Finances - keep or change?

[Fedupwife28]

I am really in need of help as to how to ensure that things are as fair and equal as possible between my DH and I.
We are newly married with a 5 month old and I am conscious that our relationship and lifestyle is not conducive to family life.

As it stands, we pay 50:50 on all bills and household expenses. I am on maternity leave with our baby. We do not have any shared finances - he keeps all of his income and I keep all of mine and we just pay our respective bills which are essentially half each. We have a credit card which we both use for food shopping, household expenses and baby related expenses then pay half the bill each at the end of the month. Everything else such as home maintenance, holidays and days out are also halved. The potential issue is that we have a large discrepancy in income. My DH takes home £7.5k per month
after deductions (plus an annual bonus of around £5k) whilst I take home around £2k. He does actually earn a lot more than this each month but keeps it in his company but could draw more if he wanted. All our own savings are kept in our own savings accounts so there is no ‘family money’. No child benefit or tax free childcare due to DH income.

Our bills total around £1300 plus another around £400 per month on food. Once I go back to work, they will increase by around £800-900 per month with childcare.

How would you split this going forward? Does this seem fair? Also, once I go back to work I will be responsible for majority of pick ups, drop offs, evenings and weekend childcare (DH often busy with work or hobbies) and housekeeping as I am now so not sure if that would have any impact on how to split?

You have sold yourself so short here.

Don't inflict your poor choices on any more children.

You have put yourself and your child into a really vulnerable position.

Get back to work and keep your family and friends close.

Refusing to pay for childcare is who this man is.

He's not a good 'un.

Be very very wary.

No, I have my own savings and he has his. No family savings and definitely no access to any of his money or financial information. I did manage to sneak a glance when he was transferring money on his online banking this weekend and he has basically at least a years salary in savings, plus over £10k in his current account. He’s got a few hundred thousand in the company account too. I don’t and doubt I ever will have access to any of it though. No bank statements these days to prove it if I needed to.

But 30% is not a fair proportion! He’s conceded a little just to keep you quiet.

I'm sorry but this isn't how it's meant to work. My exh was awful but even he accepted that when we got married & had kids together & I was on maternity leave all the money went into one pot. How can his contribution to childcare costs be negotiable? Isn't it also his child & he works? Seriously it's selfish behaviour against you & your child, why are you putting up with this?

Even if you have separate accounts, I think you should share financial information from time to time, such as if you get a pay increase or bonus or what you are doing with your savings or investments, e.g. if you are locking up considerable money in an ISA for 5 years or if he is hitting the FSCS limit in accounts. It’s also a good idea to have a list of accounts held in case your partner had an accident or illness that could mean they can’t remember things or are unconscious so you know where to start to try to access money.

He retreats from the baby when he's annoyed with you... This is horrendous behaviour. You're walking on eggshells - your DH is abusive. Your mum sounds like she sees this, can she help support you?

@Fedupwife28

You do realise that this will get worse don’t you? He’ll expect you to pay for childcare and expects you to still for all the household chores. What happens if you decide to have another child? It might mean that your the whole of your salary is used for bills etc, whilst he has tens of thousands in savings and you are essentially a porpar. The fact that you feel unable to discuss things as he withdraws says it all!

Maybe he needs to realise that if you divorced him, you’d be awarded a hell a lot of money (savings, pensions, child support).

DH and I have 4 kids, 2 each. We don't share funds. I take home 3x his earnings.

At the beginning of each year I put enough to cover all bills in the joint account and school costs for all 4 kids.

I do 99% of all food shopping.

I pay for our family holidays.

He covers our insurance.

I bought an electric car because I could see that he spent an insane amount keeping our 2 diesel cars on the road. But I pay the electric bill. In 3 years it'll pay for itself and he'll have replenished his savings.

BUT I didn't buy the car without his agreement and he wasn't keen so I spent about 4 months talking it through.

He does everything at home in terms of the garden and buildings. We live in a stunning environment thanks to his physical hard work. He helps me with our livestock, lambing etc. He also takes the kids to and from school as I work from home. When I have to travel, sometimes for weeks at a time he takes care of everything. I just walk out the door.

It feels equal.

Your situation does not.

Would he see a financial advisor with you? Would he add to your pension? These are things that he might view differently.

We have a disparity in incomes, although not that much, and separate savings accounts etc.

But we also have a joint account and each pay 50% of our income into that. Then all joint expenses,.mortgage, food, whatever come out of that.

I find it so weird couples that have children and a house but are still arguing over whose turn it is to buy the food this week.

Apart from anything, it's so just so much easier not having to bother keeping track of it all!

Also what does he do, or is he planning to do with his money?

Like if he wants a bigger house and you can't afford 50% would you just stay where you are?

Does he have loads of fancy holidays or something that you can't go on?

Honestly, it sounds like he's keeping his nest egg to himself so if you split up he's still got it all.

Do you have a mortgage?

A forensic accountant would be money well spent when you eventually divorce him.

Yes, we have a mortgage. We got it a few years ago before we married. We’re joint tenants on it and we each paid half of the deposit and half of the fees towards moving in (I can evidence all of this if I ever needed to). It’s now a low payment in comparison to our income but when we took it out our total household income was much lower.

Agree with everyone here, he is dreadful. No good man would ever dream of doing this. In his place I wouldn't be able to sleep for worry about what I was doing to the people I love. This is his baby FFS. This man has a serious problem. I cannot see how this marriage could survive long term. Good luck OP