Want to leave OH can't bear living like this anymore

balletshoes

too_much_debt wrote: »

And you never answered my question earlier.

It is DD's birthday at the beginning of June, what should I do:

a) ask OH if he has any money for her presents, or

b) add it onto my credit card?

as both of you have credit card debts, so really neither of you have money for presents, I'd say to OH "how much should we agree to spend on DD for her birthday next month?" and then say "okay so half of that is £x.xx please, I'll need it by the end of this week so I can go buy her pressies"

JodyBPM

too_much_debt wrote: »

And you never answered my question earlier.

It is DD's birthday at the beginning of June, what should I do:

a) ask OH if he has any money for her presents, or

b) add it onto my credit card?

Surely that should be budgeted for out of the £300 a month that you get (cb/ctc & ebay money) to spend on childrens clothes, shoes and presents.

I think that from your OH's point of view you have probably the majority of the diposable income each month, and (not unreasonably) he expects you to cover certain things out of it. So he is going to get fed up with you keep asking him for half of things, because you have already been given a good chunk of money out of the family budget to pay for them.

Even if you won't sit down with your OH and do a SOA (why???) you should at least do one for you.

Lets take the ebay money out of the picture, and just say that is yours alone to throw at your debt.

You then have the cb and CTC every 4 weeks to manage. And out of that you need to budget for certain things. Why don't you draw up a budget and see how doable it is? You may well need to cut down - school dinners seem a luxury to me for a start - make a sandwich! You will need to prioritise your spending, and work out what you have left for non essentials. Once you've done this, you would be in a good position to explain to your OH why you need extra money if indeed you do, but I doubt your OH has much left each month after paying all the bills to give you.

I do think that you need to establish who out of you pays for the family food, set a budget and stick to it. That is one area where you are probably haemorraging money by buying bits and pieces daily.

C_Mababejive

too_much_debt wrote: »

And you never answered my question earlier.

It is DD's birthday at the beginning of June, what should I do:

a) ask OH if he has any money for her presents, or

b) add it onto my credit card?

What about doing nothing for a change?

When you were a kid,did you ever play tug o war with a big dog that wouldnt let go of a bit of rope? The more you tug,the more the dog digs in and pulls back.

Drop the rope and suddenly the dog doesnt pull anymore,he drops the rope and comes back to you to play with him.

Thats whats happening now.

The more you try to control and direct ,the more he digs in.

My advice to you which you wont take is...do nothing.

If you have no money,simply buy a card /small present/make a cake with a smiley face on it.

Leave it to him to decide what to do.

Idiophreak

too_much_debt wrote: »

but he's been paying a mortgage and bills for the last 10 years and would continue to pay the same bills if me and the kids weren't here,

I'm generally on your side now, saying but things like this just make you sound like a crazy person, or at least someone with zero financial sense.

If it wasn't for your OH, *you'd* have been paying these things for the last 10 years - and you'd be continuing to pay them. He doesn't pay these bills for fun - he's putting a house over your head. You're using half of the house, half of the bills etc - so by rights, you should be paying half of the bills. Obviously he's not making you pay this as you're staying at home, looking after his children - but you need to stop deluding yourself that you're of zero cost to him, that he contributes nothing to your finances...

JodyBPM

Idiophreak wrote: »

I'm generally on your side now, saying but things like this just make you sound like a crazy person, or at least someone with zero financial sense.

If it wasn't for your OH, *you'd* have been paying these things for the last 10 years - and you'd be continuing to pay them. He doesn't pay these bills for fun - he's putting a house over your head. You're using half of the house, half of the bills etc - so by rights, you should be paying half of the bills. Obviously he's not making you pay this as you're staying at home, looking after his children - but you need to stop deluding yourself that you're of zero cost to him, that he contributes nothing to your finances...

Not to mention that the mortgage on a family home is going to be considerably more expensive than than on a small flat, unless you all share one bath each night, then the water bill will have gone up substantially, more gas needed to heat a larger house and more water, full CT payable, no 25% discount etc etc. On £37K supporting just himself he would be comfortable, on £37K supporting a family of 5 he will be hard pushed to make ends meet. Big difference.

too_much_debt

JodyBPM wrote: »

Not to mention that the mortgage on a family home is going to be considerably more expensive than than on a small flat, unless you all share one bath each night, then the water bill will have gone up substantially, more gas needed to heat a larger house and more water, full CT payable, no 25% discount etc etc. On £37K supporting just himself he would be comfortable, on £37K supporting a family of 5 he will be hard pushed to make ends meet. Big difference.

I thought you were leaving this thread?

I didn't say he would be paying the same amount in bills every month I said he would still be paying the same bills ie a mortgage, council tax, gas and electric, tv licence etc, the only thing that would be cheaper for him would be gas and electric and maybe council tax (that is if he has a house left after we have to sell it to pay me what I am owed as I did put down £15k on a deposit and my name is on the mortgage even if I only came away with 20% he would not be able to afford to buy me out so the house would have to be sold.

Keep slagging me off on here if you want but I'm not going to read it anymore.

I'm not replying anymore.

So much for the MSE rule 'be nice to all moneysavers'. What a joke!!

Idiophreak

too_much_debt wrote: »

Keep slagging me off on here if you want but I'm not going to read it anymore.

Where's the slagging?

Jody's just pointing out that your OH wouldn't pay the same amount of bills if you moved out - and given reasons why.

Mojisola

too_much_debt wrote: »

I'm not replying anymore.

That's the best thing you could do.

Talk things through with your Mum and Dad, get some advice about benefits for the short-term, leave and make your own life.

It's time to either put up with your life as it is or start making the changes - your choice.

JodyBPM

I did leave the thread last night, but I came back to try and offer you some constructive advice rather than just continuing the row that was developing last night. Clearly, I shouldn't have bothered.

Clearly we are going to continue to disagree on some points, namely your instance that your husband pays for "nothing" for your and the children and also that having £300 a month to spend on childrens expenses out of a small total household income when you are paying a large mortgage and have debts is unfair or keeping you short. So lets leave those to one side for now.

I do urge you to take the advice offered and do a SOA. I think this might help you to see where all the money is going, and to sort the finances out amicably with your OH. You should be able to manage, but you need to cut back. Even if you do leave your OH, you need to learn how to budget and manage your money, so this wouldn't be a pointless exercise. Otherwise you are just going to rack up more and more debts after leaving your OH. (you are going to find it VERY hard to survive on benefits with £16K worth of debt, and don't assume you will just be able to clear the debt with capital from the house sale, you may well fall foul of the deprivation of capital rules - you will be expected to live off of the house sale money (unless you buy another property) before you become eligible for benefits, and paying off debts are not considered essential expenditure according to DWP)

Good luck whatever you do.

paddy's_mum

I just want to grab hold of the pair of you and bang your "£$%^& stupid, stubborn, selfish heads together!

Grow up, the pair of you, for Pete's sake!!!

I'm taking the side of your innocent children. What have they done to deserve any of this?

My advice, in a nutshell. Sit him down and have one more genuine, wholehearted attempt to COMMUNICATE and COMPROMISE - things that are clearly lacking so far in this tale. Then make your decision knowing that you have totally levelled with each other, calmly said the things that each of you need to know and understand, and above all ....

put your children first!

They deserve nothing less. Sermon over.