Feel a bit pissed off but not sure if I’m BU. I know this isn’t AIBU but I’m feeling too sensitive to post this there!
For background, DP and I have 9 year old twins and DP has a 16 year old son who lives with us half the time.
I’m on the mortgage and the deeds of our house but DP pays all the mortgage and the bills because he earns £150k and I work full time but earn minimum wage. (I have a chronic physical health condition that really limits the sort of jobs I can do before anyone jumps on me about not working more. I used to have a big corporate job but I had to give it up and miss it every day.)
The money I earn generally goes towards running my 12 year old car and treats and extras for the kids. I also paid for a big holiday for us all on a credit card a couple of years ago and use my money to pay off the 0% balance each month over a five year period. Which I now realise sounds absolutely mad written down, given the topic of this post.
DP has never complained about covering all the mortgage and the bills. He’s happy for my money to be the ‘treat money’. But whenever we’ve needed to do very necessary work to our house he’s really dragged his feet and it’s been an absolute battle to get him to agree - for example - to do a loft conversion, so that our twins no longer need to share a room (they’re boy/girl) and DSS can still have his own room. It was literally about two years of arguments and me making the case for doing the renovations before he finally agreed. It was exhausting. Then of course once it’s finished, history gets rewritten and he acts as if it was never a big deal.
Likewise with holidays. He pisses and moans about the cost when I suggest going anywhere - hence why our last holiday is on my credit card. I booked it out of desperation because we hadn’t had a holiday in five years before that and I just thought fuck it, I’ll just pay for it. Obviously he was happy to come along and had a lovely time.
So that’s the context. Now to the point: I recently found out he’s spent £3,000 on a high end piece of sporting equipment for himself.
At first my attitude was fair enough, he can afford it, he pays all the bills, why shouldn’t he spend that on himself if it makes him happy?
But after thinking about it, I’m remembering how he said we couldn’t go abroad this summer because of what was spent on the loft conversion and numerous other times when the house or garden has needed something doing to it and he’s said we can’t afford it.
It’s like, if it’s spending money for the benefit of all of us, he doesn’t want to do it. But has no problem spending thousands just on himself, for something only he will ever use.
I can’t imagine I will ever be in a position where I can spend £3000 on myself. My car isn’t even worth that much. And even if I had that much spare cash - I would spend it on improving the house or garden, or on a nice holiday for us all.
I realise this sounds like a bit of a ‘diamond shoes are too tight’ situation, but it’s not about the amount of money per se, it’s more about the low-level meanness and sense that it’s only worth spending money if it benefits him - then money is no object. But he’s happy for the rest of us to go without the things that would make life a bit better if it means saving a few quid. For example, our front porch is rotten and starting to fall apart but he refuses to get it sorted because it will cost too much.
In the bigger picture, I hate that I don’t feel I have any say in our finances - which have always been separate. He has complete veto over any significant purchase. Although we own our house together, we are tenants in common, not joint tenants, so it’s not like he’s feathering my nest as well as his own by paying all the mortgage. He’s just bumping up his own equity.
I honestly can’t tell if I have a right to be pissed off about this £3k shiny toy or not. Am I a mug?