DP suddenly broke - can I grumble?

[Stepmumptsd]

My DP, formerly a somewhat high-earning professional who one would generously consider middle aged, is broke.

This is 100% self-inflicted.

He has started an MBA ( 20 years older than most on the course) and cut his work to one day consulting a week.

And now we cannot go out for dinner anymore.

DP is in finance (like me) and beyond the age where extra letters after his name would propel him towards the C-suite. He will most likely enjoy his course then return to his former director level job or similar with impressive new Powerpoint skills.

But I thought his career break was a nice idea, until he told me that he is broke.

I was not sure this was true, so we looked at his budget. He's broke.

He has enough savings to fund his course, pay his mortgage, pay his nanny, buy food for himself and the kids and run the car. And also to keep paying his non-mortgaged ex wife her court-ordered absolutely flabbergasting monthly maintenance as well as the substantial list of extras the exw, I just learned, is billing DP for monthly.

These comprise: children's clothes, clubs, extra curricular sports, holiday camps, school uniforms, tuition, therapists, school dinners, mobile phone, pocket money, horse riding, birthday parties, football shoes and LEGO.

They have the children 50-50. The exw works part time but does not need to and does not pay for childcare because of generous parents. The 50-50 was agreed by exw after fantabulous maintenance was secured. Lol.

I don't live with DP so am not directly affected by his brokeness exactly.

But we do share a life and a lifestyle. And pre-brokeness it was a nice one. Dinners out a couple of times a month. A foreign holiday together once a year. Taking both sets of kids to plays and musicals at weekends. We always went Dutch. I always knew the exw was richer than me because she worked very hard in court for several months to prove her womb was golden and I worked in offices for 25 years so as not to rely on an ex husband, but I didn't mind as my lifestyle was the same as before I met DP.

But now DP is broke it is going to cost me.

When I fancy sharing a bottle of plonk and fish and chips at home, I will have to buy it.

When we have mutual friends over for a meal, I will have to buy the food.

When my child is in a play and wants DP and his kids to come, I will be buying all five tickets.

This is probably an AIBU but I put it on step parents because I am a step parent in all but living arrangement - DP and I shift nomadically between our two homes depending on which kids we have when.

And yet when it comes to having a say on finances, I am feeling nothing like a partner and very like a girlfriend who may have just sleepwalked into buying meals for a geriatric student who is paying for his exw to summer in Tuscany.

I am asking myself whether:

I should've been consulted ahead of the MBA decision with fully discussing the finances?

I should have realised he was paying over the odds for child stuff?

I should ask DP to review this now or to vary his maintenance order in court? (He will say the exw will respond by pulling the kids out of activities and not buying them shoes.)

I should resign as quasi step parent on the basis I should not have responsibility for DP's kids when I have such little agency over how we live our joint lives?

I should merrily commit all my disposable income to myself and get a season ticket to Champneys, leaving DP at home to eat Pot Noodle?

I should join his student lifestyle, learn to love Pot Noodle again and clear my mortgage early? (Quite like thiis idea actually, lemons into lemonade.)

Or he can cut back on his social life?

Option 1: like lots of people he could do MBA part time while continuing to work nearly full time - he’s busy but not much impact on your lifestyle or his children. Option 2: cut the money he gives to his children/child with disabilities and continues to fund a nice lifestyle with you and isn’t so busy. Option 3: reduce his standard of lifestyle for the year, continue to support his children and isn’t so busy. Option 4: he asks you to subsidise his giving up work. They are the options. Maybe ask yourself why you’re so cross and sarky to some woman who is nothing to do with you and have nothing to say to your boyfriend who made big financial decisions without your input and doesn’t seem to see you as a partnership. He’s the person to talk too - it may be he’s okay with reducing lifestyle for a while and didn’t seem need to discuss with you but you need to know how big a role he sees you playing his life.

My friend has always worked hard and full time and likes her lovely home, garden and independence.
By signing over his largest asset, paying rental and subbing his children, he is a man of comfortable but modest means.
He has a decent pension.

He definitely would have been quids in if he moved into her morgage free home.
But my friend works full-time to pay for her lifestyle and his ex works continues to work 2 days a week in her lovely home that is now fully hers.
He seriously over estimated his charm that he thought he could move in now both children have left and that they could come and visit at hers.
She told him he was a complete CF and she was having none of it.
She is relieved it came out as if she hadn't known it might have happened by stealth as he had mentioned he was looking forward to staying over more.

One other positive is she realises she has zero interest in living with any man as she heads towards retirement.
She loves her freedom.
She certainly has zero interest in being a step parent.

I really hope the OP wakes up and shuts her purse firmly.
She would be a foolish dope to fund his family in any way.

Hi @Stepmumptsd I've just read your post and not read all the replies yet- but what leapt out at me is your idea to join him in his frugal lifestyle and pay your mortgage off early.

100% I would be doing this!!

I'm in a bit of a similar situation with DP, the difference being we do live together.

He also took a voluntary massive step back and gave up an average job with reasonable prospects, to earn an absolute pittance with no prospects.

He did this before we lived together so I didn't weigh in on his decision.

Anyway once we lived together I funded his and his DC's lifestyle for one year.

I've since gotten into financial independence and I now siphon off most of my salary into pension and investments, so month to month we're both living very frugally.

For me the safety net is if I want something I can buy it, but I feel good that I'm not wasting money and I'm working towards something productive.

Such a wide range of interesting and nuanced responses to my question. Thanks to all those who have been supportive, constructive and civil.

Ive decided the best approach is to live frugally alongside DP during his MBA and treat this as a financial detox.

I can then safeguard my future and the financial security and independence I have worked for as well as overpaying my mortgage to clear it early.

But Ive also told DP there will be no moving in together or getting engaged (he’s been on about this for years) unless he stops making unilateral decisions that affect me without planning with me first.

I also have made it abundantly clear that I will not be DP’s financial safety net in later life.

Thanks all for the fab advice.

Great update OP! That sounds like a good approach.

Your DP earns a higher salary than you, has had large savings which is the reason he can fund this MBA so I’ve no idea what your obsession is that he has plans to use you as a financial safety net layer in life. Nothing about him, his setup or your finance suggests that’s the case or even possible at all.

I don’t think you’re the financial safety net in this relationship. That’s ok. I’m not either.

I literally couldn't disagree with you any more. Marriage is a contract - a legal contract. So if those 2 parties agree to something and decisions are made on the back of that agreement, that should stand. The idea that a man can walk out on a family and decide unilaterally (or possibly together with their new partner) that agreement no longer stands is unacceptable to me. The decisions that are taken to support the family unit in good faith have life long consequences, and the ending of that contract needs to reflect that. It probably never will do. I couldn't get back my investment banking career and the salary that went with that. And that was a major downside of me supporting a child who was very young and vulnerable. So no categorically it is not irrelevant.

Exactly.

Unfortunately it's still true that women's careers still tend to come second to men's in a marriage, especially once kids enter the picture. You also can't "make up lost time" with a high paying career.

In this situation, it would be quite common for the ex w to be stuck in relative poverty, unable to secure a high paying position as she has a disabled child who can't use mainstream childcare, while the ex h lives it up on the career that he built while the ex w did the childcare. I've seen that before.

Well done OP.
I would think he thinks you will come round.
But paying off your morgage is a good plan.
It really is possible to live apart and have a nice relationship.
Far better that ending up looking after someone whom gave their security to an ex wife.

I think you misunderstood me. If you gave up a career as an investment banker then there are reasonable grounds for compensatory spousal maintenance.

It's people with no skills at all and no career prospects who deliberately seek out a better earning partner from the start that I have a problem with. When they divorce, it is completely unreasonable to expect their higher earning partner to maintain them when they have neither the ability or inclination to ever even try to become financially independent.

Unless the law changes, then less and less people will get married. There is just no benefit to marriage for the higher earner whatsoever, only risk.