Financial infidelity?

[Frankie6]

I can't help feeling annoyed but unsure if I'm being irrational.

I recently suggested to my partner of 5 years we apply for UC to see if we may get some financial support. We both work but have reduced our hours to care for our one year old until she starts pre-school.

I also have 3 other children. I work slightly more hours a week. I do 31. He does 26. We have managed but it's always paycheck to paycheck like everybody else I suppose.

I work more because I earn more. When I suggested it he became annoyed and basically came up with excuses as to why it was a bad idea. In amongst that he said his savings would make it difficult alongside the CMS he pays for his son.

I didn't think much of the savings comment, thinking it wouldn't be that much but have come to realise it's £10000.

I get that's his money. He's saved etc, but I feel annoyed. I feel annoyed because his £500 contribution a month doesn't pay half the basic bills but I've never minded as I earn more than him and he pays CMS etc. He also usually pays half of the shopping but recently he hasn't. When I say half the shopping I mean half the Aldi bill. I am always topping up in between at Asda/Tesco and these little shops often equate to £40-60.

When I was pregnant I worked a lot for overtime to buy all the big things for the baby like the pram/car seat etc. I also did it to bump up my maternity pay and save £3000 for the last three months of my maternity as the payments went very low. I went back to work when my daughter was 9 months old even though I was entitled to a year. I couldn't afford it. I had to stop breastfeeding and really didn't want to go back at that point. I feel like he could have supported me financially at this time. I also stopped my pension contributions for a year (I work for he NHS I'm a nurse). I did all I could to be financially ok. To add, he only started paying £500 when out daughter was born. It was originally £300.

I accept i have three children that aren't his and they're not his responsibility but at the same time I feel I can't work as much as I could because WE have a child together and she needs caring for obviously. Two of my children are self sufficient teens and my 9 year old was always with his dad on my work days so it wasn't an issue working full time before.

I don't get CMS payments for my children as their dad is just hopeless and works cash in hand. I feel I could be entitled to some UC Which could help but he's preventing me from applying, clearly because he doesn't me to know I found out he has all this money. He moans at me for things like the garden fence being broken and the sofas need replacing as if it's my problem, yet he's sat on £10000?

Am I just in perimenopause rage or is this a bit wrong?

Yeah, thats pretty awful!

This is why blended families don't work. What a mess.

It’s 16,000 you’re ok

Thanks. I think it's affected after £6000 but it's more the secrecy that's got me I think, and the allowing me to spend everything I earn when he can very comfortably save whilst living off my finances.

How did you come to realise he has £10,000 in savings?

His Google search comes up on the iPad and it specifically said 'can I get universal credit if I have £10000 savings' and also similar searches to see how a lump sum of savings would affect it

So yes. I havent seen the savings in a bank. I'm just putting two and two together with the search history and the reluctance to do it. He was almost angry about it

But surely before you decided to have a child together you thought about finances? Expecting to get funded by other people by being on ‘benefits’ when neither of you work full time is pretty shabby. The benefits culture needs completely overhauling.

Im 40 years old. I have 6 children and I haven't claimed benefits in my life. But it was a consideration with the costs of living and how things are. I dont expect anything. I don't think the world should pay for me because I have children. I can scrape by with my job and his to pay for the family and always have. Like I said it was a consideration for the moment when I'm trying to financially support four children and their dads dodge any contributions to their upbringing. I've never wanted to be on benefits particularly. The possible benefits claim is actually irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make or ask about?

Yes, if this were a company it would be embezzlement.

I hope he’s willing to sit down and show you how much he’s saving a month. If he’s squirrelling away a lot per month whilst you have been struggling, I’d find that harder to move past than if it was saving he’d accrued before he met you.

Either way, he’d better understand that complete financial transparency and a complete reset of finances going forward, is the only way that this relationship MIGHT be saved. The trust has been broken and that’s a pretty big obstacle to overcome. His attitude going forward will be crucial.

I hope he shapes up op. It’s a difficult one to move past.

How many absent fathers are there? It looks like it's time to add another one to the collection.

it doesn’t seem fair that you are struggling as a household whilst he is paying so little. You say your other children’s fathers are useless in providing , well it seems he is too. Why is is working so little and contributing so little? I would struggle to move past the fact that he is willing to contribute only the bare minimum. Either he should live separately and you can claim UC by yourself or he needs to start contributing more to the pot.

6 children or 4 ?

Are you saying that £300 a month (now £500) plus sometimes helping with the grocery shop is his entire contribution to your household's expenses?

This is so unfair. His behaviour would make me question the entire relationship.

A decent man who loves you will want to pull his weight (and then some!) and support you, and try to ensure that he's contributing to shared expenses at least as much as you do. He'll want to make sure that you work as a team, financially, whether you have separate bank accounts or joint ones, and he'll want to make sure you feel financially secure.

Your DH isn't showing any love or care towards you, in his behaviour. He's secretive, ungenerous, self-focused, and uncaring, leaving all the major expenses (including those of his own child!) to fall onto your shoulders, while he squirrels away 'his' savings.

He's a loser, I'm afraid - not because he's a low earner, but because he's a selfish prick.

I have 6 altogether. 2 are adults not home. 4 at home..was just saying I've always worked etc not relied on benefits

Yes 500 now. Was 300 when he moved in to start with. I think he takes home 14/1500 on his reduced hours now so relatively low. He pays CMS for his son and has his own bills like phone and car fuel but I think that's about it.

Why does he work so few hours? Is he helping with the kids?

It sounds like you would be better off in your own tbh and have him pay cms

Would you be better off without him? He’s completely untrustworthy and doesn’t have your best interest at heart.

You need to work out exactly how much money you are spending and split it 50/50 (not including school
uniforms or other expenses specifically connected solely to your older dc). So 50% rent, council tax (since you are also losing single person discount), gas, elec, water, food, clothing for baby, toys and equipment. Go back and add in half of what you spent on the pram etc. Babies are not free and as the father, half of those costs should have been his, along with half the cost incurred by your maternity leave. Then tell him he needs to contribute his share - he's got the money!
This would be a relationship ended for me, if this lazy bum was working 26 hours per week while you subsidise him.
He needs to be working ft - it's not the tax payers job to find his part time working situation.

Start billing him properly and stop seeing it as your responsibility to carry the household.

You can look on a website like ‘entitled to’ to see what benefits support there might be for you all as a family, and as a solo parent.

We share childcare for the one year old. No nursery spaces available anytime soon. So I work every other weekend and then two weeks days one week and one the other (I do 13.5 hour days and he does 8 hour). He works all the days in-between me not working if that makes sense. The only days we're home together is every other weekend and that's time with the children together/my weekend home with kids etc