Finance arrangement with husband - I have hardly any savings

[Batima]

I was hoping to get some views on how the finance is working in my marriage. I have hardly any savings - they all went into the house deposit. My husband has loads because he has around 5K spare each month after paying his share of bills.

My husband's take-home pay is 8.5k a month, mine is 2K a month. So his take-home is 4x mine.

Our mortgage payment is 3k per month. He pays 2K (2/3) of this, I pay 1K (1/3).

We have an account for other bills and food/household shopping - total 1K each month. He pays 2/3, I pay 1/3.

For holidays and meals out, we split it 50-50.

We both put a decent amount into the deposit when we bought the house. in fact I put more in than him, because of a generous inheritance from my grandmother.

I have hardly any savings - they all went into the house. He has loads because he has around 5K spare each month after paying his share.

He doesn't want to put any of his savings into a joint savings account. He says he will help me out if I feel short one month.

He thinks this is totally fair, but I am questioning it. Any views are much appreciated.....

Stop paying into the mortgage until he has equalled your initial contribution.
Or he transfers you £85k from his savings so you are square.
He is being a major chancer on this - do not let it drop.

Very unacceptable. He is a financially abusive cunt.

This!

We seem to keep going around in circles here which leads me to think you want to and will stay with him and are trying to find ways to get a better deal which we all know you won’t unless you find your anger and stop being so passive about the whole thing. No doubt you’ll start another thread about this as I think you are a previous poster with multiple threads that sound very similar.

Why does divorce seem “terrifying” you don’t have kids, you can support yourself, or are you worried about losing the lifestyle you have with him? Is there any external pressure to stay with him? Because men like this only behave like this because they know they can get away with it and have you trapped in some way, whether financial or cultural/social. You need legal advice and then make an informed choice on whether to stay or not. If you stay you’re going to have to woman up and starting making demands, view the marriage as a business arrangement like he is (as it sounds like an arranged marriage from
his perspective) be ruthless and then you’ll realise a whole lot more about the relationship. But please do not have kids. Be in charge of contraception but I could not bring myself to sleep with someone like this in the first place who is showing so little respect for me.

It's very unusual and very unacceptable. Usually when one spouse puts their entire, large inheritance, into a joint asset like a house, the two spouses are sharing their money freely. What you have here is that you have put ALL your inheritance into the house and he is not sharing his money with you. What's yours is his, and what's his is his. Everything is his. You have to beg for your food, more or less. In essence, he has manipulated you into a situation where he has acquired about 85K of your money, tied up all your savings in an asset where you can't easily get your own cash, and made you extremely vulnerable to his financial control. You don't even have enough cash to hire a solicitor to help you extricate yourself from this frightening situation. This is really, really bad.

My husband earns more than me - not because he works harder than I do but because I work in the NHS.

When saving for our wedding we did it based on percentages - so I put 20 % of my wages into a savings account and he put 20% of his earnings in. This is fair because proportionally it is the same.

Now that we are married we each have a certain amount of personal money per month (£300) and the rest goes into the joint account. That way I don't have to ask for money.

Every now and again when he goes through the accounts he goes "kiwi - what is this bill for £400 (or whatever) and usually it is something he has spent not me.

I would argue your husbands approach is neither fair nor common.

i wouldn’t be happy op, but only you know if it’s make or break for you. Speaking to a solicitor wouldn’t hurt, at least in terms of protecting your deposit.

@Batima you keep repeating the same question! Lots already gave you their answer.same as lots of people pointed out the split on salary would be 1/5 4/5. you ignored about 30 posts telling you this. T
You never answered my question are you happy with him ?

Do you not see there’s quite a bit of hypocrisy in the make sure you ring fence the deposit but also let’s equally split half of the remaining monthly income. I mean which is it?

Some of the responses in here are hilarious.

I do think he should be contributing more to the household split given the difference. I also think he should match your deposit if he has the savings to do so and either you chip that off the mortgage or return it to you for your own savings.

Do you not see there’s quite a bit of hypocrisy in the make sure you ring fence the deposit but also let’s equally split half of the remaining monthly income. I mean which is it?

I don’t think there’s any hypocrisy - why do you?

In these early years of their marriage, one of them paid £170,000 more than the other one into a joint 50-50 asset.

The person who earns 4x as much as the other in this joint financial partnership (that’s what marriage is), refuses to put 50% of the savings into joint names. Worse, they refuse to allow the lower earning person to save AT ALL.

Who’s benefiting? Who’s disadvantaged?

in your common or garden Church of England marriage ceremony the couple promise “all that I am I give to you,
and all that I have I share with you,”
that’s because the point of getting married is to be a team and pool resources, if you don’t want to share, don’t get married.
do not have dc with this man, he will not support you appropriately. He does not respect you.

Just read this whole thread and wow This is an awful situation OP.

It reaffirms my thoughts that I’d rather be with an average earner who is generous and views finances in marriage the way the law does ie. Joint - than be with a high earner who is tight fisted. Many of my friends are married to investment bankers etc and work part time since having kids, and even before that they had equal access to their husbands income.

As some pp have also said he is living a lifestyle that suits his income - I wonder how he’d behave if you told you could no longer afford to accompany him on holidays etc or if you’d insisted on a much more modest home?

He is taking the absolute piss out of you and just what does he even want a monthly 5.5K for? Does he really need to save all that much?

I do freelance work in addition to my day job and once in a while I get lump sums like that which are effectively disposable income since my day job pays all my bills. I often think it’s a shame I don’t have a partner to share some of this with! As your husband who earns so much more than you every single month you’d think he’d want more for you than just getting by when he has so much disposable income.

And no, him paying more to the monthly mortgage does not cancel out you paying 170K more for the initial deposit because he should be paying disproportionately more than you any way, due to how much more he earns even if you didn’t contribute more to the deposit.

And even as things stand now he’s failing to pay as much as he should.

OP just tell him that you've thought about what he's said, and that the only arrangement that you are prepared to accept is that you will be paying £0 towards the mortgage until his contribution towards the house is equal to your contribution, i.e the whole deposit + what you have paid towards the mortgage to date.
Have the numbers ready, and tell him 'You have paid £x amount of money towards the mortgage, and I've paid £deposit + £x amount, so YOU need to pay 100% of the mortgage until you have equaled what I've put in already.' (And be sure to add that there will be NO changing the monthly mortgage amount e.g to extend the mortgage to get smaller payments !)

You can say that you'll only pay 1/5th of ALL other bills going forwards, because to do anything else would mean he's only after YOUR money, and because IT'S FAIR !

It doesn't actually matter what he says to this, or if he disagrees etc, because your wages are in your own hands, NOT his ! So simply say 'NO' if he asks for more money.

Do what HE does, i.e look out for yourself financially !

OMG - I've just realized that this is the same poster whose husband keeps having angry outbursts and then apologises...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/4878208-husband-has-angry-outbursts-then-apologises-then-it-happens-again?postsby=Batima

If all this is real, @Batima, how many more giant red flags do you need to leave this POS?

You don't have children, so what on earth is stopping you from saving yourself ?!!

@Batima not much to say really, but are you tied into this " marriage" for cultural/societal reasons? Do you fear leaving , in case shame is brought upon your family? Are you in danger?

If you fear your life, please seek help. Women's Aid?

If none the above applies, then sort your finances, pack a bag and run and don't look back!

So YOUR inheritance is now half his, but I would bet my life that any money he inherits will be squirrelled away into his personal accounts.

You're in an abusive relationship, OP.

Oh no guessing that's why she never answers my question are you happy ?

If you have 10k a month coming in, 2k from you and 8k from him then you should be paying no more than 1/5 of the bills.

OP just tell him that you've thought about what he's said, and that the only arrangement that you are prepared to accept is that you will be paying £0 towards the mortgage until his contribution towards the house is equal to your contribution, i.e the whole deposit + what you have paid towards the mortgage to date.
Have the numbers ready, and tell him 'You have paid £x amount of money towards the mortgage, and I've paid £deposit + £x amount, so YOU need to pay 100% of the mortgage until you have equaled what I've put in already.' (And be sure to add that there will be NO changing the monthly mortgage amount e.g to extend the mortgage to get smaller payments !)

This ^^
Excellent response.

Jesus. He earns a colossal amount of money.

What’s he using the savings for exactly? Just himself? Retirement? I can’t fathom a marriage where one person has barely any savings and the other is sitting on, what, 10s of thousands of pounds? Just for their own use. If it’s for retirement surely it should go into a joint account.

Sounds like you might need a business meeting with your husband to sort through this mess.

Yes this. Or alternatively he owes you £70k and can pay you back £5k a month until it's down. Then you have you savings issue solved.

However that doesn't solve the fact your husband is a selfish abusive controlling man.

My husband earns 4x as much as me and won't split bills and mortgage payments proportionately to our incomes (though he would be covering the greater share until the mortgage is paid off)

I don't understand this part. He is paying a greater share until the mortgage is paid off but won't split bills. Is that because you paid more deposit? 170k is a huge amount and I think he should be in your debt until that's paid off. Is it secure that you get it back if things go tits up?

P.s he is 100% a cunt! He will take your 170 but not give any? Twat!

I'm mulling things over. Divorce seems terrifying, but then so does my current situation

Things will be another level of terrifying once kids are included.

Look OP, you have posted before about this chump. I commented in good faith there too.

No amount of posting will alter your situation.

At some point you need to GROW UP and tackle the situation you are in.