I Want My Husband To Pay Me for Caring for Our Child — Am I Being Unreasonable?
When a couple decides to get married and start a family together, there are a lot of critical life choices they'll need to make. Where to live, when to have kids, and how to balance work and family time are all potential sources of conflict, even for couples with the best communication skills.
Research has shown that finances are one of the most common things that couples fight about and a recent post to the Am I Being Unreasonable forum on UK parenting site Mumsnet perfectly demonstrates what can happen when a couple is totally not on the same page when it comes to the intersection of money and child care.
A British woman going by the name Wiwi wrote a post looking for feedback after her husband accepted a new job that would result in major changes for her family. As she explains it, her husband has been working from home for the last four years while Wiwi works three days a week, often leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. and not getting home until 8 or 9 p.m. Her husband recently found a better paying job, which is usually a cause for celebration, but this new job comes with a major catch. The job is located several hours away and to make it work, Wiwi's husband will have to live with his mother (who lives closer) five days a week. Not only does this make Wiwi essentially a single parent during the work week, it also makes her current job schedule impossible.
She's worried about losing her ability to earn money.
For Wiwi, having her husband gone for five days a week is something that makes her financially nervous as her "earning power will be severely impacted" as she "has no outside help" and will need to care for the couple's daughter on her working days. As she sees it, her husband needs to "either have to top up my wages to how much I've lost or pay for a nanny," so she can continue working in the evenings. She further explains that due to a health condition, her current job has compressed hours and works well for her needs.
Her husband claims she is "being unreasonable and that it's good he's earning more money," but Wiwi doesn't see how his extra money is "beneficial in anyway to my life."
She would prefer he take a job that pays less so she can continue working.
Now, here's the thing: this makes no sense until we realize that the couple "never really shared finances wholly." It sounds like, in their current situation, they each basically keep their own earnings but haven't really had to worry about child care costs before.
If the current plan is that the husband gets to make (and keep!) more money while Wiwi has to either make less money or pay for child care on her own, that is super messed up!
One of the commenters on the site totally agrees, noting, "it’s not fair when one parent announces 'I’m working so you can’t', and doesn’t even share their earnings."
The couple needs to have a serious financial conversation.
While there are a lot of ways that a couple can handle the financial side of being married, there's no doubt that it can get a lot more complicated to keep money separate when a child is involved. Separate finances can also carry risk for the partner who might be making less money. Wiwi noted, "I feel I have financial independence at the moment and the working away would make me feel vulnerable" as she'd be less able to earn her current wages.
While some of the people responding to her post suggested that the solution is to simply fully combine finances so that all the money goes into one pot and the child care expenses are shared by both parents, Wiwi doesn't want to do that. She explained, "That's not an option for me I value my financial independence too much. I've seen far too many women being screwed over. I guess a nanny will be only the option DH will have to foot the bill. He might change his mind to WFH if he's having to pay out."
It seems like work might not be the biggest issue this couple has.
The more Wiwi explained the situation in the comments, the more people had concerns about the overall health of their relationship.
As one commenter noted, "Your marriage sounds really dysfunctional to be talking this way."
"Well if it’s his DD too then why do you need to care for her?" another person wondered. "You as a couple need to care for her, not you as an individual. And no he shouldn’t be topping up your wages - both salaries should be going into a family pot. It’s a huge red flag that you don’t have shared finances - he’s clearly trying to keep his money for himself, which you simply can’t do when there are kids to be paid for."
The idea that he gets to take a job that pays more but doesn't have to share that money in any way to help provide for the care of his child and that it sounds like he doesn't care about the financial stability of his wife? Red flag city!
This couple needs to hire a therapist or a financial planner. Actually, it sounds like they might need both! This situation just isn't going to work.
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