When one partner earns more

[Eskimal]

Hi
I’m looking for people in similar situations:
where both partners work and share household/kids duties, but one partner earns significantly more and does all the life admin / carries all the strain and stress. The other partner has very limited career and earning prospects due to lack of education and skills (and no ability to study or learn). I am very conscious now how people from different backgrounds may struggle in marriage when ideally resources are pooled and people need to share the load.

In my case there’s a bit more context. The other partner has severe ADHD and is unable to do any life admin, and simply doesn’t feel stress because they forget things so easily. (When I say severe, I mean severe). ADHD was diagnosed late in life.

how do you share finances when one person contributes almost 100%? Our kids are older and don’t need daytime care, and even then my mum would do it so the partner taking on more household duties is not a viable option to spread the load according to ability. I do most caring duties like homework help and checking in on how they feel, deciding their boundaries as they start having social lives, arranging things with their friends.

Do we both have the equal right to a gym membership, access to a car, money for holidays with friends and meals out with friends?

I am starting to feel resentment that I can’t have the gym membership I’d dearly love to have (to help with stress). Instead I have to go to a cheaper gym with no pool and no yoga so we can both have membership. I drive a rubbish car so that we have the money for 2 cars. I limit how much I can go out so there’s money for him to go out too. I was brought up in a household where equality and fairness were a natural part of the atmosphere.

I make all financial decisions, try to run them by him for info or agreement. He doesn’t know how to read a budget or log into a banking app. He’s impatient so I have to explain things quickly.
Months later he has forgotten I told him and starts ranting and raving about there not being any money to buy new football boots, or how he never agreed to pay so much for kids’ educational things. He has no idea what our mortgage is etc

if we had separate finances then he would have 0 disposal income. What would people do in my situation? I am also considering separation as I am struggling in other areas of our marriage, but that’s for another day. In the meantime what do people think is a fair way to approach spending money and little luxuries like the gym and meals out or a treat to something new in Zara every now and then?

This sounds really unbearable. How dare he try to control your spending when you’re the one carrying everything?

@MidWeekDrinks you might be best off talking to a solicitor.

I don’t think that you need worry about losing your kids to him - that’s not about earnings; it’s about who is the primary carer. That is you - you do all the thinking, the housework and the vast majority of the childcare. So the kids should stay with you and he can have EOW and a night in the week.

The financial settlement will take the disparity in earnings into account. But it’s balanced with needs. You will be housing the children the majority of the time and that makes a difference.

How much he could earn is a factor, whether he’s currently earning that or not. The fact he’s trying not to get promoted and doesn’t want to maximise his earnings matters. He can easily earn more than he does. And he should take responsibility for himself in the future by doing so.

But, even if it costs you money… it may be worth cutting the dead weight and moving forward to rebuild from that point without him.

This is actually a really good illustration of why it simply isn’t the same as saying ‘what if the sexes were reversed?’

In most cases, a woman is contributing practically - housework, mental load, childcare - whatever she earns. But when men are the lower earners, all too often they simply contribute less in every single way.

It’s not fair to compare a woman who is doing it all - housework, childcare and earning the money - to a man who has delegated all household responsibilities to a SAHM and begrudges sharing the money he contributes.

Another way of looking at things:

Does he cost more than he brings in? What would be the cost of outsourcing what he actually does contribute?

We have this earning disparity but without the ADHD. I do all the life admin though because I want it done correctly.

We aren't married although been together for 12 years and have a 6 year old.

We both contribute to the "core" household expenses in a ratio according to our income.

So I put in 2/3s and he puts in 1/3.

Any other expenses like gym memberships, phones, car finance etc are fully paid and managed by the person it's benefitting.

So we both have disposable income leftover after bill paying and we can choose which luxuries like gym memberships we want and pay for out of our disposable.

We used to split 50/50 after bill paying, but this left to massive resentment on my end. I felt like I was earning more and more to not see any benefit of it. My other half could choose a higher paying profession but prefers the one he has because it aligns with his hobby. I get large bonuses each year so I normally pay for things like holidays out of this and other big ticket household items that we've had our eye on.

I know people say "families should have joint money" but I tried this and it didn't work.