Partner being financially difficult - 1st time parents to be

[Firstimemummy86]

We have a baby due in few months time
I’m self Employed and I plan on taking only 12 weeks off when the baby is born - I wish I could
Take more as I really wanted to try breastfeeding and bonding well
The pressure is mainly coming from money/ partner. He earns ok money not low not high and I was similar we have always paid bang on half everything rent bills food shop so there be no arguments. So he’s saying I hope you got enough savings for when your off work because I’m not paying your half for you to sit at home with a baby all day whilst I go to work - I know I get maternity allowance and child benefit and this just covers my half rent n bills and leaves me with £13 a month for food petrol my phone bill direct debits whatever baby needs 😢I’m stressing out now I do have a little bit of savings £1200
He does earn enough to cover us with money spare but his life isn’t changing at all and his job etc doesn’t change - he is basically saying he’s not contributing anymore than he is paying now when baby is here - please tell me am I being unreasonable? I mean he can take all the maternity allowance I get and child benefit it’s just once the savings I saved are gone they are gone - when I go back to work it won’t be as many hours as I used to do either my business has to change and I have to rely on childcare too which sucks and hasn’t been spoken about if that’s half each either
I don’t think he be happy joining our finances either and likes it separate but I’m terrified I may need to lean on him and hel
Just see Me as a freeloader
I have tried to discuss things and made a joke about ‘getting the rent book out on the labour ward’ but it didn’t go down well 🙈
If I’m being unreasonable please tell me I am or give me some tips or ideas to be super good with money - I’ve got no debts thank god and whilst pregnant have given up
Going out and living lavish no holidays maybe a take away every 4 weeks
Petrol costs me a fair bit but that’s for
For work and I got my car to pay for which still
Needs paying for when baby is here
Luckily been given loads of second hand baby stuff and charity shops I’ve found things too I don’t need to buy anymore baby essentials luckily
Where is the cheapest place to shop for nappies and do many people use the cloth nappies does that save money in the long run ?
I know my fella is tight as a frogs arse but I think he sees having a newborn as having a vacation
I don’t want to fall
Out (or fall into debt) but I think he should step up a bit and understand we might need his help 😢
This is horrible after always being so independent and is only thing I’m stressing about during my pregnancy xxxxx

You are going to be a family and he needs to provide for his child not just leave it all to you!

Does he think it’s your responsibility to be buying nappies wipes and everything else the baby needs just because you’ll be the one who is changing bums and making bottles?

Red flags all over this I’m sorry to say! Sounds like a right prat, some people have said leave him but it’s hard when you’re about to give birth.

Believe me, once your baby arrives, you will develop a short fuse for this kind of bullshit. He does leave then you can claim universal credit (might be able to now depending on your circumstances) and hopefully this will help you. But please look into it.

My partner tried pulling fast ones on me after I had given birth to our son (going out on benders) I told
Him I wouldn’t put up with this shit a second more and to get out if he can’t put HIS child first. Safe to say he’s now a changed man.

Don’t put up with his bullshit, even if it does cause an argument, get him told straight! How dare he put you under stress like this heavily pregnant!

Did he want a baby?
He sounds vile.
Nurseries near me are £45-£110 a day, so even on the lower side he can pay £900 a month to you to childcare his child. Plus you can knock off at 6pm!

He's a fucking cunt. Does he carry a baby for nine months? Does he go through all the physical and hormonal issues? Does he risk his fucking life giving birth? Will he have to deal with the physical and emotional consequences of birth? How much is all that trouble worth in money? What does he think looking after a newborn looks like? He has no fucking clue. He's a self absorbed, ignorant, stupid fucking cunt. I hope you find someone who deserves you OP .

If you become a single parent then you will be much better off financially. He will have to pay child maintenance, you will get child benefit and you can check on entitledto (the website) to identify what else you might get. He has legal obligations as the father, and is currently being abusive towards you. Being this tight with money is very, very unattractive and will be untenable once your baby arrives. Don't let this moron spoil your motherhood.

His behaviour was probably abusive before you were pregnant.

It has escalated since the pregnancy began and will probably escalate further once the baby is born.

You need to protect yourself and, if you don't feel able to leave now, make sure you have everything set up to go at any moment.

I can tell you now that your life will be 100x if you just get rid of this abusive prick right now and start making solid plans to go it alone.

None of what he’s saying is acceptable. What an unfortunate situation you’re in.

What happens when you go back to work at 12 weeks? Who will pay for childcare?

I can't believe he spoke to you like that. In your position I would be getting the hell out of there and moving to my mum's.

*100x better

Easier to break away from an abuser before you give birth.

Hear, hear artio0 - brutal but so SO true!

If the conversation does not go well i.e. he has a complete turn around in his thinking on his behaviour towards you and your baby....get back to your mum's because stress like he's causing you is what often leads to even more anxiety for you when baby arrives.

I’d go to your mums now. Tell him everything he says and does right now tells you he doesn’t want a child. If you carry the baby and birth the baby then look after the baby without much support from him while paying the same, what is he? You’re a single mum. In which case you’d rather the world knows you’re a single mum and he’s a deadbeat dad.
I would only stay if: finances are shared. You budget so you spend what’s coming in, which is his salary and the child benefits. If you need to dip into savings you do this equally. When you are working you both do nights. When you aren’t working he does a night on the weekend and the odd night wake when you’re really struggling. It’s your first baby - he will probably have to come home from work and roll his sleeves up to cook clean and parent. Babies are 24 hour a day businesses and you both have to parent.
Give him a week or two of you at your mums to think this through before you talk.

What a fucking arsehole.

After you will have grown a human being in your body, given birth and then used your body to confort and nourish it, he's going to push you in to debt because his responsibility ended when his sperm left his body?!

I don’t think you realise just how awful and abusive he is being
This is supposed to be the fun easy bit, making plans preparing for the child you both made
But he has destroyed all that by believing that the baby is not to be allowed to impact his happy life or cost him any extra money....
If that warped thinking doesn’t alarm you what will?
I think you would be better off with your mum making him pay child support, because it sounds as if that’s the only way he’d accept his financial responsibility

Men like this make my blood boil. Twelve weeks off is NOT going to be a relaxing holiday from work. You will be recovering from the birth and the baby will most likely wake up constantly during the night.
After your extremely short mat leave there will be childcare and ongoing baby stuff to pay for, plus someone will need to take days off when baby is sick and can’t go to nursery. Your baby will probably still wake in the night and need feeding.
If he is this selfish now, I can tell you exactly how this is going to go: you will be expected to keep earning the same money PLUS you will be responsible for 100% of baby’s sick days, night waking, expenses and childcare. You will also need to do all the housework if you want a decent home because he won’t do it.
His attitude towards your maternity leave is appalling and he won’t change. You would be so much better off moving back to where your family live and claiming child support from him. Once baby is here, he may be able to legally stop you taking them to live five hours away.

So he’s saying I hope you got enough savings for when your off work because I’m not paying your half for you to sit at home with a baby all day whilst I go to work

That's all I needed to read to.

Leave him now. immediately. make plans and go. Anyone who is about to become a parent to a baby who has that attitude towards the other parent needs to go. What a fucking selfish arse, telling you loud and clear that he will be financially abusive when it comes to your baby and your life together. So go your separate ways now.

Well, he can take time off to look after his baby and then when you go back to work, he'll be responsible for 50% of the baby's care and costs. Tell him to stick that in his pipe (and see how much of a holiday he thinks it is).

Horrible man

Fcking run

Get away as soon as you can
It will get worse
Been there sadly

I would go to your mums now. If you wait till baby is born then he could go to court and stop you moving away and then you really will be stuck

So he’s saying I hope you got enough savings for when your off work because I’m not paying your half for you to sit at home with a baby all day whilst I go to work

This is so awful. It isn't A Baby - it is HIS baby.

For a laugh, tell him you've decided not to sit home with a baby all day but will be going back to work after 2 weeks of your annual leave and how does he propose to mind the baby?

then leave his sorry ass. Better now than in 3 years when you have another child, have stalled at work or given up work and are truly financially vulnerable.

he is a fucker.

I am incandescent on your behalf that I have had to re write this several times OP.

Do you have friends and family nearby? I'm sorry if you said that in a follow up post and I missed it. --

I would suggest that you have a very frank conversation about what your arrangements will be once this baby arrives. He cannot expect to contribute £0 to his own child's upbringing. If he doesn't consider caring for a newborn to be "work", I would really like to see him try and give it a go solo just for 24hrs to see if that changes his mind.

I fully appreciate you need to get back to work as you are self employed, but don't hold on to this time frame too rigidly. Give yourself the option of taking the time to heal, bonding with your baby, and generally getting your head on straight again IF YOU NEED TO.

I also really want to say that you should consider telling the ducking ducker of a partner of yours to stop being such a monstrously massive, financially abusive twat. Sorry. Still very angry on your behalf and had to say my 2p.

Christ, this can’t be real. Why did you decide to reproduce with this twat?

I’m currently on mat leave and bringing in less than half of my previous salary, as weeks progress it’ll get less and less until I owe my employer money each month due to a lease car. Prior to pregnancy we paid 50-50 on the bills and mortgage etc. It’s a given that as we are a team and he’s had a child bore and being raised by me while he is able to continue working that he’ll pay far more towards our joint life for the foreseeable than I will (including when I go back to work part time). Something I’m happy with as I’m at the top of my career while he has some way to go still.

Every payday I deduct a few hundred for spends and then chuck a few hundred max into our shared account: if I run out, I use the shared account too. Where he used to pay around £800 per month in its now £1400+, plus our shared stuff like groceries, meals out. It just wouldn’t cross his mind to try and nickel and dime me when it’s nobody’s ‘fault’ that I’m the only one of the two of us who can bear a child, feed the child with my body, need time off to recover from the birth. He reminds me frequently it’s all our money and proposed and married me during the pregnancy to ensure my financial protection during the sacrifice of compromising my income by having a child.

This is how decent normal men behave. You’re living with a lunatic.

Oh, and he hired a cleaner because he recognised after a few weeks of having a newborn that with him at work all day and ME WORKING ALL DAY CARING FOR A NEWBORN there is no time for me to clean properly or enough to maintain the house to the standard I like without sacrificing a lot of sleep and rest (‘sleep while baby is sleeping’ doesn’t really work if your husband is working 50+ hours over four days and giving you a break on his days off and you need to find time in those snatches of naps to clean the bathrooms and floors, I was going crazy from lack of sleep).

Not trying to gloat just saying there are ways decent men behave and ways knobs do. It is zero surprise to me you’re unmarried too.

My partner was a bit like this and expected me to go back to work as soon as possible, after the baby was out for two days he changed his tune because the reality of what it was like actually set in. It was BLOODY HARD, not a holiday for me.
Maybe it'll just take a reality check for your partner as well.
My partner was a right dickhead for being that way through my pregnancy though as it meant I was constantly stressing and worrying and feeling like it was all on me. Your partner is being a dickhead too.

OP just a word of caution if you do plan on leaving him.... Go and stay with your parents before the baby is born. My understanding (may be wrong) is that if baby is born while you are living with your parents he cannot force you to stay, or return, to where you are at the moment. If you give birth where you are you will risk fighting him in court to move more than a certain distance (I think its 2 hours) away. You may need support of family, or to live with family at a later date and he could make it impossible for you to do that!

Also re. Cloth nappies yes they do save money long term but are an expensive outlay... Research BST groups and cloth nappy libraries. Some governments also offer incentives and vouchers. Aldi also sometimes does cheap mio solo all in ones (cloth gets bad press but are really easy to use and once you find the right fit - much like disposables- they contain far more than disposables! I didn't get one poonami with my ds).
I would definitely recommend cloth wipes as they save money and are much more effective than disposables/cotton wool. You can get packs for about £10. Check Babipur for both nappies and wipes if you are interested.