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.

Again not sure you've read my whole post...But you shared all costs. As I have mentioned i pay for everything else - all food, all childcare, all days and meals out and our holiday.

After doing the math we end about the same and sometimes he even has more.

Im going to stop repeating myself on that now!

But the mentality is different when you say that you pay for everything else. If you pool resources then you are jointl buying everything. The house repair for example, there would be no him owing you if all mines were pooled. The repairs would have come from joint funds and you both may have had less after to then spend. What you’re doing is not splitting daily. If you earn double him then the way you’re doing it he should only be paying half of the costs for it to be fair. So you could pool resources and how each other spends, or share everything at a % linked to your earnings. That way no one owes anyone.

It's not 50/50. You're paying for almost all the food. Plus childcare. In our house, food is more expensive than the mortgage or any of the household bills.
So If you include the food bill and childcare in with your other household costs, what percentage are you actually paying- probably 70%. So I think it is already proportionate.
He also has more disposable income than you some months.
He is taking the piss.

I was wondering about this. If you earn (pre-tax) twice what he earns, you're paying 50/50 on mortgage and bills but you cover everything else and you both have a few hundred left at the end of the month - it sounded to me like either you have an eye watering mortgage, or he's frittering away a huge amount of money on himself before he ends up with only a few hundred at the end of the month.

All that money he's frittering is spare money. If you aren't also frittering money on yourself, this is far more uneven (to your detriment) than it looked when you first mentioned you paying for everything else.

Glad you're getting everything down in a spreadsheet and that you're tackling the uneven chore distribution. I think you need to reclaim some of the money he's frittering and put it away in savings. He's taking more out of this relationship than he's putting in and it sounds like he's not looking to your future at all if he has no savings himself.

Yes, he pays his share. 50%. He can afford it. I assume you discussed this before you bought anything. If he thought it would be an issue, he should have spoken up then & said he couldn't afford it. Given you the option of buying something cheaper together. It's not your fault he earns less than you.

I think this may end up being a good thing, because it sounds like even proportionate to earnings, if you tally up everything thats a shared expense (its baffling that food, childcare and holidays arent considered shared expenses!) I think you would be far better off if he actually pays his share.

Will be interesting if he does end up paying his way or letting you continue paying more

I think you are more than fair . Your paying out much more than him, food, childcare, trips , holidays which he gets to enjoy.
tell him you will add everything up and then divide rhe whole lot 60/40 he will then have to pay more and you pay less. He wont like that at all

You are pulling your weight financially on a day to day basis.

You just want to ensure in the event of a split that you both get 50% of what you put into the house. He should understand this given your mums experience and given you are not married.

The trouble I think, is that there is very little financial transparency and neither is you know exactly what each other pays. Sit down together. Start off with equal house expenses, then work out a fair proportion of each of your wages to go towards everyday expenses.

You probably have more of an idea of what he spends and has left. I suspect he thinks you have more disposable cash than you actually do. Communicate.

Wow at him seeing this written down and asking to just proportionately share the bills he currently pays! He has some cheek honestly.

I will stand by not understanding being a team yet finances being so separate, its just not something I would do, but honestly you dont sound like a team at all. He is trying to get away with as little as possible both in terms of finances and workload. I think you have to figure out a way for things to actually be a shared effort or you will just end up resentful.

Hopefully after seeing it all written down he has the sense to at least appreciate firstly the complete wasting of his own money and also how much you took on without complaint both in terms of finances and workload with the house and childcare. I do hope you find a resolution that works for you both.

Make sure when you calculate it out proportionally, that you use your after tax salaries. He's an utter cheeky fucker not covering your maternity leave, and only paying the bare minimum right now. Would love to see his face once you tot everything up and then divide it proportionally. I have no doubt that he'll be much worse off. He's an utterly selfish man spending his spare money on amazon shite whilst you pay for all food, childcare, and holidays. Has this man no shame?

This is not the case for OP as she’s explained but I really disagree with this premise that both people should have the same disposable income. I would never expect this or fully join finances and I believed that when I was the lower earner in a previous relationship as well. I don’t see why I shouldn’t pay 50% towards a house and bills I’m living in and using just as much as the higher earner. The solution to me having more disposable income in that scenario was to better my career prospects which I did.

Now I’m the higher earner. We do have a joint account but only for the mortgage and bills, and we each put 50% of the total cost in. Everything else - disposable income, savings etc, is our own individual accounts. I feel completely fine about the fact I have more disposable income and yes, if I’ve footed a bill upfront I do ask him to pay me back. My partner chose a low paid career and he’s welcome to go and find something that pays better if he wants. I also sometimes solo travel if he can’t afford to come. Yes, I am selfish and I’m absolutely fine and happy with that.

Are you nuts? Have you actually read the OP???

They each pay for half the mortgage & bills, then she pays for almost all the food, child care and basically everything else they do or need including the holidays. Likely as not she even buys his underpants. Doh.

That likely equates to 80% of all living costs anyway and she does the lions share of childcare.
The only way to make it fairer would be to do a spreadsheet including everything….down to the last penny, even soending money on the holiday…. and then proportion it.

So there’ll be no subsidised holiday for him.

And he has to start stepping up on household chores, half and half.

Can I ask you OP? Do you really love this man? Is he exceptionally good with you and your DS? Do you see yourself spending the rest of your life with him? Because I just couldn’t be attracted to a man like this. I’ve been there, and the penny pinching at the expense of the family (among a number of other things) just completely ruined our relationship. I’m so glad I left him. I own my own house now, I make my own rules, I save my own money, I don’t support someone who doesn’t appreciate it, I’m so much happier.

I think you are being massively unfair. You may not be married but you have a home and child together. It should be family money.

If you want to keep split finances then it should be paid proportionally. So if he earns a third of the household income he should be paying a third towards bills. He would then have money for food and himself.

If the genders were reversed there would be no women on your side.

ODFOD and RTFT

Don' blame you OP, they clearly haven't RTFT.

Good for you! I'm cheering you on!

This is such a dumb response. It reads like you have not read the thread at all. He has more money left for himself than op, so how does that land in your argument? And also explain why you think op wouldnt be supported if genders were reversed when op is doing all housework and childcare and parenting? Give one example of a man not being supported when he was paying for everything and doing everything.

Do you seriously think op is unreasonable paying for everything and having to do everything? You think her partner is right to want to pay less and stay doing fuck all at home? Seriously? @JayJayj

I think you’re more than contributing enough. When costs are taken as a whole the split is nowhere near 50:50

Anyone who is still stating you BU have likely not read the rest to see how much you cover. The other big issue is that you’re doing 95% of everything on top of financially supporting the family. That’s the key difference probably with those stating BU.

When we moved to a financially equal split of 50:50 and I went FT, it was everything else that boiled over. It was that more than the financials that was killing the relationship. I read ‘fair play’ and made my own cards, after writing out a list of everything I do compared to his. I suggest writing out everything you do and tell him he needs to cover 50%.

I no longer work so my DH could say he pays for everything but he never would. When we married almost 35 years ago we pooled our money. He always worked more hours than I did but I took care of children, house, garden, elderly parents, both mine and his.

I don’t understand having a child together but financially living as single people. If this was the man having twice the spending money as the woman MN opinion would be that it was grossly unfair.

YABU. If this post were the other way round, you would be accused of financial abuse.

If you’d read all the OP’s comments, you’d see the flaw in your argument. She supports the family financially (what your husband did more) and she does 95% of the home stuff (what you did). Your relationship sounds equal, you both brought different things to the table. Her partner sounds like he’s not bringing much of anything to the table.

She is also ending up with less disposable income some months as she covers everything except 50% of the mortgage and bills

Have you read the rest of OP’s posts where it states the partner has 70% of his income left and she only has 30% of hers. That some months after she’s paid out for all the food, days out, Christmas, other costs, that she actually had less disposable income than partner. How is that financial abuse when he has more money than she does some months?

When the terms financial abuse are used with the scenario flipped, it usually refers to a part time or SAHM caring for kids, the home, life admin etc. OP is also doing 95% of this!

If doing proportionate, then the food and days out, children’s clothes etc all need to be included. You don’t pay out of pocket for anything, its all split. See if that’s what he wants.

It feels like this is a temporary relationship and you are organising finances so it is fair to have a 50/50 share of the property when you split up. You also haven’t comitted to marriage which is telling. If you feel your DP wouldn’t pull his weight otherwise I feel this is probably fair.

He will never see things your way op. He's in fact a cock lodger !!!! I completely see where you're coming from on this . I would feel used to be honest. Do update once you've done the spreadsheet. Im sure he'll rethink his position once he sees you're paying much more than him