Please can I have some outside perspective on this?

[Mermaidwithoutacause]

I can’t see the wood for the trees anymore.
Dh has always been a high earner, he’s always massively out earned me. If I’ve ever been short on money I don’t like to ask him for it and we have no joint finances so currently as a sahm parent I only have access to what I’m given.

When ds was about one and I had come to the end of my maternity leave, that was when I started to really struggle. At that point we had a budget for our weekly - ten days shop of about £120. Dh would give me his card to take to go and do the shop which in itself made me feel awkward because it made me feel like a child.
Anyway I used to find that if I spent the whole amount at once I would end up with some things going off before I went shopping again and also that we needed some things like milk, bread, etc in the interim.
This then came out of the money that I had - the allowance dh gave me.
So what I ended up doing was spending £100 in one go at the supermarket and using the other £20 to put petrol in my car and then I’d use more than that £20 over the next week to ten days buying pits and pieces we needed. Essentially I couldn’t afford to buy petrol plus another £20-40 on food each week and we were also wasting some of the fresh stuff if I bought all in one go.

After a couple of months dh was going through bank statements and demanded to know why I was spending £20 of the food budget on petrol. He was really angry and used words like ‘leeching’ and ‘creaming off the top.’ He said I’d stolen from him.

This reaction - amongst others - has meant I feel totally powerless and as though I have nothing, which I don’t. When I think about it I feel a great sense of shame and embarrassment.

No it isn't stealing. This is financial abuse and control.

He’d have to give you more than a few quid if you left him.
Is your name on the house deeds ?
Does he have a private pension ?
How many bank accounts does he have ?

Run the figures through the CSA calculator and present the abusive shit with that then pack his bags.

Please explain to him that legally all money/assets in this relationship is jointly owned - you are his wife and therefore considered one half of the financial unit that is your married partnership.
If you divorce everything is divided equally.
You are not his slave/servant/hired help.
He is the one who should be ashamed in treating his life's partner like dirt really.
Read this one:
Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny
Book by Suze Orman

He needs a stark talking too. He may be able to sort this out if he realised how unreasonable he is being. And I would demand access to joint finances. My dad was like this with my mum out of largely fear of not having enough but continued once he started earning well. If he doesn’t I would leave and you would be in all likelihood better off.

@SandyY2K

A lot of posters are saying to go back to work...and split childcare costs....this is assuming he agrees to pay half....because no doubt he's paying all the household bills at the moment and based on what has been said, this doesn't sound like a man who will agree to this.

You can't make him pay towards the childcare.

What if he says..ok..we can also split all other bills as well...not just childcare. I suspect the OP wouldn't be able to do this on her income alone.

He doesn't see it as joint..if he did, you wouldn’t have needed to create this post.

A former colleague of mine told me her DP said, her going to work should not cost him anything. Meaning, if she couldn't afford to pay the childcare costs out of her salary, then she should stay at home, as he was paying the mortgage, utility bills, council tax, insurance, car maintenance, groceries and everything else. He said why should he now add half the childcare costs in top of all this.

These things really need to be discussed before marriage/before children, because it leads to big problems.

The husband rises to become a power and control freak after the marriage So how can it be agreed beforehand or before having a child?

Just wanted to say I totally understand how you feel and how soul destroying it is to be in that situation. When I had my daughter I wasn’t married to my husband, he used to give me £295 a month and I have to feed the whole family (including him), run my car including tax and insurance and buy anything my daughter needed. All while he had two sports cars in the garage! It’s crazy when I look back on it but I felt so powerless.

One day around 11 years ago when I had put up with this for 3 years I broke down, couldn’t cope anymore. My
Mop bucket broke and I cried in the shop because I couldn’t afford a new one. Told my family what was happening (I’d hidden it). He eventually agreed the house would be in joint names, we would have a joint bank account and get married (he wanted a prenup but I refused!). We did get married, got a joint bank account (which he just paid £400 a month into) and the house was never put in joint names!

We are now divorcing and he is spending his spare time compiling a spreadsheet of every penny he has spent during our relationship. He is making my life utter hell as he is so worried he will lose his lovely little nest egg he has built up while I’ve been forced to spend every penny I’ve ever earnEd. He says he is going to fight for custody and thinks he will get it because he has the receipts to prove what he’s given to the marriage!!! I don’t think so! I’m still in the family home with the kids and he constantly bullies me for money, turns the broadband off because he is still paying for it (he has worked from here 4 out of 5 days this week). He has no interest if the kids and I are provided for anymore just totally focused on the fact he might lose something or lose his house. He feels I should be moving to the cheapest 3 bed available where we live while he gets to stay in our 6 bedroom home!

What I’m trying to say is, he won’t change. I wasted 10 years after I hit that breaking point and now desperately wished I had left then. Stay strong.

I'm with sophmum. This isn't him being a bit unreasonable. He's treating you like shit, it's horrific and that's who he is. Plan your exit, that's not a healthy marriage. Good luck.

Please don’t be ashamed and embarrassed! The shame is all his. He is being horribly controlling.

Presumably you both agreed for you to become a sahm and that has enabled him to pursue his career without a second thought to childcare, cooking, shopping, gardening, doctor’s, dentists’, after school activities etc etc....? To be clear, the law absolutely recognises this as being the case (and makes its awards accordingly), even if your dh doesn’t.

Fine, if you needed to go back to work because finances were tight or he was controlling the purse strings so carefully because he was trying to avert financial disaster. In those cases, a healthy couple would sit down together, both with full knowledge of the finances, and work out a plan together. I’m guessing that’s not the case? I’m guessing he probably has plenty of savings/disposable income and HE decides how HE spends it? That is not right.

Is he controlling in other ways too? Usually, I think these people tend to be very selfish in many ways.

What do you want to do OP? I can tell you that leaving the marriage (although not easy) brings huge relief in wrestling back control of your own affairs and allows you to see how far your boundaries were skewed out of place by the control and accusations.

Good luck!

Jesus... I can't believe he said those things to you! Horrendous man. I would look at getting back to work OP and building up your self esteem and finances so you can leave this twat. I've been a sahm so I'm not knocking that, it's hard work and a role that should be valued as equally as your husbands is. Being a SAHP only works if the person earning money sees that money as family money and the SAHP should have access to it without having to beg for scraps.

Sorry your H is so vile OP

Hey OP it's definitely NOT stealing or creaming off the top.. From what I can see it's a strategic decision to use his money for something you usually pay for, so that you can redirect the money later in the week when you need it for fresh groceries.
I would like to think I would just explain this to DH and he would say no more about it. If anything he would ask me why I haven't let him know that I need more money/to use his card later in the week.
The real question you have to ask yourself is why you went to all that trouble just to avoid asking for more/to use his card again in the week. That should tell you who the problem is in this relationship.

@SandyY2K

The OP states that her H is a high earner, indeed 'he's always massively out earned me'.

I've seen threads where high earners are on 30k/40k/50k...., so when 'high earner' is said, one cannot be sure if we're on the same page.

Neither of these figures are what I would call a high earner

Agree, this is about perspective, I’ve seen many people on here state thirty k is a high earner, but when you’re paying rent or a mortgage and supporting two adults and kids, plus other bills, then money could be very tight.

@ Mermaidwithoutacause

Your H is abusing you. He is keeping you without money while you raise his child.

You need to talk to him and tell him that if he doesn't make his (he sees his wages as his money !) accessible to you, you will leave him and he will have to pay you child maintenance instead !

How dare he accuse you of ''stealing'' FFS !

You need to feel supported and confident to be a stay at home parent (I'm assuming you both discussed this beforehand?), not like you're only the hired help !

I'm a sahm op. We have a joint credit card, and I have access to the savings accounts.

You are being financially abused. The work you do raising your child is just as valuable as his job. You're not nothing. You deserve access to money.

Please seek outside help and leave him. Keep talking to us.

As much as this is likely to be financial abuse, it could also be something else entirely.

It could be they are on a very tight budget and every penny needs to be accounted for, that’s why he was going through th statements, snd that’s why they budget for everything, and he was trying to find more places to cut back, he’s been going without, and found she had been spending the food money on petrol and he wasn’t aware, or she wasn’t spending her own allowance on additional food, so in his eyes “creaming off the top” and spending money they didn’t have, because that’s what she was doing. And that’s why she feels ashamed. The normal reaction would be one of indignation.

What he said is never justified but money problems can make people very stressed and say things they wouldn’t normally.

Or it could be he earns a hundred grand a year and leaves her on a pittance and is financially and emotionally abusing her, as people are assuming. The truth is there is actually no way to tell here without understanding his earnings, and their outgoings.

People often write things in a way to make the answers make them feel better, but sometimes there is a whole other story behind it.

His income is over £100k. After tax.
He buys what he wants when he wants. As a family we aren’t hard up. Individually I have nothing.

Then this is financial abuse op. And emotional.

Why don’t you leave? It’s not going to get better.

Or if you don’t wish to leave, go back to work? There has to be an alternate to living like this.

Do you family support? Do they know what’s going on OP.

What you did is not stealing, you should have equal access to money as a sahm - not sure why you think you should be in poverty while your HUSBAND is earning 100k

This man is financially abusing you

Divorce the bastard. You'll be tons better off.

as a sahm parent I only have access to what I’m given.

Is this what you both agreed to do when you decided to have a baby together. Whether you agreed or just fell into this, it's financial abuse.

I don’t ask for anymore. I’d sooner sell something or go without.

And this is why abusers get away with it They make you think it shameful to ask when as PPs have pointed out the shame is in on a man who would keep his child's mother short of money, while she is enabling his earning the family money by providing childcare.

This might be useful.
www.freedomprogramme.co.uk

Take your time @Mermaidwithoutacause Inform yourself about the law in this area. It is not easy to hear but You are being abused, even if there is no physical violence. This is financial abuse.

Find out what level of child maintenance would be due. You have got this. We are here to help you.

@workhomesleeprepeat

What you did is not stealing, you should have equal access to money as a sahm - not sure why you think you should be in poverty while your HUSBAND is earning 100k

This man is financially abusing you

Legally she doesn’t have this right. So if she is spending money that he has given her for a different purpose then it could be classified as theft. But she isn’t she’s just rebalancing how she spends.

But let’s not pretend to her that because she is a sahm she is legally entitled to money he earns. People need to stop posting that sort of thing. Morally she should arguably have access, but legally it’s his decision all daylong. He only needs to legally support his children.

No, Bluntness, if you're married you have a legal obligation to support your spouse:

"Marriage
Each married partner has a legal duty to support the other.

If your partner won't support you, you can ask a court to order them to support you. Your ex-partner may have to continue to support you after your marriage has ended if you have made a legal agreement or if there is a court order.

You and your partner can make an agreement that neither of you will support the other." www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Now, he could argue that he does in that she doesn't starve on his watch, but he does indeed have an obligation to her as well as the children.

He’s abusing you. Get on the site that tells you what you’re entitled to if you were to leave. He should be utterly embarrassed at his disgraceful treatment of you.