How do you split the costs?

[Woodstocks]

Hello all,

My partner has two sons from a previous marriage, they are primary school aged. We moved in together and bought a house and now split the mortgage, bills and food costs 50:50. The kids are here every other weekend and half the holidays.

I am getting to the point where I feel it isn’t fair to split everything down the middle - the mortgage (even though the extra room is needed for HIS kids) would at least build equity for me overtime but the food money is just gone and with them growing and the horror stories of “teen boys eating” and being here for a whole week during holidays, plus the other weekends etc I feel like I would be significantly out of pocket over the years to come.

I keep thinking “ah it’s only a bit of extra this and extra that” in terms of hygiene items, toothpaste, shower gel, shampoo, extra washing tablets, extra dishwasher runs etc. but then again- these things aren’t free and that’s what their mum gets maintenance for- to cover the extra living costs that are clearly involved.

What would be a fair reflection of the extra cost of them
being here?

The thing is if you do argue this, you are telling your partner loud and clear that you do not see the 4 of you, as a family. Which you might well be absolutely happy with. Would he be?

I agree with posters above saying that this isn't a relationship with any legs from here. I think if was happy and thinking long term about a future, I wouldn't be worrying about £50 a month either way. It wouldn't have even crossed my mind.

You have 10- 20 more years of this. And possibly, for whatever reason, there might come a time when you have them full time. Who knows.,

Out of interest - who looks after them whej they're with you for half the holidays?

Are you married or planning to marry?

If so, I personally think you need to suck it up. It's barely any time and it's not worth the potential discomfort it will cause when you raise it with DP.

OP one thing stood out to me - you mention that your DH does all the drop offs and pick ups as "she (the ex) refuses". Did it not occur to you that she does 100% of the school runs and week time activity running about? Why should she do 50% of the drop offs and pick ups when she does 100% of everything else 26 days a month? Its seems to me that you are seeing this whole thing in quite a transactional way, rather than thinking in terms of a blended family which is what you have. Given that we are only talking about primary kids here, NOT teenagers and only 4 days a month most of the time, I think the difference in the food cost is minimal - maybe get him to bung in an extra £10 for the weekends they are with you and £20 if its a full week of holidays.

Once they ARE teens you may need to readdress this and have him to an additional shop when they are with you and I would hope that if your ex is a decent dad he would discuss maintenance with his ex at that point too - you say he pays "full" maintenance - if by that you mean CMS then its nowhere near half the costs and as they get older and need more expensive clothes and shoes, laptops and phones, I hope he will look into that.

I know this varies case by case and you weren’t to know but she actually doesn’t do the school run- they walk by themselves.

In one sentence the maintenance he pays hardly covers anything of their costs and he should pay her more. But when they are with us it seems they live on fresh air and he should just “bung £20 in the joint account for the week” which would mean to feed a kid for a tenner for the week. Why can’t he just “bung his ex £20” as that seems plenty? Why do they only cost money when with her? Why not when they are with us?

@Youcannotbeseriousreally "
I am really lost as to why the OP would be paying 50/50 for kids that aren’t hers?!?? They have two parents??"

Because the OP has chosen to live with a man who has kids. They come as a package. She is now their stepmother, because she's chosen to move in with their father.

Unless she wants those kids to understand loud and clear that she doesn't consider them her responsibility and isn't prepared to contribute financially to their upkeep as children of the family, she should be paying 50/50 of all household costs, especially given that she earns more than the dad.

If you don't want responsibility for kids, don't move in with someone who has them.

When DH moved in both our wages went into one pot, and everything came out - so essentially CM was paid for my DSS out of this too.
It never bothered me - I signed up to it when I decided to get into a relationship with my now husband when he had a six year old. (dSS is now 21!) and I see him as very much one of the family and he’s treated the same as our two other children.

No worries there as the kids don’t have access to our bank account so they won’t know who pays how much and to be honest - if they ever asked I don’t think it would be unreasonable to explain to at your own parents pay for you, I don’t think they would feel traumatised for life.

It’s quite depressing how many people seem to view stepmothers as a bank/funding source to subsidise first families. It doesn’t matter that she earns more than he does.

Even more so when, if the SM has children with their DH/P, these people seem totally on board with those children being treated as her sole expense.

@Woodstocks It’s OK to have a discussion with your DH about fairer financial arrangements. He is responsible for 3/4 of the household and the division day to day living costs should probably reflect that to a greater degree. It’s also worth extending that discussion to any potential holidays or similar.

He chose to have two children. He doesn’t get to delegate that responsibility to you.

You mention that you earn more. Don't you pay in to the pot in proportion to your earnings, so that you each have a fair amount of spending money?

Based on your resentment about supporting your DSS I'm not sure you're ready for a full blended family that comes with shacking up with someone who has children. But the financial conversations ideally should occur before moving in together, this is going to be a challenging conversation and is likely to come across as resentful of the children

@HesDeadBenYouCanStopNow That type of calculation doesn’t often transfer from nuclear to stepfamilies.

Equal spending money is not necessarily a fair outcome when one of you has responsibility for two children and the other does not. Skewing things so the OP contributes even more would actually make it much less fair to her.

@woodstocks I've been in this situation and the kids absolutely know. When one person earns more but the other person is paying more, it leads to friction not just about whether one should subsidise the kids of the other, but about spending in general. And kids definitely do pick up on that.

I agree with a pp...he does the food shop when his kids are there, and you do the alternate week.

Teenage boys will eat you out of house and home!

Maybe the kids should understand that it is their parents’ job to pay for them.

It only leads to friction if the lower earner and parent feels entitled to subsidy.

"Maybe the kids should understand that it is their parents’ job to pay for them."

Good God I feel sorry for any young people you might be in a blended family with.

hi OP - as you say every case in different but if he is only doing EOW I guarantee you that she will be paying more into their care than he is if he only pays CMS, unless he is a very high earner in which case you wouldn't be on here as he could easily afford the extra when they are with you.

The "bung an extra £10/20" meant that the ADDITIONAL cost of them for 48 hours is not going to be a great deal - presumably you already have bread, milk, cereal, pasta, veg, fruit etc, so for two primary kids, how much more is it realistically going to be for their meals for two days? Is it really enough to get into a conversation about I suppose is what I mean? In the end, as pp have said, either these children are a part of your family or not - I just can't imagine going round the supermarket with their Dad and having two separate trolleys with the bits for his kids in one.

She says 50:50 which I think probably means that he already has less left over. Plus he pays maintenance.

I agree OP isn't a blended family kind of person. Which is fine, not everyone is. It's hard.

I think it is fair for him to pay more for food etc for his kids - basically he should meet all their direct costs so the extra cost when they are around should be his. However, if you earn more you should pay more of the bills and mortgage, so perhaps it balances out?

Also, the OP's take on maintenance is just wrong. The boys are only with their dad EOW and half the holidays. The child maintenance he pays the mother is towards the boys' costs when they are with her, which is most of the time, hence he has to pay CMS. When they're with him, he pays for them. Or - in an ideal blended family - his household pays for them.

Alternatively the OP could press her partner to go for 50/50 shared care so that he doesn't have to pay CMS. But I'd imagine that would exacerbate her concerns about the costs of feeding them 50% of the time.

I don’t think you’ve understood what she said about maintenance.

She said that it exists because the children cost money - so he pays maintenance to try to cover some of that cost in the ex’s household.

But the children increase the costs when they’re in their father’s household too (over and above what it costs for just him and the OP) so their household contributions should reflect that.

In short: he should be making sure that he is paying for his kids rather than leaving it to the women around him to do that on his behalf.

But since you’ve already decided that the ideal blended family is one where the SM foots the bill and is grateful for the opportunity to do so, I don’t think you want to do anything other than be angry at her that she feels a father should be paying the costs for the children he chose to have.

The OP is paying to house the SC - presumably in better circumstances than would be possible for the father on his own. Not least because she earns more than him. She recognises that she benefits from the equity in the house so that’s why she pays 50% of the mortgage (she hasn’t told us how the house is owned, but in many cases it’s jointly/50-50 even though the deposit was mostly from her savings/previous assets).

She’s just not happy to be bearing the disproportionate burden of paying for her partner’s children.

I'm not angry, I just think it's clear that the OP has not signed up for a blended family life where the kids are ok, and it's a shame these conversations didn't take place before they combined their lives and assets in the form of buying a house together.

At the end of the day, what ever fallings-out between the OP and her partner over money will significantly affect the kids, who didn't ask or choose to be in this situation.

Hello, and thanks for your considered response. yes I do think that to some extent of course you have to just roll with it- when I was listing all the extra bits I know it has come across as petty but what I meant to say really was just that there are many things to consider. Like i said i am happy enough to split the household bills - it doesn’t really matter if two or four or ten people watch the same TV!

We have limited insight into the other household and what the mum actually spends and I appreciate that it’s obviously largely down to her. However there have been cheeky asks of wanting money for swimming for example which we thought odd as they can swim so it isn’t an educational need- turns out she was trying to get money for the aqua park!

I myself don’t have kids and dont have a real grasp on the cost of things in many cases. Sometimes there is a difference between “spending on essentials” and “spending for fun because you want to treat your kid” which is obviously not a cost that the ex partner needs to subsidise.

You are right as well of course - he is not a higher earner. Neither am I by the way I just happen to make more than him.

To quote QEII in The Crown "You're either in or you're out". If you don't want to subsidise someone else's kids and are resentful of small day to day costs then don't move in with someone who has DCs.

It will only affect the kids if he acts like an entitled parasite.

There is no tension if HE does the right thing and says - yes, they’re my kids. I have far greater costs than you. I’m grateful that we are able to buy this house but recognise I should be covering more of the day to day costs because kids do cost money and that’s what I signed up for when I chose to have kids.

Instead people seem to see the ideal blended family as one where he get’s equal spending money - so the OP has to hugely subsidise his parental responsibilities in their household and in his ex’s household. Because, of course, it’s not equal spending money minus child maintenance. It’s her paying even more because he’s paying maintenance.

Unfortunately living with him means supporting his previous family, they shouldn’t go without bcos u want them to.

It doesn’t mean supporting his previous family.

If the kids go without, it’s because their parents didn’t provide for them. Not because another adult didn’t cough up and pay things for the parents.

I cannot imagine expecting someone else to subsidise my choices to have children. Or making them responsible for my financial responsibilities. And definitely not to take responsibility for my ex.

I genuinely believe 90% of stepfamily issues come about because of the sheer entitlement of parents.