I want my husband to reimburse me for half the income I lost during maternity leave

[Anonymous]

Sounds weird to me. Why not put all of the money you each earn into ONE account, and then jointly decide how to spend the money - with the joint agreement and understanding that you are in this together and make all except minor financial decisions jointly? That way, when you take time off, you can rest assured that pretty much all of HIS earnings are essentially yours, and if he has a bad turn at work, he can be confident that all of your earnings can be used to help him?

Kind of a "we're in this together" mentality? I've read that some people can succeed with such an approach.

[Anonymous]

Yeah. Get your money and put it aside for a divorce lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Your problem is the fact that the two of you aren't jointly sharing and managing your money. The age at which you were married has nothing to do with it.

[Anonymous]

are you sure you two are married? why the separate bank accounts? are you competitive or stingy or something?

[Anonymous]

WTF are you going to send this money on , so you guys don't share bank accounts?

[Anonymous]

I think this arrangement is nuts on the basis that it is not working.

[Anonymous]

There is no way your situation can work with a child. No way. Marriage is about sharing- sharing expenses, sharing income, sharing child-rearing responsibilities. If you're keeping score, someone will always come out as the loser.

[Anonymous]

on the flip side , can he buy sex and minutes of silence from you?

[Anonymous]

For the first 10 year of our marriage, we had similar incomes and no kids. We kept separate accounts, split up the bills, and each paid out roughly the same. I actually loved this arrangement, because I had total total of my spare income and could spend it how I pleased without guilt, and I didn't get mad at whatever DH bought.

Once we had a kids and were down to 1 or 1 1/2 incomes, we combined our money. I actually find this situation tougher.

In your case, I would have your husband pay some more of the bills since you took a financial hit from not working.

[Anonymous]

Agree this should have been discussed beforehand, but what's done is done.
At this point, having DH contribute, based on your arrangement, an agreed upon fair share seems right.
This could be a cash contribution to you. Or it could include picking up your share of the mortgage, childcare expenses, and/or other things until things balance out.
Also agree with other posters that you and your DH will have to recalculate the financial contributions babywise.

[Anonymous]

I feel sorry for your poor hubby.

It sounds to me like you are keeping score in this marriage. Too bad.

You sound more like his accountant than his loving spouse.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, OP, but it should have been in the pre-nup. Not likely to happen now.

[Anonymous]

Probably a troll. After you have sex, do you present DH with an invoice for services rendered, to cover the time you could've spent doing something else?

[Anonymous]

Wow, on this theory my husband owes me big time for the multi-million dollar career I gave up as a top flight lawyer to stay home with the kids. And it was my choice. I had no idea he owed me big time! I thought I should be grateful for the fact he was working hard to keep us all going and taking on all that stress to pay for our house, private school, the tutors, college, the cars, the property tax, etc. etc.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I have separate accounts and agree on who should pay what, based on who makes more and what is fair. It's not 50/50, it's based on income proportion and what makes sense. It works well for us.

But it would never occur to me to ask to be "reimbursed" for my maternity leave or some portion of it. My husband is not my insurer. It seems to me you are basically asking him to take no income in place of you having no income. Why is it more fair for him to take a hit than for you to take a hit? Does he make twice as much as you? That would be the only circumstance that would make sense.

It seems to me that if you had the expectation that your maternity leave would be fully funded, that should have been discussed between the two of you prior to your taking the leave, and the length of the leave negotiated (and the funding source as well) prior to the leave. Your hitting him up with a bill -- essentially -- after leave is really kind of inappropriate.

One final thought. His duty is to pay for his child's needs, which I assume he is doing, and to provide a home for you. No husband pays his wife a salary.