Returning to work

Hi everyone, How does everyone manage finances etc when returning to work? My partner has categorically told me he will not be flexible with his shifts and I need to fit my job around his essentially which is quite difficult as we both do shifts 7 days a week and sometimes working late. He works 35 hours a week. I’ve done a flexible working request to my job who have said I can’t work less than 32 hours a week. Which will be 4 x 8 hour days on weekdays and weekends. I’ve managed to work out that nursery 4 days a week is £700 approximately without the extras. Our house bills are around £1300 a month not including food shopping. My personal bills are around £600 a month for my car, a credit card payment, phone bills etc. My wages will likely be around £1400 take home a month. My partners is £3500. My partner is suggesting I pay my £600 for my bills plus half of the childcare plus extras eg fuel/food shopping and the additional extras of childcare like food etc. Additionally the childcare responsibilities around this will be mainly me except for an odd weekend day that he may be able to watch the baby. My partner doesn’t want me to return to work and says it’s my job to be a mum but also isn’t prepared to pay my personal expenses so said I will need to go on benefits for that. I want to go back to work and have always worked full time. I also want my own finances and choices as I feel that’s my only way of doing it. What is a fair way of splitting this? Cause I’m pretty bummed out that I’ll have next to no money left over this way and be totally burned out while my partner earns more than double I do with limited parental responsibilities and so much money left over to do whatever he likes with. I’m really upset and I feel that he’s being incredibly sexist in his attitude and I feel like I no longer have any freedom in this relationship now we’ve had a baby. Since we’ve had him it’s like he has a sense of power over me and has been incredibly disrespectful and to be honest just a bit of a bully. He was always a great partner otherwise and is a good dad. What would you do financially? What would you do to try and overcome this?

Show your support

This issue is unfortunately not about the financial contributions at all. Your partner isn’t really being a supportive partner at all partner at all, sorry to say :( Doesn’t sound healthy and I hope you have other support in your larger community; you deserve a lot better support. Contributions to household and personal overheads should be proportional to earnings. If he’s earning double, he pays 2/3 and you pay 1/3 kind of thing. This is a deeper issue which won’t resolve from a financial arrangement but the proportionality of contributions according to earnings is what we do and what I recommend.

@Chelsea yeah I’m starting to see that but I’m in a situation now and I have no family. He’s changed completely since we’ve had a baby. And is just telling me it’s life. My mortgage is also just in my name and I’ve looked at how much things would be if it was just me and unfortunately I’d be much worse off so I feel really financially stuck.

My partner sends me money each pay day (mortgage comes out of my account) and he also pays all household bills. I then top up the mortgage, pay the nursery bills, all my personal bills and also do the food shopping. Your partner sounds like abit of a dick not even requesting any change in his hours to be honest. What’s his personal bills like? Yours is £600 which I can’t lie seems very high. But if his personal is quite similar, and he’s saying he’ll cover half nursery, all the household bills and just wants you to pay your own bills and half nursery, I don’t think thinks completely unreasonable. Is there a way you can lower your personal bills?

This is not a partner. He sounds controlling and not acting like a good partner at all! Your partner earning that much should be able to cover the household bills and all of childcare which still leaves him with £1500 which is still more than your whole pay. You can cover your personal bills and you both can save towards holidays, emergency expenses etc. Please do not marry a man with this behaviour (if you aren’t already married). I would personally say have your own emergency money if you ever decided to leave for whatever reason. As women, we tend to spend more on the household and buying baby things anyway so I’m sure some of your money will go towards that.

@Hollie my bills are quite high because I’ve had to pay for household and baby expenses on my credit card which I’m paying back without his help which I just wrote off to avoid an argument to be honest because he just says he pays all the household bills so I need to pay that stuff back. He did initially tell me he’d pay atleast half if I put it on my credit card which he hasn’t lived up to and I’ve obviously got myself in a tricky financial situation with it now because I never would have been able to afford it if I knew I’d be paying it alone. If we break up and I’m in a worse off position financially then this is another issue I have where it’ll just ruin my credit rating completely. Which is another reason why I feel more pressure to return to work.

@Hollie this also includes approximate fuel and parking costs for work. I’ve requested to work from home which they haven’t allowed either to manage some of that. Also another issue I’m facing is he’s regularly not paying the full bills and knocking £200 off every month and I’m finding myself well into the minus as I’m on SMP and it’s exhausted my savings completely 😥

The fair way is for you to stay home (if that's what you want) and him to cover all expenses! Do men really think childcare isn't just as valuable and difficult as a conventional job ? Expecting you to have his baby, raise his baby, look after the house and pay bills ? Not even 50/50, more like 80/20

All our money is family money so we get our salaries paid into the joint account and all bills get paid from there and we don't have to work it out. We have a certain amount of 'fun money' sent to our personal accounts to spend or save as we wish. It's the same amount for each of us despite a salary difference because I work 4 days a week and he does 5. Your partner sounds terrible!

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