Moral dilemma!

nicknameless

Monsternextdoor said:

nicknameless said:

I never quite understand supposedly committed relationship where finances are not completely joint, although we are aware of many around us.

We had a joint account from the start - all finances together.  Who earns what irrelevant.

Many many years married and we do not have joint accounts, The money in either account is 'our' money, It still ends up in the family pot, just depends who pays at the time.

Fair enough.

I still find it weird tbh - but each to their own and we're obviously used to a different arrangement.

nicknameless

goodwithsaving said:

nicknameless said:

I never quite understand supposedly committed relationship where finances are not completely joint, although we are aware of many around us.

We had a joint account from the start - all finances together.  Who earns what irrelevant.

All subjective. You can have a committed relationship for 30+ years, and still maintain separate bank accounts and separate finances with an equal division of bills. This accounts for many (happy) couples I know. 
II've been burned once, and fortunately kept my finances separate (aside from the house). I actually don't want to live with anybody again or own another asset with anybody else, and certainly won't marry unless a prenuptial agreement was in place and legally enforceable. Sad, given my young age, but it is what it is. People have different perspectives and different thoughts.
I also think who earns what and who owns what is relevant if meeting once assets have been acquired by one, or both. 

Genuinely sorry to hear that.  I hope you have someone in your life who can change that feeling around, or find someone who can.

I've been in a relationship for 30 odd years and know I'll be in it till death do us part so perhaps I'm a little naive.

jazzyja

Monsternextdoor said:

nicknameless said:

I never quite understand supposedly committed relationship where finances are not completely joint, although we are aware of many around us.

We had a joint account from the start - all finances together.  Who earns what irrelevant.

Many many years married and we do not have joint accounts, The money in either account is 'our' money, It still ends up in the family pot, just depends who pays at the time.

I agree. We did have years ago but his spending habits and mine too used to cause arguments. Like I dont agree he should be spending £10 a day in his dinner and he doesnt agree that I should be buying a handbag every month....so in the end we said you know what wel just have our money. 9 years later we never argue about money. Ever. Days out for the kids il usually pay for but he then pays for the food etc it just works. 

Monsternextdoor

nicknameless said:

Monsternextdoor said:

nicknameless said:

I never quite understand supposedly committed relationship where finances are not completely joint, although we are aware of many around us.

We had a joint account from the start - all finances together.  Who earns what irrelevant.

Many many years married and we do not have joint accounts, The money in either account is 'our' money, It still ends up in the family pot, just depends who pays at the time.

Fair enough.

I still find it weird tbh - but each to their own and we're obviously used to a different arrangement.

The nature of my husbands job means its better for me to keep my account seperate, Bills are all in my name etc as he can be send away on 2 hours notice, If bills were joint as they have been at times it causes issues when cards run out etc.

goodwithsaving

I think all these threads do is indicate there is no one way.
I get annoyed with the "I just can't understand why..." arguments or "my way is better than your way" insinuations (particularly from friends). It isn't one size fits all. Everyone has different experiences. 
Just do what suits your own individual situation.

Emzlyz

natkirt said:

My partner and I have just bought our first home. I contributed 5k more than he did to the house deposit. Should I ask him to pay 5k more to something else like repayments, or am I just being petty?

Why did you put in 5k more? If it's because he doesn't have the 5k then how can you expect him to pay 5k towards anything else?

At one point me and my boyfriend discussed him putting in more than me for our deposit because he has 4× the savings I do. he thought if he did I should pay more towards the mortgage payments. While I understand the logic I couldn't really afford that and still have money left over for savings, holidays, emergencies etc. I suggested that the best way to do it is if we ever sold the house we each get our original deposits back before splitting any other money 50/50. In the end we got a house that we could put in 50/50 deposit for.

Personally I think you should have discussed this before you bought the house and it's pretty devious to suddenly spring it on someone that you expect them to cough up 5k somehow if it wasn't discussed before. 

lookstraightahead

When I split up with my ex my ex MIL wanted him to have everything she'd ever bought us. That's 20 years of stuff! He told her that wasn't going to happen, thankfully. 

Murphybear

When my OH and I got together 25 years ago he wasn’t working but had some money.  I took redundancy and we escaped from London and bought a house.  He paid cash for it and did it up, it was not much more than a shell.  I got a job and kept us.  A few years later I got a permanent University contract and we sold the house and I got a mortgage and bought a bungalow.  A few years later we sold this and decamped to Devon and bought a business. 

We sold the business and retired.

At no time did we consider finances as “his” and “mine”.  We still have separate accounts and take it in turns to buy things.  

It worked for us because we were in our 40s when we met 

Indigo_and_Violet

Agree on the general theme of...it depends.

£15k deposit and he's got money left in the bank? Then I'd probably ask him to pay for the next bit of major work on the house/pay the solicitors bill/for the next joint holiday.
£80k deposit and he's been cleaned out? Then he obviously hasn't got the money to pay for anything else right now. 

You need to decide what you want (are you happy to put £5k more in than him, given the power and money balance across your relationship as a whole?) and then if you feel you do want some sort of 'recompense' from him you need to discuss with him what that might look like.

If you've bought a house together you'd ideally have had discussions about your attitude to money beforehand (as this thread shows, there's lots of ways to do it from totally joint to totally separate and everywhere in between) but since it seems like you haven't then now is as good a time as any. Good luck! 

Mac_70_

Whoa interesting, when me and my wife of thirty-one years got married our relationship became one. The house is ours i pay some things she pays some things, some bills are in her name, some are in mine. To be honest i don't really know if she pays out more than me hmm, or if i pay more than her. The only thing i do know, she keeps saying that what's mine is hers and what's hers is hers .

I do think your right OP to keep track of expenses, somethings tells me your going to need them in the future.