I'm not a bank!

belfastgirl23

Hi Sarah, I think the answer lies in your joint account. All joint living expenses (including your daughter!!) should come out of that account with both of you putting in either an equal amount of £ or ideally an amount based on proportion of income (so if he earns 20% more than you he contributes 20% more to joint expenses). If you needed to sweeten this you could work out an amount to cover also his contribution to his nephew and his petrol assuming a lot of it is used for joint trips etc. After this then what you spend 'your' money on and what he spends 'his' money on is up to both of you. And it would mean that all the stuff that he's borrowing to cover is sorted.

BTW he might disapprove of what you owe but that doesn't mean you don't have to pay it back...so in a way it's irrelevent to anything.

Is there some kind of cultural thing going on that I'm not getting here? It just seems a really weird situation that you are paying half of all the major bills and then all of the other stuff as well?

I would still also want to know where his money is going though...

Doom_and_Gloom

This guy needs a kick up the butt. There is no way you should pay out for a majority of the food, clothes and baby items when you pay in equal share for everything else especially when he earns MORE. I would understand if he payed for where you lived and council tax etc as he earns more but this is an outrage :mad: .

Write out your wages after tax for an average month on paper with a colum on the other side explaning an average months expenditure for you and show him exactly why this is becoming an issue. I would even stress to him how unrealistic the situation is as he earns soo much more than you. How he doesn't have the money to pay for his nephew is beyond me if he obviously promised to help him (it's not for you to deal with and I would make this known to you OH as it's his promise not yours).

With regards to not paying towards the child as he should I would really flare up about it as it's his responcibility (sp?) as a father to pay towards his own child. He should be helping with food and cloths properly as and when needed.

I would consider even staying with a person like this as he is obviously so selfish and up his own butt to care for much more than himself :mad: (seems to me that he cares more for his nephew than he does you and your daughter I'm afraid to say).

ceridwen

I do like Belfast Girl's straight-out pragmatic answers she always gives. On this thread - I too am getting confused by the division of expenditure and wondering if there is cultural differences we dont understand going on here.

You refer usually to "my" daughter - is she your daughter, but not his? Whose nephew is it? - sounds like they are his.

So - I am deducing that OH is from a different culture, with different ways of running things. I've heard that relatives support each other financially in other cultures in a way we dont (due to not even having the "apology for a Welfare State" we have). Yep - I can see that and why the nephew would be getting help in this case.

Are you also from that different culture? If you are - then the nephew is a joint responsibility. If you're British on the other hand - then that nephew is only your OH's responsibility.

The daughter - well, I would say that depends on whether she is his as well as yours - and that is very unclear from what you say.

If this were my life we were talking about here - then I would want to start out by establishing who is whose responsibility financially.

(I am personally wondering if you are British yourself - and thinking this could be the reason why this is happening if so. As a British person myself - I would stick to my own country's way of doing things when it came to financial support - and would not want to give any money to support the nephew - even though I would understand why OH wanted to. OH could be finding an "indirect" way to make you help him support his nephew by "borrowing" money off you.)

duchy

I don't agree that the nephew responsibility varies with which culture she comes from -support was presumably agreed at some point as a couple-however food, baby clothes etc are NOT your personal expenditure but joint expenses ('m assuming your daughter is also biologically his and that he also eats !)
I think it's time to sit him down and tell him you want to set up a joint budget to cover the basics as a new year new start thing. I get the impression you may not want to discuss your level of debt with him and that counts as personal expenditure in the way you currently have arranged your finances -and that's fine but basic joint expenses would be handled better if you both DD a set sum monthly for rent/mortgage, utilities, childminding, food and nephew's support fund into a seperate account. Maybe something like A&L current account that pays a cashback for opening so you have an additional selling point for setting up a new account ? I'd try this way first-as it's less confrontational and try not to have any spare cash in your purse so he gets out of the habit of using you as his personal cashpoint for petrol etc. If it isn't in the house then he will use his own money-it's just a bad habit he's got into and you've gone along with.

LuciferTDark

sarahowen wrote: »

Some practical advice would really be appreciated. My husband keeps asking to borrow money from me, varying amounts and the truth is I often have to go without to give it to him.

Stop it right now, if he's getting paid he doesn't need to borrow money from you whatsoever.

sarahowen wrote: »

He's just asked to borrow £100 to give to a cousin of his who is visiting and has also told me that he won't be able to pay £200 that we send to our nephew every six month's or so for his tuition fees which I paid the last time.

No no no! first it's HIS cousin which means he's not even a blood relative of yours & why is he always tapping you for money for HIS cousin? doesn't the cousin work? if not tell him to get a job.

And why the heck are you paying for your nephew's tuition? doesn't he have parents? (I've just read further & he does, but they can't afford it) tough really, he's their son not yours, it's their responsibility to pay for him not yours, I'm sure they'd be able to find a way to finance his education without your extra money but they've got incentive to do it while you're paying it for them have they?

sarahowen wrote: »

We had a baby 11 months ago and I had to go back to work when she was four months old because we didn't have enough money to live despite his repeated assurances that he would provide for us when we started a family. I don't really mind being back at work, and we do halve our utility bills etc... but I earn £200 less that I used to before the baby and I pay for all the food, toiletries, cleaning stuff and stuff for our daughter.

Here's even more reason to stop all the free handouts, you have an 11mnth old baby to look after, every penny counts when you have a baby, Stop all the payouts to distant relative right NOW!

sarahowen wrote: »

How can I get him to realise that he can't keep touching me up for the odd tenner for petrol all the time? I just can't afford to keep giving him money which I never see again and I'm sick of worrying about whether his share of the household bill money has gone into the account or not...

Why don't you have everything paid into a single joint account, his money & yours together? Then you can stop worrying yourself sick & for gods sake stop financing other people's lives while letting yours go down the pan.

Harsh? maybe but it seems to me you need a good shake to wake you up to the realities of what you're allowing your husband & freeloading relatives to do to your life.

ceridwen

Whoops....I do think thats coming over very harsh. One can understand why OH wants to help the nephew - I dont think that should be condemned. Its just a problem because OP is British (as far as I can see) and we have different cultural expectations - as in close family first. I wouldnt see any reason whatsoever not to help nephew - IF there was enough money to do so and live a standard British lifestyle. The problem is because there isnt - in which case, I would personally put a standard British lifestyle first and think maybe OP should as well. But it is ultimately her decision what to do here.

sarahowen

As far as it's relevant, we're both Asian, but I am Britishby birth. It's our daughter, I just tend to refer to her as 'mine', she typed, smiling sheepishly. The nephew is from my husband's side of the family but as is sometimes the case, we're distantly related anyway. I don't mind paying for him; it's just the way my husband abdicates any responsibility for anything financial. Am working out how best to raise this with him...

Carmina_Piranha_3

whether the baby is his or not he should still pay - he's married to the baby's mother! off topic sorry.

i know a couple where the man has a small child's attitude to money and it causes a lot of stress.

ask him where he thinks you will find the £100 for the cousin and £200 for the nephew you're already in debt - let him take on some and find the money for the relatives himself. i'm not suggesting that you shouldn't help relatives, simply that your husband ought to start thinking of where the money is going to come from. ask him to look at bank loans or credit cards because there isn't anywhere for you to borrow more from.

what does he spend his money on? he gets more than you but you are paying for the food and baby clothes? that ought to be in the budget with both of you paying into the joint account for it.

tell him you're going to have to find a second job for yourself to try to keep up with his overspending, and he'll have to babysit while you work.

ceridwen

...well Lucifer T Dark - I think thats you "kicked into touch" then. OP does have cultural obligations here....so theres no point in saying they dont have to support the nephew...obviously, in this context, there is an obligation - so a message to you is clearly:

:shhh: :shhh: :shhh:

Leothecat

This sounds like a very strange situation to me. You are supposed to be married and it sounds to me as if your DH is shurking his responsibilites.
My hubby and I put all the money into 1 pot, all bills are paid out of this and whatever is left over is split between us to be spent how we wish. I work less hours since dd came along and therefore earn less money than him but this is actually totally irrelevant since I am looking after and bringing up OUR dd during the time I am not at work.
I really feel that you have to say no to him asking to borrow money. I understand totally the nephew situation and would probably 'find' the money for that one. As for the money for the cousin, I'm afraid I would have to tell hubby that he needs to find that himself.