Marrying and giving-up work!

[WiiNon]

There's so much info. to explain but I don't want to be too outing but would really like peoples advice.
I've been in a relationship with DP for 2 years, I have 2 young children, (primary infants age, he has 5 infants to senior school age, their age is rele8as they're all school age. 50/50 with their Mum).
We've wanted to progress the relationship rather than just continue dating, especially with living an hour away from each other.
He asked us to move into his house, I've been reluctant as it is too much of a risk, he could ask us to leave at anytime! My children go to a good school where we live and are happy there. I own our small home, have a decent job that fits mostly around school times (some good childcare). I can't risk uprooting them and it doesn't work out and we then can't easily move back due to lack of school places. (I thought I could rent my house out) However my job is just a 30min commute to the city, I'd be at least doubling it.
He very recently suggested we could marry. This then makes it less of a risk to move into his house, schools and for work. However, with the children combined I'd need to change work hours so that I could do some drop off and collections. He has also since said I could give-up my job, he would employ me through his businesses and pay me a wage. I could have the time with mine and his children (which I'd love). Although I'm not so happy about the thought of giving up a career to do school drop offs and collections but would love the time with them, especially school holidays. Although instead of working I'd simply be cleaning the house, washing etc. For the children and us. Although every-other week I'd have less to do and could hopefully make friends and be involved in the school and have a simple life.
Sorry it's long, advice please.

If he has a high income why on earth wouldn't he voluntarily pay maintenance to his ex-wife? He can afford to be generous after all .

I suspect that he is actually quite 'careful' with money, which is partly why he has been so successful.

You must say 'no' to working for him. I have seen several threads on here where a woman has worked for her husband's company for years and when they divorce she has no way of proving her employment history. A new employer won't be interested in hearing about your ex-husband - they will just want a verifiable reference for that time period. Even getting an ordinary local job would be a better choice. It is also clearly a tax dodge, as it enables him to cover a significant proportion of his own household expenses from top-line company income.

Your current setup seems almost ideal and I would think very carefully before giving it up.

Oh and I agree with PP. Anyone genuinely well off and working at that level will have a nanny and cleaner. He gets a great deal out of it - you, not so much.

It sounds like you’re going to do it against better judgement so if I were you I wouldn’t settle for the 2k a month to feed all the children ask for more as you will have no money left over for yourself. For what it’s worth I don’t think you should do it but if you are anyway be smart about it and don’t just accept any old deal he throws at you. I assume all the children treats clothes ect will have to
Come out of that 2k also? It’s not not going to go very far!

OP if the job was advertised as

Housekeeper/cook/nanny wanted

Live in 24/7 on call for all duties cleaning cooking childcare school runs - for 7 children! Must be prepared to sleep with boss.

Pay - all bill, but you contribute to food and outing.

Would you apply? No holiday or pension scheme, no breaks, accountable to both resident and non resident parent ...

I can’t see many applications there

OP,
I have 4 big children, all healthy weight and the amount of food and snacks they go through a week would make you weep.

Keeping them in dinners, lunches (will you be making 7 lunches) and all the bits they will eat including you for 9 could be £4-500 a week.

Have you any idea how long it takes to prep and cook a meal for 9 people.
Clean up after it too.

You will be shattered after 7 days of it.

As an experiment, how about you find out how much it would cost to get a housekeeper that cooks, shops, makes lunches, does laundry for a family of 5 kids and one adult. Also throw in a cleaner/skivvy to do all the hard labour in a house like that.

He's looking for a cheap skivvy OP.

I wonder how sexy you'll feel after running all day after 7 children. Cleaning up after breakfast, then preparing lunch, then getting stuck into a meal for 9, every single day .......until they go to there mother's and you collapse and clean up the mess they have left. To have it all lovely for when they return.

OP, one week in, and the enormity of your mistake will be clear.

This doesn’t strike me as being a marriage between equals, more of a master and housekeeper type thing, a marriage for his convenience. You and your children will be at the bottom of the pecking order, below his children. Your kids will be the ones changing home and school, giving up seeing their friends and sharing your attention with 5 other step-siblings.
I would imagine at least 1 if not more of your future step-children will play up, especially when they realise their dad is “paying” you.

At bare minimum OP, do please ensure your continue to claim Child Benefit, including once married, even though this man will have to pay for this in his taxes due to the income cap. Otherwise you'll find yourself with almost no state pension - and you will need that state pension.

A good man would want you to protect your state pension entitlement.

I'll bet the exw didn't claim CB for his tax reasons and I bet she wishes keenly that she had.

Suggest to him that he sells up so you can both live somewhere convenient - he can still move and be in the perimeters set in his divorce, and it could still be closer to your work / kids school. At least you a BIT more equal in that sense.

If he jumps at the chance to set up a new home with you, (make sure it's big enough so all kids have their own room tho ) then maybe he's not so bad after all.

Something tells me he will refuse to leave his home, which says it all. Don't do it to your children. They will be second best.

Another one who thinks that this man sounds really cheap - I think that you are blinded by the big house and the big gestures!

The money he is offering you is not even close to being enough.

For reference, I pay my nanny £2,500 per month (full time equivalent - she is part time) to look after one child, plus 5% matched pension, plus she brings her daughter to work with her and I pay for the kids' food whilst she is in our house (because I want her child to feel welcome and have the same experience as mine) and for reasonable expenses and day trips and mileage that are for the benefit of both children whilst my child is in her care. My nanny clocks off at 5.30, doesn't do anything for my husband and I in terms of housework (does a bit of laundry for my daughter and the cooking for the kids - we sometimes get the leftovers - and tidies up anything she does with the kids). I think she is brilliant and wonderful and I wouldn't be without her.

You won't clock off at 5.30 and you will spend all of what he pays you on the kids. Your house will be rented out, but that money (assuming you don't spend it on ensuring your kids don't miss out and are not second class citizens) will have to cover savings, your pension etc.

Mean mean mean. I don't believe that he didn't ask for 50:50 to short change the woman who brought his 5 kids into the world and who he left when they were very young.

I should also acknowledge that my nanny pays tax, which brings her salary down a bit. But nonetheless, you are being totally stuffed!

Fuck no. You'd serioulsy need your head testing to give all these things up. No no no no no NO.

And bollocks to not knowing that 50/50 would have meant not paying maintenance.

Are you seriously so naive as to think that a wealthy man who runs a successful company, wouldn't immediately check his financial liabilities in the event of a divorce? That he's so dim, it wouldn't have occurred to him to have done some basic googling or asked his solicitor?

Hell no.

I'm in the fuck no camp.

So let me get this right.

He will hire you through his company. You will then use your 'salary' to contribute fifty percent towards the household expenditure, so fifty percent towards the expenses incurred for nine people, compared to you spending on three people currently? Your salary however will remain the same as you earn currently? Is that correct?

You will be doing the all childcare of seven children, probably cooking as he doesn't cook. Spending precious time with your own children is very different to running around after seven children, especially when five aren't yours.

Will he pay you a pension?

When do you get free time from seven children?

He managed to get fifty fifty child contact despite his wife having been the main carer. And you think that's wonderful. There is no way on earth a man who is a millionaire, has access to the best legal advice, was unaware that his child maintenance contribution would be zero if he had the children fifty fifty. My DC's father found out swiftly and attempted for fifty fifty childcare too.

The DC get on really well currently, but they're children, children fall out all the time, what if in the long term one or more child decides they hate your DC or your DC don't get on with theirs. What will you do?
Also when you move in your DC will quickly become aware of the financial disparity between their lives and that of their step-siblings. This will lead to upset.

You will be in in charge of childcare for seven children, this is totally different to spending time with your two. Will you have time with just your two?

If you marry him, and if the marriage does not succeed, you will need money to get a good divorce solicitor. You'll be limited by the salary you are paid by your DP, and the money you have left after contributing fifty percent towards the household expenses.
And a marriage that fails in a short time (I think it's under ten years), you will get very little, I also doubt very much a man who is as rich as you say, and has been divorced once and owns his own businesses, won't have had legal advice on how to ensure he does not lose his assets on divorcing a second time.

Your DP's ex got a good payout as she was married to him for a decade and had five children with him.

If you really want to go down this rabbit hole. You need to be very clear on what he expects of you in terms of childcare, housework, financial contribution. And also ask yourself, will you feel able to tell him no or refuse to pick up additional household drudgery if he is paying you a salary and putting you up in his house? Or will you feel you 'owe' him for housing you and your children?

This is nothing like some posters saying well fifty years ago my DH asked me to give up my job and marry him, yes they weren't expected to give up their financial stability and independence in exchange of taking care of five children that weren't theirs and paying half towards a household expenses where the majority of the occupants were not theirs nor the house in an area of your choice.

And when will these house renovations take place, before or after you move in, will you be paying towards these house renovations too?

On the other hand you are looking to give up financial independence, pull your DC out of a school which is excellent and they are settled in, leave behind all friends and support network for all three of you, throw your only financial asset your house into a marriage and risk the possibility of losing half in a divorce, also if you put it in your DC's name, what about if you need to go back to it in the event of a divorce, then you still won't own it as it's your DC's and then what if they get older and want their share?

Get legal advice.

What's wrong with just continuing as you are and you both continue parenting your respective children?

This is a man that thinks being in the home, doing everything, is what women want to do. Just because many women traditionally have done this, does not mean that it's all women aspire to, and are happy with, especially knowing that while doing it all that, he's spending 'days' at the gym. You'll be doing all this while he's not working by the sounds of it. Ask his ex if they did much together without the kids? That's likely why they grew apart. Once you move in, the dates will stop, you will get less quality time with him, you will be giving him the freedom to do as he likes in his free time, while you don't get any free time and don't have enough money left to do anything.
You could maybe work out whether out of what he pays you, you could afford to pay a cleaner and outsource the washing and ironing. Find out what the food bill is to decide if he'll be paying you enough, I think you will need a pay rise, especially as the DC's become teenagers - they eat far more than a grown adult. What about your gym membership? Is that covered? As kids get older, they might all want to join the gym - I pay £30/ month for my DS, you could x7 that, plus other clubs, non of that should come out of your 'earnings' .

What happens during his week at the moment OP?

Does he do school runs and pick ups? Does he cook and do their laundry?

He can’t possibly manage a full time job and the kids without help?

I wonder how much he would have been paying in child maintenance for 5 children on his salary if he saw them every other weekend?

No no no. Do not give up your work. I only quickly skimmed through this but just no and anyone who is expecting you to, is not looking out for you nor on your side. Keep your financial independence!!!!

So he's going to employ you as a full time maid and babysitter? Run for the hills.

A full time maid, housekeeper, childminder, cook would earn a very good salary.

OP is being fobbed off on a pittance and expected to contribute to the household expenditure on top of being expected to be the household drudge.

And another thing about how your life might be if you moved in/married him ....

Thinking about how your life might me, I would not want to share a meal in a restaurant with five children who have never heard the word 'no'. Or really even be given a table next to them.

Would you ?

Is it possible that their attitude to you might change, when they know that 'it's your job, paid for by Daddy' to make their beds, do their laundry and pick up their dirties.

Adolescence isn't too far away either, with all the horrors that they can bring even in a loving home.

Earnestly hoping you are not coming back to the thread because you have had a realisation about another possible view of the rosy picture he is painting.

I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with a man with an ex-wife and five children, until they were all at least independent adults.

Never mind their paid skivvy.

That 'salary' he's offering you OP would only be a good deal if he was paying all the household bills including food and it was solely for you and you DC needs. Even then as PP said a daily nanny for 1 child earns more. You may find that salary does little more than cover food for 2 adults plus 7 children, especially once kids start hitting teen years. Your kids will have to share your attention with 5 other children, may end up financially worse off and will have to deal with seeing their half siblings getting more of the things money can buy in life too.

Also as a PP mentioned their ability to get university funding will be effected by the households income. Would your dp be willing to do something like put money aside in an account in their/your names now or offering a higher wage so you can save more for them to show you he's seriously committed to making sure your children don't end up worse off financially? A promise of future aide wouldn't be legally binding, so you'd have to trust he'd make up the funding difference caused by his higher wage that your DC wouldn't actually be getting the benefit of. Is he willing to fund a similar lifestyle for your DC so they don't feel like second class citizens when you can't afford the big holiday/presents/activities etc that he can? You need clear answers to a lot more questions before this should even be something you're thinking about doing.

‘Salary’ entirely at his discretion and could be stopped at any time. No pension etc?

Please do not do this to your children. Do you honestly think that they will be happy being uprooted from their whole lives to move into a house where sometimes there are five other kids and sometimes not. Their mother has given up all control of her life and by extension theirs for a two year relationship.

@purplecorkheart

Please do not do this to your children. Do you honestly think that they will be happy being uprooted from their whole lives to move into a house where sometimes there are five other kids and sometimes not. Their mother has given up all control of her life and by extension theirs for a two year relationship.

This.