DP >500k in savings and I have nothing

[Noemie23]

Apologies if this is not in the right place but I feel like this is taking a toll on my relationship.

I'm 27 weeks pregnant. Just finished my first year of university and not entitled to maternity allowance as I have not been working long enough in the last year. I'm also not entitled to income support or job seekers allowance because my DP has more than 500k in savings.

What should I do?

He hates it when I ask him for money and I hate it too because I don't see his money as my money. I want my own money. I've been trying so hard to find a job in the last 3 months with no luck.

I feel like I should claim income support but claim as single. I'm stuck in the house all day with nothing to do and nowhere to go, I'm going mad.

Actually I think the op should take some responsibility and try to have a conversation about this and come up with a plan. At the moment we don't know if this is financial abuse or ignorance or what. So both of them need to sort the money out - it's obscene to think that someone whose partner has 500,000 should raise her child on benefits - for the taxpayer and the op.

As things stand at the moment, your position is very precarious. You have no enforceable right to live in the property if it is in his sole name, which means that if it all goes pear-shaped you could literally be on the street, with your baby.

As an absolute minimum, the tenancy must be in joint names.

If he wants you to care for 'his' child, he must make sure you have a regular income.

And, ideally (assuming you want to) he should marry you - that's the only way effectively to secure your and the baby's futures.

I agree you both sound immature (weren't we all once?) and could do with some advice. Leaving £500k sitting around uninvested is madness - it should be in property - preferably in joint names.

This is a very scary thread OP.

Was your family background dysfunctional? It sounds it if you are NC with your Dad, and you and your mother don't get on.

Contact Women's aid. Take the advice you have received from student support.

He is making you totally dependent on him - he doesn't want you to have a career and a chance of independence but neither does he want to support you or the baby.

You would be much better off without him - and he would have to give you money to support his child.

Silverbadger, do you really belive as 23 he should invest it all in property and add his girlfriend to the deeds? At 23, the relationship is unlikely to last and why should the OP get £250k?

I don't believe any MN would let there very young adult child risk half of their inheritance on a girlfriend.

He's not making her totally dependant upon her, she's a student with loans that finance her day to day living. She's also perfectly capable of choosing to work. I don't see anything that suggests he is abusive or won't let her work.

I sort of agree with you in part Cookie and he should seek some advice about ring-fencing some of it and investing it, but they've been together a long time and have made this decision to have a child together which he was very keen to do. He should accept that his family needs supporting and at the moment he is the only one in a position to easily be able to do that.

It is indeed ridiculous as Silver said, that this child should need to be brought up at a cost to the tax payer because his/her independently wealthy father either can't be bothered or is just too selfish to make proper arrangements to support his family - the family he wanted, remember. This is one of those situations where the OP would be better protected if she were married. Having said that, if she leaves and is forced to go to the CSA she might find herself better off than if she stays with him. Can they take savings into account, or just earnings?

Perhaps there is a degree of naivety on both their parts, (it's total madness to be paying rent while that amount of money sits in the bank doing nothing, he could be earning good money in rental income and still not have to put himself out all that much.)

Quite honestly although he pays the rent for them both he must realise that the OP needs to have some money for herself as well, and she just isn't in a good position to earn that at the moment, and won't be for a while.

I just can't understand why anyone so well off and in a committed and loving relationship would not happily 'keep' their pregnant student GF of six years when they must be well aware of what little she has access to because of the situation she finds herself in.

He is acting like he's doing her a favour by allowing her to live rent free and drip feeding a bit of pocket money now and then when she's forced to go cap in hand.

What he should be doing is thinking of them as a family unit that needs keeping as a whole. But he isn't. That's the worrying thing.

There is a middle ground between providing nothing at all and giving OP half, though. The pregnancy is half his doing and he appears to have been the one who wanted to continue with it. OP is, realistically, unable to work at the moment and will be for a few months. This is all because of the pregnancy. As such, her DP needs to be providing. It's also possible that her pretty ambitious plans to study whilst looking after the child at the same time won't come to fruition. As I read it, she's not looking just to do a full time course while the baby is cared for elsewhere, which is tough but something a lot of women have done and should be feasible if she is healthy and has the will. She's looking to do the studying at home while looking after the baby, and that's something that's a lot less within her control. It isn't impossible, but nor can it be assumed that it will be possible either. If it doesn't come off, again DP will need to provide financial support because this situation is a consequence of his behaviour and choices.

I do think OP appears to be burying her head in the sand about the money issues too though. There doesn't seem to be any acceptance that she's extraordinarily unlikely to find work now, and that she won't be able to earn anything for realistically the next few months. This needs to be faced head on.

Place marking as will post later.

Alfie, yes I have a daughter - I will teach her to stand on her own feet and not rely on someone else, to be strong and have control over her own destiny in life. That no one apart from her is responsible for her.

The thing is, you can understand why he wants to ring fence his 'savings' but one has also to take into account that he is going to be a dad and as such his inheritance is something that will go, at least partly, in the common pot.

Because let's be fair there. He is making about £100 a week. How is he planning to care for that unborn child that he wanted to keep? How does he think that his partner, the mother of his child, is going to eat everyday with £400 a month? For that matter, how is he planning to feed, clothes a baby with that amount of money?

Of course he would like to keep these savings. I would too. But by taking the decision to keep that baby, even though both himself and his partner are still studying and have no full time income, he has also taken the decision for that money to be, at least partially, used to cared for his child and the mother of his child.

And then there is another side. Would you expect from a caring partner some support for, what is, a short period or would you expect him to be happy to see his partner struggling, not going out at all, jeopardising her education and therefore her future, who making any effort at all in return?
Because at the Monet, he isn't. Actually, he is expecting to carry on as before, do his studying and his part time job and maybe help a bit whilst the OP is trying to study full time whilst looking after a baby (I've done that with a two year old. It's impossible. You end up working evenings and then hoping they aren't going to wake up). That arrangement will certainly suit him.
But is it fair? And does it make him a good partner or a good father for that matter?

And btw, I love how he doesn't believe in marriage but isn't offering any of the protection that marriage would give the OP.
I'm not taking about his savings there. But the fact that being married would at least make it clear that if the mother adopts the role of a mother in a patriarchal society (ie gives up all what she was working for and make it fit around the baby) then he at least needs to accept his role as a provider in said patriarchal system.
If he wants to refuse it, then he is also refusing the easy way out re looking after his child and should consider

• doing some distance learning too to look after said child
• have full half responsibility for looking after this baby incl ensuring that his partner can study and go to work too
• ensuring that she is on the tenancy agreement so that either herself, nor his child could be made homeless at the drop of the hat.
• taking all the necessary legal decisions, incl having a will, having some life insurance etc etc....

My advise to the OP stands as before.
You really need to start looking at what being in a partnership really means. Look at all the legal stuff in case of separation or death. Think about what it means about sharing the costs. When you have a child and one partner stays at home or can not work as much as before, going half isn't the right or fair way to do it.

And I would also look at what you would be entitled should you be separating. You might be surprised.

Because at the Monet
he-he he could probably afford one with that inheritance :o
(the OP appears to be mia.....?)

CookieMonster my reference to putting property in joint names was on the basis they get married. But even if they don't he should provide some reassurance to the OP. At the moment she has no security at all. They're going to have a child and he can't hedge his bets forever. 23 isn't too young to be an adult, or to make adult decisions, though he should take advice.

I think the OP needs this thread to remain a source of advice for her situation. She has little real life support and is in a very vulnarable situation. I think debating the ins and outs indirectly, without addressing her and her needs directly is unnecessary in this case. Let us all focus on trying to help a pregnant 23 year old young girl

CookieMonster I don't believe any MN would let there very young adult child risk half of their inheritance on a girlfriend.
She isn't just a girlfriend, she's the woman he begged to have his child! Surely you give up your "but I'm 'only' 23, too young to make important decisions" card at that point. He and adult and he is the father, he is supposed to be the responsible adult in this situation, not the child. You make it sound like PP want him to hand over a check for 250k to a girl with dollar signs in her eyes - no - the point is he chose to make a family with the OP (actually, he pressured her to make a family with him by the sound of it), he should be taking responsibility and acting like a part of a family unit, not like a flatmate.

I know it's easy to say when you're not the one invested in the situation, but I think OP needs to have a very frank conversation with him, he either commits to being equal partners raising a child and sharing finances or he doesn't and they go their separate ways. The current situation can only lead to a LOT of resentment later which will lead to a much nastier split.

My take:

1. Does his actually have the money in one form or another? People lie about money.

2. Is it cash, or is it some sort of trust fund?

Obviously you need to talk to him. Can you take up a cleaning job - round here it is £10 per hour cash in hand and you could take the baby to nap in it's pram. You'll get fit post birth and fit it in with studies.

If he bought a house with the money, he and the Op could both live in it rent free and they would both be entitled to benefits based on joint income as there would be no capital sitting around. He could keep the house in his own name thus not sharing "his capital".

Pensions savings are also not taken into account.

I think the rules on capital in the benefit system make no sense as if he had rich parents as opposed to money in the bank the position would be entirely different.

OP - you both sound a bit young.
I married at 24 and had my first child at 25. But we both had jobs, joint (!) savings, paid off student loans from our joint income and had been together since I was 19.

He doesn't want to get married. OK, but he lets you struggle and watches? You don't go out because you have no money.
What sort of relationship is this? You are still at uni, he should be supporting you financially. I supported my DH while he was still at uni and I had already finished and was working. We weren't married then. It's what a relationship is about imo.
Now you are chucking a baby into the mix, it won't miraculously get better. You'll have even less money, less sleep and probably no time for studies unless it's one of those rare angelic babies.

Talk to him. Emotional support is not enough anymore, you are going to be a family and he needs a wake up call.

PS and make sure you finish your education, it would be my first priority! If he works part time he can look after the baby when he's not working and you can study. Don't make it an option, it is the only way you will finish your course.

I would not be employing someone by the hour if they were stopping to feed or soothe a baby the whole time.

Leave - I run a business and have been doing so with my children with me since they were born. I now employ 8 people and 2 currently bring their children in to work with them also. Yes we have children in our office ( shock horror for some!). It works fine tbh. The Children all learn to occupy themselves at times, parents learn to work around children's timings to suits them best. I'm 100% happy to pay someone to work alongside their children

Well I don't know what you employ them to do, but if an agency sent me a cleaner and she arrived with a baby or child in tow I'd be less than thrilled about it!

I don't think this is an issue about the DP giving the OP a lump sum. I think it's an issue of her needing an 'income' to pay for necessaries and to be able to plan. Since she can't get benefits because of his savings nor maintenance payments because they are together, he needs to ensure that she receives - at bare minimum - the equivalent of both of those from his savings/earnings. In my view, as the mother of his child she is 'owed' quite a bit more on top, but at the very least she should get what she is legally entitled to have were she single.