living with someone who would have to contribute more financially

pozalina

when_will_it_end wrote: »

its like the cooking, cleaning ect... its going to take me a while to adjust, but at least mum will get a break from helping as much

it is what i want i just want to stop feeling so scared

oh no i will have to share my bed every night...hmmmm...now im having second thoughts...lol

lol, I know, it is scary. I was pretty much single for years before I met oh and it took me a very long time to stop seeing myself as little miss independent and start seeing myself as part of a couple. My oh used to get annoyed when I wanted to do everything for myself as he genuinely wanted to do thngs for me and I couldn't accept it. Daft, I know!

Good luck, an exciting new chapter!

Annisele

balletshoes wrote: »

get a king size bed and a super-king size duvet !

I know the above sounds a bit petty - but I strongly recommend it.

My OH and I had years of grumpy middle-of-the-night conversations about my waking him up by stealing the duvet. He finally snapped and bought an enormous one - and I haven't stolen it since.

Lack of sleep does unpleasant things to a relationship; if you can fix them with a duvet you should.

property.advert

I don't believe in this percentage rubbish. I think you should split the bills 50/50 as presumably 50% of the combined bills will be less than 100% of the bills you have now.

I would potentially exclude mortgage repayments here as well as property ownership but as you haven't gone through a pre nup contract he may be daft enough to just chuck it all in the middle and hope for the best !

ska_lover

property.advert wrote: »

I don't believe in this percentage rubbish. I think you should split the bills 50/50 as presumably 50% of the combined bills will be less than 100% of the bills you have now.

I would potentially exclude mortgage repayments here as well as property ownership but as you haven't gone through a pre nup contract he may be daft enough to just chuck it all in the middle and hope for the best !

I think what 'when will it end' means is that she is going to loose a few benefits if her OH moves in, so will have less of her own personal income, and therefore more cash needing to be spent on bills. At the min, she works part time and gets tax credits etc, but that will be lost when the partner moves in. So out of the total 100% of the bills she has now, some of which is met by benefits so she isnt paying all out of her wages- if you see what I mean.

I totally empathise 'when will it end'. I was in this situation. I had been with my partner for four years before we took the plunge and I was very much 'miss independant' like you. I found it hard to adjust to sharing with someone after living alone for a long time, I feel most people do. My OH does earn about £300 quid more than me per month but there is no way I would want him paying more than 50% of things.

Its slightly different with me though, as my lad had grown up, and while still living at home, I wasnt getting any tax creds or anything to have the worry of how I would cope without them - I was used to paying for 100% of the bills out of my wage and financially I am better off for my OH paying his 50%. He did offer to pay more, but I refused and felt quite insulted really, I don't want to be looked after - in my mind thats how it felt - probably mad to some people.

However OP, as I said my situation was different, and was used to managing the bills on my wage only so I think in your situation you are going to struggle if you try and soldier on and your OH sounds a real gentleman to want to help and not leave you in the poo. I think you should take him up on it.

Good luck

when_will_it_end

hi all

been up most of the night thinking and think i have a plan

OH earns almost 4x what i do so, if we open another account and put half of our wage into it, we would use this as a bills account, i have worked out that the amount is to much but we could just leave the extra for emergencies or say a family holiday

does this sound fair?

this way we both have half of our wage left to do what we like, i think OH would agree that it is still more than he would normaly have had left when he had his own place, plus there will be no commuting, so saving money there

i will also have more spare money but like someone said i will no longer be living alone so only paying 50% of bills, but in saying that i never had this amount of money left before

arghhhhh

the way i see it is we will both have more money left at the end of the month so it has to be fair doesnt it?

i just do not want him to think im taking the pi55

daska

With my first husband we did it the opposite way round, we put all the money in the pot so there was no dispute about what was coming in. We worked out what the fixed bills were (mortgage, utitilities, debt repayment etc) and transferred that amount by STO to a different account. We were then free to take what we wanted from what was left.

FBaby

I know exactly how you feel. I have been brought up to be independent, and that particularly financially. Add to this my personality which lead me to feelings of anxiety if I start to rely on others for what is essentiel to my life, I like you feel that I want to make sure I contribute fairly to the bills and everything. My partner and I have moved together 4 months ago and we thought it would be simple as we earn similar salaries, so were going to go 50/50. The reality turned out different as this only takes our basic salaries into account. He gets good bonuses I don't, he gets his car and all expenses for, I don't, and I have my kids to support (whilst getting no support at all from their dad), he doesn't. After agreeing to this arrangement, I realised how penalised I was at the end of the month. So we looked at it again, and decided that the starting point should be our disposable income which should be the same at the end of the month. This means that he does have to contribute quite a lot more and I do feel bad about it. At the same time, i tell myself that his disposable income is for him only whereas mine is for me and the kids (it's not that rigid, we don't calculate everything and we don't cut the bill when we go out all together thank god!).

I think in the end, it all depends on the dynamic of the relationship, history and beliefs. My partner and I are both very independent people, so it is natural for us to do things separatly that others would find wierd or even 'unloving'. I also strongly believe that children should be the responsibility of both parents, not step-parents. I don't believe that because he has moved in with me AND the kids, he should take us as a package and pay for them as if they were his. Saying that, we are both generous and flexible and believe in caring for each other, so contributing to each other is not an issue at all.

My ex got himself in very bad debts when we were together by taking on loans and credit cards without my knowledge. At the time, I thought we would be together forever. I am so glad that despite our togetherness, I always l kept things separately. It was hard enough to cope with everything after we separated, i can't imagine what it would have been like if I'd been linked to him financially even more than with the house. It does make you very protective afterwards!

onlyroz

We've always had a joint account for bills and we've put an amount corresponding to our salaries. When we first met I was only bringing in a small amount (because I was a PhD student) and so I contributed much less. Now, I earn a little bit more than him, so I pay in more. Whatever else we have is ours to spend as we like.

mirrorimage0

its each to thier own and whatever feels comfortable, me and hubby have been together nearly 11 yrs and married nearly 3. we used to have seperate accounts when we first got together but split which bills we would pay, although he was not bothered and would quite happily pay them all he earnt enough. but as me and my son was moving in with him i wanted to pay my way, so bought most of the household items (we moved into his house altogetehr as he had only just bought it) and paid some of the bills and food shopping, and he would just leave money to go towards the household.

then when we got married we have a joint account which everything goes into, i now actually earn more than him and we have bought another property since but he does the house up etc which would cost us a forune if we got someone in to do it. but at the end of the day we are a partner ship it doesnt matter who earns what we work as a team and the money is all joint.

but definatkly second the opinion of getting a larger bed abd even larger duvet, the rows do happen, you dont always want to snuggle up together lol

martinthebandit

Mojisola wrote: »

As soon as OH and I got together, our money became "ours". It didn't matter who earned it - we were a partnership and shared what we had. I just wouldn't be comfortable if my OH was left with less money than me at the end of each month - that's more like a house share than a personal relationship.

Is the right answer.

and, to be honest, if you are getting hung up on 'whats mine and whats his' it does not sound to me as though you are ready for a proper commitment to him.

sorry to be blunt