Why do I put up with this?

[MoneyMug]

I have name changed for this.

I'm a SAHM to a newborn and toddler. The thing that's making me write this is that I want to do something, costing £16 a week, that will benefit my toddler. But I can't afford it, yet my DP can afford to spend £100's on his hobby.

I'll try not to make this too long.

We have lived together for over 2 years. The first year, I had very little money. I literally just managed to buy shampoo and take my DC1 to a £1 baby group once a week. No clothes/makeup/haircut. Luckily my mum brought most of DC1s clothes. DP paid all the bills nappies ect. I didn't ask DP for any money and he didnt give me any. I remember when all my money ran out and I only had £1 left (DP didn't know this) DP needed change and so borrowed it. I had saved it to be able to take DC1 to the baby group so obviously I couldn't go. I cried the whole day. I can't blame DP because he didn't know.

After a few weeks I built up the courage to ask him if I could have some of the tax credits, and I'd buy all of DC1s stuff with it. At least then I'd be able to treat her occasionally and take her to the baby group. So we agreed that the tax credits could go into my account, I'd keep £25 a week and give the rest to him.

Anyway we've had this arrangement for about a year now. So I buy nappies, wipes, cotton wool, clothes, shoes, toys, ect plus all non essential food items like toddler crisps ect.

Sometimes DP offers to pay for something but mist of the time I can tell it's a half hearted offer so I just say no. I'm stupid I know. But I can't take his money. Because that's how o see it. His money.
When we go shopping, he does the food and I have my own stuff, nappies ect, separate. (what must people think??) when we were buying DC1s birthday cake, DP put it with my stuff. He didn't even want to buy his own Childs birthday cake. Luckily I had enough money for it. We go halfs on their birthday presents.

Then I had DC2. Only a few weeks old and I haven't had the chance to contact tax credit yet so I've got to buy 2 lots of nappies ect with £25. I'm struggling. I haven't been able to give DP his money this month and I just didn't mention it. I didn't think he had noticed but i jokingly said 'I wish I had loads of money in my bank account!' and he said 'well you're luckily haven't taken any money off you.' so obviously he has noticed.
I don't know how he thinks I'm managing with £25. dC2 was a big baby. None of the newborn clothes I had brought fitted which meant I had to buy more. Only 6 babygrows fit. Icant afford to buy more.

DP spends so much on his hobby. Parcels every week. Sometimes more than one. It never used to bother me and I used to think this was normal. It's only since being on mumsnet that I realise it's not. To be fair we are very young and so maybe he doesn't realise. And I have never asked him for any money or told him I'm struggling.

I'm starting to get resentful though. I can't afford to get my haircut. My mum paid for it last year as a birthday present. I can't afford any clothes and none fit after having DC.

I can't ask him for money. I just can't. I have a mental block that just won't allow me.

I think about leaving him sometimes but I've got nowhere to go and no money. I'm not from this part of the country so doubt the council will house me either.

Thanks fir reading. I just needed to get this off my chest. I know nothing is going to change.

Op I do understand how this happens. got into a similar position. and buying things for the dcs was my job. so we did the separate shopping thing too. not to such a great extent and I went back to work (and paid for all the childcare) so I had some financial independence but I do understand how you got into this situation if the kids arrived before you had time to sort out balance of your rs.

But you need to sort out that balance now and tip it a bit more in your favour.
first you need to co vinceyourself it is not fair. tick.
Then you need to convince him.
You have made a start

Baby steps. phone T C next. then work up to child benefit.

I hope it works out.
Keep posting if the back up of MN bolsters your resolve.

Albany chance your mum can help out with dcs when they get a bit bigger so you can maybe work a few hours (assuming you can find a very pt job?) if she is sympathetic she may help.

op I think your situation is absolutely ridiculous.
you are not pathetic and you are clearly excellent and loving mum.
but your situation is ridiculous. as a sahm, you are essentially working a full time job. more- a 24/7 job. so you work full time for your family and so does your dp. as two people who work full time (regardless of who actually receives a salary), everything you both have should be shared. just because his contribution is more financial and your is more practical doesn't make it any less equal. THEREFORE EVERYTHING YOU HAVE IS SHARED.
you should have a joint account. all income should go into it. you both should spend all joint and child things from that account. any personal expenditure should be equal for both of you and discussed in advance. any other setup in your situation is just fucking ludicrous.
can you suggest this setup to him as a way of making both your lives easier and ensuring that this doesn't cause an issue? if he says no, I guess you know where you stand. he doesn't consider your contribution to your joint life important and relevant. he is abusing you and depriving you.
if he says yes, problem solved.

How was your parents relationship OP when you were growing up?. Was it like this?. Were there the self same issues with regards to money?.

He is abusive and he knows full well what you're doing; his comments re he expecting you to pay for the formula milk on occasion are nothing short of cruel.

Re him doing the housework and helping with the DC that is patently not him being good to you. That is part and parcel of being a parent.
My guess too is that he does the barest of minimums he can get away with.

I bought a couple of items in the supermarket (newspaper, a loaf, some chicken) the other day and spent £7; I thought of you and thought that this is just under a 1/3 of what you have for the entire week. I felt sickened.

You're 22; how old is he?.

I just read his comment about formula milk. That's absolutely outrageous. If he's serous, he sounds really really horrible. I still don't understand why all this 'yours and mine' rather than 'ours' business.
Perhaps remind him that is he wants to keep everything separate, you would have to get a job and he would have to share the massive cost of childcare so neither of you would really be any better off.

I'm so sorry but I'm inclined to say ltb to be honest.

The more I think about it, the more furious I am on your behalf. Just show him this thread and he can see what a bunch of objective strangers think about his behaviour.

Hi everyone. Sorry if I miss out any questions as I'm on my phone again.

He's 24.

I did tell him the cost of child care around here once but he just said that 'we' are lucky I don't work then.

My mum lives about 8 hours away but I wouldnt let her look after the DC anyway. She loves the idea of having granchildren but she they start to annoy her after a few minutes.
It doesn't bother me though as we have never had a great relationship. Although she has brought alot of clothes for DD over the last two year which I will always be grateful to her for.

My mum has always been a SAHM. She's never worked. She expects everything to just come to her and her life is dominated by money. She has always taken all my dads wages from him. He has to nicely ask her for anything. She also gets money from pretending to be a single parent if you know what I'm getting at? (I have younger siblings at home) I NEVER want to be like her. I know that's definitely where my money issues come from.

I've been reading through this thread a few times and it's been making me think about everything. I'm really annoyed at myself that I let this go on for so long. And I keep thinking why is DP so selfish? I would never let him live like this. All the times I have sat up at night helping pack up his eBay parcels and then dragging DD out in the snow ect to take them to the post office!

Sorry I've rambled on a but there!

Ramble away op, he is being totally unreasonable and you are starting to find all the examples to back up your resolve!
I can understand the difficulty of building up courage to talk about certain things, even if dp is not being "difficult", but the examples you give here show why you are reluctant to bring things up with him, because he's being so utterly UNREASONABLE about it!
I can also understand you don't want to be money-grabbing like your mum. But to get the tax credits and child benefit for the children and you as a family is really not money grabbing. It is to provide for you so that you can be healthy and well.
Don't beat yourself up, you came to a point where enough is enough, and I'm sure with support here and in real life (WA) you will find the strength to speak up for yourself. It is impossible to do it alone, with tiny children. So you are doing remarkably well!

Money hold on to that anger. use it to make sure you get what is FAIR. not him keeping all the money and not like your mum. but you really are entitled to recompense for your contribution to the partnership. ask him what he would expect if he stated at home and you worked. and if he says he expects you would keep all the money tell him that is a deal and he can stay at home you are going to look for a job.

It's not immature, or stupid, but it needs to be sorted.

What does he think you manage on? What do you talk about? If you can't talk about really basic things for your family, I wonder what you can talk about?

You need to spell it out for him clearly - as a couple, with children, you should be working together to make everyone in your family ok - not just the one with a job.

You can, as others have said, present him a budget of what you need (as a family) and what you actually have. I am worried that you are trapped with so little to look after yourself with. You, and your children, deserve an awful lot better.

Sweetheart, it is not his money. Your DP can only go out to work because he has YOU at home looking after his DC. If he stayed home and looked after the DC then YOU would be able to work. You are a team. His earnings are JOINT.

I can see that you have massive problems seeing it this way which is probably what has enabled your DP to be so blind to the problem (partly his fault too, but until the bf comment it sounded more like you had not ever discussed finance with him). Well done, btw, for having the temerity to mention that they are his DC too and that you would not be able to afford formula. You must know that is not right.

Work out the family's joint income (salary, TC, CB). Decide how much the DC will cost (everything - baby groups, food, nappies, wipes, clothes, babysitting now and again) and take that out. Split the rest 50:50.

Suggest this reasonably to your DP. It may give him food for thought. He may simply have never realised before. If he reacts negatively then come back and talk to us again as you may have to rethink.

Don't let this continue until you are desperate (although maybe you are already there). Do this for your children. Good luck, sweetheart x

You don't have issues with money money mug you are just skint and stressing about having enough for your kids.
You are allowed to occasionally treat yourself too occasionally .
To put it into perspective my income is low just now because of mat leave and my husband left me money to go get my hair cut as he new I felt rotten.
That's what families do ,not spend it all on themselves and make you feel like a slave and grateful for every crumb.
I can't believe he doesn't notice you never have new clothes etc.
You need to tell him you are struggling and feeling stifled by the lack of finances to take care of your children in the way you should be able to.

He knew I felt rotten

You have had a lot of good advice here MM. Your latest point that you would never put him in the predicament he puts you is very telling. He is supposed to love you and your children and one facet of that love should be to ensure that you are not struggling on a pittance (which is what £25 is really).

You're supposed to be a partnership, a team, and it's certainly not unreasonable to expect that.

So he is basically a financially abusive 24 year old. This is also deeply rooted within his own psyche and likely learnt too from his own parents.
He will not change.

Re your comment:-
"My mum has always been a SAHM. She's never worked. She expects everything to just come to her and her life is dominated by money. She has always taken all my dads wages from him. He has to nicely ask her for anything. She also gets money from pretending to be a single parent if you know what I'm getting at? (I have younger siblings at home) I NEVER want to be like her. I know that's definitely where my money issues come from".

I asked you what you learnt about relationships when growing up and the above is very telling. You have basically found someone who has done to you what your money grubbing mother did and likely still does to your Dad; i.e take all his money. You're now repeating yourself what your Dad has done i.e having to ask nicely for anything. You've also been reduced to doing that.

The child benefit money is for your children, not for him to spend it on whatever takes his fancy.

You need to get angry and ultimately to get away from him because he will be like this for the rest of his days. This bloke knows exactly what he is doing. He likes the power and control he has over you, abuse is about power and control.

Moneym, I just wanted to explain to you, along with many other posters, that what he is doing to you is financial abuse. A person doesn't have to aggressive, nasty, or shouty, to be a financial abuser - all they have to do is control the money - and/or to keep you short of money and struggling while they spend what they want on whatever.

If you lived on your own with the kids you'd have your rent paid and you'd get about £300 a week to live on. PLUS he'd have to give you 20% of his wages.

I have been you and you have to have some conflict about this is in inevitable but we didn't have kids and was for the first month or two of our moving I'm together when we were still teenagers annd my dh didn't realise he had to share. It took conflict argueing growing up and maturity to resolve. It won't fix itself he won't wake up one day and think I should really be sharing with moneymug. You really are gooing to have to say something and change things and if you are as passive as you sound it will be uncomfortable but you are together there should be space to talk things through and change things and get offened with each other then sort it out. If he is as nice but selfish as you say he will change it for you.he will unmdestand the concept of sharing surely and that he is a father and if you split up and he is working he would be paying for his chikdren a percentage of his wage.

I don't think the posts suggesting the OP leave her partner are helpful. Nor are the ones suggesting he's getting a kick out of having power and financial control over her.

To me it sounds like he's ignorant about what it means to be in a financial partnership where the DC are a joint financial responsibility and the OP's passiveness until now has enabled this situation to continue and worsen.

She needs encouragement to be more assertive about her and her DC's needs, not to be told to ltb.

She is now realising how wrong this situation is and how selfish her DP has been over money and it looks like she's going to take some steps in the right direction with our encouragement.

So how about we all concentrate in supporting and encouraging her rather than slagging off the man she loves, eh?

Please don't think I'm nit listening to you, because I really am. I'm just not convinced it's FA. I don't think he does it to control me in any way. He just does it because he is selfish. Bills, and then his hobby come first. It's a seriously expensive hobby which makes me laugh really as he's the first person to admit he's tight when it comes to everything else. He moans that food shopping is so expensive so I try and keep out of shopping decisions as it makes me feel guilty.

He was brought up by his mum who was a single parent and has never known his dad so he hasn't ever had experience of sharing money in a family.

"I don't think the posts suggesting the OP leave her partner are helpful. Nor are the ones suggesting he's getting a kick out of having power and financial control over her".

Why?. Genuine question.

OP

You are still unsure as to whether this is financial abuse or not.

Below is a definition of financial abuse:-

Financial abuse is a form of mistreatment and fraud in which someone forcibly controls another person's money or other assets. It can involve, for instance, stealing cash, not allowing a victim to take part in any financial decisions or preventing a victim from having a job. The issue tends to occur most often in domestic relationships, such as between a husband and wife or an elderly parent and an adult child. People don't always recognize the problem, because an abuser purposely might select an isolated, vulnerable victim who is unlikely to realize what's happening or who will feel too ashamed to report it.

Financial abuse also can occur as a means to have control over a partner in order to make the other (in this case you) feel hopeless enough to never leave. One partner might not allow the other to have access to any of the household money, or he might give only a small allowance.

Anyway why would you want to be with someone who is so selfish in the first place and admits to everyone that he is himself tight fisted. Bet he has told no-one that you and his children subsist on £25 a week; he likely spends more than that in the course of 3 days on his bloody hobby.

All he cares about is him.

It's interesting what you say about your mum. Your parents didn't get it right either.

But you and your partner can get it right. It will take effort, but you can do it.

He may be financially abusive, I don't know. He may just be young and selfish. He may not understand how much the kids cost. He can't fix being young, but he can grow up quickly and fix the rest of it.

Please do change the CB to your account now. And then work out how much it costs all of you to live. Once you have the figures, you can come up with an equal split that's fair. He won't like it (almost everyone would like more money than they have, I know I would!) but he will get used to it, I hope.

If he doesn't/can't/won't then you'll need to think seriously about your future and what living like this with him would say to your DC as they grow up.

Since having the DC I have had anxiety problems which doesn't help with having the money conversation.

Btw, do you know how much money comes into the family and how much the bills are? If not you need to know.

Not surprised at that either. Your man's control of you financially has likely been the main contributor to your overall levels of anxiety now; you're wondering how the heck you are going to manage on such a small sum a week.