DH has been making us cut back while paying his ex wife’s mortgage

[Wifeworries]

Have namechanged.

DH and I have been married 6 years, we have a DD5 and DS3. He has a DS13 and DD10 from his previous marriage who live with their mum and come to us alternate weekends and some holidays. I get on well with both of them, they are lovely children and this isn’t about them.

I knew when we first got together that he was paying the mortgage on the house his ex lives in with the older two. They had agreed she would stay there when they split because the children were little and he would carry on paying it for a while until she could manage it herself. He told me it had stopped before we got married and I honestly never thought about it again. I wasn’t going to interrogate him about it, I thought it was sorted.

DH deals with most of our finances because he earns more than me and is much better at that sort of thing. I can see the accounts and have my own account for personal spending, it’s just always been easier for him to deal with the mortgage, bills etc. I’ve never felt the need to check every payment because I trusted him.

We’ve been talking about moving for a while because the house is getting a bit cramped with the children. We were looking at somewhere with a bigger garden, or possibly getting the loft done and sorting the kitchen out instead. DH was quite keen at first but about 6 months ago he started saying we needed to be more careful with money and couldn’t keep spending like we were.

He was the one who brought up cutting back. He said the bills had gone up and we needed to prioritise things. He suggested stopping DD’s dance class and DS’s swimming lessons because they were too young to really benefit from them anyway. I wasn’t happy about it but agreed because I thought we were trying to save for the house. We also stopped putting as much into the holiday fund and put the kitchen on hold. I thought we were making sensible decisions as a family.

Anyway, I was looking through the accounts last week trying to work out if we could start saving properly again for the work and noticed a regular payment to an account I didn’t recognise. It was £1,450 a month and had been going out for years. I looked back through the statements and realised it was going to an account in his ex’s name.

I asked him about it when he got home and he said it was the mortgage on her house. I said I thought she was paying it herself now and he said no, he’d carried on paying it because the children live there. I asked how long he’d been doing it and he said since they split, so including the whole time we’ve been together and all 6 years of our marriage.

I was honestly quite shocked. I asked why he hadn’t told me and he said because it was for his children and he didn’t see why it needed to be discussed with me. I said well it’s coming out of our money isn’t it, and he said it’s his money as well and he has responsibilities to his older children.

I said I obviously don’t have a problem with maintenance and I’ve never questioned him paying what he needs to pay for his children. This is additional to that though, it’s paying their mum’s mortgage every month, and he’s been hiding it from me. He said he didn’t want the DC having to move house or potentially schools, and keeping the mortgage paid was the only way to make sure they could stay where they were.

I said I’m not asking him to leave them without a home, but I don’t understand why he’s been telling me we need to cut back on things for our children while paying nearly £1,500 a month for his ex’s mortgage. He said the children are settled there and he isn’t going to make them move just because I want a bigger house.

I feel really stupid now for agreeing to all the cutbacks when he apparently had no intention of stopping these payments. It’s not even that I begrudge his older children having a home, I just feel like he’s made a massive financial decision that affects all of us without telling me. And then to say it’s none of my business when it’s coming out of the money we use for our family is making me even angrier.

He says I’m making it into something it isn’t and that I’m being unreasonable. I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable expecting to have known about this or if he is right that it’s nothing to do with me.

Would you be upset if your DH had been doing this throughout your marriage?

@Letsgonowthen I'll bet she didn't have a new partner and child living in the house too though. That's the astonishing part, that the DH is also paying for their housing, while cutting back with the OP and their children.

He's prioritizing a stranger and their child over his own younger children!

Have you suggested to your dp that you divorce him and remarry as that way he pays 3k a month and your new husband supports you too so you can afford dancing and swimming lessons for the dc?

You wouldn’t bother looking? Oh wow, that’s completely alien to me. I would not be able to trust anyone implicitly with all the finances.

I can’t understand this and why he is funding the mortgage particularly as she has a new partner! He must be laughing!

You are married to a man who has lied to you in a very fundamental way for the entire duration of your marriage.

You need to ask him if he will agree to pay your mortgage too, because his two youngest children are well settled in their home, when you divorce him.

He knew this wasn't OK or he would have told you. He has no problem lying.

Don't buy his BS about responsibility to his older children. Their mother shares that responsibility equally. If she can't afford the mortgage, then tough shit. I've been in the position of that woman, and I had to sell the house that was my children's home. It broke my heart, but it had to be done. The exW needs to pull on her big girl panties and start paying her way.

Your H is treating you very badly indeed. I'd be telling him to choose the exW or you, and I wouldn't let any guff about responsibility to the older children cloud the matter. Their mother shares responsibility including financial responsibility toward those children.

What I don’t understand is why he has apparently decided that paying her mortgage as well is something he can just do without telling me, especially when he’s the one who has been saying we need to cut back.

Ok he didnt specifically tell you but you say you have full access to all the accounts.....so he didn't hide it from you either. What kind of world do you live in when you don't notice almost £1500 leaving every month before this?

This.

Sauce for both of the geese - and the new ganders too.

Did your H tell you or hint to you that he was better at managing the finances? Is that how the division of labour happened that meant you trusted him? Did he tell you or hint to you that since he was the higher earner this was his job?

Even on £115k he couldn’t be liable for £1800 a month maintenance. Something’s not adding up, here. I know this because my ex earns similar amount and pays maintenance.

if he’s paying that and the mortgage then I can’t see how you have any money at all. Presumably, you also have your own mortgage?

This.

He wants you to be the same kind of mug that he is.

The idea that your two children have had to drop out of fun activities on grounds of affordability should be enough to make you tell him to take a week sleeping on a park bench during which he needs to make up his mind who he is married to.

If he knew what he was doing was fine he would not have hidden it from you.

That changes things a bit, they can still teach their own toddler to swim though, sheer laziness to pay for lessons.

He wants to pay to house his children,that seems fair enough
He should have been straight with you,but you should have taken equal responsibility for finances
I wouldn’t like to be in your situation but you married him knowing he had young children to support
I would not have done that

This thread is another the guy can't win either way he looks after his kids it's wrong yet if he wasn't paying everyone would be saying he was a arsehole

I admire his attitude to looking after his previous family to be fair. He's obviously a good man.
He's also not kept it secret as you have account access. Its also true that we all need to tighten our belts these days - so its reasonable that he wants to make cutbacks.

So he's bringing home around £6k per month

And is paying around £3,600 to his ex wife every month, including paying off the house that belongs to her,b where she presumably lives with her new partner and child alongside his older kids... Except for the times you have them.

Yeah I wouldn't be too happy about that at all. He is prioritising her. It's fine to pay for your kids but it sounds like he can't afford it.

He has two children of his own with OP and they have the older kids EOW. Assuming that’s two nights, on his salary CMS payments would be around £960 per month, so he’s paying double. Add the mortgage payments and he’s actually paying half his take home pay to his ex. I’m all for men taking care of their children but this is insane.

£3300 to his ex wife every month ? That’s over half his take home pay. The house is in ex’s sole name and she and her new partner are living in it with their shared child. They both work full time. And you think it’s reasonable for him to ask OP to cut back, to the point where they’re cancelling activities for their children ?

“He said the children are settled there and he isn’t going to make them move just because I want a bigger house.”

I’d be saying that I’m not going to stop my own children doing their activities just because he wants to keep paying for another adult and unrelated child to live in his children’s house.

Outrageous.

So it sounds like about half his monthly pay goes on child maintenance, is this right? While I sympathise about the lying, I do feel not being aware of this is hard to understand. How can any adult take so little involvement in their own household finances? While that wage is high, half of take home pay heading straight out the household is pretty hard to miss.

He is an arsehole. And if what OP says is true, a financially incompetent one. Would you be happy with your partner paying twice his CMS calculation to the tune of £1800 a month and his ex’s mortgage on top, while she’s the sole owner of the house and her new partner and their child live there ?

Ex and partner both work, and are essentially mortgage free because OP’s DH is squeezing his own family’s budget to pay over half his take home pay to his ex. The older children are a 50/50 responsibility - where is the mothers’ contribution because it doesn’t cost £3300 a month to care for two children, and OP’s DH is essentially supporting a child that isn’t his. In the six years he and OP have been married he’s paid over £200,000 to his ex. That’s utterly batshit.

Just to add to this. OP says the house is in ex’s sole name. So he has no claim on the house other than the mortgage payments he’s making. And how he makes those payments matters, because according to OP that money goes directly into an account in his ex’s name. He’s not paying the mortgage directly to the provider so there is no paper trail to prove his contributions. He’s either a moron, or his ex has dirt on him.

At first I thought this was going to be a thread where a man has stopped his ex and two kids from struggling after the split, as so many women are shafted financially with having to reduce work hours to manage the kids as a single parent.
But the ex wife has a new partner who is being a kept man by her first husband?!
They've got it made haven’t they!

This. With bells on! Couldn’t put it better.

I have DSC and stuff like this is precisely why I keep separate finances to DH. We pay jointly for bills (Inc our DCs swimming lessons...) and then he can do whatever he wants with the rest, including spending it on DSC. But I'm not being involved in funding DSC or their mum. We've been married for 8 years. Controversial on here I'm sure but no I don't see things like maintenance as a joint expense. I have more "free" money because I have less kids than him, that's just how it is.

If I were in your shoes OP I'd be splitting my money from his. I'm sorry I haven't read all of the thread so I'm unsure if you've already covered this but if it is possible that's what I'd do. You can put money into a joint account for bills (including this like your children's hobbies because wtf) and then he can piss the rest of his up the wall on his ex wife's mortgage to his hearts content but I'd want nothing to do with it and I'd be taking full control of my own finances. You clearly cannot trust him to do it for you. He lied to you. Whether posters think paying the mortgage is admirable or not, that's the crux. He lied about a substantial amount of money each month for 6 years. It's not acceptable and if anyone should feel the pinch due to it it's him, not you or your kids. It's not your ex wife or your older kids end of the day.

All of this is in OP’s updates. He’s paying twice his CMS liability as well as the mortgage. The house is in ex’s sole name and she’s living there with her new partner and their shared child. There is no right to equity unless he can prove his mortgage contributions and he can’t even do that because the payments are going into an account in his ex’s name instead of directly to the mortgage provider. He’s paying £3300 a month - over half his take home pay, and expecting OP to be fine with tightening her belt and cancelling their own children’s activities to pay for it all. He needs to decide who he’s married to because his ex and their children seem to be hugely prioritised at the expense of his family with OP. In the time he and OP have been married he’s paid his ex over £200,000. That would be marriage ending for me.