Finances during maternity leave if one person has higher savings

[Chia68]

Interested in hearing thoughts…

If my savings are about 3x higher than DH’s savings, would you say I should use these savings to subsidise my maternity leave, or should DH share his income? I did suggest that both of us work part time until DS starts nursery but DH won’t give up any hours so childcare falls on me at the moment and I can only work very little and need to use my savings to contribute to our household income because we have separate finances and share bills 50/50.

We have happily had separate finances for getting close to 30 years. I have had 2 maternity leaves. Without fine details overall adjustments have been made at various times to make it all fair.

If he wants 50:50. Then it needs to be 50:50. Presumably, the child is his and he needs to bare to cost of 50% of the childcare. If you are not working in order to provide childcare for your child he should be supporting you financially during that time. You are caring for his/ your child. Is he doing his 50% of the parenting/ housework/ cooking/ laundry/ admin?

If you’re going to keep your money as “his money, my money” then the loss from salary to mat pay should be split in half so you both cover half of the difference.

For a large amount of married couples money is just shared though.

OP
Stop making excuses for him. Growing up poor isn't an affliction or an illness. It's not traumatic. He is being a garden variety misogynist.
He thinks childcare is your concern, he's happy to make you ( make you!!) more financially vulnerable while protecting his interests.

This IS a big deal. Financial abuse and deep selfishness IS a hill to die on. These traits do not exist in isolation. This man is showing you how much value you and his child have to him.

But I’m not sure if it’s a hill to die on, considering that I’d have the money in my account that could pay for all our childcare

As everyone else has pointed out its not about money or mat leave.

but you crack on. Come back in 5 years and tell us all about your great marriage....

Also please take a moment to count the number of replies that are like "yep this sounds fine to me!"

All bills need to be split proportionately including childcare, not 50/50 unless that is the correct proportion.

Your savings shouldn't come into it (unless he agrees all income is one pot too). You will need that to top up your pension which will reduce by going part time, tell him that. Also, I presume his arrangement is that he keeps any leftover income after his share of the bills, so he'll have more than you. Another reason you need to hang onto your savings. Otherwise you'll find he can save up his disposable income for lads holidays and expensive hobby equipment and you'll be left with hardly anything for yourself ... another reason you'll need your savings.

Just one thing that occurred to me. Is he on board with you going part time?

Good lord are you having a bad day? What a massive over reaction

but DH won’t give up any hours so childcare falls on me at the moment

Why did you have a baby with him?

No if you are working reduced hours to look after your joint child your bills should be pro rated. He doesn’t get a free pass to not support his child.

i suppose everyone’s finances work differently but we don’t have separate savings, we r married so the savings are ours ?

Do not share your savings. They are your protection when he refuses to pay for his own child. Which is what he’s doing right now.

Separate finances are a legitimate choice, but it needs to be fair. 50/50 when one partner is on mat leave is outrageous.

Nope. I’m just sick of men who refuse to do any childcare or pay for their children. If you aren’t angry then you aren’t paying attention. You do understand he’s refusing to do his half of caring for a child he made?

I'm a bit different to a lot for the others, I have a child with my partner and we don't share money. We put the same amount of our salaries into the joint account for bills. But on parental leave we put everything into the pot and took out the same spending money each month. It helped that we split the parental leave though.
As soon as we were both back full-time we went back to a % split based on our income.
It works for us as we both wanted to go back full-time
If one of us were to drop hours/days for childcare we have discussed that we would either have the money lost and pension lost or the higher earner would just cover it

What’s morally right is he pays 50% of child costs if you’re not married.

if you’re married there can be nuances around one parent working less etc & it would be compensated for in divorce.

but if you’re not married this needs to be a fair split to protect yourself. Your savings are yours, he needs to pay for his child

"I just somehow start to think that it’s a bit unfair how he goes on with his life like before and I’m left to work out how I can look after our baby and work" - this is what you're signing up for, settling for, for the rest of your marriage if you just go along with what he wants!

Of course it's easier not to be assertive and clear about what you want and what's fair, just use your savings to enable him to treat you like unpaid nanny. Don't let him walk all over you, OP. Stand up for yourself.

I don’t get this at all @Chia68 . You’re a family with a child. You need to sit down and discuss how you can share your finances as a family.

Of course he should be sharing the costs of his baby.

He's mean OP.
Why wasn't this discussed pre children.

This will only get a lot worse.
Many posters put up threads on MN that allowed this to fly and years later they pay everything for their child and half all bills.

Financial abuse.
Coercive control.
A crime.
Stop being taken for a food.
Another man using his childhood to bd mean, abusive, a shit.

You have chosen very poorly and need to wake up to the fact.
He either contributes to his child or its over.
Contact CMS and get hkm to pay via them.

I strongly urge you to contact Women's aid.
They will tell you this is controlling and abusive.
He knows exactly what he is doing.

Running down your savings till you are very stuck.
Tell your family, GP, friends the truth.

It never ends well.

He's a bad 'un.

If you’re not a “one-pot” household then I think the split should be proportionate to earnings.

were you completely 50:50 before mat leave despite being the higher earner?

We have always kept finances separate and split bills 50:50 because we earn around the same over the year but have different attitudes to finances - my earnings are more stable and I am better at saving. His earnings vary each week (plus he doesn’t get paid holidays etc) and he tends to spend whatever he has access to. It wouldn’t make sense to share finances. When I went on maternity leave we continued to pay 50:50 bills. I had quite a bit saved but didn’t actually use it as my maternity and holiday pay was actually ok. After mat leave I went back to work 3 days a week while my partner continued to work full time and it did then feel unfair splitting bills (which now included childcare) 50:50 even though I could have used my savings if I needed to. After a year I suggested we both worked 4 days and did 1 day of childcare each. This works well for us.

Yes of course he should support you if you are reducing hours to look after your child. Just because you have savings it doesn’t mean you should need to use them to cover the shortfall. You should divide bills according to income so if he earns £3000 and you earn £1000 he pays 75% of bills and you pay 25% as you are saving him the cost of childcare.