This may be long. And I’m not even sure what I am asking really.
DH and I have been married for eleven years. Almost entirely harmoniously. Today we have argued about my DS and his DS 1. It’s about money.
My DS is 16, at sixth form and has guitar lessons as an extension activity (£500 per year). DH is not happy that I went ahead and paid for these without telling him (I did, I just mentioned the second instalment this week so he had probably forgotten).
Because My Ex is useless, (£26.47 per month), and mostly absent, DH has been the main day-to-day influence in DS’s life. My DS has the capacity to be a proper shit, but he shares it more than equally, I’m more likely the target than DH. But DH would like DS to be more grateful for what he does. But actually he has been less trouble than either of DH’s sons in the scheme of things – so far.
Now to DH’s DS1, I’m not going to call him DSS because he is only four years younger than me, so a man in his mid-forties. I’ll call him John.
John has a history of poor financial decisions. When DH and I were first together, DH had guaranteed a car loan, which John defaulted on – our overdraft was exactly the amount of that default for about 18 months.
Some years later, John asked us to be guarantors on a rental agreement. I said we couldn’t because we were in the middle of buying a house, and after the car loan, we couldn’t trust him. Fine, he made other arrangements.
Two years ago, John asks DH for a loan because he wants a new computer – about £2600. I wasn’t happy because I had been holding off buying a new laptop despite needing it for work, for about a year, but DH and I earn exactly the same so, although we pool all money he took responsibility and, took out a 0% CC to buy the computer, and John did pay regularly.
Cut to earlier this year – March. John and his family need to move on from their rented home, they have been gifted a new home in trust but need help as it is hundreds of miles from their rented home. John asks DH for £2000 to pay for removals while he waits for his rental deposit to be returned.
DH asked me, I agreed (on the understanding it would be returned by early summer). We are comfortable, but DH was due to retire this year, this was not money we could afford to write off.
Sometime in September, DH let it slip that John’s deposit had been withheld and that he had said John could start paying it back in Jan (2019) in instalments.
So, today, I raised the issue of the debt. DH has not discussed it further with John, and, appears to have written it off. This was when he started complaining about my DS. DH couches it in terms of not having done enough for John when he was young – hardly my problem, I have worked hard from a more working class background, and didn’t have the opportunities John had as a result of DH’s previous marriage (it’s a complicated family). And yes, I have had help from my parents, but I have always paid them back with interest (because that’s the right thing to do and so I can ask again if I ever need it).
This month we dipped into overdaft for the first time in eight years. Only for a day, and for under £100, but we have worked hard to get out and stay out of debt. I am supposed to be having a medical procedure this month that we are having to pay for privately and now I don’t want to because DH seems to have written off money I thought we had. (This procedure isn’t available on the NHS, but I am worried if I don’t have it done I will, in the medium term, be unable to work if it gets worse).
I suppose I'm looking for kind ways to speak to DH, and unemotional ways to speak about John?