OH "owes" money - Long post - sorry!

foxgloves

Well, I think that you are just a more adult & responsible person than your (now ex) partner. I don't doubt that you can budget and sort out a sound start for yourself & your new baby when it arrives. As for your partner.....well, this isn't a problem that's going to go away for him. He can go into other relationships, but to be honest, not many women will be prepared to put up with this kind of irresponsible nonsense. I do believe that what you 'give out' does eventually come back to get you, so he will one day need to sit down & take a long hard look at his attitude to money & relationships. I just wanted to add something about joint accounts in case it's useful for the future. We'd always kept separate accounts too, but as we started seeing the end of our debts coming into sight, we felt we would be even stronger with budgeting (it was a new skill for both of us!) if we finally opened a joint account. I did have a little wobble about doing this as I have always been very independent, but we did it and I can't tell you how much easier it has made budgeting. We used to have such a complicated system of him paying some things, me paying for others and having cheques to each other to adjust every payday. We decided that as I am the strongest budgeter, that I would manage the finances but that we would both have money for 'spends'. We decided that any bigger item that either of us might want would be discussed first so that if we did decided to have it, we could both look at the best way to pay, best price available, etc. I haven't said so to partner, but I think if we'd had a joint account earlier, then our debts might have been cleared sooner. Never mind, they're paid off now. My overall message to you is one of support. You sound well out of this, to be honest. If men are big enough to make babies, they need to be adult enough to accept responsibilities. I wish you every bit of luck.