MARRIED WITH SEPARATE FINANCES FULL

He always says things like, “Oh, I need to pay you back for this”, and of course he never does. He prefers not to go to fancy restaurants he prefers something simpler. I’ve said lots of times, “Why don’t we just pool the money in a joint account?” He doesn’t want that: he doesn’t want to feel as though he’s in a sugar-daddy relationship. I pay for pretty much everything that we do. We don’t do joint finances because Toby’s too proud, and because I spend it all recklessly rather than save. But if I bring the subject up, he gets really wound up and changes the subject it ends in a row.

MARRIED WITH SEPARATE FINANCES FULL

The counsellor said to him, “It’s a form of control you really need full financial disclosure.” My husband was surprised at my strength of feeling about it and that I saw it as him being secretive. Recently I was trying to work out our exact outgoings, to see if we could afford for me to go freelance now I’ve had a baby he promised to do his as well, but hasn’t, and I’m back at work full time. I’m paying all the childcare at the moment and he just keeps saying, “Oh, I’ll do it.” I would drop dead with shock if he came home from work and had sorted it out. Both of us probably think we pay the bigger share, but I don’t actually know who does. Since I got pregnant, he’s bought our son one jumper and I’ve bought everything else he hasn’t paid me back.Īll the bills are paid on a very casual basis – I pay some, he pays some – and it does my head in, because I never know where we are with money. I reminded him and he said I was nagging, so I stopped mentioning it. They lay there for three years until I chucked them out. So I got the forms for a joint account, and he never signed them. I thought it would make sense if we had one account for all the bills that we could pay some money into, and then whatever we had left would be our own. We moved in together after a year, and everything was fine until we got a mortgage. Her husband Paul, 38, is a police sergeant on £45,000. ‘He’s bought our son one jumper, I’ve bought everything else’Ĭlaire, 33, earns £35,000 as a full-time editor. I won’t live for the worst-case scenario. If something terrible happened, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. Should I have a bit of financial independence or freedom? I don’t feel that’s something I need. Neither one of us is particularly organised or brilliant with money. But our personality types make it quite a laid-back arrangement. She said every time she bought a cup of coffee or a lipstick from the joint account, she’d feel he was breathing down her neck. I don’t think there are a lot of men who would say, “You haven’t earned anything but go and treat yourself to shoes.”ĭiscussing this with a friend recently, she said she wouldn’t be able to tolerate my arrangement. When I discuss this sort of thing with my friends, there aren’t many people like that. It’s old-fashioned a bit strange, definitely. I know if I said that to my husband, he would say, “Look, that’s ridiculous.” He’d treat me to a pair of shoes if he felt I was neglecting myself. I don’t go and buy myself clothes if I don’t feel I’ve earned much that month. It’s been, “This is your bank account, this is your Switch card, you do what you need to do.” He’s absolutely brilliant he’s never made me feel bad. There are times I feel I’m not pulling my weight these days, though in the past I’ve been the breadwinner. I know it’s an unusual arrangement to have a joint account for absolutely everything, but I think it works because he’s generous to a fault.

Married with separate finances