Another thread about splitting finances in a couple..

[wozzle95]

This time we are unmarried. We have one child together and I am step mum to his 2 kids.

He earns mega bucks. Over a seven figure sum. I used to have the same career and earned six figures and was on track to earn much more. But we decided if we had kids, we'd never see them if i worked those hours and also a perfect less hours' less money job came along which i took shortly before i got pregnant. (I ended up hating it and had i not got pregnant would have gone back into previous high earning job at a different company).

We are not married. He lost a lot in his first divorce and is therefore v reticent. I accepted this and that it might take some time (if ever) to change his mind. Have started work again too but very part time..a few hours' here and there very sporadically. Am too busy being mum, cook, cleaner, taxi, gardener etc to manage much more at this point (my child is only a toddler). I expect to earn maybe £25k this year.

Now OH is saying if I earned more like 40k or over, he'd expect me to contribute towards our bills. I instead believe I need to save this for my own financial security. On top of his seven figure salary he has about another million in assets. I feel this is very unfair and that my sacrifice of my career should be compensated a little, married or not. AIBU? Yes I went into this with my eyes open. Nor would I expect anything like joint pooling of assets. I'd just like to know views on whether my view is reasonable that I should receive some recognition for the sacrifice (which also enables him to do his job...he has always been very vocal that he does not believe kids fare best with 2 working parents). It's also not always as simple as 'well you should have waited for someone to marry'...we fell in love and have a beautiful child and I feel very blessed. I am also older and time was not on my side to argue the marriage issue before conceiving.

"seeing yourself as a separate entity financially."

Well, he couldn't have been clearer that that is the way he sees it. He seems to expect you to place yourself in the position of dependent but doesn't want any obligations towards you as a result.

I note that your son is , according to him , " the love of your life " .

It's all or nothing with people like this. Either he ( your partner ) is everything to you, and you are willing to sacrifice your own future and that of your child, on his ego.

Or he is nothing to you. And you are nothing to him. You can't love your child AND him. It has to be one or the other.

The most important thing to him in his life is his money, and he will do anything to protect that. He is not willing to give you any financial security at all. You are a potential gold-digger ahead of being a partner and mother of his child.
He thinks that you should be grateful to him for being allowed to live in his house.
He will never give you more than you have now.

50/50? Great. You can go back FT and your 6 figure salary should be quite enough to pay a nanny for any extra childcare you need.

A reasonable, loving partner would never have reacted like he did.

Cheap with money, cheap with love. I've never, ever seen an exception.

'The comment came about as we were trying to assess the correct level of maintenance to offer her to avoid court (based on previous cases in his experience).'

This should have told you all you needed to know about him. It was entirely none of your business what their divorce agreement is. You got what you wanted, a child. It would have cost you less in the long run to have used a sperm donor, kept your job and hired a nanny, but that's by the by.

He's an arse and you have been very foolish. Get a job, a FT one, move back into your flat and hire a nanny.

I wonder why he was so keen to avoid court . Given his income , I guess he's paying at least £100k Pa. if he's so sure that is too much, why didn't he just go to court, it's not like he didn't have the money ?

No on says " oh I'll have to pay my kids £1.8M, that's not worth spending £50k in legal fees "

Makes me wonder what he's hiding .

Thanks for all the messages. Interesting views. Though expat you rather miss the point that we fell in love and I wanted his baby not just used him as a sperm donor. And of course I have been involved in maintenance discussions because i need to input what childcare i can do and (to echo an earlier point) because we make decisions jointly for the main part. He has paid off family home mortgage and mortgage on a holiday home and separately pays for school fees so the previous astronomical child maintenance payments were actually indirect spousal maintenance (which as his ex has re married and her new partner is wealthy) were no longer applicable. I suspect the answer is for me to ramp up my freelance work as a pp suggested so my CV still looks good enough for me to rejoin private practice and for us to go to a solicitor to agree a payment if we split up. I am seeing a solicitor next week and we both have counselling booked.

Maybe you should have checked that he really wanted your baby as well. And wanted that more than he wanted to not "give" you "his" money.

I really don't understand how intelligent women (which you obviously are) get so blinded by "love" that they agree to the economically debilitating consequences of having a child without the legal protection of marriage. i really do feel it should be added to PSHE lessons - I've definitely drummed it into my dd and ds that they should never consider having children (co-parenting being the ultimate lifelong commitment to someone) without the commitment of marriage. It's not that I'm ultra traditional - I would love ether to be a heterosexual civil partnership available - just that atm marriage is the only thing that gives both parents decent legal rights.