How to deal with leech of a husband

[Fwaltz]

Okay, I need advice on how to deal with my husband.

He is ‘self-employed’ as a landscaper. He has not made a success of his business, and has therefore become extremely reliant on me and my income to cover all his expenses. I pay the mortgage, all the bills (inc. his mobile, spotify, podcast subscriptions), for all our groceries, all our petrol, car maintenance, insurance, holidays, childcare, entertainment, Christmases, birthdays – everything.

He contributes nothing at all financially. I also paid off his £8.5k tax bill a year ago because he had not set aside money to pay it.

I earn good money, but I really do not want to fund him for a second longer.

We have one child (6), and his ‘self-employment’ gives us some flexibility for him to do after school pick-ups and he can easily take ‘time off’ if she is ever off school poorly or something like that, which I am grateful for. However, she could easily stay in after school club every day (currently does three) and we could pick her up at 5.30pm. He has more time off than we could ever need for childcare.

I paid for her to go to a childminder for the majority of the summer holidays and used two weeks of my holiday to spend with her. So, it is not as if he is taking on the lion share of parenting duties. We do this together.

Positives: He is a loving, hands-on father and our child adores him. He does the practically all of the cooking, food shopping, loading dishwasher, laundry, bins, DIY etc. I pay for a cleaner to come in 4 hours a week. He is extravagant with his meal choices because he is completely oblivious to what things cost. I love nice food, but I also don’t want him to be serving up lamb rack and steaks every night of the week because it’s muggins here who is paying for it all. A meal like pesto pasta wouldn’t even cross his mind – he would be baffled/enraged by the suggestion.

He comes from a normal lower middle-class family, so it’s not his upbringing that has made him have these expectations – it is just him taking the absolute piss.

I have flagged to him on multiple occasions that he needs to contribute financially. He always comes up with bs excuses as to why he’s not getting much work in/ why it’s gone completely off-schedule / why it hasn’t been even a tiny bit profitable. He is an intelligent person, so he can’t even hide behind the fact he is an idiot.

As a husband, I have completely lost any respect for him. I think he is an absolute leech. He doesn’t make me laugh (never really did), he’s extremely grumpy, our sex life is non-existent and I really just think he is a bit pathetic. I have tried to give him the benefit if the doubt, but I just feel nothing when I look at him.

With that context, the area where I need advice is:

1. What claim would he have on my house if I asked him to leave/divorced him? We have been married 6 years, bought this house 3 years ago. The deposit was half my money, and half a gift from his parents. The mortgage is solely in my name (as his finances were too awful to be considered on the application). He has not contributed to the mortgage at any stage (although he did fully renovate the garden which has added value to the house, but I paid the £30k for all the materials/machine hire etc. it took to do it. Oh, and I fully subsidised his lifestyle while he was working on that project.)
2. I would want him to have 50/50 access to our child, but would I have to pay spousal support to get him a place to live where he could have her to stay?
3. Am I mad to think that life will be any better without him? I hated being single, so is it actually better to just stick with him and suck it up?
4. Will the divorce mess my daughter up? I am a child of divorce and I hated being from a broken home. I don’t want to disrupt her life. As far as she is concerned, she is in a stable happy home. We don’t argue particularly.

I know I have been enabling his behaviour by continuing to fund things, but I can’t see a way to stop without him causing a massive scene and throwing his toys out the pram. I also sometimes think, if I was the husband and he was the wife, would any of this actually seem that unreasonable?

Thanks for getting this far, and please keep comments constructive.

Of course he is, it's a marital asset especially as they've bought the house whilst married. He's also entitled to a % of any savings or pensions the op might have. He's also entitled to a % of any debts that they have too, so it works both ways

Surely he must be a fairly high earner to have that sort of tax bill - where is that money going?

You need a lawyer, marriage means assets are joint.

I'm just wondering if the advice would be the same if it was a husband posting about a wife. She doesn't earn enough and should get off her arse and work harder. Having a cleaner is utterly unreasonable when she could do everything and hold down a part time job as well. She ain't paying the mortgage so she shouldn't get anything.

I very much doubt if the roles were reversed the advice would be like this. If we want equality, it cuts both ways. But strangely it never does.

So for self employed you start to pay tax once you've earned £12.5k. Then you're taxed at roughly 25% of net earnings. An £8k tax bill is whopping for someone who 'doesn't earn anything'. Have you seen his books? Because something isn't adding up here.

He needs to get off his lazy arse and find a proper job.

Well, they are married so he would be entitled to something.
Would you say the same for a SAHM, who may not contribute financially to the mortgage?

You're checked out, you don't respect him, dead bedroom, the marriage is over. Think that's the first point that needs establishing.
The rights and wrongs, the who did what and who paid for what, is largely irrelevant.
Its a needs case. You both need to be housed, you both need to live. Unless you're on megabucks (£500k plus), he will need to cut his cloth.
From the sound of it the house is a 50/50 asset, as in whatever equity you have in it, you need to take half each - I would offer that to him, enlarge your mortgage if you can to pay him out. So if the valuation is £500k and you have £250k on the mortgage you need to pay him £125k.
You might need to give him half of what you have accrued in your pension for the past 6 years and half of any savings.
If you are 50/50 care on your daughter then no child support is owed, and unless you are on megabucks spousal is unlikely too.

The sooner you split, the sooner you draw a line under what he costs.
Don't worry about being single, there are plenty of options out there. My only advice on that is rush into nothing!!! Promise yourself at least 5yrs in any relationship before remarriage - it takes that long for all their colours to show.

OP did you actually see this tax bill or is it what he told you he needed to pay? What happened to his earnings?

Either way, I can see you're done. Please seek proper legal advice from a solicitor asap.

Btw girls witnessing their mothers in shitty relationships, tend to recreate the exact same thing in their lives. So no staying is not the right thing. Leave and try your very best to give her a genuinely happy home, so her compass it true.

He must have been earning something to get a tax bill of 8.5K?
Where has the money gone?
Does he just say he doesn't earn anything?
I don't understand how it's got to this situation where he seemingly can't even pay for his own spotify but he can wind up with a tax bill of 8.5K.

You have no respect for him any more. And I can see why. That means the marriage is dead.

However, he will be entitled to part of the equity in the house even if he has not paid the mortgage and isn't on the deeds.
You are married and that's the way it works.
He has contributed because he has been around for childcare - ie. picking her up when necessary/caring for her when ill. He has contributed by doing tasks around the home and cooking and so on and so forth.

He wasn't a SAHD as such because he was supposedly working, but you have had the benefit of him being around and being flexible. However I would be pissed off about having to pay for childcare for most of the summer holidays when actually he could have done a lot of it and saved the money because he hasn't been doing a lot of work it seems.

I think he sounds like a bit of a lazy arse to be honest. He doesn't seem to be making much effort with the business and has a whole pile of excuses. He could have said at any point either a) I'm going to have to go back into employment because this is not working out and I want to contribute financially to the family or b) This isn't working out so what do you think about me becoming a SAHD and contributing to the family that way, saving money on childcare costs and the cleaner?
But no, he's just drifted along letting you pick up the tab.

It sounds to me like you're done though. If you still felt anything for him or wanted to make it work you could sit down with him and say we have to discuss finances because this is not working. We need more money coming in AND we need to make cuts (such as the unnecessary subscriptions/expensive food). And then see if you could find a way forward which is mutually acceptable.
If you really are done with it I recommend you go and see a solicitor to get advice on how assets could be split in a divorce.

Imagine if this was reversed?! I was thinking the same. I was struggling to see exactly why he was so horrendous. That’s a big tax bill so he must have been earning something even if part time. But it’s not enough. He does all the cooking and food shopping plus school pick ups. But his meals are too extravagant. He’s a great dad. He’s there on sick days.

He’s what you would call a complete and utter lazy cock-lodger.

I’m not in the least bit surprised you’ve lost all respect in him, particularly as you’ve obviously got a very good and realistic work ethic.

Once the feeling has gone it’s gone. It’s the beginning of the end. Get some good legal advice.

I’m not sure why people are acting like him being a SAHD is an option when OP has made it clear that it is not. She refers to him as a leech in the title, has to pay for a cleaner and childcare, covers every single bill, and has said that it is unnecessary for him to be at home with their child because of the care she pays for. He does the bare minimum cooking/shopping/laundry because he has to provide some account of his time considering that he isn’t working during the hours that he claims he intends to work. Even if she wanted him to be a SAHD, which she doesn’t, it’s not an option because he is a lazy cocklodger.

Anyway, I agree that you need to get rid of him sooner rather than later OP. Your daughter will be at risk of choosing the same sort of partner for herself if this is the model she sees. She doesn’t need to be learning that husbands are mostly-useless housepets.

I have a friend in your position currently going through her divorce..he's claiming more than half because he has a hobby business so his lifestyle needs supporting!

Re the male female situation being reversed,, I think everyone should be expected to contribute to their own existence once children are in school , marraige is a contract not a charity.

Wow you actually describe my partner - same profession as well! However the relationship you describe is what my partner had with his ex. He spent a decade with her and literally had everything paid for including the home they lived with, bills etc. His contribution to their whole life together was just paying for social things. No wonder she left him. She was rich so I think it took her a while to see how much she was taken advantage of and I feel for her, but also there’s only so long you can allow someone to take advantage of you surely.

When I met my partner it wasn’t blatantly obvious this was how he was. But as time went on and he expected me to pay for everything and I called him out on it. I told him how he needs to grow up and get in the real world and either pay for things or it’s over.
He then knew he was going to lose me so changed his ways.
Right now he has just a proper gardening job with a company and is on a proper salary, not earning next to nothing working for himself any more. Especially when they say in winter that there’s no work.

My reason for this post is people CAN change if they want to. Clearly he doesn’t need to be a SAHD so he can get his butt to work. If he doesn’t or if the respect and love is completely gone then you need to leave. You don’t want your daughter growing up thinking the woman has to provide for a man - just like the roles shouldn’t be the opposite way. Things should be equal.

But personally I’d be cutting any money you give him. He doesn’t need you to work for him to live a relaxing life of doing what he wants. It’s laziness.
I could understand if he needed to be at home to raise your child but if he doesn’t then he needs to get his act together or get lost!

All the posts saying he should become a sahm dad and fully responsible for childcare etc etc.... . Things will be much worse for op in a divorce if he does that and they divorce down the line.

Not a good idea.

This is absolutely right.

I think you need to decide if you want this marriage to work. If you do couples therapy etc.Either way Be vigilant and get legal and accounting advice. His tax bill was high for someone who doesn’t make money, did it go to HMRC or on something else?
Spending 4 hours a week on a cleaner for 3 seems very high

As you are married i strongly suggest you curtail his spending and spend money to see a Soliciter
and not ask here !!!

he will have a claim on the jointly owned assets
and mark my words he will push for what’s his as his cash cow is leaving him

get all the documents lined up
and effective now start saving and set up your own bank account

if you limit what’s available he will have to spend less

He doesn’t have a job. He has a hobby. If you plan to break up with him the first thing I would do is get him into work - make him get a job with a landscaping company or similar. That way the split will be more ‘equal’ financially. Either way, he needs to get a job.

@Fwaltz He sounds so like my ex-wife, except that he pretends to have a real job! The lack of appreciation for the value of money and how much effort it took to earn it really resonated.

Unfortunately though life might not be better without him. Once a spouse is allowed to become a leech this creates "needs" that the court "generously interprets" if you divorce....

It's never a short marriage when there is a six year old child.