a shared baby, I'm assuming!

You won't be earning because you are looking after the baby. HIS baby as much as it is yours. He got you pregnant so why should you suffer financially because you're the one having to go on maternity leave? Joint baby, joint finances. A marriage is supposed to be an equal family partnership. One of you will be contributing more financially, but that isn't the be-all and end-all, is it? You will be contributing to the family by caring for your joint offspring.

Of course they do. Anything else is totally unthinkable IMHO.

You're married - there is no 'his money and your money', only joint family money. At least this is how it should be. I find your question bizarre.

We always work it so that we have equal spends left over. With DS I took the full 12m mat leave and DH covered all my bills and then when I stopped getting paid for the last 3m we split his spending money, although we did save beforehand too so it was a bit easier. With DD I'm on mat leave now but I only work very part time anyway so my pay hasn't really gone down much, I'm taking 6 weeks unpaid at the end this time and I've just saved myself to cover it, but in order to do this I've stopped paying into our Christmas savings, so DH pays a bit extra into it. You are raising your child, it's only right he steps up and doesn't let you go into debt as you're facilitating him being able to work and earn that money by staying home and taking care of his child!

You are taking time out to bring up the baby , and therefore giving up your work for a year to do so. You’re making a sacrifice for the family. It is only right you split finances during this period (otherwise you’d be paying for full time nanny- so he would have to fund/be paying for that instead if that makes sense?)
I still got my hair done/had coffees but we budgeted and made cut backs on other stuff together.
We have separate accounts but my other half for example took over paying mortgage and other bills so I had no big outgoings when I was getting less pay. I also just took more money from joint account if needed.
He shouldn’t have more disposable income than you just because you’re the one thats
taken time out for the baby/child rearing.
please show him this thread!!

Make sure he reads this thread!

Are you charging him womb rental? Getting compensated for the pain of labour and any other physical ailments? Is he going to be paying for your milk and the childcare you provide? No? Well he can step up and do his bit by supporting the family in the same way that you are supporting the family. Fairest way is to put all family money together, agree a budget and then anything left over is split equally, so it’s not him paying for your highlights, you are not dependent on him, you are an equal. Anything less than this isn’t the spirit of what a marriage and family is supposed to be about.

It sounds as though he is full of shit.

You already have the more difficult physiological job, and the more severe long-term hit to career earnings. Both of those are unavoidable.

It would be entirely fair for him to absorb half or more of the financial hit during maternity leave, and for a time afterwards if you end up working part-time or even if you are full time but need to be the "available parent" for things like nursery closures, childhood illnesses, doctor appointments, etc.

If you have separate income pots for discretionary "me" spending and as well as personal savings, then his should be reduced by at least as much as yours.

How do you people ask these questions and not realise you're living in a shit situation?

Do you honestly think your awful 'should my husband buy me food or should I just die' scenarios are how everyone else's relationships are?

How do you even get into a state where you're pregnant and asking this?

Your earnings will be reduced because you have both jointly chosen that you should stay home and look after your shared child. He needs to give you 50% of the amount that your earnings are reduced by. That money should be treated as your earnings. Then you both pay the same amount towards household expenses.

When you go back to work, if your earnings are still lower because you took a career break so that he didn’t have to pay someone to look after his child, he still needs to cover half of the reduction. Also, obviously, half of paid childcare. If you do a lower paid/shorter hours job so that you can work around childcare - same thing.

The financial hit of having a child is shared equally. If he doesn’t like this, suggest he stays home and you work, and give him a little allowance that he isn’t allowed to spend on anything nice for himself.

or you could pool all your money, pay for all necessities and split what’s left in half.

Honestly if he’s like this tell him he needs to share and do 6 months and you’ll do 6 months and then full time nursery and you will split the bills. Do not take any financial hits for this man.

OP ask this question to friends who have kids in front of him. He’ll quickly realise that the norm is for the working parent to support the family while the wife is on mat leave.

Our dc are grown up and we always had separate bank accounts. Whilst dh wouldn't have necessarily thought to pay for my hairdresser he'd have made sure I had the money to pay by contributing more to the household costs.

Having a baby was a joint decision. Jointly we decided how we would fund it before getting pregnant and were in agreement. And I always had a couple of thousand tucked away as my personal savings for my personal spends. To be fair when I had a baby I don't think I managed to get to the hairdresser more than once in the first 12 months though!

DH earns way more than me and probably pays for my lunches out. I do more unpaid childcare and housework so he can do this. We both have a joint account. I find these marriages where each person bills the other for services very depressing. Like a law firm.

Why is it not fair for him to pay for your lunches and nails?

You should seriously consider charging him half of all the time you spend alone caring for your baby in that case.

My dh has always out earned me. I have never had to justify my spending and now we’re retired 80% of the pension is his but I absolutely have access to all of the money.
Remember you’re putting your earning potential on hold so that your dp can be a father.

You've picked the wrong man.

There really is nothing else to say. His way of thinking is just so unreasonable and financially abusive that there is no way around it. Men like this don't change. You'll he scrimping by and he won't give a flying fuck because his finances won't change a bit. He will continue to have all his treats. You don't. This joint baby will only impact your finances and career, not his. And he doesn't care.

A man who thinks like that is not a good man.

Think about your options. If it isn't too late, you can undo this decision and find someone better.

This is exactly why, when your married, that all money becomes family money. It is very rarely, if ever going to be fair otherwise.

this should have been discussed well before now.

We have seperate accounts but DP paid for all bills and food while I was on mat leave and we split what was left for spending money. We do it as percentage of earnings now I'm back at work and it works out that we have the same amount of fun money. Not sure I'd have had kids with someone who begrudged me a coffee and some highlights tbh.

Another here who goes down the we're a family route its all family money.

The idea of splitting costs up seems weird, more like a house share than a marriage. Seems to be fairly common on mumsnet but a recipe for resentment.

Bloody hell, surely you are not having a baby with this waste of space?

For various complicated reasons I wasn't entitled to mat pay.... my DH fully supported me financially until I returned to work (12 years ), including paying my NI contributions so that I didn't miss out on pension benefits. We are a team, a family ... all money is shared.

I cant believe you need to ask this question. My husband has always earned more than me, we have been married 35 years, I have always had equal access to his money and he has never queried anything I have spent, whether it was for the house, the kids, or us.