selfish behaviour

[tillytips]

Hello,

Am furious, nobody else to rant at so am typing furiously, please forgive any spelling mistakes.
I have just found out that my husband had a bonus from work two years ago of £11k and never said a word. Not a thing. I was looking for a P60 as im trying to figure out if i'll lose my child benefit next year and i came across a wage slip from April 2010.
I am devastated. I cant work full time because of school runs etc etc, so i work part time, i've lost my tax credits because he earns too much and will now lose my child benefit. This comes directly to me as my "wage" if you like for nto being able to work full time. so i'm going to lose all that. I've taken on a clening job so i can make ends meet and then i find this out.
We ahve seperate bank accounts, i struggle constantly, he clearly doesn't, i pay for the kids stuff, phones etc out of my meagre wages.

This has always been a problem, whilst i was pregnant and couldn't work (self employed at the time) he didn't give me a single penny, my parents bought me maternity clothes as he wouldn't. I went back to work when my baby was two weeks old.

I've no idea where the money is, he is famously tight as a ducks arse, so its sitting somewhere in one of his numerous bank accounts, he certainly hasn't spent it. He doesn't buy anthing ever, and we don't go on holiday.

Don't get me wrong i'm not expecting him to have given it to me but not telling me is unforgiveable.

I've supported him and his job for a long time, he works away from home a lot and i'm left to do everything by myself. He has been suffering from stress recently and i found out he was confiding in a female work colleague, i knew nothing about the situation as he doesn't tell me anything. I let that go because of his health, but this has been the final straw today.

Ok, rant over.

i can't just jack it in like that, it's 23 years of my life

All of the years of your life will always be with you - but you're more than capable of managing on your own and you don't need to go into the future with a tight-fisted mean-minded twat.

In fact, you could look on those 23 years as an investment because your enforced parsimony will have paid off once you get your mitts on half, or more, of what he's got stashed away.

Maybe the thought of a bit of nip/tuck, world cruise, designer frocks, or just simply not having to scrimp, account for, and watch every fucking penny will help you see things diffferently?

You've rightly got extremely angry and now you need to get the last remnants of your rage out of your system - go kick the shit out of a cushion if necessary - and calmly think on what you consider you need to make your marriage a truly shared and satisfying relationship rather than it being means to a one way savings bank for him.

Divorce is always a final resort, but that doesn't mean you can't use the threat of it to concentrate his mind on the necessity of playing fair with the family finances.

Tilly .... can you really carry on knowing that he's not only kept so much from you but has also treated you and the children as second class citizens all these years. How fucking dare he do that ?!!

I was going to say that from now on you'd need full disclosure - i.e. 100% access to all accounts, the same amount of spending money he has each month, all bills coming out of combined income etc. Discussions every month about what needs to be paid for/bought and so on. But even if he agreed to all that, how the hell could he ever justify all those years of deceit and meanness up until now ? He obviously measures people's worth by what they actually earn in £££s and has decided that as you earn far less you're way way beneath him in the pecking order. He obviously thinks that financial contribution is the only sort of contribution that matters - never mind all the unpaid work you do running the home, and completely overlooks the fact that you've enabled him to earn more than you by looking afer HIS kids. It's not just the lies, it's not just the nasty cruel meanness but the fact you aren't considered as an equal which would bother me most. How he can stand by and see you struggle to pay off a credit card while he has money sitting in the bank is unkind. How he let you buy stuff on credit in the 1st place while he had money in the bank is beyond me.

I don't know ...... he's giving you a load of bullshit with all this you knew what I had. So, even if you did - and how do you "forget" an £11k bonus (never mind all the rest) - how does he explain letting you struggle and stress out on a daily basis ?

If you were going to stay, I'd not only want things to completely change, and for him to go through finances with you with a fine tooth comb so you knew exactly where you stood .... but I'd also want some very serious counselling about his bloody attitude towards you as some sort of second class citizen, and would make sure that the threat of divorce (which'd mean you being entitled to at least half of all marital assets) hung prominently in the air until such time that he'd proved his commitment to the whole family going forward - i.e. no-one goes without unnecessarily, joint decisions re: all household income other than equal spending money, equality as much as possible re: future security. He would have to completely change, and even then, I don't know what possible explanation I could ever accept for all the years he'd been treating me and the kids like shit. I feel so very sorry for you because whatever happens this is going to change your relationship.

One thing strikes me - if you think he has secret bank accounts and money stashed away (apparently not so unusual for some men), I would do your best to find out what/where they are. If it were me I would do some serious snooping before I challenged him [or divorced him].

This puts you in a stronger position, legally (and emotionally; not knowing puts you in a weaker postion). If he did decide to "f. off" with someone or you decided to end it - you need to be in as strong a financial position as possible, including knowledge of any secret stash of money/savings.

Good luck. BTW he sounds a real selfish B ...

Totally and completely agree with thecrunch. Get everything copied and get some legal advice. But mostly, go through all your files and copy/print off everything - accounts,savings etc.

When this man leaves you,as he will, you need to have left him first and forget abiout longevity in a marriage with thieves like this.

The only positive point is, they think they are insurmountable and oh so clever.

But they're not. The most selfish and self-absorbed are often the worst at the final reckoning.

And the cost of divorce, think of the cost! Solicitors, court fees! If that doesn't frighten him into being reasonable, nothing will.

What catsmother has said is exactly the way to go, tilly.

She's laid it all out for you in fine style, and if you get him to agree to this you may have a marriage worth saving.

we'll certainly be "talking" tonight, what will happen i jsut don't know, i don't even know what i "want" to happen.
All i know is that i am mad as hell, still angry now, flitting between crying and punching the sofa. Kids out thank goodness. He'llbe home within the next half an hour.
At this particular moment i don't even like him, let alone love him. Twice this year he's broken my heart and it's only February FFS. I guess whatever decision i make, i have to live with it.
Wish me luck.

Twice this year he's broken my heart

So he's not just tight with money?

Having one's heart broken once by a twunt is an experience most of us will go through at some point in our lives; having it broken a second time by the same twunt is as unnecessary as it is avoidable.

If he's accustomed to you being hot-headed when 'debating', it's time to change tactics.

Get him on the back foot by being icily cool, calm, and in control - and, whatever you do, don't shout or raise your voice above normal conversational level.

Print out catsmother's advice and use it as your template...

And remember - no shouting, not even when you chuck the telly at him

Can't you get hold of / copy his accounts before you have the showdown? I guess its hard when you are Soooooo emotionally distressed. I just want you to discover and protect your financial position....

Copy as much as you can.

Good luck.

You must be calm. Don't let him get you mad.

I'm totally bemused by this kind of behaviour. In our marriage, all the spare money is in my account, as I don't pay tax.

You're a family, everything should be shared. Get as much evidence as you can, make him show you his bank accounts and tell him from now on, you want joint accounts.

Or he's leaving.

Good luck, tillytips.

For me, this would be the end of the marriage. Not only is he having an emotional (at the very least) relationship with a woman at work, he is looking after himself and making sure you work like a slave to keep yourself and the children.

OP, this man has NO redeeming features. He is vile. How could he leave the house in his designer clothes with you, dressed in Primark? How dare he do this?

Oh Tilly I feel for you so so much. Please dont let him try and wheedle out if the situation by using his "logic". You stay angry and cross AF him because he's bean mean at best and an utter knob cheese in reality.

I've been in a really similar situation with a dh who I thought was kind in many ways but have come to accept in recent months that he is also a product of the local knobcheesery. 17 years of my life, 2 dc is the good stuff- massive drop in confidence, self esteem/belief not to say all the stress about being skint and worrying about that to name just a few of the bad. My initial post about his financial control over me had a lot of responses and I am so so grateful to those posters who responded, my eyes were opened and I saw him for what he really is. I am just about to leave him. (I hope, if I can stay as strong as I hope you will) listen to the wise advice here and STAY ANGRY

Best of luck matey.

The deal has to be 4 grand for starters in your mitts tonight, honey, or he's on his bike.

The rest can follow once you've had an opportunity to forensically study his 'accounts'.

BTW my ex would do stuff like this and then use his "logic" if I got angry and threw stuff.

It's very frustrating to deal with.

Sorry posted too soon.

But I would stick to my guns - rules from now on, everyone knows what everyone has and whatever's left is equally divided.

I'd want £4k transferred into my bank account, done either online or over the phone TONIGHT or he'd be gone! But not before I got photocopies and account numbers and sort codes on EVERYTHING I could find out about.

In comparison to how you've been getting by for the past 23 years, you'll be positively LOADED when if you divorce this twat.

Not acceptable at all.

I would make sure all income is paid into JA from now on.

wow, just wow.

You can't stay. He is a horrible horrible person. His soul must be black

Why, why, has he stashed all this without telling ? (despite claiming he did - rubbish !)

What plans did he have ? ..... as someone suggested earlier, this perhaps smacks of a running away fund. He must have been planning to do something with it sometime. Bottom line: you can't trust him. I know I suggested counselling before, if you can't bring yourself to split (yet) but still can't think of any justifiable reason(s) for his behaviour.

I have a pleasing vision of him sitting enframed by his tv while tilly whispers in his ear 'your money or your wife'...