Step families and finances

[AliceRR]

Interested to know how this works in other families where one partner has children and the other doesn’t.

My SH has two sons, 13 and 15. He pays 20% earnings to their mother as CSM.

We don’t currently have joint finances. We both work, earn a similar amount, and pay 50% towards all joint expenses (mortgage, bills, etc) which we pay into a joint account that the DDs go out of.

Although we earn similar (DH actually earns slightly more) he pays CSM and is paying off debts so he has a lot less money on a monthly basis but that’s largely as he is prioritising paying off debts. I have more disposable income.

DH thinks we should have a joint account. I have always resisted this as thinking I’m not ready and said that if I did I’d want to keep some money aside as I don’t want to pay towards CSM.

Anyone I have spoken to agrees CSM is his responsibility although when they are with us I share cost of everything and we pay 50:50 into the house.

What do you think? AIBU to feel like o lose out by sharing everything. We are a couple and things change over the years but sometimes I feel like I’m always the one who loses out...

This is maybe not just a step parent issue but that’s a large part of it.

You just can’t have joint finances unless you have a view of all the money and where it goes and you both get a vote on what happens! Take out the entitled what’s yours is mine and you don’t get a say over your own income view and I still couldn’t go Joint with someone who thinks it’s ok to live on credit. I couldn’t even marry them, it’s such a fundamentally opposed financial view to mine.

I don’t think he thinks it’s ok to “live in credit”, I just think that is the situation he has got himself into with his expenses exceeding his means but he does have a “fuck it” mentality in that once something goes on the credit card he is more inclined to put more on. He is not a lavish spender though.

I agree we need an idea of where it goes. To be honest if he wants separate finances because I asked him to help me work out where we went wrong last month then so he it. I think ok let’s have separate finances and see how that goes but I know how it will go. He will be petty about it for as long as we stick to it (eg “I bought the tv so you can’t watch it - he has done that before) and then he will suddenly decide he doesn’t want separate finances and want to go back to how we are.

And that’s what happens - discussion leads to heated row and then he makes some suggestions he doesn’t mean (let’s split finances or just split up!) and then everyone calms down and things go back to how they are and nothing is resolved!!

I bought the tv so you can’t watch it - he has done that before

Bloody hell OP...this ia your husband, father of your child..he sounds really nasty..I can't ever imagine my husband talking to me like that..it's not normal and not ok...
Think very carefully about your relationship..if you have a girl do you want her to grow up thinking that's how men are with their wifes and how relationships should be?

Does he ever do anything nice for you? Takes you out for dates? Buys you gifts?

I agree he can be very childish and he can be nasty.

He doesn’t often take me out or buy me things. In fact he doesn’t often suggest that we do things together - that is usually me. He planned something nice for our anniversary last month.

He has been making an effort to look after me since I got pregnant. He has been cooking for us most days and then doing a lot of the washing up and household chores (in my first trimester I was so tired and quite nauseous but I’m 15 weeks now and getting better) so he has been good in that way.

I honestly think he is a little damaged, perhaps by his last relationship, and I don’t want my child to be in this situation.

He has got better since I got pregnant.

He has texted me to say that he has paid for he energy performance certificate (we put house up for sale at the weekend) and that he thinks this is far and off sets the £80 and he is happy things are equal now.

It’s not just about the money though. It’s about how he treats me and how bad I feel because I dared to raise a question about our finances that might have led to him owing me or the joint account some money.

The TV thing was in relation to the car by the way. Think I’ve mentioned the background of the car but I didn’t want to share my car and during that dispute he took the tv up into the spare room and kept it there for about a week. Ultimately I shared the car but I didn’t feel I had a choice as he didn’t let it go until he got it. During arguments he’d say he didn’t need the car but then we’d have blazing rows as he’d want to go pick his kids up and somehow expected to have the car even though he’d said he was “never getting into my car again”.

Again it comes down to him being unable to communicate or say what he means. He just gets angry, lashes out and then expects there to be no consequences.

This was several months ago and I do see things improving but we need to find a way to deal with these things.

I am slightly hesitant to say all of this as I know people will judge and this is not really about finances any more!

I think your problem is that neither of you are acting like a married couple but like flatmates feeling that every investment on one counter part should result in the same from the other. There are no 'we' in your way of sharing you life together but a big 'me and you' unless I'll gain more from a 'we'.

The more this is reinforce by one or the other the more defensive and indeed childlike response.

Frankly unless you can start thinking more like a family does, i. e married people with children normally communicate and make joint decisions I can't see this marriage working. There seem to be a lot more care for own benefit than care for the other.

I think resentments have built up and we both have different ideas of what is fair. I think the problem is lack of proper communication. I think our marriage will work and does work, despite the issues, but we both feel wronged in some way.

We are both trying to be more of a team but that comes back the original question as the fact is we have different ideas of what being a team means. For some it means sharing everything. For others it means keeping some accounts separate. I do find my DH quite egocentric and he does seem to want everything to suit him and it’s over a one way street until I stick up for myself and when I do we fall out.

Because indeed by going with it for some time you set a precedence so of course it goes wrong when you suddenly strick back.

You can't be happily married without a consensus on how finance should be arranged. Indeed it doesn't have to be the same for every couple but you do need to both feel comfortable with what you jointly agree. Then you need to stick to that arrangement.

If you have such desperate views to start with though a neutral 3rd party is likely to be the only way to help reach a compromise.

Yes we need to reach agreement. I just want a solution we are both happy with. I think we can do it.

Op - I have lived with two men, bought houses with both.

The first was just immature and had no idea how to deal with money and got himself into debt all the time on, from what I could see, literally nothing. I split up with him when he asked me to out a £9k loan in my name as I had better credit so he could pay all his otehr debts off, and it was only 6m after he'd done the same previously (not in my name) and had bought a new car without mentioning it to me.

The second had a child, paid maints etc, but somehow I always ended up subsidising things. The DSS was at ours more than was agreed, so while he paid £500pm maints, DSS was with us nearly all the time. We had to have a bigger house as a result, I paid half all costs; all bills, all food, all holidays.....and one time he bought me a bike (I didn't want) for my birthday and paid from the joint account.

When I tried to sit down with him and suggest that maybe the JA was being used for more things than we had previously agreed (and thus I had to keep moving money from the 'savings' to cover it), he asked if I was accusing him of stealing, I said no, of course not, and he said fine then and that was the end of that conversation.

I left him.

It doesn't really matter if his CMS comes from his money, though it is 100% his responsibility and is based on his income, you will suffer no matter what. I had to pay extra for things as he was short of money due to the CMS. Same re sharing costs.

The way I tried to work it was that we had a JA and we each paid half the household costs into it plus some money to budget for holidays and household expenses (that latter was £100pm, £50 each, and he argued himself blue in the face that we didn't need it) and some longer term savings. It didn't really work as he would do odd things like change the broadband provider for a 'better' one at £50pm, but not bother to tell me and not terminate the old one so we'd be paying twice and I'd be left wondering where the money was gone (oddly, that BB thing was the first thing he sorted out when I said I was leaving and thus reduced my contribution to the JA to exactly what half the actual bills should be).

I say keep it as separate as you can. BUT - I don't understand why you seem to think you need to save for and spend on the baby but he doesn't? He does.

I agree he has been manipulative over money, you need to keep an eye on that, frankly!

I don’t think he thinks he shouldn’t spend on the baby but given he tends to have no money left by the end of the month, once he has paid his debts and share of the bills etc, he doesn’t have much spare money. The reality is I feel I would need or pay for things although it may be that we treat things like we do for the house and try to pay 50:50 but the reality is I may just have to spend on the things we need although I will be on reduced pay during May leave.

*mat leave

I get the feeling he thought marrying you would make him better off financially and you'd kind of subsidise him and his expenses.

That's not happening, so he's not happy with things.

The tv to the spare room was very immature.

What's going to happen if you all (with his DC) go on holiday? Would he expect you to pay half?

I think the way it is now...putting money into the joint account for bills is fair.

He should expect less disposable income because he has 2 DC, that are not your financial responsibility.

@SandyY2K Yes I agree. He says he thinks being a team means we share everything. There is no argument. I said to him: what if I wanted to give my brother £100 per month to help him through uni (for example) from our joint account? He said well if I’d know that before we were married then I’d be fine with it. Well of course family circumstances change and he always has the argument “you knew I had kids”. I have no plans to give my brother an allowance but it was an example. I got two rabbits shortly after we got married and when it suits he tells me they are my rabbits and my responsibility. So I usually pay for their food etc. We want to buy a shed for them (as they are indoors currently) and he doesn’t think he should share that cost. I don’t say that when it comes to feeding his children or buying food for them but that’s fair because I knew he had children. He doesn’t pay more towards the household expenses even though his children have one of only two bedrooms. The point is there is always a reason why we should share everything when it suits him.

oh god, he's got an answer for everything .... sigh. It must be really difficult for you and I sympathise.

It's tiring being made out to be the 'bad guy' every time you want to protect your interests and not be taken advantage of. If his attitude were a bit more accommodating and demonstrated to you a bit more self-awareness, then I suspect you'd feel just a little bit less unhappy about the whole situation.

All I can say is that without some radical shock (to him), I suspect this is going to be a perennial seam of resentment throughout your marriage.

He did say yesterday that the reason he reacted the way he did the other day was because he is stressed about money with us having a baby. I can understand that. We will work it out. I suspect he might also be thinking of his children and how is having a baby affects his relationship with them. Their mother is difficult and will no doubt make things harder and DH thinks the youngest will probably stop coming over when the baby comes. So I am trying to be sensitive to his feelings too. This is a slightly different thing for each of us - massive for me as this is my first baby and massive for him too but he has to think about his existing children. I just don’t want us to fall out about money but I cannot just not say anything as I think things can be unfair if I don’t.

Yesterday he was at work until about 11 o’clock and he had been in since 9. He said he’d eaten nothing all day and that was indirectly due to me. In the past he has sometimes not eaten properly to save money. He is trying to pay off his credit card in 3 months which is a bit tight for him so he is not spending money on food. Of course as his wife I wouldn’t deliberately let him go without food. But I told him there was food in the house. He could have had some breakfast before work and taken some lunch with him. He didn’t have to spend money to eat in the day. He has also made a lasagne the night before which was in the fridge for when he got home but obviously he worked late. He said he is resentful when I talk about having lunch with friends, which is a couple of time a week probably, as he sometimes can’t afford to buy lunches but he can still make lunch at home. He could have taken some of the lasagne to work for lunch or made a sandwich. I find it frustrating.

@Twiterrati The problem is, not only communication, but also lack of compromise. It seems for him a full joint account is the only way to be fair. I propose different things eg a joint account but where we both have an allowance or a joint account and we put an amount equal to CSM aside for our child/ children or something. Even if only as a half way house to joint finances, as we are obviously not ready for that yet.

@SandyY2K Yes generally anything involving his children is treated as joint too (](when they are with us, not CSM) but to be honest I probably wouldn’t agree to that. I have a baby on the way but it would probably not cost us much for a few years in terms of holiday. His children would cost the same as an adult so, if we were to take them on holiday, perhaps he would have to pay.

To be honest I don’t think it would happen. We had a lovely honeymoon but otherwise haven’t been abroad. Part of my frustration about money is that we don’t do anything. We only have his children every other weekend so we have time that we could go away and stuff but we don’t. We do have a couple of spa weekends a year realistically which is nice and not that cheap. But it’s not as if we go on holiday often. I feel like my friends are always doing things but we don’t as he still has no money so either we miss out or I pay. For a while I paid for us to eat our and stuff but I get frustrated when he always say no, so I pay, but then when his kids come over he wants to take them out and it goes on the credit card! And this is the credit card bill he wants to share. It’s not all necessities.

He’s a grown man if he chooses not to eat during the day that’s down to him. Is he expecting you to give him a credit card and say go on dear go buy yourself expensive lunches on me?

Lots of people I know (me included) take lunch from home to eat at work because eating out is expensive.

OP, how do you see this relationship panning out? Given this man wants you to subsidise an extravagant lifestyle he can’t afford.

It's very unfair (but sadly not surprising) of him to blame you (albeit partly) for his not eating all day.... I must say, I find it a tad suspicious his claim not to have eaten all day. That's almost impossible (well, it's possible, obv, but he can't have been very effective at work ... meaning maybe he had to stay later? It sounds a bit like a deliberately concocted sob story.)
Did he explain why he didn't take the lasagne or sandwich to work?

@fuzzywuzzy I’m reluctant to say he wants an extravagant lifestyle but it seems he issue is he thinks we should have the same. If I can eat out for lunch then he can eat out for lunch. If I can buy myself clothes then he shouldn’t be struggling for half the month til he gets paid. I see that but I also think he has to take responsibility for his debts and the fact he had two children. If I had two children I would have less money. I probably have less money having step children as I share everything that happens when they are with us.

It’s his attitude. When I do pick up the slack he just acts like that’s expected and I’m just doing what I should. I felt taken advantage of.

I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself with some of this. I must think I’m at home with DH (plus I forget what I’ve already said!)

Thanks everyone for the input

Alice I am so sorry to see you are facing the same issues you have for years with this man. (I am familiar with you from another forum).

All I can say is stick to your guns and do not ever have fully joint finances with him as you will come off worse. He is manipulative and will never be happy until he gets things completely his own way. I am sure he hates that he can't get his hands on your money, he clearly feels he deserves it.

Congratulations on your pregnancy, but you are right that you need to put yourself and you child first. Do not join finances with this man.x

I’m reluctant to say he wants an extravagant lifestyle but it seems he issue is he thinks we should have the same. If I can eat out for lunch then he can eat out for lunch. If I can buy myself clothes then he shouldn’t be struggling for half the month til he gets paid. I see that but I also think he has to take responsibility for his debts and the fact he had two children. If I had two children I would have less money. I probably have less money having step children as I share everything that happens when they are with us.

I could see how someone could feel this way, but the key thing for me is the debts and the advantage he takes of you . You already pay more than half, you already contribute more towards everything than he does, it's not like he's paying for all the day to day expenses while you contribute minimally.

You do more than enough, he should be grateful for that, not just constantly wanting more.

your name needs to be on the mortgage & the house! this is far more important than the joint acc!
did you both sort out the will?