Together for 16 years. Two young primary school kids. Just breached my own standards by screaming at DH in front of kids. Feel bad but mainly utterly exhausted.
Im higher earner. I earn about 30% more than DH for 4 days. He works 5.
He is useless with money. He doesn’t know how much any of our bills are. He transfers me a certain amount each month. All our direct debits come from my account.
We have had several conversations over the years. He can often be dismissive with a “money is worthless” comment without really engaging with what I’m saying. I recently had both of us go through our income & outgoings, and it turns out his personal spends are much higher than I expected, and much higher than mine. He said he would do better etc but nothing changed other than I told him go up the amount he was transferring me which still isn’t 50% of our bills.
I need to do a big exercise where I do an education piece - set up a joint account and show him exactly how much is going in & out. But I’m utterly exhausted. I am the only one who plans anything when it comes to money.
Things came to a head tonight because DD wouldn’t brush her teeth. I got really stressed because I recently had to pay a huge amount to get her crowns. I told him how much the bill was. He never even asked how I came up with the money. He got really angry at me tonight for not letting DD skip brushing her teeth starting audibly saying it within earshot & I lost it. I asked him if he was going go come up with the money for more dental work and if he’d even noticed that he never asked me where I got that much money.
That’s just one example. I feel like his parent when it comes to money. Like he’s living at home and paying his mother rent money but completely switching off after that.
He never makes a plan. I’ve paid for holidays and he doesn’t acknowledge it.
He gets a company car with his job which costs him in BIK. I drive a banger and hardly spend anything on myself because I want to prioritise the kids’ futures.
He hasn’t gotten a pay rise ever in his job which he does work very hard at to be fair. He’ll moan but has never tried to get a better paid job.
He also works in credit - he approves loans. That to me is the biggest joke because he looks at other people’s spending all day and he doesn’t even know how much his own mortgage is.
Any advice welcome but please don’t tell me
go pool finances, there is absolutely no way I’d do that with him.
I have also accepted that he is never going to do anything at all proactively about money so I need to implement any changes.
I need advice on how go run a joint account - rainy day savings etc. in a joint manner. And how to move past someone being so bloody child like about money.