How should this work? Finances in marriage = fairness.

[Deleted User]

The housework and child care also have monetary values. He likewise benefits from working electrics and doesn't have contribute to the costs of an electrician.  In a split probably the best thing would be you each keep your homes and he pays towards the cost of child care, child rearing, believe me those school uniforms, trips, replacing the bedding etc. becomes really pricey. Who's paying the lion's share of that?  It does rather sound as though you both mentally place a cost on things and I'm not saying that's wrong - it's probably very sensible in today's world.  None of us expect to get divorced when we get married but sadly the reality is in the divorce statistics.  Ideally you'd pool the resources as it solves a lot of problems.  You're two independents in a partnership rather than two people in a marriage building the same thing.  

onwards&upwards

maman said:

Spendless said:

I'd have loved to have had the 'lady of leisure's' point of view on this. I'm wondering if when he ws working his socks off he was also returning home to most or every meal made for him. Never having to do any housework. His business suits dropped off to be dry cleaned and returned to the wardrobe.  Any extra curricular activities the kids did always been taken to and from and many other aspects of household and family life he was enjoying tha he wouldn't have got otherwise. Did she ever tell you her side of the story? 

Others may not agree but when a child is at school all day  (in this case including breakfast club and after school because she wanted to be like her friends) then domestic stuff is not a 24/7 job. 

Did he do a 24/7 job?  That's very rare!

maman

Apologies for the 24/7 exaggeration. Perhaps, more accurately, domestic stuff is nowhere near comparable to the 60+ hours a week some are putting in. It can be achieved with plenty of time left over for lunching and shopping or whatever you choose. In the case I was asked about, one partner chose to not work at all for many, many years and the other began to resent it. 

The relevance is that OP has posted that she chooses to have a lower paid, part time job because it's less stressful and leaves her time to be at home with her 14 year old and whatever domestic stuff is needed. That's fair enough if she and her husband found it mutually acceptable but they obviously don't which is leading to much of the friction described in her posts. The original question about how to share out the family budget  is just the tip of the iceberg. 

onwards&upwards

maman said:

Apologies for the 24/7 exaggeration. Perhaps, more accurately, domestic stuff is nowhere near comparable to the 60+ hours a week some are putting in. It can be achieved with plenty of time left over for lunching and shopping or whatever you choose. In the case I was asked about, one partner chose to not work at all for many, many years and the other began to resent it. 

I can't help but wonder if that man would have been perfectly happy to add 50% of the domestic workload to his week if his wife also worked full time. 

maman

I wouldn't deny that he did enjoy home cooked meals etc. but, just as in the focus of this thread, it's so important that where decisions affect both parties that there is joint agreement.  What went wrong in the family I'm describing was that no timing was agreed. They agreed jointly to have a child and that he would work a lot of overtime to compensate for the drop in salary. I think he made the assumption that she would return to some work when their child went to school and gradually build back up to the good job she had previously over time rather than stretch 'maternity leave' into more than a decade and then eventually return to a low paid job.

Fireflyaway

maman said:

Apologies for the 24/7 exaggeration. Perhaps, more accurately, domestic stuff is nowhere near comparable to the 60+ hours a week some are putting in. It can be achieved with plenty of time left over for lunching and shopping or whatever you choose. In the case I was asked about, one partner chose to not work at all for many, many years and the other began to resent it. 

The relevance is that OP has posted that she chooses to have a lower paid, part time job because it's less stressful and leaves her time to be at home with her 14 year old and whatever domestic stuff is needed. That's fair enough if she and her husband found it mutually acceptable but they obviously don't which is leading to much of the friction described in her posts. The original question about how to share out the family budget  is just the tip of the iceberg. 

I think you have confused OP with me. OP has a baby on the way and her and her husband have a property each and both work. I'm the one with the 14 year old and the 'less stressful ' job. I did make a similar post so I see the confusion! 

maman

Sorry, yes, you're quite right. The threads ostensibly have similar themes and I'd conflated the two. IIRC the OP on this thread joked that her DH wanted to know how long her maternity leave might stretch to. Apologies for any confusion. 

ratechaser

Mrs RC and I are 100% all in on joint accounts and have been for most of the 20 years we have been together. There is no 'my' in finances. It's totally alien to me to do it any other way and I'm totally comfortable with combined accounts. Yes, buying surprise presents can be more challenging, but there are ways to manage that (cash usually...)

That said, I realise that relationships are different and I'm not going to judge or denigrate anyone else for how they choose to organise their finances. 

Not really complicated in my view...

Sayschezza

When I was married to my exH his wages went to a joint account and because he wasn't interested in taking any sort of responsibility the running of this account was left to me and he just took pocket money. It was the days before bank cards and I had the cheque book so I had to cash his pocket money for him every week. I stayed at home and ran the household and raised our 3 DC mostly without his help. It was very much an old fashioned marriage.
My OH and I have been together now for over 30 years and we have separate accounts. He came to live with me all those years ago giving up his rented flat to do so. Our home is my house and all the bills are in my name. OH gives me a set amount of money every month and the rest (actually it's the bigger amount) is his to do with as he wishes. My will is made so if I die first he has the house for his lifetime and then it reverts to my children. His money is willed to his children at my insistence. 
Once again I have a man who is not interested in the bills etc that I pay and if I do happen to die first he will struggle. He doesn't even know who I have the utility bills with. I will make it clear though that he is not mean with money and has been really helping out with the food bills during this pandemic as  they are higher than usual and will often pay towards anything I buy for the house. 
Friends have mentioned that we do not seem like a proper couple but rather as 2 friends who share the same house and I think that's because it's very apparent that it's me that has to run things around here. He won't even come on holiday now ( I pay) so I go with  friend. He does pay for any eating out we do. It all works ok but I don't like the divide so my advice to the OP would be to put the question of money aside for now and really work on the relationship as it's that that's more important.

MovingForwards

@Sayschezza I've a folder with all the info in and am also writing a list, told my OH where to find in case anything happens to me.