Is DH taking advantage of me?

[Gillybean9]

I don’t know if this is peri menopausal feelings, SAD or genuine feelings towards my DH but I feel so low atm in our marriage.
He's very loving and fun to be around. We have been married for over ten years, together for a lot longer, have a small child.
I own my own business and am quite successful though very stressed.
We have a good lifestyle, numerous holidays, nice house, nice cars. Everything is paid for by me, pretty much.
My husband works for me - it was only supposed to be a temporary gig. That was just over three years ago. He’s paid well. He has a company vehicle. Everything paid for.
His contribution to the house is 35% of the mortgage per month - an arrangement I made as he was struggling each month. He pays for the gas/electric and 50% towards the weekly shop and he pays for his own phone, netflix.
I pay for everything else. His vehicle insurance. His fuel. I buy 90% of our child’s clothes.
its difficult having him work for me and he brings a lot of stresses back home to me. Trivial things that I needn’t know about. I want him to find another job. He knows this. But hasn’t applied for even one.
I put the deposit down on the house. I pair for the kitchen, the bathroom, all of the furniture. He bought the tv.
he makes out that he’s skint but I don’t know where he spends his money.

i pay for our holidays.
i book and arrange everything - he doesn’t arrange anything at all.
if there’s work to be done in the house, I have to find a tradesman and pay.
we’ve had a leaky gutter since the start of December. It’s not caused damp and mould in the house.
Ive sat on it waiting for him to solve but he hasn’t. These things are always left to me.
he always jokes about the perks he has being married to me.
I think I’m being taken advantage of.
i send him jobs that I think he could go for, but he won’t. He wants to change his career and I’ve told him to volunteer at various placements that I’ve found for him. I told him I’ll support us even more financially whilst he retrains but he just won’t do anything.
I’m 40 now.
Am I being ridiculous here. Am I being taken advantage of.

Yes I believe he's taking advantage. What are you going to do about it?

He sounds great to be honest. I’m not sure what he is doing wrong? ? He’s working hard, shares the load and isn’t what he pays a percentage of what you both earn?

It’s not terrible. You’re just more competent than him in every way by the sound of it.

Give him a year max to find another job but accept your life might get harder. He will be more stressed, less happy, less able to do the school runs.

Sounds like he does at least realise he has it made with you as a wife. He married well!

What you’re describing is resentment. Don’t let resentment force you into punishing him for the sake of it. ‘NOW you understand how I feel’. If you want to retrain then make a clear decision and give him a clear message.

Tell him you’re feeling stressed about carrying the mother load and the work load so he must take over some more areas at home. He can use his gym time.

Lots of women work for their husbands in very similar circumstances - wonder if the husbands feel take advantage of? Probably

It's not a situation I'd be happy with either - I'm divorced from a man with a similar lack of ambition and happy to ride on my coat tails

I'm the first to call out cocklodgers, having been a victim, but this guy IS working, he does a good job and pays his %. If the roles were flipped and you were the man, no one would blink at this arrangement.

You just earn a lot of money, and he earns less. He doesnt have to do guttering just because he's a man. This sounds a bit like a man moaning his shirts arent ironed, when you both work full time 🤷‍♀️

Then you need things to change.

I agree you need a joint account for the bills.

If he’s paying 40% and you earn more then that seems fair.

You are judging him by your own standards and frustrated he isn’t taking opportunities -

So you need to work out what you want and go for what you want - retrain, take time off, concentrate on yourself because he doesn’t want what you are offering, you want it.

I would also ask to look through his spending and work out a budget. Where is money goes.

This!! Absolutely. You're bound to feel resentful when you're paying for everything but to have separate finances it's bound to create that resentment. You're a family, all money should be equal and you both get to spend the same on yourselves. This will make a more level footing at home.

OP I don't understand your attitude to money in relationship. You either contribute presentage of your individual earnings or you just put money in one pot. That's the whole point of marriage- to share resources.

Nobody should contribute 50% to bills when they earn much less then a high earning partner.

Actually, so he's paying 40% of everything while only earning 38k while you run a company, presumably earning much more then him? I would say you're being unfair to him.

OP you've been careful not to disclose the disparity in earnings here but i suspect you actually earn a lot more than him and actually it's him possibly being hard done by. You describe him as well paid for what he does and say his job has a heavy workload at times then say he earns 38k. 38k is not a high salary in this day and age, not a high salary at all.

He's paying quite a lot of stuff even though you make out it's not much.

How much do you earn?

I don't think it sounds like he's taking advantage of you. I don't really understand having separate finances in a marriage but it sounds like he's contributing a lot, especially considering that you have a much higher income. Sounds like you are annoyed that you have to pay him because you don't actually want him to work for you, but that doesn't mean he's not paying his share.

He's got a very cushy life, I can't see any reason why he'd want to change the status quo. You have to speak to him about how you're feeling to force a change otherwise resentment will soon kill the marriage.

How do your partners in the business feel about the nepotism of you having created this role for him? Are they involved or silent partners? Do they also use the business to employ family?

What sort of contract is he on? Is it still officially a temporary role?

I mean, you could tell him there's no longer the business need for him to work there and give him notice. Or if your partners are active in the business, they could.

To be honest, I don’t see what the problem is.. if you reverse the genders, this is not an unusual set up. If you want him to do a bit more anyway, you’re just gonna have to communicate it to him. Just ask him to paint something ask him to sort something out? I don’t really understand the problem.

No I don’t think he is taking advantage. You say he is doing a good job at work so it sounds like he adds value to your business. I would perhaps ask him to help maintain a work - home boundary and not talk about work at home, as I can understand that is annoying that it is being blurred.
He sounds like he is paying bills proportionate to his income and pulling his weight with the kids.
I know afew women who work for their husbands business and have a similar split of finances, I don’t see why this is acceptable for women but not men.

The issue here (imo) is not whether it’s ok for one spouse to work for another and how much they contribute but rather that you’ve made it very clear that you don’t want him working for you and he is ignoring you. You employed him as a stop gap and he doesn’t want to move on because he’s comfortable. That’s understandable but it’s not what you agreed and the situation is making you unhappy. That is the bit that I find totally unreasonable. The rest of it sounds less of an issue although I appreciate it’s frustrating to always have to organising stuff.

i would agree but she doesn’t want him working for her. It was supposed to be a stop gap and now he won’t look for anything else.

She doesn’t want to work with him. That’s the issue. She gave him a job as a temporary measure to get him out of a bad situation and now he wont find another job despite being asked repeatedly. I agree the other stuff doesn’t sound like a massive issue.

Yes I see your point there. Perhaps she needs to go for a carrot not a stick approach. He may have lost his confidence so wants to stay in his comfort zone. Perhaps help him do his cv and contact some recruitment consultants.

But personally, if it wasn’t a problem for my business partners I would keep him working for me as he gets to flex to help with the kids and home so less stress for me !

Yeah, I imagine there must be benefits practically to him working for her but I think quite a few people would prefer to have a bit of work / life separation.

He won't look for another job when he can go to the gym, school run within this current job and its parameters.
Your business partners must think he's taking the piss and you're allowing it, if you employ him, then make him an employee not your DH who does what he likes.
My DS works for me and he works harder than anyone else, he is well paid but he more than earns it.

Who would do the school runs if he worked elsewhere? He's pulling his weight at home and doing a great job at work. Him working for you makes your life easier but I get why you don't want him working for you.
I never get this separate finances when married. There's no marriage partnership here. It's all transactional and unequal and a divorce would see you in a right pickle because he'd probably get half.

It sounds like the job you created for him is a bit of a doss and the business could cope quite well without it. That's probably the cause of your resentment as you don't class the money he contributes as a real contribution. You need to get rid of the role and force him to look elsewhere. You could pretend your business partners want this if you like.

They way you write doesn't make it sound like you view your relationship as a partnership.

There is lots of ' I pay for this', 'he can't cover that', 'fix MY guttering'. He can't cover his share of the mortgage.

I get the frustrations with a man obviously lacking drive to change but I can't get my head around this narrative you have around finances in your marriage. It's very segregated and divisive.

£38k is a good wage for part time the UK average for full time is £34k in 2023.

Would he actually be able to find a job earning similar or more?

IMO you both need to have some serious discussions about finance, household running and the future. Neither of you are sounding reasonable to me and both have work to do