Husband wants me to pay back half of child benefit

[Bakersdelight]

I’d like to get some impartial perspective on a situation with my husband. We receive Child Benefit for our two children. This gets paid into our joint expenses account. My husband changed jobs 5 years ago and his salary went over the earnings threshold. I’ve been telling him for the past 5 years he needs to contact HMRC and work out repayment via a tax return and then see whether to stop receiving it, or just pay it back each year. He’s finally done his tax returns (only because he realise he could claim some relief on his pension contributions). And has had to pay approx £10k back in Child Benefit. He is now saying I owe him half of this money because I have benefitted from it as it was paid into the joint expenses account.
I feel he is being unreasonable given the amount he is asking from me and the fact that I had been asking him for 5 years to sort it out. I would be interested in what others think.

He's financially abusive
I'd be divorcing him
I think you will find your much better off in many ways after divorce

That must be why you're letting him get away with murder financially

You're losing out every which way

I don’t think it’s deliberate abuse. It is a mindset of entering into a marriage with a discrepancy of earnings assets and not having conversations beforehand about how it will work. It is a mindset of not understanding that marriage is the creation of a team rather than than 2 individuals living together. I am sure in his mind this makes complete sense to the OP’s husband and it probably does not occur to him it’s not normal as he has his money and she has hers and they are 50:50 partners in the marriage so why wouldn’t they be 50:50 partners in all aspects. Someone needs to give him a head wobble!

Show him this thread OP so he can see me calling him a Grade A cunt directly.

He is financially abusive and does not want to share what he regards as “his “
money or salary.

Such men too are rarely solely financially abusive and I would think there are other types of abuse in their relationship . His arrangement with the op with regards to her maternity leave and SMP was also he being financially abusive.

Although the higher earner is responsible for filling in the tax form either one of you could have stopped claiming.
We used to be in a similar boat before the threshhold increased, when DH had a pay rise.
DH had a load on his plate, staff leaving etc and I knew in all likelihood he wouldn’t get around to doing anything about it for awhile so I just went online and stopped claiming it.
It probably meant that we missed out on a small proportion of it as we would still have been entitled to some, and it does give you pension credits which I missed out on for the time we weren’t claiming but I adjusted our budget and at least knew that we wouldn’t be stuck with a massive bill which we would struggle to pay back.
You are responsible for paying back half IMO because you could have done a something to avoid being in this situation.

Oh OP. You spent it. You pay it.

edited to add, you could have opted out. It’s really easy.

I’m sure it was spent on the children. They should probably pay it back.

They are not 50:50 partners in this marriage. He holds the vast amount of power and control within it

I don't see why you wouldn't each pay half. If both of you had access to the money, both spent the money then both should pay it back. No matter who claimed, you weren't entitled to it as a family.

Which the OP has allowed and it’s only now she is being asked to pay back half of the debt that it’s an issue.
She should never have allowed herself to be paying half when she earns three times less but by looking at the other posts this is how they’ve seperated their finances.
This situation has just highlighted again how unfair it is but OP could have stopped claiming and requested her DH to make up the short fall from his higher earnings into the joint expenses account.

@lessglittermoremud the OP wasn’t claiming the DH was, so she had no authority to stop the claim.

And do you really think someone who had to still pay 50% of the bills through maternity when only on SMP has any financial power in the relationship?

The more I think about this the more upset I become. This is no marriage or partnership, it's like you are two individuals living together and he wants you to "pay your way". Fucking bastard. And you had to fund the maternity leave by YOUR savings for HIS children. There is so much wrong with his reasoning. If you divorce him he will see how much he is supposed to pay: half savings and pensions and CMS.

She also reminded him repeatedly to inform the HMRC but he being the person I think he is ignored her counsel because he knows best.

Such control is done gradually and by degrees: she likely had no idea at the time that he was financially abusing her. His approach to her SMP pay amount to she being financially abused. She used her savings for the kids; there is no notion here of joint money and he does not want to share.

These men do not walk around with abuser written in their forehead and they are very plausible.

I never can understand threads like this. There is no ‘his money’ and ‘my money’ in a marriage. All income is household income and all expenditure is household expenditure.

I’m married and we live in separate homes. We run our own finances. DH earns more and pays for the drinks, meals out, holidays etc. Life is so much easier this way.

Edited to add Op DH needs to pay it back. Whatever goes into the joint pot had been agreed as us in there for spending. Her DH finances are outside this are his problem. Maybe he used thd CB as savings and has earned interest.
Op you are in trouble here. Paying your way is fine in proportion to wages.

No I don’t, the whole situation stinks. But you can’t absolve yourself from paying back anything because you nagged at your husband to do something and he didn’t, and you didn’t either.
I wouldn’t be in this sort of financial situation, but the OP has stayed on this arrangement of weird seperate finances.
The thread isn’t about how their finances are set up, the OP is asking should she be paying back half and given they have separate finances she is 50% responsible, if had been the OP and couldn’t have stopped the claim, I would have taken it out and put it an a higher interest account and have it sitting there.
I expect the husband doesn’t use the joint expenses account for anything personal and just puts a portion of his wages into it and stashes the rest of his wealth elsewhere. Even if the OP had taken out half of the child benefit and saved it over 5 years that would mostly cover her half of any bill.

But he put it in the family pot as part of his 50%. OP has already contributed her 50%. He owes the money because it's sitting in his savings.

You have a very strange take on this, BananaPeels.

Legally, even though you're married, you can still have a savings account (or a house, or a car) in your own sole name, and the money in it will be solely yours.

Do you mean, "if you got divorced, you'd have to split it, so it was never really yours in the first place"? Because that's a really big IF, and it doesn't affect the fact that if you're not divorcing, your money in your sole account is yours alone by law.

i would also assume that he has got money stashed away somewhere that she is unaware of. He has likely continued to buy expensive clothes, get his haircut regularly, see the dentist and optician. When has the op done that?.

In fact, OP, if he's been using child benefit to make 'his' contribution up since they were born, he owes you half of whatever he scammed you out of before his pay rise took him over the threshold.

I don't understand how some aren't seeing this.

It is a poor system which needs to be revised. I am sure many people are claiming when they aren’t due it.

But if you knew you weren’t entitled and would have to pay it back, then why did you spend it?

Also why did you not just stop claiming?

Her husband was claiming

Totally agree there will be families who won’t claim it/be entitled to it because of the wages of one of the partnership, but the household income with be less then another family who are able to claim it because both of them will earn just below the threshold.

Exactly ( better put).

@Amberlynnswashcloth Op put in her wages. Her DH put in child benefit ( thereby got to keep his own wages).

You sound like roommates in a houseshare rather than husband and wife. Legally all money and assets are joint in a marriage. I can't understand marriages where one partner earns so much more and is happy for their spouse to have a lower standard of living than they have.

I used to earn more than my husband, now he significantly out earns me. We have always shared everything we have, I can't imagine seeing him short of money while I have plenty or vice versa. You need to have a calm discussion of your finances and see if you can come to am agreement you are both happy with that is more equitable.