Leading divorce lawyer James Sexton, and author of “If You’re In My Office, It’s Already Too Late”, recently said on “The Diary of a CEO” podcast that, apart from infidelity, it’s money that often makes marriages fall apart. In 2018, a poll of over 2,000 British adults by legal firm Slater and Gordon found that money worries top the list of reasons why married couples split up, with one in five saying it was the biggest cause of marital strife. One of the biggest problems was with couples failing to pool their earnings.
Kelly*, a 36-year-old assistant company secretary in London is experiencing exactly this financial issue with her husband. She tells i about her experience.
I never thought money would be the cause of so many problems in my marriage. My husband and I got married almost 10 years ago and we’ve been happy together. But I’ve started to realise that things feel quite unfair financially, and I’m feeling more and more resentful about it.
It’s causing so much tension that I’m seriously worried about our marriage at this point, and I am feeling quite alone. He seems to think it’s all fine as it is, but I feel that on some level I’m being used as a meal ticket, whether he realises it or not.
I’m on £80k in my job as a company secretary, with a demanding boss, and long hours. My husband has his own tiny business from which he brings home about £75k. He started it seven years ago and it’s well established, and he’s not in that “new business” phase which is so stressful and uncertain. He can delegate a lot.
He used to earn very little, and I was the main breadwinner. Now we both earn basically the same – sometimes he might earn a bit more, sometimes a bit less, depending on business is doing. But I don’t think the way we approach money has changed to reflect this fact that we earn the same, and we’ve just carried on with me paying for so much more than he does.
Our life works like this: my husband does much more childcare than I do as he’s now more flexible because he’s his own boss. He does two afternoons a week with our two-year-old (who is in nursery the other days) and does three or so evenings of dinner and bathtime a week.
He does more looking after the house, cooking, tidying and general managing of day-to-day life. He also does a couple of pick-ups for our eight-year-old (who is in school), I do a few drop-offs and pick-ups, too, and we have a nanny to fill in those gaps and take care of things when I have to work late, or my husband is having a particularly busy period.
He is not a stay-at-home dad or house husband, but he does more at home than I do, because of the nature of his work. Somehow, though, him doing more domestic work has ended up meaning that I pay for all our childcare (£750 per month), our two holidays a year (usually to France, or Spain), and all our dinners out, which I’ve worked out come to around £240 a month.
I also paid the last few car services, which have worked out at £120 per month. I pay £1,400 a month of our household bills, and he pays £450. The only thing we split down the middle is the mortgage. If he was a house husband who’d given up his career and salary, then I’d be fine about all this, but he’s not done that at all.
What I’m finding really tough also is that it’s not as if he’s putting the unspent part of his salary into anything for our family, or an ISA for the kids, but is instead spending what works out at around £2k a month on golf club membership (£100 per month without the dinners, drinks and all that) and fancy golf weekends with his friends. He did five days in La Manga at an exclusive resort, a long weekend at a posh golf course in Devon, a trip to Dubai a few months ago. A new 12-piece set of clubs which came to just over £900.
I’m happy for him to do what he wants with the money he earns, but all of my £4,500 is accounted for each month on family spending, and I spend hardly anything on myself, and am always close to my overdraft by payday.
He on the other hand seems to spend so much on golf but only £450 on bills. I’d have so much patience for his hobby if he also contributed fairly in other ways.
I feel so stupid because I feel I’m essentially paying my husband to do (some) childcare and cooking, and actually wouldn’t it be better to have him contribute his £80k properly to our family life, and then pay a nanny full time? Why am I paying household costs, and the children’s costs? I broke down recently and confided in a particular friend, who I knew wouldn’t judge me or make me feel even more stupid and ashamed than I already feel for having got myself into this situation. I have been afraid to mention it to most people in my life, as they are all in awe of how engaged with the kids my husband is, how he cooks, and cleans – they tell me I’m really lucky, and I’ve just sort of carried on without questioning all this.
My friend thinks it’s not right at all, and says he’s absolutely taking the piss. Also, I know I earn pretty well, as does my husband, so it’s crazy that I feel hard done by, when if we just split the bills and childcare, we’d be fine and able to enjoy our earnings a bit more.
I’m starting to think of him as selfish, and am feeling less attracted to him for it. When I’ve brought it up – gently, because I hate talking about money – he gets defensive and says he runs the household, and that allows me to have my career. But he has his career too, he is just not beholden to a boss and specific hours the same way I am. If I could earn what he does and do it flexibly to do more at home and be with my kids more, I’d do it, too.
I really can’t imagine I’d be paying less into the household outgoings, and if I was doing that, I definitely wouldn’t be spending £2k a month on my hobby.
I’m so frustrated at myself for allowing things to get to this point, and I’ve even thought about saying we’re not doing any more holidays and putting that money aside for myself until he gets my point. I don’t like thinking like this, but it’s just completely unbalanced and it’s making me wonder whether we’re going make our relationship work, as a distance is really beginning to grow.