Would I be silly to continue doing this?

[AbiRoad]

DH and I both work full time or close to full time. We are in the fortunate position of being able to save. I earn a lot more than him (although he could live off his earnings if he was single).
Hence, most of the savings are funded out of my earnings. Every year about this time we sit down and work out what to invest further savings in. This will include topping up pensions (above the monthly contributions we make), ISAs etc. We make some investments in joint names. Others are made in either his name or mine alone (eg we obviously have pensions and ISAs each in our own names). We have taken tax into account in deciding whether to invest jointly or in one name (maximising allowances etc - nothing dodgy). We therefore have fairly similar pension pots and other investments - even looking at just the things in his name (and not the joint things) he has far more savings than he could afford himself.

Our relationship is a bit rocky at the moment. I hope we can get through it, but early days. But my question is this. Would I be mad to permit my earnings to be used to make more investments in his name in the circumstances?

That's totally your call, but if you decide not to then that would indicate that you are checking out of the relationship.

I think you'd be mad. If you did split any marital assets would be considered joint but, if everyone's comfortably off individually, then someone would have to be excessively pedantic to insist that every single ISA and investment was split down the middle

CD, that is my worry, i.e. I really want us to work things out and if I change what we do this year it might bring about what I want to avoid. On the other hand, we have been ducking our issues a bit and sharing with him the fact I have even had the thought that this is something I need to think about might be a good way of starting a conversation we need to have anyway. DH does not consider himself materialistic so I dont think he will react badly from that point of view.

Is it right that all assets are split equally? I know that would have been the starting position if DH had been a SAHP but he has not done so (his choice which I am fine with) even though it would probably have made sense for the family if he did. With the investments he has and his earning capacity, I did not think he would necessarily be entitled to half. I guess I should research all of this but want to focus primarily on staying together rather than splitting up.

All assets acquired during the marriage are considered joint as a starting point. Assets acquired pre-marriage e.g. property are not considered joint initially but become more joint the longer the marriage continues. Then it's down to personal negotiation and circumstances (children mostly) whether it ends up 50/50 or something else.

Whatever the law says - when you are in a marriage things should be shared. if it was the other way around and your husband was refusing to allow you to have an equal share of his earnings, would it make you uncomfortable - because I bet lots of epople would claim this was financial abuse.

Assuming you share all the bills, you should also share all the savings. if this isn't the situation in your marriage you should question why - complete financial honesty should be the cornerstone of all marriages.

If I was your husband i would feel very concerned that you felt it was right to keep a portion of savings as your own - unless he could keep an equal portion.

You both work full time - just happens to earn less - that is all.

What are the issues between you?

Bills are not shared equally. I pay school fees and childcare, he pays utilities, insurance etc. No mortgage (mainly paid by me when we had one although he paid half when my earnings were lower). I pay for the main weekly shop, clothes for myself and DC, most presents etc. (I enjoy shopping more). He generally pays for his own clothes, whatever top-up groceries he happens to pick up during the week, cleaner. When we go out for meals, cinema etc, he usually gets his credit card out before I do. In the case of holidays, furniture etc it just depends on who gets round to sorting it.
We have always had separate accounts, in part because we never needed to have a joint account because we both had sufficient to pay what we needed to pay with some savings left over. The lack of joint account was his decision (he was aware I was likely to be the higher earner and felt more comofrtable that way, although we were on similar salaries when we got together). However, we have in practice always viewed money as joint, ie.g. in the case of irregular outgoings we dont keep track of who spends what (my guess would be I have probably paid for slightly more holidays but he has paid for more meals out, cinema tickets etc but it is purely a guess and we dont track it). Large payments I now fund because it makes more sense to use the account with most money coming in. Re savings, where investments are to be made in his name, he will use his own surplus cash first and then I will top up. So also as far as savings are concerned, we have been treating the money as joint and I am absolutely fine with that. Just questioning, when things are starting to go awry, whether there comes a time to stop viewing things as joint. I dont think it is yet though (and hopefully never), I just paused on the point when I was about to write him a cheque.

Hard to put finger on what is going wrong, both perhaps not appreciating the other's good points and magnifying bad points. I feel like he criticises me a lot about things that he would never have commented on before, and suspect I may do the same. Hope it should be solveable. This post is the first time I have acknowledged there is a bit of a problem, and I dont even know whether he is in the same place.