Separate finances when one partner has more wealth

[FancyMauveHare]

My partner and I are coming up on 5 years together but have only recently started living together. We are in our 30s.

When I met him I was not interested in living with a partner and he was recently divorced and didn't fancy that either. It worked well for us, we both had largely the same lifestyle and both were renting studios not far from each other.

My reasons for living in a gritty studio was saving for a deposit. I have no family wealth and have not received any financial help from family since I was a teenager.

He has now bought a house outright and is receiving monthly payments of £1-3K from parents to renovate it. We have a contract to say he has to give me several months notice if he wants me to move out and I have no beneficial interest in the house, he's solely responsible for all house expenses and we are jointly responsible for utilities only.

I have always been a proponent of separate finances in my 20s, but I've also never been in a life partnership before. I am becoming uneasy with the very obvious wealth disparity between us. My partner is as frugal same as me, so our spending (minus the renovations) is largely the same, however, my financial planning is predicated on having to financially support both my parents when they are elderly and being the only person I can rely on financially in case of an emergency. He has never had to financially plan anything - he says he always lived below his means and that's enough.

Living in a house that's not mine makes me feel uneasy. He says he wants me to feel like it's my home, but I don't feel like it. I don't feel like it's my place to be deciding on decorations even though he consults me because I don't want to be the reason he chooses the more expensive option. I don't feel like investing my own money because the house is not mine. I don't want to be living like this in 10 years time.

My partner says if my budget ever not allows me to afford something (like a holiday), he'll just pay for me. But most likely thing is that I just won't accept it. I think it would create a weird power dynamic.

Does anybody have any advice and tips on how to navigate wealth disparity between unmarried partners? (Marriage is not an option as he does not want to be married again).

I agree that you don't have to share finances with someone just because you love them HOWEVER he would literally let you go in order to not risk his capital. You say what you offer is no value and all risk. Financially, yes. But why is he viewing you purely in terms of financial risk if he loves you? Even if you did divorce later and he lost a part of his money he would still be absolutely fine by all accounts. He's not risking that much! He will risk nothing in order to keep you and therefore he doesn't love you.

Yes, I think for me the core is like this - I don't want to carry out wifely duties and responsibilities without the security a marriage would bring. If we aren't life partners, then I should live alone in my own place setting my own rules about my life. Come and go as I please, and don't be his default for every eventuality.

Same as with a friend. I have a very close friend who has helped me out lots when we were younger, and we talk about getting a house together when we're old and widowed, but these are not concrete plans, these are just nice to haves. I understand that her actual life planning is with her husband.

And I think my partner wants this kind of a relationship. Lighter on entanglements, but heavy on companionship. I understand that because I also wanted that until recently. But I changed my mind and he did not.

Well, I think in the interest of fairness we can say the same thing about me. In fact, plenty of people already said as much. That I would rather let him go just because he doesn't want to share money with me. I guess I'm also viewing it purely in terms of financial risk here?

But I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I want a family unit, shared money and financial planning, and he doesn't. He said he wants to know the person who is with him is there just because they want to me, not because it's convenient or useful. He doesn't want entanglements to get in a way of commitment, so to speak.

And that's ok, but I just can't play house then. I'll be as committed to him as I am to my friends - I'm there, I'm present, but it's less binding.

Can you blame him? If I had substantially more wealth than a partner, then I wouldn’t want to share finances either! Almost half of marriages end in divorce, not even counting couples that aren’t married. Sharing finances made sense in the days when women didn’t work, but there isn’t a need for it now, and it can financially ruin someone who has already planned their financial future.

Considering that you are living rent free, you should easily be able to save money. If you stay together long term then you could look at buying a joint house at some point in the future.

I don't think it's the same - you love him enough to marry him. And you're pulling back now because he doesn't want to marry you. It's a sign he doesn't have those same feelings for you. A very good reason to leave even if you love him!
From his end, it's about a potential theoretical future risk of having to give you part of his wealth if you break up. He would still be financially stable so it's not that big of a risk. He would risk that in order to keep you, if he loved you imo.

Marriage is entitlement to half of the other person’s money, and giving them entitlement to half of yours, in the event of a divorce. It may also give some rights in case either party dies while married (this I do not know).

So far as I know, marriage does not actually entitle either of you to anything while you stay married, except in certain extreme scenarios that would most likely be on a path to divorce anyway.

If your position is « I want him to in effect sign over a right to half of his already paid-for house and also half of his pension to me, which right goes into effect only if we get divorced, and otherwise I don’t want to have a child with him », then I guess that is your position, it sounds like he does not agree with it, and whether you or others think that is right or wrong, so be it.

If on the other hand you think about marriage as primarily relating to money, and you can talk and negotiate about with him without either of you totally switching off, then maybe that gives you both room to negotiate, either marriage with a prenup that gives some protection for at least some of his pre-existing assets while also discussing sharing of income during the marriage, or maybe a financial agreement that guarantees you a fair level of financial security without taking away too much of his, which could apply while you are together and not only in the case of separation. For instance, you could have three pots: your own money, his own money and your joint money, and decisions and ownership on the joint money could be, well, joint, What goes in each pot could then be a matter for negotiation. As could be what happens to the house and pension.

Um, no .You say « he would still be financially stable ». But if the marriage ended in divorce for any reason — even if OP decided to go off and be with someone else or just did not want to be married anymore — then he would lose his home (unless he had enough cash to pay her half of its value) and also half of his pension.

Anyone who gets married and owns a home together with their spouse risks having to move out, sell up and split the proceeds in the event of a divorce. We're taking that risk out of commitment to the other person because the risk feels worth it. It doesn't feel worth it to this guy hence he's not committed to her.

I think you're correct unfortunately. He wants marriage, kids but not with you. You're a stop gap.

As I said before keep saving for your own home.

@Octagonchecker In most cases what you say is true but in this case his risk (and risk aversion) is far higher than average, likely because:

(1) he’s been through a divorce once and probably already lost a substantial amount of money which has made him more cautious;
(2) they are not on equal or close to equal footing wealth wise from the sounds of it, he has a lot more to lose; and
(3) it sounds as though a substantial proportion of his wealth comes from his family, for this reason he may feel a stronger desire to protect it, not feeling as though it’s really his to lose.

As far as I’m aware pre-nups are enforceable in this country but if they were this would be a classic case to use one.

Yes if they were married.

That should be ‘not enforceable’!

Will you come back and update us OP? I feel sure he will change his tune when you actually move out!

I agree with the first sentence.

And in this case, there is an imbalance: because OP does not have a house, she would not lose any financial stability — she would only stand to gain wealth in case of divorce. Whereas the guy would only stand to lose part of his wealth. So it is not of a case of a risk taken together — he takes the risk alone, she benefits.

Usually on Mumsnet, if a woman owns a house and a man does not own much of anything, the recommendation seems to be that she should not marry, even if she loves him, because she should protect her assets. Staying unmarried does not mean she is not committed or unloving, she is just being sensible.

Whereas if it is the man who owns a house and pension, the view seems to be that if he truly loves her, then he really ought to marry her, and if he isn’t, then he does not truly love her.

Double standard.

Clearly there are other important double standards at play, some of which make the woman more vulnerable or force her to be more committed.

But I am not in agreement with the binary « sign over half of your assets or you don’t really love me ». Maybe he loves her but is also « just being sensible. »

Well, I'm not the entirety of Mumsnet, and I wouldn't automatically say that a woman who owns a house shouldn't marry a man with no assets. I personally contributed about 100k to mine and DH's house, which was all inheritances I'd had, and he didn't contribute anywhere near as much to the deposit because he hadn't received any money from family. We're joint tenants. As far as I'm concerned we're totally committed to each other and what's mine is his. It's through pure dumb luck that I got inheritances and he didn't so why shouldn't he also benefit, as my life partner? It's incomprehensible to me when married couples have separate finances.

I'm really, really bored to death of people who seek out this forum precisely because they know it's mostly women, and whine about "double standards", ie centring women. Nobody would expect any of the numerous manosphere sites to be a court of perfect blind justice, in fact people would think you were an idiot if you expected anything other than a centring of men. The forum is mostly women (although much less than it used to be, lots of men think we need their correction) and it shouldn't surprise any reasonably intelligent person for the culture to reflect that. The only reason anyone wants to complain and rebuke is precisely because of their own double standards about their expectations of men's and women's spaces.

The main reason people on here are cautious about women's financial security is because the actual double standard that matters is the real world, and in the real world women overall are far more heavily penalised financially, especially when they become mothers. We have scores of threads every day about women being financially fucked over, or unable to leave a horrible man because of finances. It is almost always women who take the earning hit and have less freedom to fuck off if they're not happy. When we have an epidemic of men taking earning hits and juggling work and 80%+ of childcare and domestic duties and getting endlessly screwed over for it, we can address the evil website that reflects its demographic.

If you were my dd I’d tell you to let him go. He’s well aware that even with a prenup, the courts will act in the interests of any children. Therefore he feels safer without them. You deserve a life that you want. This isn’t for you.

So you have 30k for a house deposit. Have you floated the idea that you purchase the house with him 50/50 as tenants in common? He can withdraw some money from the property to do with what he wished; you will then have equal ownership.

That is if you can reconcile the fact that he won't marry you. I would never marry again so can understand why he would feel this way. Plus your desire to financially support your parents if needed wouldn't work for me either and tbh, youre dramatically reducing your chances of finding a man in the UK that would be on board with that.

With his attitude I wouldn't co share any property I bought. I might let it if I had the confidence to do so.

Hey- firstly this must be a really difficult situation to be in- to be invested and love your partner, share a life and a home- but just not be able to bridge this gap. And I totally understand why for you it’s such a fundamental, critical gap to need to bridge prior to having children. And you absolutely deserve to hold an expectation of only proceeding with a civil partnership with someone who wants to marry you.

I think it’s really respectful of you to acknowledge that neither of your wants are wrong. However, I do think his are a little unrealistic / idealistic. Feel free to tell me if that’s totally wrong! :)

it sounds like he wants the rest of your lives together to be spent continually proving to him, through your financial setup, that you’re with him for the right reasons. And the current setup is designed to give him that assurance.

But candidly you’ve already proven that your intentions are good over the past few years - I guess ideally you’d hope he would trust that and that there would be nothing left to prove. I also totally understand why you’d feel uncomfortable with the current setup- even if you have the most incredible relationship, keeping things totally totally separate doesn’t leave much room for growth together- even the simplest of things like making your home feeling like YOUR home (renovations- or even just feeling safe within it).

And then even just introducing children- the fact is that having children does put you in a more vulnerable position financially.. And I totally understand why you would want the security of a civil partnership to mitigate that risk.

It feels like he either doesn’t totally understand the vulnerability you’ll be exposing yourself to? Or if he does understand- doesn’t he want to proactively seek a civil partnership just to give you that protection (appreciate he is willing to on paper, but it sounds more passively agreed).

Separate finances conceptually is a really commendable idea and not wrong, but in reality, when a child is involved and one person has to take a career break, or at a minimum take a nose dive in their salary for a few months to accommodate patenting / maternity leave- it doesn’t really work. And you sort of have to navigate those financial periods together.

And even irrespective of children- what about if someone gets ill one day? What happens then?

conceptually his idea sounds fine, but it doesn’t really allow any room for protecting one another when life throws a spanner in the works- which at some point it will.

I know he has said he’s willing to support in those moments, and I’m sure he means it and his intentions are good. But it sounds like he wants to really hold control of the ability to be able to make that choice in that moment - like he’s holding onto his right to exercise that choice.

I totally get it’s more complex and I’ve probably massively over simplified it. My DH was going through a divorce when I met him, so I also really empathise and I know it’s not that simple.

i don’t really have any answers. I just really wanted to say that we’re a very similar age and you sound super logical and like a lovely partner- but you only get one life. You still have time to have children if that’s what you want. I know you want to have children with him- but you absolutely have time to meet someone, and you may discover you still hold those desires of wanting children still. You might even decide to have a child alone. But one things for sure- there is absolutely nothing worse in life than regret- so please don’t be afraid to force a decision and move forward if that’s what you feel.

Forcing that decision sooner rather than later will save your time. And honestly- I suspect might even make him think twice about how he really feels about civil partnerships - it sounds like he loves you a lot, but is also letting the past influence his decision making now.

Hope this helps and again sorry if I’ve got any of it wrong! :)

Don't pay a penny of your money into this property. I would continue with your plans to save and buy your own place frankly as you don't want to say split after x years and have no security. It all sounds great for him but really not a shared adult partnership.

OP if you want children and it’s not on the table with him then leave. You will regret it for the rest of your life. My friend just had a baby at 42, you have time!

Does he want children with you? Or just not enough to marry you to have them?

Yes, marriage is entitlement to half of the capital acquired during the marriage. So if that's the case, why is it wrong to live like the money earned in the marriage is shared? Why sign to a binding legal document that gives you this obligation and right but think its uncooth to budget and plan like the money is shared?

I also don't understand why it's a bad thing that a person who will take on the entirety of the burden of reproduction who has no housing should not have a right to the father's housing? She would have a right to it in case of a divorce, but it's bad for her to want this protection before the divorce?

At literally no point have I said I wanted him to put me on the deed as a joint tenant and at no point did I say want him to transfer half his current pension to me. This is your own imagination. I said I want to do pension planning together and after marriage acquired pension pots are shared, so why not do it?

Marriage provides security for many eventualities. If we marry, have no children, and divorce, it's extremely unlikely I ever get any of the house. If we marry, have 5 children, stay married for 40 years, and I'll be disabled, then yes, the court will decide differently.

And no, a cohabitation agreement which tries to replicate marriage won't work for me because I want the family law court's protection in case of children. You can't write up every eventuality in the case of children, so I want access to a family law court rather than go by contract law only.

Women almost always taken on the brunt of childrearing and suffer financial penalties for it in work, so it's marriage and children for me or no children with no marriage.

If a man I'm with doesn't want to help me make sure my parents have a dignified death, the man is not for me.

I am myself very willing to help my partner's parents in any way I can when the time comes, including supporting us both on a single income if he needs to quit his job to look after them.

I look at it in the same way as I would childcare.

As for the house, £30K would definitely not get me 50% of his house, it would be closer to 12-15% since the house was bought cash. This wouldn't really help in the case we have children as I want my children to have security of stable housing to which they're used to in caseof separation. So it's not a replacement for marriage.

@FancyMauveHare If parents divorce, children very rarely have ‘stable housing to which they’re used to’, inevitably most people have to sell and downsize. You have very unrealistic expectations.