Am I being unfair? Couple finances

[Cluelessfirstimer]

Me and DP own a home together (with mortgage) and have 1 DS.

We are not married. This is by choice for me. I dont want this thread to get into a back and forth if thats a wise decision or not but ive mentioned it as its relevant.

Ive always been very clear that everything has to be 50/50 in terms of bills and mortgage etc. Even before we purchased a home.

I have a good career and earn well - about £80k all in. DP has lost a few jobs for various reasons over the year and as such earns less. £40k.

He earns enough to cover his half of the bills and enough left over but I pay for almost all the food, any child care and basically everything else we do or need. Ive just paid for our holiday.

Anyway - we have had some work done on the house which I outlaid for. I have said DP needs to pay me back his half at some point.

Hes had an absolute shit fit this evening about it and started saying we should stagger the bills and mortgage to relate to salary. Im totally against this. We have been together a long time and although I dont forsee it I know if we split we would each get 50% of the house. I find it incredibly unfair that I should have paid more.

He CAN afford his half he CAN afford to pay me half for the work (ive suggested very small installments) so im pretty pissed off this has started now.

Am I being completely unfair here? My mum got absolutely shafted when her and my dad split up so ive always been nervous and keen to protect myself financially. I feel ive worked really hard to do that and have always been clear about wanting things to be 50/50.

Whoops, just seen you intend to do this

Ive had a little look today and its actually eye watering.

Now you have a basic idea of how much more you're putting in. And he wants to pay even less.

A lot of relationships founder on financial issues.

As others have said, he has no idea what he needs to pay to raise his own child. This does not help make him a responsible parent.

You need a joint household account, as well as personal current accounts.
All household bills, mortgage, household shopping, everything for the child, family days out, family holidays, date nights or socialising as a couple, should all come out of the joint account.
You can also set up a joint savings account, useful for annual budgeting for Christmas, holidays, and as a fund for house repairs and emergencies.

Any personal spending, like adult clothes, fancy toiletries, hobbies, socialising without your partner, tech and equipment that is not for the family living room, gifts for each other, should all come out of your respective personal current accounts.

Cars and phones can be negotiated as either personal or joint.

Then you just need to work out what you each pay into the joint current account.
There are two main methods:

One: All income from both of you gets paid into the joint, from which you each get transferred a 'spending' amount (the same amount each) to your personal accounts. This probably won't appeal to you with your history, but it does mean you both have the same spending power for fun stuff.

Two: you both pay in proportional to your take home pay (and the child benefit goes into the joint). So if you bring home e.g. £3k a month and he brings home £2k, you pay in £300 for every £200 he pays in. This can be a pain to monitor if his income varies or he is in and out of work. This also means that the higher earner (you in this case) gets to build up more personal savings or have more spending money for yourself, which might be considered unfair depending on how you look at it.

It is a BIG mistake to pay for shopping and child stuff all by yourself. There is just no transparency.

You earn a lot more than him. So can clearly enjoy a higher quality life style. If you want to half everything then you may need to accept a lower quality life though to be comparable. Is that what you want?

couldn’t jus be that these bills are not ones he prioritises but in the whole he’s happy with the split. Was it discuss upfront or did you drive it and then just give him half the bill.

it’s really tricky when Earnings are so uneven. Especially if there’s not a simple factor of one partners earnings been limited by caring responsibilities so no right or wrong answer in my mind.

This bloke wants to have his cake and eat it. When your salary dropped during mat leave, he didn’t step up and let you struggle. Now he wants you to cover more yet it sounds like you take more of the mental load, child rearing and general house stuff.

I’m in the same situation and will never marry as I want to protect my pension and savings. I’m sensible with my money whereas partner is more frivolous and doesn’t plan for the future - your partner sounds much the same.

My partner wanted me to pay 50% when I went back FT and when my earnings were lower than his. I did, although he covered more food costs as I carry the load in terms of running the home, life admin and child related stuff. Now my salary has doubled I’m on more than him. We have a joint account we put an equal amount into which covers bills, mortgage, food takeaways and child stuff. The rest is our own.

It doesn't sound like the two of you are a family unit to be honest. You have a mortgage and a child so are pretty much married. Most married couples pool their salaries and share everything. You two sound like roommates with a child.

Thank you for bringing this up darling. Having written everything down I can see how unfair the finances are. I am paying way too much and you are not paying enough.
So proportionate payments should be £x for you and £y for me. Here's the spreadsheet . . .

Having a mortgage and baby are very different to being married. Especially when the rate of divorce is 42%

There is no such thing as pretty much married in the law in England just by living together. You are married or you are not. The legal difference between both are huge.

I would sit down and list out all the expenses including the things you are currently covering. Then work out what proportional contributions are based on take home pay. There should also be some joint savings included for family holiday/renovations.

My concern with the current set up is if you lost your job or had to take a significant pay cut there would still be an expectation that things would continue with you paying all the additional expenses that don’t cross his mind. If you work it all out and end up with a 60/40 split which it probably amounts to and income changes for either of you then the proportions get reworked.

I would accept his proposal to pay proportionately. But with that comes proportionate ownership.

Change the house to Tenants in Common with the proportional split. Then split ALL the bills, including food and childcare, proportionately.

I think he’ll change his mind if you mock up that arrangement on a spreadsheet.

In my view, you’re either financially joint, in which case everything is owned jointly and all finances are combined and spending decisions are joint, or you’re not financially joint, in which case everything is separate.

I would hold that opinion whatever the sex of either party. The only deviation from my view would be if the poorer party was also providing most of the domestic labour/childcare, on which case I’d advise the poorer party to get married.

You made it absolutely clear to him that it's 50/50. That was the deal. That's why him changing the boundaries is irksome.
He will 💯 go for 50/50 of house if you split up so you need to have a very honest and frank discussion about why he feels it's ok to go back on his word. If he wants to pay less than that, then it gets written into who will own what percentage of the house should you split. If he wants you to pay 70/30 then that is ok. But if the house is sold you get 70/30 value of the property.

Hmm, as its the agreement tou came to then hebeither paysbyou back or younjave something written up in case of house sale that a proportion of anybprpfit is to you to reimburse foe the works.
Then set up a wee isa, get him to pay into it ans just keep an dyebon it till hea payed it up, and put it to bed.

We are and our money household, so i admit being that ridgid seems weird to me, and a bit trauma based. But i agree on the not marrying bit. We had kids and a mortgage (so tied finanially) and thats enough for me as most people.i know have had horrible divorces.

Perhaps OP does need to pay a bit more than her husband but she’s paying 40% tax and perhaps student loans - the split should be based on net income and include all expenses.

I don't think you're being unfair at all. If the agreement was 50/50 on the house - which the renovations are for - then he should stick to it regardless of who earns what, simple as that.

This is actually not a bad plan.
Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
I made poor financial decisions but luckily was married so did eventually get a fair share when we split.
So many threads on here cwith unmarried wimen not planning financially -the OP is very sensibly thinking about finances.

It doesn't sound like you're a team at all.. I earn the same as you, DH earns the same as your husband - our money goes into one pot. We're a team! When our child is born, my husband will be a SAHD and take from the pots of money as he needs because it's ours...

In that case, yeah should be 50/50

I would not have had dc with a man with this attitude though.

But OP is spending all her money on the family?

I disagree with this as his recent decline in fortunes sounds like his fault so not on op to bail him out. He sounds unreliable.

You are being massively unfair.

I started off thinking you were being wildly unreasonable OP but then I saw how much you were paying in extras and it completely changed my mind.

I think your plan is perfect - add up everything that goes out including food, holidays, childcare, etc. And then apply a proportional split based on your salaries to see what your respective shares are. I strongly suspect you'll be paying less and he'll be paying more. And so he should!

Trying to be fair, maybe he just doesn't realise how much everything costs and assumes you have oodles of spare cash every month. If he's a decent guy, he'll hold his hands up when you show him the figures.

While I agree you need to protect yourself financially, I don't think insisting on 50% of the mortgage is workable. And it doesn't even really make sense. Look at what's been happening - you've been insisting that he pays 50% of the mortgage but then you've been picking up all of the food and all of the childcare costs. So you can label it what you want, but when you add it all in together he's not actually paying 50% of the mortgage. The money that he would have been giving you for food and childcare he's paid onto the mortgage instead. That means that you're in the same position now as if he'd been paying 30% of the mortgage, childcare, and food - or maybe even worse off!

I don't think a partnership is about paying in the same % if you don't earn the same. It's about contributing a fair amount. A partnership isn't an investment, it's not about getting out what you put in. If things went wrong you both walk away with 50% of the property value (as a starting point and not taking children into account) regardless of what you've paid in. Let's say you were still on maternity leave and your savings were used up. If your DP had to step up and pay the mortgage for a while, do you think that should be deducted from your share? That would be deeply wrong, and the same applies now to him.

I do think you should be getting more ££ from him, but I don't think you should expect him to cover 50% of the mortgage. Call it 50% of the mortgage in your mind if it makes you feel better but really you're arguing over labels rather than making sure he's paying you a fair whack.

Definitely go through everything @Cluelessfirstimer he needs to understand. I think he should continue to pay half of the house-related stuff (mortgage, insurance, any work done). I would have said maybe split gas, electric etc unevenly but you already pay more with childcare etc. Seems he needs to step up! A calm chat and maybe a google sheet you can both look at going forward or something?

@Cluelessfirstimer sorry also meant to say he should learn how pay/tax works and also be doing more to contribute in other ways himself - in that way him earning less wouldn’t bother you so much for example if he supported you in other ways.

If this was the other way round it would be full of line up your ducks and LTB, how dare he expect you to pay 50%

‘he earns more so should pay more.’

I think what I’m saying is you think 50/50 is fair but you would rather your partner struggle on less money than act likr a partnership & it being family money.

is the child his though? Cos if not then really you should definitely be paying more