He spent our money on beer

lynzpower

lewolf wrote:

He's been selfish and stupid with the money but that isn't a reason to dump him. If you look at all the posts on this board where people are scared to own up to their partners about their debt, you will see that almost everyone chips in with how they should own up and that usually it works out for the best. If you go by all these posts saying 'kick him out' then I hope none of the posters are the same ones who say 'come clean' it'll be for the best too! No we don't can't have contradictions and you both have a family to think of.

Although with baby number 2 coming its important for you to keep a tight rein on the money, its equally important that he learns for himself how to budget. He will never learn if you have all the financial control and he's left to manage on what you feel is appropriate. He's a grown man who needs to understand his responsibilities and one of them is money management.

Right now you need to feel that the money is being managed well and do what you have to. But please don't get into the trap of doing it all in the long term. He'll never learn if you do it all and you will lose respect for him (and he with himself) if he can't learn to take responsibility.

Bring him on here for some tips and advice if you can. Get him to work out meals and shopping and together get more involved with the financial side of things. He'll thank you for it in the long run and both of you will respect each other more.

Good luck

Completely agree with this post. OP hope you are feeling brighter today

Penny-Wise_4

Hope everything goes well for all of you!

I know you can't get the £500 back, but a money saving way of getting second hand baby/kids stuff is https://www.freecycle.org. I don't have kids but the group I belong to always has baby & kids stuff on offer, as kids grow out of stuff quickly so they give them away. They also have loads of other stuff - you may be able to get a decent second hand mattress.


Try www.freecycle.org to find groups near you.

HTH

Jo_R_2

Hi all

Yup, feeling very postive today. Not least as we have had some quality time today, and really talked - and listened to each other - rather than the usual functional conversations about the more everyday aspects of life. Most of it was about trivia but that was fun. And we talked about money - interestingly we did speak about him having a more active role financially, in the sense that we discussed that he needs to have a more active role in our day-to-day finances. We were thinking longer-term here, as eventually there is going to be a point where he will want to approach a bank about a business loan, in a few years, in order to start up his own business (thus him being at uni now) and he needs to work on his credit status. At the moment the only thing in his name apart from being a joint tenant and the joint council tax, is the TV licence, so we were thinking of changing one or two of the outgoings into his name, the main one being the water rates which we pay monthly at the post office, so a pretty harmless one to start off with.

Re: the other things we were arguing about - I actually said to him yesterday and today that I am sure he has had a personality transplant, he has been doing so much around the house and with our DD. He says it's because he has a lot more time now he has finished uni for the summer; I think it is partly that (I was frustrated with his lack of help around the house) and partly a guilty conscience because of the money he spent and a way of making up for it.

I think the spending of the money is starting to really hit home now; today he was discussing how the costs for his final show at uni have been mounting up and how now he can't afford to pay the costs off all in one go. Luckily the place he got the work done is somewhere where he has done regular casual business with over the past year and each time paid in full so they are more than happy for him to pay the account off over a number of months. He also realised when his father asked him if there was any things we needed for DD and baby that yes there were and that they were things we had planned to buy ourselves but couldn't right now.

I explained to him that what he had done was so serious I had considered throwing him out. I think spelling it out shocked him a little - it is something I have talked about in half-seriousness before but when I told him how close it had come he realised there wouldn't be a next time and we talked a lot about it.

We are looking at further improving the budget and implementing "pocket money" and a clothing allowance which we both feel would be beneficial as we obviously need to buy clothes and want to be able to do/buy little things for ourselves. We both felt that this would help both of us to chill out a little and avoid future problems as we will both have a little something of our own.

Thankyou all so much for the continuing replies :T

Emmzi

Jo,

sounds like you managed to have a calm and adult to adult conversation. Well done!

You put your feet up and let him do household stuff. I am sure baby is exhausting you!!

lynzpower

Oh Jo R thats such great news!!

Onwards & upwards!!

LookingAhead

Really pleased the talk went well...and calmly! Good luck for the future. xx