Wives... were you glad pubs weren't open today

Ulysses Gaze

Alma Weak Stabilizer wrote: »

I'd crack up if I had to have a conversation before spending my own money, especially something as small as 200 quid.

Seems like you may need to join

A. Burr

Alma Weak Stabilizer wrote: »

I'd crack up if I had to have a conversation before spending my own money, especially something as small as 200 quid it's not healthy to be so restricted imo. 

Expenses like those quoted above should be planned for and set aside in advance anyway not suddenly pop up in a conversation about spending disposable income.

And I'd crack up if my 'adult' son showed up at my house with his washing, but hey ... who am I to judge?

whoopsadoodles

Jesus I just caught up with a few posts here.

I think the main thing to take from this thread is that there should be a template for marriages and everyone should follow it to the letter. Any other way and it's a terrible relationship.

Murrisk

whoopsadoodles wrote: »

Jesus I just caught up with a few posts here.

I think the main thing to take from this thread is that there should be a template for marriages and everyone should follow it to the letter. Any other way and it's a terrible relationship.

I think this is unfair really. I see no problem with asking questions. If the person being asked has good reasoning for their views, what do they have to fear? I never fear a question if I am sure of my stance.

Shenshen

whoopsadoodles wrote: »

Jesus I just caught up with a few posts here.

I think the main thing to take from this thread is that there should be a template for marriages and everyone should follow it to the letter. Any other way and it's a terrible relationship.

I think you're right there, the template should be "Be kind, considerate and fair to your partner and help each other out".

andekwarhola

Could be wrong, but from what I remember of Nox's posts, he's not a fan of such family arrangements, so the views are not a big deal.

It'd only be a real issue to be in a LTR with kids and still have the same views on income.

Poor old Nox.

I'm just happy to not be married. So many rules!

RuMan

Alma Weak Stabilizer wrote: »

I just don't see the fairness in the expectation of a person to hand over more than their fair share of their salary. A salary they most likely spent years working and studying to attain yet suddenly it's no longer theirs. People are taking about the lower earner being resentful what about the higher earner being resentful if the expectation to pool money that should be their disposable income?

This is all a very artificial argument anyway as there often isn't much salary difference between couples anyway due to people tending to couple up with similar people background and education wise.

Problem is that a lot of your expenses will be on the kids, they're expensive !
Even if you do have grandparents minding them for free you'll still have to spend a considerable amount of money you previously spent on something else on them.
Would you refuse to pay for music/football for your kid if the lesser earning partner cant afford 50% of costs ?

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RuMan

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That's a bit extreme but if there's no kids I think it's more acceptable to keep finances separate. Don't think its healthy for one partner to be subsidising the other financially too much as it creates a unequal partnership and can lead to dependency or resentment.

Our financial resources were quite separate , marriage didn't change that much. Kids did. Different families will have differing contributions from each partner to financial , childcare, housework etc depending on what works best for them.

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whoopsadoodles

Shenshen wrote: »

I think you're right there, the template should be "Be kind, considerate and fair to your partner and help each other out".

I'm very happy to live by that template and certainly no one should disagree with it.

It's never black and white, but many many shades of grey. What's fair to some, isn't fair to others. I'm not talking about the extremes, of course.

Shenshen

Shenshen wrote: »

I think you're right there, the template should be "Be kind, considerate and fair to your partner and help each other out".

No arguments with that. A couple operating their finances seperately is totally compatible with this template however despite some appearing to think otherwise. There are even others on this thread confirming they operate their finances in this way never mind the general public yet you would swear I was ine only person on the planet doing it and for some reason it's wrong yet there is no right and wrong when it comes to this both ways are right if it's what those doing it are happy with.

"But what about kids", "but what about salary differences" are really irrelavent as things can be tailored to suit a situation but still maintain the general philosophy of how a couple want to manage their finances and if both partners prefer to treat their salary as their own and in general keep them seperate outside of shared expenses who is to say they are wrong?

Shenshen

whoopsadoodles wrote: »

I'm very happy to live by that template and certainly no one should disagree with it.

It's never black and white, but many many shades of grey. What's fair to some, isn't fair to others. I'm not talking about the extremes, of course.

I would certainly agree - after all, our own marriage is sexually open, and we don't have a joint bank account (mind you, we don't have kids, either, and I suppose that would change things quite dramatically), and I'm sure that's not for everyone.

But to tie this back to the OP - if I found myself feeling happy that the pubs are shut because that forces my husband to spend time with me and the family, I would think I'd need to take a step back and re-examine things a bit. There's something rather off-balance there.
And I can't imagine a situation where we wouldn't help each other out financially. My husband was unemployed for a while a few years back, and of course I shared my income and took over all bills for that time.

whoopsadoodles

Shenshen wrote: »

But to tie this back to the OP - if I found myself feeling happy that the pubs are shut because that forces my husband to spend time with me and the family, I would think I'd need to take a step back and re-examine things a bit. There's something rather off-balance there.
And I can't imagine a situation where we wouldn't help each other out financially. My husband was unemployed for a while a few years back, and of course I shared my income and took over all bills for that time.

I was one of the first posters on the thread to say that I felt the OP's situation seems unfair and it's not a situation I would be happy in. The thread has moved way past that though.

RuMan

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Well I'd agree.

But if one partner Is directing vast financial resources to the other partner its not an equal partnership in any case. I cant see how that could be classified as a healthy marriage either. I think it's delusional not to recognise that.

Perhaps the less well off partner is contributing in other ways. Personally i'd suggest their lifestyles are incompatible.

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Shenshen

RuMan wrote: »

Well I'd agree.

But if one partner Is directing vast financial resources to the other partner its not an equal partnership in any case. I cant see how that could be classified as a healthy marriage either. I think it's delusional not to recognise that.

Perhaps the less well off partner is contributing in other ways. Personally i'd suggest their lifestyles are incompatible.

Doesn't this cover most partnerships with a stay-at-home parent?

RuMan

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No. You're painting things in black or white. The real world is not like that.
Where there's no kids I don't think its reasonable for one partner to be subsidised hugely by the other. In such cases separate assets if it works is a reasonable state of affairs and who are you to say different.

I already said our finances were quite separate before and after marriage. Once we had kids that changed. We weren't happy with the quality of childcare available so my wife took redundancy.

Using phrases such as "scabby git" because people don't follow your marriage "rules" isn't helpful.

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RuMan

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No, that's you leaping to extremes I've never suggested anybody starve anybody, you just made that up.

Short term situations are of course perfectely acceptable.

Seeing as you are only interested in extreme situations i'll paint one for you.
A situation where one partner is out working 13 hour days and the other is permanently at home on the dole (with no kids) and being subsidised by the other is not.

RuMan

Shenshen wrote: »

Doesn't this cover most partnerships with a stay-at-home parent?

Yes but with kids the stay at home parent is making a contribution that is at least (if not more) valuable then a financial contribution , namely minding the kids.

If there were no kids one partner staying at home on a permanent basis while the other partner works wouldn't be acceptable in my book.

Hotblack Desiato

RuMan wrote: »

Jesus i'd be embarrassed dumping my kids full time on my parents. If you cant afford a creche/childminder then clearly that 2nd salaries not big enough.
Either one parent should quit work or you need to re adjust your lifestyle expectations accordingly !!

Exactly.

Our kids will be mid-late 20s when we hit retirement age. If they ever pull that full time childminder stunt on us we're selling the house and moving to Spain.

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Murrisk

Alma Weak Stabilizer wrote: »

"But what about kids", "but what about salary differences" are really irrelavent as things can be tailored to suit a situation but still maintain the general philosophy of how a couple want to manage their finances and if both partners prefer to treat their salary as their own and in general keep them seperate outside of shared expenses who is to say they are wrong?

Look, fine. But right now, you have no children and seem to have fairly equal salaries. In the future, things might and probably will be more uneven, for many reasons. You seem to think that the '50/50 expenses and different, separate disposables' situation will suit all the scenarios that life throughs at you and a lot of us simply don't believe that. IMO, that IS a receipe for resentment and strife. No doubt about it. It's easy to say otherwise from an equal position, when nothing has happened to uneven things up. Come back to us in twenty years time and I guarantee you'll have changed your tune. As ruman said, if your wife wasn't in a position to stump up 50% of a cost for the children, would the children then do without because you wouldn't contribute past the 50%?

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Chuchote

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Exactly.

Our kids will be mid-late 20s when we hit retirement age. If they ever pull that full time childminder stunt on us we're selling the house and moving to Spain.

And bringing the grandchildren? Hola!

Murrisk

andekwarhola wrote: »

Could be wrong, but from what I remember of Nox's posts, he's not a fan of such family arrangements, so the views are not a big deal.

It'd only be a real issue to be in a LTR with kids and still have the same views on income.

From what I can gather, his views on separate finances and equal contribution hold for when there are children in the picture.

RuMan

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Sorry with no kids a homemaker isn't a full time thing in my book. If it was a temporary thing so you could retrain or pursue some passion/dream fine.
Spending your days ironing and cooking isn't something people dream of doing as kids.

I'd be bored out of my mind and so would my wife. But if it works for both of you fair enough.

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There is no justification for a person to stay at home by choice if there are no kids. Both should be out working and earning their own money. What "chores" require a full time home maker? An hour cooking dinner in the evening and loading and unloading the dishwasher in no way justifies sacrificing a full salary and the reduction in lifestyle and spending power that goes with it.

Both couples working full time having kids and running a farm as well is common enough where I'm from, a person giving up work to cook the dinner would be laughed at.