I have fairly recently discovered some slightly underhand financial issues with DH. I have since been burying my head in the sand about it but with the help of some counselling about anxiety and depression I am feeling strong enough to tackle it. I'm just wondering if I'm being fair though?
Basically between extra work that DH chooses to do (a during which I have sole care of the children while he's away day and night doing this) and the fact that he currently works full time as well I have discovered from our p60's that he earns £10,000 more than me. I have always left our joint finances to him and he was adamant from the start of us living together that we only pay in to the joint account enough to cover mortgage, bills and childcare expenses. We have separate personal accounts.
I work part time and look after the children on those days. He has recently upped his game in terms of looking after the children as I have been struggling mentally. I'm also struggling financially having recently paid for most of our family holiday and buying new items that the kids require. Most of the time he does pay for holidays.
When we sorted out who was paying what, the idea was that we would have the same amount left over each. I have discovered that he only pays in £200 more than me a month to the joint account. I have been naive I suppose leaving everything to him and trusting that he will sort out a fair deal. I have also discovered that he has been sacrificing salary to a lucrative scheme at work and that this plus other payments for items for himself have not been taken in to account.
I am unable to save as I'm constantly going in to my overdraft. We have had previous discussions about money but it's a touchy subject for him. Basically he thinks that as I don't contribute as much financially I should have less money and hadn't thought that his savings should be taken in to account. I advised that this was not fair and that he should sort out something fairer. Nothing has changed in the last few months. Another recent discussion where I told him that he was being secretive and I needed more transparency led to him telling me that he didn't trust me with money and that if I knew he had money I would want to spend it.
We do have slightly differing attitudes to money he's very cautious and doesn't like getting in to debt, I am a bit more impulsive but hardly reckless. I have no loans and buy most of my clothes from supermarkets. In the past I have managed to save to buy cars outright but I do tend to eventually spend the money, this is true (at one point he encouraged me to buy a sports car though rather than plough the money in to the mortgage which was my original plan). He claims that he doesn't trust me because I want to do things and then I expect others to pay for it. I assume he's referring to me not working full time to look after the children.
My suggestion to him is going to be that all money gets ploughed in to the joint account and then we have a separate account in to which gets paid some pin money to support purchase of clothes and hobbies.
Does this sound fair or are there any other tips/ advice you can give me? I'm thinking this might be a deal breaker as if trust is missing there doesn't seem to be much hope for us despite our relationship improving on other levels recently.