Cheap Husband

[Amanda87]

How do you deal with a cheap husband that just WON'T SPEND ANY MONEY ON YOU?
No dates if I don't ask for them, I had to pay for my wedding band, our honeymoon trip was ALL 50/50 and so is everything when it comes to sharing costs. He makes more money than me and he thinks it's fair if I pay for half of everything.

50/50 is perfectly reasonable - my relationship has always like that unless one of us was flat broke, and then we'd usually pay the other back afterwards.

I used to get this complaint from my ex.
Add up his salary + your salary. Add up your typical monthly joint expenditure as a couple (including your own bills) to get a total.
You then do his salary divided by the total. That amount is his contribution. It is by far the fairest way. Neither party can then complain as if you can't pay your way, the issue is your financial mismanagement and that isn't the responsibility of your partner. Nobody can then be accused of financial abuse...

Should have said excluding your own bills

Splitting costs 50/50 is not abuse, but if he buys Ralph Lauren for himself and then when he goes to buy you a present, it's Primark.....he knows exactly what value he places each of you in.

Splitting 50/50 is all well and good... for now

but the conversation about when children come along is equally relevant.. you must know now how he sees the responsibility and childcare costs financially etc ..

Depends on the difference in salaries and also why you earn less - if it's because you simply prefer to work part time, then fair enough.

But have you discussed what the plan is if you have DC?

Rathersexyfortysomethingblonde-why you’re with him ?

My ex would buy me allsorts but everytime an argument hit all I'd get was.. you wouldn't have this and that if it weren't for me.
Since then I've bought the nice things for myself. And household costs should be 50/50 maybe I'm just old fashioned in a sense but if you are both earning i don't see what the issue it to be honest.
I'm not sure about anyone else but I want a man for love and affection not to be my personal cash machine.

What a turn off!

Splitting 50/50 is fine if you have equal incomes but what happens when OP has children?

Will she be expected to pay 50% of everything while on maternity leave? What if he gets a promotion that massively increases his income?

50/50 would not be fair then.

Yep, my exh was tight. It's a miserable way to live, embarrassing, and it really got me down. I'd been promised that we'd go on holiday every year, because we could afford it. But then he chose not to. Everything we owned was falling apart, because he was too tight to replace it. We had to share drinks at restaurants, and only went if there was a special deal on. We split bills 50/50, even when I was on maternity money and working part-time, but eventually he decided that he didn't fancy going to work any more. He spent all his money on games consoles and games. He went through receipts when ever I came back from the supermarket. He eventually took my card and used it instead of his own card. He saved 10s of thousands in his name, whilst I had nothing.

It's miserable. I'm glad that I'm out of it.

Some people are just tight. A very unattractive quality. They don't change.
Why marry such a person? You must know they won't change?

Why did he marry you if he didn’t want to provide for you financially? Have you suggested combining finances (I.e. joint current and savings account and put your entire salaries in there then save/spend out of there)? Do have children with him until he agrees to acting like you are married. He seems to be under the impression you’re just cohabitees with a tax benefit.

The 50/50 situation won’t work long term. Even less so if children appear. I understand your question/post is about the financial situation, so I’ll stick to that, unlike most on here!

On paper 50/50 seems fair, unfortunately life isn’t always like that despite our intention of fairness. If you remove the emotion from this for a second, here is one possible avenue.

Work it on a percentage basis. So if he is on 100k and you are on 20k the the fixed outgoings (mortgage, bills, council tax etc) should be a 80/20 split. This will still leave both with control over your own finances. You know your figures and work it out from there. Ensure you both know cost of living, don’t leave it to him or him just leave it to you.

Sit down together, do some numbers. This is the wrong place for this discussion. You need to talk to him, not people you don’t know on a forum!

50/50 isn't necessarily fair. If, for example, he earns a lot more and lives up to it, and expects her to pay half when she can't keep up financially yet can't cut her cloth accordingly because of him, that wouldn't be OK. I think it's weird for one half of a partnership to be able to get by comfortably and the other to be worried about money. You're supposed to be a team.

I would be very careful about having children with someone so rigid about money, who didn't see it as pooling resources. They'll be the sort of person who thinks only you need to save for maternity leave etc, as if having children isn't a joint enterprise.

50:50 is fine when you are both working, earn roughly the same, same job prospects etc. If time stood still, that'd be fine. But time doesn't stand still. It moves relentlessly forward, bringing changes every year. One person gets promoted with payrise to boot. Does all that payrise go into their personal savings, or does it benefit the family? One person gets made redundant and their benefits are now a fraction of their earnings - do they borrow money and go into debt to keep paying their 50%?

Life changes.

When we met, DH and I earned roughly the same. We could have gone 50:50, but we were planning a family which meant I'd be spending time on maternity pay (which then was £55/week) and possibly reduced hours afterwards, we weren't sure. But what we were sure of was that we were a team, a household; we were sure that this marriage was a joint enterprise. And so we pooled finances.

Both our salaries were paid into a joint account, from which all household costs were paid (including holidays and nights out). 'Pocket money', for purely personal spending, was one of those household costs and standing orders transferred money from our joint account to our sole accounts. The sum went up and down depending on how flush or otherwise we were - but we ALWAYS got the same as each other.

You need to decide if your marriage is teamwork, or flatmates with sex on the side. And you must not let yourself be a pregnant flatmate with a reduced income if it is 50:50 now and forever.

How do you deal with a cheap husband that just WON'T SPEND ANY MONEY ON YOU?

What was he thinking when he married you?

50:50 is only OK if your incomes are the same and your outgoings are the same.

What you are describing is a situation where if you have kids, you will be skint, if you go on holiday you will want Butlins and he'll want Mauritius and so on until it grates so much you cannot bear the sight of his socks, let alone the sight of him.