Is this fair

[squareblue]

Inspired by another thread...have name changed. Wondering if I am inadvertently partially funding my stepchild. Situation is this:

Married for 4 years, I owned house before we met but extended when we got married thereby making my mortgage bigger. House is in my name and we have an agreed % split which reflects this in the event that anything should happen
Three kids between us but only one of them is at home (his child). We have a 4 bed house
We did earn roughly the same salary but I just dropped my hours and now earn about £10k less than him
We both pay an equal share of mortgage, bills and food
Stepchild stays with us 3 nights a week

My drop in salary is making me wonder whether the division of costs is still fair. If we had no kids at home we could downsize and save on living costs. I want to retire in 7 or 8 years so I have one eye on savings and my pension pot.

What do you think? He is generous to a fault sometimes so if he thought I was getting a raw deal he would change things straight away but I think he probably hasn't thought about it.

There’s a child who is there 3 days out of 7. There’s no way that justifies the dh paying 2/3 of the bills. 3 days worth of gas/elec/water/food, they’re probably at school for some of that anyway. That’s not the same as an adult living there full time at all.

OP when you talked about you dropping hours was there no discussion about how that might affect household income/bills etc?

There was a brief discussion (instigated by him) about adjusting his contribution but it hasn't really been discussed since. I agree that asking him for two thirds would be unreasonable.

I’m just not clear on your thinking here. You’ve decided to drop to part time hours, decreasing your income by £10K. And this is a choice so you have a better balance, which is fine. You say you can afford to do it, but your husband will have to pay more to cover you decreasing your contribution to bills etc I’m just not sure I see how that is fair on your dh who is presumably in a similar position re approaching retirement etc?

I think his child being there is largely irrelevant - doesn’t stop you from downsizing if you want as you already have 2 empty bedrooms. And maybe dh chucks in extra £ for food if he’s a hollow legged teen but aside from that it is not going to make a great deal of difference to your bills if he’s there or not. And absolutely, anything else for him, clothes, leisure activities etc etc should be covered by your dh.

So I think that’s a bit of the distraction from the real point which is that you want your dh to pay extra so you can go part time but still make the same contributions to your savings and pensions as before, or at least that’s how I read it. And that doesn’t seem fair to me.

@squareblue I think I get where you're coming from. My reading of your situation is that your dc is grown & independent. You are now at a point in your life where you can a) afford to cut back on work & b) would like to downsize to reduce costs. Dp is not at that point as he still has a dependent & so (you feel) that expenses are being incurred due to this & that a large house is being maintained only to house his dc 3 nights a week. Therefore you are incurring extra expenses that you have 'outgrown' for want of a better word.
In theory I think you should incur a reduced payment into the pot, however I think to request so might seem like nitpicking.
I too have separate finances from my dh & while I wouldn't have it any other way it does cause problems as mentally we all see marriage as a unit but separate finances means we often think/operate/live a bit separately within that unit.
For eg I sometime get frustrated that dh won't travel with me. Travel is how I spend my money - he'd rather buy his dc cars . If our finances were joint we'd have to thrash out together how & what we spend but separate finances means we don't really have to compromise which is both good & bad.
I also will be financially done with dd before he will be with his dc & I can also see this causing a few headaches as I'll be a bit more financially footloose & fancy free than he will in a few years.
In short I think you're right to feel how you do but pushing it might cause issues as it's a very nuanced thing which many people don't get.

Where did I even say that he had a property from before he married me? I didn't!

@Caramia23 thankyou that's a good summary.

(I'll travel with you 🙂)

You can't reasonably expect him to pay 50% on a mortgage for the current house where two of the bedrooms are irrelevant to him.

Tell him you want to downsize to a two bed, and want him to pick up the cost of the extra bedroom, food, etc. in that situation.

Once the youngest dc doesn't require that room, downsize further or go back to 50/50 split.

@squareblue re other property, your reluctance to say he doesn't have another property kind of makes people think he does.
If he doesn't just say that, rather than being vague.
Feels like there's a drip feed coming.

I actually don't think there's anything wrong with him contributing a bit more to bills and food but the timing of that should have been when the household changed.

There is no other property, and there is no drip feed. People are just making stuff up in the absence of every minute detail of our lives.

Unfortunately it's human nature to fill in gaps. So saying 'let's assume there's no other property' and that where there is isn't relevant, clearly made people think there was.

Thank you for clarifying. Just saying no in the first place would have been simpler.

If either of you had been a single parent on benefits, the state would absolutely have expected the costs of the stepchildren to have been contributed to by the partner, as benefits would have reduced or stopped with the increase in household income, so I don't get where this 'stepchildren aren't funded by the step-parent' concept comes from.

Maybe that's only applicable around the benefit threshold, and once you're above that, children are funded by their birth parents.

Lots of people aren't privileged enough to own a property, it's not that unusual.

My DH did, but he had to give it to his wife in the divorce and got a smallish payment. So when we started our relationship, he didn't own any property, he was renting.

so I don't get where this 'stepchildren aren't funded by the step-parent' concept comes from

Because the law contradicts itself in that respect.

You have parents losing benefits because a step parent moves in, the implication being as you say that a step parent should contribute. Then you also have the fact that maintenance does not take into account the NRPs income, the implication being that what they earn is of no relevance because it's not up to them to provide for step children. Then you have the fact that in the vast majority of cases step parents aren't required to provide continuing support post separation for their step children. Then you have the whole university shambles where a step parents income is taken into consideration and on and on. It's not clear.

Should say it doesn't take into account the NRP partners income.

In terms of the pension concern, part of the issue is that his is bigger than mine and I'd like to even up that gap. But given people's comments I'm going to leave things as they are in respect of the monthly outgoings.

My OH is about to cut his hours. That's his choice. He wants more time for himself. I too would love to go PT but I'm not yet at the stage where having a day extra for myself is more important than the money I'd lose.

If my OH were to come to me a few months after going PT to say he expected me to pay more because it's not fair he has less money, I'd be very angry. If that was the case, I definitely would go PT too. The whole point of not doing so is for the extra money.

How is it fair that you get to have more leisure time but not be be as much affected financially?

Have you taken on the domestic load since you cut your hours? But still paying the same? Is this the underlying issue?

Or is DSC a bit profligate with the bath water/always leaves doors open, lights on/wanders round in t-shirt and turns the thermostat up? Then invites their mates around for a game and empties the fridge of all the food you bought for the entire week?

@vivainsomnia do you have stepkids though? That's more what my question was about ie is this a fair split when I don't have any kids at home. The PT hours has just prompted me to think about it. It's not like I've gone ok I want to work less and I'm going to get my DH to plug the financial gap.

@SpaceshiptoMars no, not really. So I think I'll leave things as is.

This.

do you have stepkids though? That's more what my question was about ie is this a fair split when I don't have any kids at home.

@squareblue I do. I have stepkids who will be here for probably a good 8-9 years after my own children have left home. I am also the higher earner, and the house is my name. I would never consider asking my husband to pay more because only his kids are there, so I could pay less to make myself financially better off. I consider us a family. Whether they are his kids or mine, makes no odds.