A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Hello everybody,Thank you for taking the time to read this. I am after some advice on some financial/relationship issues.My boyfriend and I own a house together. We each put in as big deposit as we could afford at the time. His was much bigger than mine (around £55,000) and mine was around £25,000. For legal purposes we had a document produced at the time to say what percent each of us own of the house, which is all in writing.We pay half of everything to do with the household purchases and bills. He earns about double what I earn, and he knows it can be a struggle for me to live up to everything he says we need to buy for the house (new windows, general home improvements, roof repairs, etc), but I do feel the pressure of ‘living up to’ his way of life. He works long hours at times, and always wants (needs) to make the most of the weekends (before the lockdown, of course) and going out spending every weekend on taxis, meals, drinking, expensive holidays...all of which we pay half each (apart from maybe he puts a little extra towards the holidays sometimes, if we want to upgrade to a more luxury room, for example, he would pay). Before we met, I had a simple life, and I’m a lot more content with myself than he is, as I enjoy and appreciate the small things - nature, going for walks, cooking, going for coffee, time alone with a book, etc. He likes to ‘live it large’ as much as possible! I find it fun and I certainly enjoy this way of life, but really only as an ‘add on’ to my simple life. I have enough time alone to still do my ‘simple things’ and then when we’re together it’s always the ‘fun’ out there things! Which, don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, and I enjoy! Anyway, there’s a bit of background, now getting back on track to what I was saying...As his demanding work hours mean he has less ‘free time’ than I do, I think this is a reason why he wants to go out all the time. Basically, he has more money, but less time, and I have more time and less money.In terms of running the household, I do more than my fair share of chores. The way I see it, I have more time, so I like to help how I can. I do ‘all’ the cooking, ‘all’ of the food shopping, most of the washing up, most of the clothes washing, and the general day to day chores. There are jobs he does that i don’t, such as gardening, but only due to my allergies (and we have a very big garden) and ‘man’ jobs such as making things/lifting and transporting things/building things, etc. But overall I believe I do around 70% of the jobs, and he would do around 30%. I often feel I don’t get much appreciation for what I do, and it makes me feel like ‘why bother’. Whereas when he does something I can’t stress enough how much of a good job he has done and how much better things look - mainly to show my appreciation, especially as there are some jobs I physically cannot do. But I don’t feel I get any thanks for what I do...Recently, the idea of getting a hot tub for our garden has been discussed, and it’s something that would benefit us both. I absolutely love going for massages (when I can) and I am very much into my health. He suffers with back pain, and whenever we go away and there’s a hot tub, he loves it! He recently brought up the idea of me paying for the hot tub, on my own. It’s around £5,000-£10,000 (depending on which one we get). And his reasoning was that if I work full time and hard then I should be able to have what I want. He likes his cars, so that’s what he spends his money on!Going back now to where I started - he seems to think that since he put an additional £30,000 into the house then why not I pay for the hot tub on my own? He says he put in that amount to secure the house for us (we were both selling our houses at the time, and his sold before mine, so he had to put the maximum he could to secure us a good deal). I agree, the fact he has done this means that we have a better deal and we pay less interest than if he had put less in, so he has saved us money in that way. However, once my house sold I also put the max I could into our house together. As I said before, it’s all documented, for legal purposes for our protection, but I don’t understand why he would even bring this up. We’ve been living together for 3.5 years now, and I feel like he resents paying more into the house. Just to confirm, we pay half the mortgage and all of the bills every single month. To the pound! He even mentioned, and I don’t know if it was sarcastically or not, that maybe when we remortgage he would maybe look into getting that additional money back, so that we own 50/50 of everything. Obviously, it would mean our monthly payments will increase for both of us.I don’t know if he’s just trying to make me think how much he is saving us both in interest, or what....but I just thought a ‘partnership’ should be equal. Everybody cannot provide the exact same obviously, but I give my time and as much money as I can, so as I see it I give what I can, and maybe more...he seems to resent he has paid more monetary value. He knows I struggle to keep up with everything, but I do my best, and I think your best should be good enough! What do you all think?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (27 April 2020): He can't remortgage house without you agreeing to it. Don't let him do it .you already struggling .
About outings: I know you enjoy it but have you ever said anything to him that you can't afford to keep it up with restaurants ?Imagine a friend asking you to go a restaurant you can't afford. You would say no. If you guys split everything then you have a saying in it . With that said in a relationship a person who makes more can at times treat another person to free dinner . Not always. .but at least sometimes. He is in fact makes double of what you do.
About hottub..it's really not nice that he wants to put it you .
A
female
reader, Honeypie  + ♥, writes (27 April 2020):
 OK OP, here is what I would do.
I would SIT down and make a budget with your income/cost etc.
SHOW him your budget, so he KNOWS in FIGURES (black and white) what you CAN AND CAN NOT afford). And STOP falling for his "peer-pressure" to spend money you don't have.
I would ALSO start having some money going to savings. Just in case. If things work out for the two of you, that can go into renovation or the house later on.
And then, reconsider the chore list. IF you PAY half the costs of food, rent and utilities you should DO half of the chores (even if you have more time than him), because all the WORK you do on chores DO NOT seem to factor in AT ALL in how he sees things. If everything is 50/50 on HIS terms, well chores should be 50/50 too. It might sound petty, but so is fucking with the mortgage payments because he CHOSE to invest more initially in the house and basically because he OWNS more of the house than you. I would tell him to his face that the chores have changed, I'd just start leaving lists for him or ask him to do this or that.
WHY are you supposed to USE you free time for "unpaid work"? That isn't even appreciated? That doesn't even factor in the overall view?
He is MORE focused on half is mine, and half is yours. Which I think is fine, IF you can BOTH afford it.
If he remortgaged so HE could get some of the initial money back and it would be 50/50 how much more would YOU have to pay a month? Can you afford for him to do so? He already OWNS more of the house than you according to the papers you both signed. Does he keep a running tap of ALL that HE invests in the house and what you add to the house?
This is my ISSUE with people buying property with someone who ISN'T their spouse.
You two are NOT on even foot financially. YET he sort of expects you to keep up. He knows you struggle but he doesn't REALLY give a shit. What I think he is doing is maintaining the "upper hand" in the relationship by being financially better off than you. He gives you NO room to have your own savings because he can afford to spend spend spend, full well knowing YOU can't keep up. That is not only selfish AF, it's unkind.
But... you ALSO do not help the situation by not saying, sorry, no can do, I simply can't afford it.
It sounds like you two aren't a super great fit as far as life-style. You are content with the smaller things. You ENJOY life without having to "enhance it". His attitude is having to maintain a "certain" lifestyle to FEEL like he matters.
His is WAY more materialistic than you. Stuff matters, where as for you, people matter. Only person that REALLY matter to him... is him.
"if I work full time and hard then I should be able to have what I want." That is not how life works! Most people working full time and CERTAINLY can not afford whatever they want.
Whether he RESENTS having had put more money in initially, THAT was his choice. It doesn't mean you now OWE him (unless there was an agreement of such) that you HAD to play catch up and invest as much.
You need to have a talk about finances. Make the budget FIRST so you cam SHOW him HOW little money you have.
Maybe this should have been done BEFORE you bought a house together.
And you need to DUST off your back bone. If there are things you can't afford, then you CAN NOT afford them. I know you want him to enjoy LIFE with you so you try and keep up, but that also means YOU dig yourself into a whole where you NEED to stay with him even if things turned to crap and that is bad.
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A
female
reader, jls022 +, writes (27 April 2020):
My ex boyfriend was exactly like this. Everything was counted up to the penny, and if he ever contributed more than me for anything I never heard the end of it. That’s despite the fact he earned around double what I did at the time.
He said he believed everything should be shared 50/50, but wanted to live a lifestyle better suited to his salary than mine, meaning I was often struggling.
The thing that changed everything for me, was when I realised that he was making my life worse and didn’t seem to care. He knew I was struggling to match his lifestyle but expected it of me anyway. If I raised concerns he made me feel bad, saying it wasn’t his fault that he earned good money and wanted to enjoy it. As if I was somehow stopping him from doing that.
I realised I would never have been comfortable asking him to struggle the way he was asking me to, as I don’t believe that’s what a loving relationship is about. So I stopped letting it happen. If he wanted a new kitchen, or a fancy holiday, I just told him point blank I couldn’t afford it. He pushed back and even accused me of squirrelling money away behind his back at one point, but I stood firm and told him it wouldn’t be happening until I was in a comfortable enough financial position to do it. He didn’t like it but didn’t have a choice but to accept it and I felt a lot less pressure as a result.
I ended up leaving my relationship because this issue was one of many that showed he wasn’t on the same page as me when it comes to how a loving relationship should work. He was selfish and ungenerous, and I realised I didn’t want to live with someone that didn’t factor my happiness and comfort into his decision making.
That’s not to say he was a terrible guy, just the wrong guy for me. And I’ve now found one who believes in our money being ours. That we both earn what we can and put it into the ‘team pot’ to give ourselves the best life we can afford. Together. This fits much better with my values and thoughts, although I appreciate it doesn’t work for everyone.
So my advice to you is this. Firstly, stop struggling. If you can’t afford something or think it’s unnecessary, say no. He won’t like it but he’ll live and you’ll feel much more comfortable. And stop doing more of the chores. If he wants everything to be 50/50 then that works both ways!
I’d also recommend thinking about what you want long term, and if you can see yourself staying with someone who is happy to let you struggle and not help you out, despite earning double what you earn. Is that the type of dynamic you want for the rest of your life? It wasn’t for me but only you can decide if it’s something you can live with or not.
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A
male
reader, kenny + ♥, writes (27 April 2020):
 I agree with you when you say that a partnership should be equal.
The problem is you are both completely different people entirely. He is very money orientated, quite ego driven and like's showing off nice flashy things and basically lives like a single guy with no other responsibilities. And you are more grounded and appreciate that the best things in life are the things that money can't buy, walks in nature, alone time with a book, cooking etc.
If you both have set up house together, and are indeed in love with each other, who has put what into the house is irrelevant. You both contribute to the mortgage, the bills, and food, and that's all that matters.
When you get a house and get a mortgage the idea is you want to pay your mortgage off as soon as possible. Some people even make over payments to achieve this. The fact that he put more deposit down than you, and is saying when it comes remortgage he wants his money back makes no financial sense to me at all. It will make your term longer, and repayments possibly higher.
Possibly he is living beyond his means with these nice cars, and flashy things he has run out of money and is struggling, so wants to claw some money back on the mortgage. Ok so good for him, as he get a nice lot of dosh in his pocket, but not so good for you in the long run.
He just seems a bit of a selfish person to me, you comment on his jobs, but you recieve no ackowledgement of anything you do.
I think you need to broach this financial situation with him sooner rather than later. If you allow things to go on as they are going things could take a turn for the worse. SO sit and have that chat now, sooner rather than later.
Good luck.
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