Finances and marriage

Pollycat

zagfles said:

Pollycat said:

zagfles said:

pinkshoes said:

If Mr Pinkshoes made huge financial decisions like that without consulting me I would be furious!

You need to sit and discuss finances openly, as you need to work as a team. One person in a marriage should not have lots more than the other.

Me and Mr Pinkshoes had a similar-ish battle a while back. He felt as he earns double what I do (I work part time due to 3 young children). He felt he should get more money as he worked more. So I said I would work full time, which would mean that we would need:
a dog walker 3x a week, 
a cleaner,
he would need to do 50% of all chores (cooking, laundry, food shopping, taking kids to stuff etc...)
he would need to use all his holiday to cover childcare.

Overall it worked out we would be just £500 better off and he would lose nearly all his free time, so oddly he then decided against it!


We work out how much we need for household stuff (mortgage, bills, food, the odd family meal out, clothes and activities for kids) then we pay this as a ratio of how much we earn, leaving about the same spending money in our own accounts. He does still get more than me but he does have expensive hobbies compared to me which I don't mind. 

I've never understood this - since having our first child I've always earned much more than my wife, for 7 years she earnt nothing, then it was a part time term time job, but finances were never an issue, all our money was considered joint (in spirit if not on paper).

The thing I did consider unfair was that I wasn't getting as much benefit from the lifestyle we'd chosen as she was, I didn't get to spend as much time with the kids as she did. We did mitigate it as much as possible for instance I did zero housework but as much "childcare" as I could, and I worked shifts when they were pre-school which meant I got time off in the day so could take the kids to their activities, park, trips out etc in the day.

Pets I guess would be similar, if you both want a dog but one has more time to take them for walks, play fetch etc. Although sometimes they're the decision of one of the couple rather than a joint decision - a friend's wife got a dog without even consulting him! It was a present from her Mum, that was the excuse, but mother and daughter had discussed it beforehand, she OK'ed it without even consulting her husband! So he now regards the dog and anything to do with it as her "hobby" similar to his golf hobby!

We've had cats on and off and it's similar, my wife wanted them, I would prefer not (mainly due to the hassle when going away etc) but don't mind having them, so my wife would normally do any "work" associated with them eg feeding, cleaning litter trays, hassling the neighbours to look after them when going away etc. But they're nowhere near as time consuming as a dog - I would rule that completely, luckily so would my wife!

Why didn't you choose to be a house husband if you considered it so unfair?
Didn't you discuss finances, child care and roles before deciding to have children?

You misunderstand. Or perhaps I didn't word it very well. It was an issue to which there was no perfect solution, we did consider me becoming a househusband, but that would have just reversed this unfairness onto my wife, or both working part time, but due to the nature of both our jobs that wasn't practical, particularly to get hours that fitted well with each other.

So we mitigated it as best we could, as above. It worked pretty well, I look back on the years the kids were young as one of the happiest periods of my life.

So there was always going to be an uneven split.
If you'd considered all options and decided that you continuing to work was the best solution, it's a bit mean to think you're treated unfairly in a situation that you've chosen - imho.

zagfles

Pollycat said:

zagfles said:

Pollycat said:

zagfles said:

pinkshoes said:

If Mr Pinkshoes made huge financial decisions like that without consulting me I would be furious!

You need to sit and discuss finances openly, as you need to work as a team. One person in a marriage should not have lots more than the other.

Me and Mr Pinkshoes had a similar-ish battle a while back. He felt as he earns double what I do (I work part time due to 3 young children). He felt he should get more money as he worked more. So I said I would work full time, which would mean that we would need:
a dog walker 3x a week, 
a cleaner,
he would need to do 50% of all chores (cooking, laundry, food shopping, taking kids to stuff etc...)
he would need to use all his holiday to cover childcare.

Overall it worked out we would be just £500 better off and he would lose nearly all his free time, so oddly he then decided against it!


We work out how much we need for household stuff (mortgage, bills, food, the odd family meal out, clothes and activities for kids) then we pay this as a ratio of how much we earn, leaving about the same spending money in our own accounts. He does still get more than me but he does have expensive hobbies compared to me which I don't mind. 

I've never understood this - since having our first child I've always earned much more than my wife, for 7 years she earnt nothing, then it was a part time term time job, but finances were never an issue, all our money was considered joint (in spirit if not on paper).

The thing I did consider unfair was that I wasn't getting as much benefit from the lifestyle we'd chosen as she was, I didn't get to spend as much time with the kids as she did. We did mitigate it as much as possible for instance I did zero housework but as much "childcare" as I could, and I worked shifts when they were pre-school which meant I got time off in the day so could take the kids to their activities, park, trips out etc in the day.

Pets I guess would be similar, if you both want a dog but one has more time to take them for walks, play fetch etc. Although sometimes they're the decision of one of the couple rather than a joint decision - a friend's wife got a dog without even consulting him! It was a present from her Mum, that was the excuse, but mother and daughter had discussed it beforehand, she OK'ed it without even consulting her husband! So he now regards the dog and anything to do with it as her "hobby" similar to his golf hobby!

We've had cats on and off and it's similar, my wife wanted them, I would prefer not (mainly due to the hassle when going away etc) but don't mind having them, so my wife would normally do any "work" associated with them eg feeding, cleaning litter trays, hassling the neighbours to look after them when going away etc. But they're nowhere near as time consuming as a dog - I would rule that completely, luckily so would my wife!

Why didn't you choose to be a house husband if you considered it so unfair?
Didn't you discuss finances, child care and roles before deciding to have children?

You misunderstand. Or perhaps I didn't word it very well. It was an issue to which there was no perfect solution, we did consider me becoming a househusband, but that would have just reversed this unfairness onto my wife, or both working part time, but due to the nature of both our jobs that wasn't practical, particularly to get hours that fitted well with each other.

So we mitigated it as best we could, as above. It worked pretty well, I look back on the years the kids were young as one of the happiest periods of my life.

So there was always going to be an uneven split.
If you'd considered all options and decided that you continuing to work was the best solution, it's a bit mean to think you're treated unfairly in a situation that you've chosen - imho.

You're really not getting it - I wasn't "treated unfairly", just that it was a natural unfairness that arose out of the choices we both willingly made, and so we mitigated as best we could. There was unfairness on my wife in other aspects, which again we mitigated as best we could.

But it's straying off the point...the only reason for mentioning it was to contrast with "Mr Pinkshoes" who seems to be in a similar position but who thought the financial aspect was unfair, ie that he earned more so should get to spend more. This is what I "didn't understand" in my reply and tried to expand on. I would have thought he'd be more concerned about the unfairness of working for a lifestyle involving 3 kids and a dog and (presumably) getting less time to spend with them than his OH. Unless I guess if that lifestyle was more his wife's choice than his?