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Why would anyone combine their money?

160 replies

Peonysandblueglass · 18/05/2014 19:11

Hi Im about to get married, have no DCs.
Dp and I both work, im a full time student so get grants/loans to live on and Im a self employed Nanny so get money for that too.
We both go halves on all of the house hold expenses, we're also both going halves on all wedding costs, if we drive on holiday we go halves on fuel.
I can understand that when i have a baby he will support me because it will be our child.
If we joined our finances as some people seem to, I would feel like I need to justify my luxurious clothing purchases buys to hi
Or i'd be concious of everything I bought.
I like it as we have it as it feels like a power balance.
Is there something I'm missing here? Thanks.

OP posts:
Peonysandblueglass · 21/05/2014 12:31

Yes thanks. It's a lot for him to digest, he is a very concious and lovely father to his dd, He lacks confidence in his parenting abilities (like all good parents!) I have every faith in him as a dad.
Time and talking I think.

OP posts:
livingzuid · 21/05/2014 14:35

peony what you both decide to do financially is up to you - there's no right or wrong way to do things.

I was just wondering about the work thing - is there no reason why he can't be a full time sahd and you work full time? That is what me and my Dh are doing as I have more earning power. I know I will miss my baby but tbh he's much more suited to staying at home than I am so it works very well for us. Then when we feel ready for childcare etc he may look for something part time.

Dh after my mc did not want children. He didn't want to see me go through that again and was not bothered whether we had a child or not. We only did this on my insistence. He is of course super excited to be a dad but I was the driver behind the decision.

Perhaps as the pp said he needs time?

fuzzpig · 21/05/2014 18:03

We don't have a joint account anymore basically because we didn't really use it, but we do share everything and although we have individual accounts we don't really view money as 'mine' or 'his'. Now that we both use online banking (both with the same bank so even easier) we can transfer instantly between us, so when something needs paying for it just comes down to who happens to have the money for it, whether it's something for just one of us (eg clothes), or a household expense, or something for his older children.

We are on a low income, so we don't really have much money for personal spending, and we now have 'pocket money' (both have the same token amount) for frivolous stuff. We are saving hard for a house deposit and some is in my name, some in his, but it is all ours.

We never really considered not sharing everything, it just evolved naturally. We are totally on the same page WRT our aims and spending habits, so it works. By the way we have had DH working FT and me a SAHP, to the opposite, and all manner of combinations in between, due to illness and injury, job hunting and redundancy. There was no way either of us would see one type of contribution (work/money vs caring responsibilities) as more valuable than the other, and perhaps this is partly due to all we've been through together (eg when he suddenly lost his job due to his injury), there's just no point in viewing things in strictly financial terms.

Different strokes and all that though. TBH it's amazing that DH has so much trust in me, given that his exW (who was abusive so not an otherwise happy marriage) ran up huge debts in his name without him knowing and obviously this led to a lot of problems for him. So in a way perhaps that helped us come to think of it, as it meant he was very open from the start about how he felt about money, spending and borrowing etc.

fuzzpig · 21/05/2014 18:12

Oh sorry that'll teach me for not reading the whole thread Blush

FWIW I think it's great that you are talking about this now before you are in that situation. It is very wise for you to iron out any differences now and to really consider it all fully.

I also think that no matter what people earn or contribute to the household or how it's divided up, the absolute most important thing is that both partners are on the same page about money. That's what matters most IME, not whether you have a joint account or not :)

sykadelic · 21/05/2014 18:59

OP - I'm going to send you a PM about my situation. I've explained it above a little but will PM more detail.

MeMyselfAnd1 · 22/05/2014 01:30

When I married my ex we had similar jobs and salaries, so we just dealt with expenses in your turn/my turn basis. We pooled resources when I left my job to support his career moves.

I think you can keep finances separated when you both are in similar salaries. But if the difference between salaries huge, you either pool resources or end up with very resentful parties.

Boleh · 22/05/2014 07:41

Similar to above, we kept things seperate until we moved abroad when he took a massive pay cut and I took an equally massive rise to do the same level of job as we had been doing before! The deal for going abroad was that all the work related income would be pooled - we pay all the household expenses from the joint account and have joint savings, we also take an equal amount each out occasionally to do what we like with.
There are still occasional arguments over what is truely a required household expense but they are rare and on the whole we both feel fairly done by.

namechangedforthisonehere · 17/09/2014 16:20

Poor OP married him

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/a2186837-New-husband-wont-cook-clean-work

HawthornLantern · 17/09/2014 17:55

I would pay him back any money hed payed during the time i wasnt working

Why should you “pay him back” a penny from when you are not working? Your child belongs to both of you – a baby isn’t an expensive whim that only the mother wants and that therefore only the mother has to pay for. If a consequence of having a child is that mum needs to be at home for a while and lose her income then the burden of that falls on the family, not only the mum. Why should the financial burden be only on you? If you pay your husband back it looks horribly as if you are in effect paying him for the right to have a child.

If you wanted to take a year out of work for a totally private project (writing a book or something) then maybe there is a different discussion. Though having said that my cousin’s wife supported him for a year while he wrote a book– and there was never any discussion of paying back afterwards.

If you have loans/debt that pre-date your marriage, then I can see that you might want to clear them separately. Not all couples do (my DP cleared all his ex’s debts when he married her), but it’s very understandable and I’d probably feel the same.

But…what if you can’t save enough to cover your debt payments during a maternity leave? Does that mean no children or that your DH would have a stick to beat you with for the rest of your marriage? And how much would you or your DH think you had to cover? A personal loan pre-dating the marriage is one thing to pay off – but your car insurance and running costs – surely that would be important to the new family and be a non-repayable cost. What about food? Utilities? Holidays?

And who will compensate you for your loss of ability to save for pension when you are older, while you are at home with the baby?

I would resent paying off his debts accumulated before we met.

I may have misunderstood – but if you are paying a higher proportion of your income into the joint expenses than he is then you are subsidising him and are already helping him pay off these debts.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 17/09/2014 18:40

Things have moved on PP. 'Equal' subsequently turned out to be this lazy arsehole cutting his hours and expecting his new wife to support him out of her earnings of £120/week... plus do all the cooking and housework. Hmm

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