I am think my sister is being financially abused by her husband. I wanted to get some others opinions as I want to discuss this with her, I may just show her this thread (hence NC).
Sister and her Husband have 2 children (just about to turn 4 and 5), my sister stays at home, her husband works full time (plus over time virtually every working day, plus works his day one of his 2 days off if the overtime is there). Sis doesn't work now as she has a disability, she can't manage work, all childcare while not at work (he does none) plus all household chores (again he does none). She tired but it made her relapse and be admitted to hospital twice with months to recover to her normal state. In addition to this she seems to be her husbands personal driver (she has given up her DLA payments for a car which she really needs or most days she can't walk without a stick, can't walk long distances, especially with the children too).
They run separate finances, He has all his wages and overtime, my sister has chid benefit and tax credits and a small remaining amount of DLA not used for her car. they have separate accounts for this. They had a joint account too but he took the card from my sister ages ago, nothing is paid into here now anyway. when I was asked by her how i manage to have money for treats for myself (I am also a SAHM) I said it is family money we pool it in joint account and share what is left after bills paid, She said to me with a weird kind of look of disbelief 'he's (her H) not going to give me access to he £500-£550 a week'. So basically he has access to 2k per month she only has around £550-£600. he pays mortgage (£700) food shopping and sky bill and insurances. My sister has to pay water/gas/electricity/her clothes/kids clothes/her phone/kids activities/petrol mainly to ferry him about to sporting activities/council tax.
My sister has become increasing reliant on credit cards to meet her portion of the expenditure. She has told me she is very nearly maxed out. Some of this credit card debt is from when they married a couple of years ago. His mother died before they married and he said he would pay it off with his (reasonably) large inheritance. He never did, Put the bare minimum into the house and blew the rest on holidays, hotels, concerts, sporting holidays, general crap.
Before he would agree to buy their house he made her write and sign a letter to say in the event of divorce she will only get 30% of the house/assets. I am pretty sure this is worthless as they are married but IMO extremely shitty.
Sister has asked to use our mothers credit card to pay for her portion of a 3 week holiday being taken for her husbands sisters wedding. she is still paying off £300 she used our mothers card for a holiday last year as she can only meet the minimum payments.
She has requested clothes and high factor sun cream to take on said holiday for the children's up coming birthday as she said she couldn't afford it. I said ask her husband to get the sun cream I would get some clothes, she gave me a look like I had suggested she eat something disgusting and said he won't buy that. I then said well sainsburys have 25% off the clothes until monday you should pop down, I got some great stuff there. She said she had no money until thursday, when I suggested he buys them some clothes I was told he had no money either (he gets paid fridays, this was a saturday). She however had to put petrol in her car and drive 70 miles to pick him up from a run that evening, which included staying in a hotel (which he obviously had money for).
I have tried to suggest it is not really acceptable to live like this. I feel it is just ignored as my opinion. I would really appreciate if anyone would like to share if they think this is really not fair either. Any suggestions of where to go from here to balance things out evenly would be great too.
(I have suggested once she LTB but don't think that will happen)