Equitable solution for couple's financial situation

LegacyUser

Hi,

I am married and we have a very strong relationship. We have discussed wanting a family and both agree but no children yet. When it comes to property, there is an elephant in the room. My wife's savings would be very low in comparison to my own, a ratio in the region of 15:1. This can be explained partly by my wife's background (moving to Ireland from abroad) but I have never worked a well paying job and through prudent behavior and a good financial grounding have amassed a not so insignificant amount.

My wife is not wasteful when it comes to money and in fairness is learning to understand the fundamentals of growing her savings.

We are looking to buy a property which I would be in a position to nearly buy outright, albeit with renovation costs in time after a number of years of saving.

I have income of both active and passive kind and my wife is currently working. When children become part of the picture, I am not expecting my wife to become stay-at-home but clearly this likelihood is emerging given her expressed desire but also hesitation to build a career. I would relish staying at home if that was an option that would work but fear if I stepped back, my wife may not step up.

Over the years we rented together and contributions were forthcoming for a number of years. All of a sudden this paused while she went about investigating courses but these have not yielded any meaningful related path. Recently my wife commenced working again at my urging and has started to make contributions.

Has anybody been in a similar position and worked out an equitable way of dividing up the costs of property purchase. I understand that I am in a far better position and would be willing to undertake a burden of the cost but also want to be treated fairly myself. Any ideas/experiences that anybody could share?

Trending

Gosh !! Is your wife aware of the disparity !! Or how you feel about money. She might be in for a bit of a shock

This is it

While I understand the predicament your wording of it, and the way you describe it, is more like a business relationship than anything else.

Typer Monkey

You're buying a family home with your wife, into which you're planning on bringing children. Why does it matter who contributes the most to the purchase price? It's like you're implying your wife should be penalized for not being as good a saver as you. What other way is there for you to buy a house?

blindside88

IMO if you marry everything becomes 50-50 regardless of levels of income or savings. This especially so if you decide to have children. Myself and my wife both work and I earn a little over double her salary. All of both salaries are put into a joint current account and joint savings accounts and we both spend from these. We keep a very small amount in our own sole accounts to spend on presents etc. We use the joint savings to do work on the house and change our cars when we want to.

I’m not saying this is the right way to go about things but I feel if you want to share your lives you share your finances.

Dial Hard

This is it wrote: »

While I understand the predicament your wording of it, and the way you describe it, is more like a business relationship than anything else.

This. Your language is incredibly cold and transactional. Do you actually love your wife?

Someone will be along shortly to tell you that none of this matters because you're already married and therefore your wife is entitled to half of any property you now buy jointly regardless of how much she puts in proportionately. This isn't true, but the fact of the matter is that being married does change things should you break up further down the line and as soon as kids arrive such a property becomes the family home, with all the protections such designation confers.

Tbh, this is a conversation you really should have had (with yourself and with her) before you got married. There's not a whole lot you can do to materially "protect" the greater investment you'd be making in a house at this stage, but perhaps a conversation with a solicitor or accountant might throw up some options.

cannotlogin

How did you manage to get married without ever considering this as an issue for you?

As a couple, ye are looking at a family home to buy together to raise children in whereas you are viewing it as a business negotiation.

Perhaps you could buy the house and allow her to build a shed in your garden to the level she can afford or even a tent perhaps? Maybe you could occupy the house 15 times more than she does, allow her access 1/16 of the time or something like that. Maybe she should only eat 1/16 of the food, consume 1/16 of the utilities etc.

Do you realise how ridiculous this sounds? If you wanted not to share your assets, why did you get married?

In a Break up situation, she could be entitled to half not 1/16?

Marraige is the contract, you can't negotiate a contract afterwards!!!!

osarusan

What advice do you actually want?

Buying a home is going to involve both of you putting in as much as you can, no matter how much that is, or what ratio that is.

Your wife cannot magic money out of thin air, so she cannot increase her contribution. So, the only way to reduce the disparity is for you to put in less than you could, but this will obviously impact on the quality of home you can buy.

son.of.jimi

Building a family is 50/50, and by that, everything is shared. Doesn't matter if you put in 45k and she puts in 5k.

Down the line, you might not be the breadwinner, you might be the one who can only put in the 5k while she can put in the 45k.

How would you feel being reduced to a number in the relationship in that instance?

"Welcome to the weekly shareholder meeting... I mean, err, umm, Family Dinner" - OP's future cold clinical mind working over time as he works out the percentages of the roast based on each family members contribution during the previous week.

jlm29

Jeepers! It sounds like money is very important to you. I wouldn’t have kids if I were you OP. They’re expensive little feckers and you’ll never have a bob again.
It sounds like you should have thought about all this before you said “I do”

Neyite

I've never had separate finances from the OH. When we moved in together any income either of us brought in was pooled as family income. At the time he earned considerably more than me, I lost my job for a bit then got a better job then he lost his job, then I was on maternity leave etc...


When children factor in, you have to consider that if you or your wife stay at home full or part time the net saving you would make compared to full time childcare, or the fact that having a stay at home parent enables the other parent to progress in a career because they can take on business trips or big projects because the other parent is doing drop offs/ dentist /sick days from school.



So the contribution that's valuable to a shared home/lifestyle isn't always a financial one.



But I'm not sure what you are asking - you seem to be hinting at the fact that your wife isn't bothered about improving her career /financial prospects and that bothers you?

Sarn

disparity2020 wrote: »

Has anybody been in a similar position and worked out an equitable way of dividing up the costs of property purchase. I understand that I am in a far better position and would be willing to undertake a burden of the cost but also want to be treated fairly myself. Any ideas/experiences that anybody could share?

We were in a very similar situation before we got married, except the difference was even greater. The way I looked at it, we were going to be starting our family together and it didn’t matter who contributed what. Saying that, we both work and both pull our weight in contributing to running the home. I can understand if one partner isn’t willing to pull their weight (as opposed to able to) how that could be an issue.

If you were a couple dating, then I could understand your need to protect yourself. However, given that you’re married it seems strange to me that you are now comparing what each other is contributing to such a major family purchase. To me, there should be no dividing up the costs, you’re supposed to be a team.

Gruffalux

Now that your wife is slowly learning the fundamentals of growing her savings I hope that she will start to contribute to the fund that my old Granny used to say was vital for any woman - her running away money.
Seriously OP, this is your wife. If you ever are unfortunate enough to become unwell or unable to earn she might be the only one who will love you enough to look after you through the ups and downs.

wiggle16

There's a solution to your issue here but, by its nature, I don't think you're going to find it equitable, unfortunately: you need to stop thinking about these things in terms of ratios and returns. You're married to her and if you're going to buy a home and start a family together then you need to accept that these things are going to belong equally to both of you irrespective of how much each of you put in to begin with.

I'm not saying that in a rose-coloured, fluffy way. The cold hard fact here is that when you married your wife, she didn't have much to bring to the table, and she still doesn't. There's nothing now that she can do about that, she's not going to catch up with you and there's no way for her to make up her shortfall. If you want to start a family and make a home with her then in the long run this is something you're going to have to accept. There is almost always a disparity of some sort in income, savings, graft etc between partners/spouses.

Your attitude to this is the problem - the way you write sounds more like you're talking about an investment property than making a family home. If you bought an investment property with someone where you bought 93% and the other person bought 7%, but then the rental income was divvied up half and half between you, yes, that would not be fair and that would leave a bad taste in your mouth - but this is not the same thing, you need to realise that. It can't be the case that you're going to pay for virtually all of this house and then she will pay virtually all the bills for the next 25 years. She can't make this equitable.

If she were work-shy or a layabout spending your money like water it would be different, but you said yourself she is not wasteful and she works. Yes, it would be fairer if you were buying this house 50/50, but the reality is that you are not, and that's not going to change. If a life and family with her is what you want in the long run then you need to find a way to put that mindset aside and see your savings as a means to an end.

The bigger issue here is that you don't seem to be on the same page about a lot of things - it sounds like there's a lot of things yous haven't talked about. You think she doesn't want a career... you think that's because she wants to be a stay-at-home parent... while these things don't need to be set in stone, you need to sit down with her and have a proper conversation about how each of you sees yourself in a family set-up, and what you think is fair in that regard.

Sorry if that seems harsh but you need to change the way you view this situation.

strandroad

wiggle16 wrote: »

The bigger issue here is that you don't seem to be on the same page about a lot of things - it sounds like there's a lot of things yous haven't talked about. You think she doesn't want a career... you think that's because she wants to be a stay-at-home parent... while these things don't need to be set in stone, you need to sit down with her and have a proper conversation about how each of you sees yourself in a family set-up, and what you think is fair in that regard.

This! OP your cash contribution doubts are nothing in comparison to what will happen if you have kids with your unresolved perspectives in place. Someone needs to stay at home or you are going to have huge expenses that you might resent also.

Also OP if your savings allow you to nearly buy a property outright you are far from an average person in an average situation. You might be holding your wife up to an impossible standard: show me an average couple where both partners have enough saved for a house each...

Purple Mountain

OP, it comes across as you trying to hedge your bets if things ever do askew between you both.
That would be understandable if you were a cohabiting unmarried couple but this is your wife!

bitofabind

Jesus that was like an email I'd get from my accountant. I get you're perhaps quite an analytical bloke OP that's focused on finances and investments, but your attitude is all wrong. This is your wife, the future mother of your kids. You married her knowing she wasn't as frugal and focused on saving as you are, she didn't have a nest egg for a property purchase lying around and her career situation hasn't suddenly changed overnight either.

Why is this only emerging now as an issue? Why does it remain an "elephant in the room"? Have you ever actually sat down as a couple and discussed your finances? It's not hard to read between the lines on some of your comments about your wife not "stepping up" and "contributions were forthcoming" but were then "paused", is there a sense of resentment or begrudgery about her lack of financial contribution? What's your worry with footing the majority spend for the property that is to be your family home, if presumably that's what you were saving for anyway?

Airyfairy12

By the sounds of it, your wife doesnt want a career and she doesnt want to save money, she wants you to support her while she become a stay at home mother. She wont change her mind and you cant force her to build a career that she has no interest in.

KiKi III

A strong marriage and in a position to buy a house outright, I wish I had your problems OP.

wiggle16

KiKi III wrote: »

A strong marriage and in a position to buy a house outright, I wish I had your problems OP.

Mod warning:

Less of this, please. You need to have advice for the OP when you post.

noodler

OP.

I think there is old gender bias creeping into some.of the responses where it is okay for the male to be the primary provider.

I am not sure you would get responses of being cold of the genders had been switched.

I can completely understand why it might be frustrating for you to constantly have to be the primary contributer to those savings whilst your OH spends away.

LegacyUser

Thanks for all the responses. Some have been very informative. I suppose it's tough to let go of old habits, ideas but I do see that I need to change my view and focus on the fact that we are a strong unit who will have children further along. I have enough to contemplate. Thanks

wiggle16

Mod:

Thanks OP. As it seems you've a lot to chew on, I'm going to close this thread. Best of luck.

Thanks & GRMA all who posted.

Thread locked