WTF is this behaviour?

[SquirrelsAreNuts]

For background, DH and I have a combined income of about £150k but he earns way more than I do. I have a minimum wage term-time job because I do all the childcare for our DC and DSC. We also live in one of the most expensive parts of the SE. Wouldn't be my choice, but it's so we can be close to DH's DC (my DSC).

We're comfortable but not rolling in it. I mention all that just because what triggered this thread was money, but it's not really about money IYSWIM?

We've had next year's holiday reserved but not paid for since the summer. It was coming up to the time we have to confirm everything and start putting deposits down and booking flights, etc. DH has been fully up to speed on all these plans, the timings, the costs, everything. I've managed the admin but have kept him informed of all the details at each step. As far as I was concerned he had signed off on all of it. I don't know what more I could have done, which is why I'm baffled.

Last night DH and I sat down together and spent about an hour searching the best flights in terms of price and time and figured out the most cost effective way to do it was fly out to one airport on a one way ticket and fly back from a different airport on a one way ticket.

We booked the outbound flight together and then he lost interest and went to sit in the front room. So I carried on and booked the inbound flight on my own (but with his agreement, I thought).

Once it was done I went into the front room and told him I'd booked the flights back and he started freaking out. Saying that now we're committed to the holiday cost and he didn't realise it was going to be so much. How much was I going to pay towards it, etc, etc. I was floored. What did he think we'd just been doing? It was such a weird reaction from him I didn't know how to respond other than WTF.

He freaked out so much he insisted I cancelled the whole thing. So this morning I've wasted a load of time cancelling the flights and trying to get our money back. The kids are going to be so upset.

He sort of has form for this. In the past he's agreed to having work done on our house (which is a fixer upper). Has let me put in a load of time and effort contacting builders and getting quotes, etc, only to say no to everything at the last minute.

I feel utterly powerless in this relationship in terms of finances. I don't think he's being controlling as such, it's more his extreme anxiety at spending any money. But the net effect on me and the kids is the same. House and garden is crumbling around our ears and we never go anywhere.

For the first time ever in our marriage I am wondering what it would be like to leave him as this latest holiday reverse ferret feels like one too many. But the thought is terrifying. I'm sure if you asked him, he'd say I'm a wasteful spendthrift who just wants the high life. But to him, the 'highlife' is putting the heating on, or having the dishwasher on anything but Eco setting.

I haven't been able to stop crying this morning but I can't put my finger on why. It's not just the cancelled holiday. It's the weird behaviour - letting me do all that organising and spending an hour booking flights with me then completely changing his mind - I don't even know what to call it.

I think this is why I feel so unbelieveably sad today.

So let me get this straight; You’re legally married, he earns approximately £95k-£100k per annum. You only have a minimum wage term-time job, understandably as you do all the childcare for both your shared child(ren), and his children from a previous relationship, (assuming you cover all the housework too) and he still expects you to contribute to the holiday from your separate pot ?

Tacky. Cheap. Unappreciative. Unmanly.

It is very sad. It would be sadder for you to waste more years with him and to end up despising him.

This should be a wake up call for you. There is a chance that things could turn around (I reached the end of my tether with my DH, for different reasons, and he fixed things completely, so it can happen) but regardless you need to address this in a serious way. It is not a good situation for you longterm.

How are finances sorted out for general life to life stuff - bills etc?

My FIL is like this. Similar up bringing to your DH. He gets no pleasure in spending money - it causes him great anxiety. He sees no value in coffees out or going for dinner unless it’s to impress friends. He’s never bothered with birthdays etc for others.

Any spend is at his discretion. Holidays, cars etc. anything that MIL wants has to come from her pension. She doesn’t get any say on how their combined savings are spent.

With holidays he’ll say “Oh we should go here in spring.” They plan and then when it comes to booking, he’ll have talked MIL out of going and then say “Oh well try x place in Autumn instead.” It’s been like this for years and it makes for a pretty boring life now.

But he's very comfortable with spending a lot of money on his hobby, so the psychological blocker around spending money doesn't apply when it's something just for himself.

Well but its not just anxiety—its accompanied by a wolloping dose of forcing you to retract all your hard work and threatening you (vaguely) with withdrawing financial support.

What happens if you sit him down and say “I demand a joint account and the right to spend our money as I see fit?” If he refuses you have your answer: he considers you a subsidiary partner, not a full partner. And he considers all money to be his.

Just being a tight arse then :( you obviously agreed on the budget and now hes freaking out.
I wonder if it is his job!

Given that you'd booked the outward flight together, what was his alternative plan to booking one home? Walk back? Stay out there and live off the land?

I can see this being my future exactly.

Generally he pays the big bills and I cover all the extras like kids' clubs, their school dinners, school trips, clothes, shoes, etc, plus my own car expenses (I own it outright - not on finance).

My dad is similar in terms of not wanting to spend a penny unless it is absolutely essential. He will also eat out of date food rather than throw it away (the waste!), has clothes older than me (I'm mid 40s) and spends a lot of his time growing his money with investments etc. He has in actual cash & shares over £750K plus owns his home outright etc.

I put it down to him being brought up primarily by his grandparents as his mother left him there when he was 4 & his dad worked full time so couldn't care for him (had him every weekend though). His grandparents were born circa 1890s so his childhood was very different in terms of availability of food, money, clothes etc to when he was young or even when I was growing up.

Ill be honest, nothing has ever changed for him, even my mum divorcing him in part for his attitude to never having 'anything nice'. He only cares about function - it if works he'll use it even if its unsafe. The arguments Ive had with him about fixing the boiler himself as he's not paying for someone gas safe to do it (I did win and it is now serviced by someone qualified) but that is typical of his attitude.

He is a very nice man, incredibly generous with his time & skills (he was a type of trade), volunteers in the community etc but will never part with money unless it is basically life & death.

I don't want to upset you but my dad is now nearly 80 & has never changed his attitude towards money & I think it is too inbuilt for him based completely on his early childhood traumatic experiences.

I have no advice but do sympathise with you.

Ha! I have no idea. I think until the flights back were booked, it wasn't 'concrete' in his mind.

So weird. What do i even do with that mentality?

That's not what OP has said. She said that he umms and ahhs and hesitates on buying stuff for himself too, and that she tells him it's okay to buy those things.

She has every right to be angry, for multiple reasons, but it doesn't sound like he's freely splurging like mad on himself.

I'm sorry if you have already said but do you have DC together? Are you free to just leave and live wherever you want? Do you know why his last relationship failed?

Yeah we have DC together. I do know why his ex left him and I think this was probably part of it but there were other factors as well that were specific to her.

This is nuts!

My initial thought (seeing his salary) was that as a highly paid senior manager he would know how to treat (and motivate) employees, and all you had to do was point out to him that he should be getting the best out of you and managing you professionally as he would manage any other employee (i.e. NOT as he is now!).

However, having read your comments, I have reversed my view. You are the talented senior manager in this relationship, and you need to assume control and manage things.

I realise that this may not be easy for you to achieve, but I have a feeling that you are up to it. If it doesn't work, it is sort of what would happen in a divorce - the joint income would be less because some would be wasted in running 2 households, but essentially he would have to pay child support and alimony until the children had gone their own ways, and you would have control of the expenditure.

All money is both of yours. Or rather - It should be. The money should all be pooled into one joint account every payday, all bills etc paid (money siphoned off for savings and holidays aswell) and then what’s left should be split equally.

That way you would know the budgets for holidays in advance no surprises.

That said; if he’s terribly anxious about spending any money, you need to have serious talks about budgets for the year well
in advance and also discussions about the various costs of daily life so you both know what’s being spent day to day etc.
good luck. You also can leave a marriage for any reason you like… xo

This is what his step dad is like! It's poverty trauma. Some sort of post second world war hangover that's been modelled downwards by the older generations.

Very depressing to think that it will never change.

The way he speaks about my attitude to money, you'd think I was some precious princess who wants diamond shoes, but I just want to live a happy, fun, interesting life within our means (which are good by most people's standards).

OP. I have just divorced a coersive, controlling man. It took nine months from the big row until the official end, with a shed load of joint therapy and couple therapy inbetween. In a one-on-one towards the end between the couples therpist and me, the penny finally dropped: I was constantly looking for reasons to understand his behaviour. The reality was his behaviour was his CHOICE. We had made huge, financial decisions together. He reneged on every single one, leaving me stuffed.

What made me finally understand the abuse was reading about the trauma bond and realising his endless, teary apologies after doing something like your holiday example, actually meant nothing. His pattern was what needed seeing, not the incidents. And funny how i was always the one having to forgive and understand. Of course, many days he was wonderful, but many, many days ue was not.

Your husband knows exactly what he is doing to you and doesn't care. It is not by accident that you are financially vulnerable. Do not waste time trying to undertand his mindset, he relies on that. He gives no thought to you.

It is shit and heartbreaking. But even 2 months on i feel so much calmer!

My DH also grew up relatively poor and in a household where money was a big source of tension. Spending money makes him anxious too. But our solution is that our finances are totally pooled, we make the big decisions eg about how much to put into pension and to over pay the mortgage, and then he leaves me to handle the day to day finances within the overall framework. He knows he can’t deal with it rationally.

He would never pull the plug on a family holiday though, let alone one we had already told the kids about.

OP hadn't posted about him umming and ahhing about buying stuff for his hobby when I posted. I was referring to this which does imply that he has a different mindset when it comes to stuff for his hobby:

'He is a good example of someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Except, perhaps unsurprisingly, when it comes to buying equipment for his hobby. Then only the best will do.'

Op, you saying you'd been together for 18 years - was that a typo? If not, his older DC can't need much input from you can they?

I agree with others that you need to gain some kind of control here. HE doesn't care if he never does anything, goes anywhere, experiences life, lives in a habitable home, but you do! You have one life, one precious life. Don't let this man dictate how you live it.

Sod his anxiety, that's his problem and he needs to deal with it, not drag you down with him. And before all the "but you don't understand what it's like to grow up poor" crew jump on me, yes I bloody well do! What that did for me is to make me want to get out there and enjoy what I can afford because I've earned it. We had nothing as kids - no holidays, no hobbies, no treats, no car, no new clothes, no central heating, nothing - and I was determined my children would have a warm home, hobbies, days out and holidays to make memories. I love spending money on those I love, it gives me great joy, so there's nothing inevitable about growing up poor and becoming a miser.

He has hefty savings by the sound of it, but won't share them. I could not live like that, you shouldn't live like that, so you need to have a serious talk about your future together - how does he see it, how do you see it? It may be you're ultimately incompatible, it may be he's amenable to change, but you need to be firm and put a stop to his controlling behaviour.

He sounds tight as hell OP, and that is always going to make for a very miserable life for you and the kids. This is why i think separate finances are a disaster if you have kids together - it's almost never going to be fair on the woman.

You either need to have a much larger joint pot of money that you are allowed to spend on normal family things like holidays - or you need to consider leaving IMO.

I don't really have any particular advice, as my DH has some traits of this ('hard times' when he was young, anxiety about spending money, etc.) but what is different is that you don't share your finances whereas we do have a joint account, and I think that makes a lot of difference and makes things a lot easier and transparent. If you have a child together, you should have joint finances, too. I wouldn't be able to live like that.

Yes that's what's so, so weird. You'd already booked the outward flights so what on earth were you supposed to do when he got bored and buggered off at that point?

I still don't quite get where the money is going. I know £150k doesn't go as far as one might expect if you're in an expensive area and have several children to consider (although obviously most people do it on far less, but you don't necessarily get the lifestyle you'd imagine that income brings). But still, you shouldn't be living like this. And he isn't bothered by the money you'll have lost in cancellation fees and lost deposits? And he lets you book it on your card knowing you can't cover it and then just forces you to cancel by refusing to pay?

But his hobby gets the best of the best?

It's just not loving or involved behaviour. The actual amounts involved aren't the point. I can't believe he treats you all well the rest of the time.

Why did his prior relationship that led to his kids end?

Suggest you both book an appointment with a financial adviser and have a look at what you can do about improving financial security. People who grew up in poverty don't generally understand financial services much if at all.

In Jan 2021 I was almost bankrupt but today I own my own home and drive a top brand car. Thats understanding financial services that allowed me to utilise systems for growth. It's a mindset that needs changing, not a spous removal.

With that income, he's in the higher tax bracket which means he's not as flush as you imagine. Consider telling him to ask employer to offer 12% salary sacrifice, and start a private pension with H&L. This will lower his tax outgoings and increase his effective take home pay.

Also, get him to set up a direct debit cash ISA that gets £300 paid in a month. This should allow him to withdraw if required.

Get him to open a Monzo account for access to direct investment account with this link https://join.monzo.com/c/0p28tc2l

If he completes the requirements in 30 dys of application he will get £20 for free... and so will I 😉.

There's also a few apps to download for both of you:
Clearscore with Experian/Equifax
Credit karma for Transunion.
Tgese will helo you track finances and build a great credit score.

Once all these stepa have been completed you'll be well on your way to financial independence... it just takes time.

Just remember that gross salary is nothing like net income. You should always be putting away around 25% of net income into investment portfolio and pensions. 10% should be investments max.

Create an HMRC LOGIN for personal tax and see what you could claim as a rebate (uniforms, tools, etc). Uniforms cut £60 of tax... even if that is just a HI-VIS PPE that you have to clean. After 10 washes they must be replaced.

You could always save the change, from anything he gives you, in a savings pot in Monzo. Interest is around 3.75% now.

Trust me on financial advisor thingy. Won't regret it. They may even tell you how to get a good holiday for less and how to pay for it.