yes to some degree you should be helping him pay for things for his son. You are his wife.. You two became one and that means that his son is part of the package deal. Irregardless of what the BM makes. You and your husband are suppose to be ONE..
Try looking at it that way instead of the way you are.. Just my opinion. I know sometimes its hard to do..
I hope I make some sense..
Happy

Well, I wanted the "we are one" mindset but honestly, by saying "I Do" I wound up committing financial suicide. I hope in the long run, love was worth more than having money.

Stepkids are not our financial responsibility. Period. They have PARENTS to foot their bills. That's what the PARENTS are for.

Having said that, however, sometimes we have to make sacrifices to help out our spouses. Not that it's our responsibility to foot their CS bill, but because sometimes they need our help and if we can't help each other out, then why bother being married at all? If he were injured in an accident and had huge medical bills, would you help pay for that? What if YOU were injured and couldn't work? Would he pay your way? Would you expect him to? Child support is long-term, but it's not permanent. Your helping out now could be good for your marriage and maybe you can even make a trade-off... however many years you help with CS, that's how many years you get to tack onto your early retirement!

You say you have joint accounts, but you're not thinking of the money in those accounts as joint money. You're still envisioning it as "his" money and "my" money, rather than "our" money combined. Do you see the difference? Because if it's "our" money, then "we" pay for everything that needs to be paid for out of "our" money and then you are either rich together or poor together, not one of you rich and one of you poor. You don't assign ratios to who pays for what if it's truly "our" money. If it's "his" and "my" money, then he pays for 1/4, I pay for 1/4, she pays for 1/2. But if it's "our" money, then she pays half and we pay half. In your mind, your money is still very much separate, even though it's all in the same account. Do you see where I am going with this? I think you need to decide first if you truly want to combine your money and, if you do, then you have to combine it in your head as well as in your bank account.

Now if you want to keep things separate, that's fine, too. And sometimes that's a wonderful way to get your spouse to see where the money actually goes and how it gets distributed. It also can help show who contributes to what and how much.

I think you're doing it halfway and that's the real problem. If you're going to do everything jointly, then it has to be combined in your head, as well as at the bank. If that were the case, then it would never even dawn on you that you are paying for a fourth of anything. I think you need to either retrain yourself into thinking this way or truly do a 50/50 split of household expenses, him paying his half of CS and using separate accounts. But it will never work if the money is separate in your head, but mixed together at the bank.

~ Anne ~

that your budget is just overrun and you guys need to scale down elsewhere? What did you envision would happen to your finances when you got married?

I think having separate accounts isn't a bad idea myself. But, if your dh is too broke to contribute paying for household items b/c he is paying for his share of child expenses, then something does need to change. Is there room to scale down on the house or household expenses? Having 50/50 time, you will not be entitled to cs.

For my dh and I, we share the expenses of both households and kids, no matter who's they are. However, I personally will not pay to invest in college, or major expenses for ss out of my pocket. Dh and bm can do work together to cover that. As far as music lessons, school lunches, clothes, med. insurance, dh and I share that expense.

Perhaps you can find some middle ground by scaling down other expenses....

Good luck,
Candice

My husband makes pretty decent money but his ex gets paid under the table for about 80% of what she makes, so we have no real way of knowing what she can afford. She used to do the same thing such as not sending anything for him to wear or use when he'd be with us because it was for her home only. Now he lives with us every other year and every other week during the summer(for which she gets a 1/2 month worth of child support). We pay 100% for school and everything else. If he stays there for a week during our year (if his dad is out of town I make sure he goes to his moms), if it's supposed to be our weekend, she won't even give him his lunch money for the week because it's technically our weekend, not hers. I am dreading about how the finances are going to be when he goes back to her for the school year next year because it used to be when he's with her, we pay over 60% for school plus child support. When he's with us we pay 100% everything!! But seeing that tuition has double because it's now high school not grammar school, I hope my husband uses his head. We still have 2 small boys at home to think about and their education is just as important as SS's is.

I have 6 biokids at home and my B/F has a son who lives with his mother.There have been many issues between us but the money luckily has not been one. If my kids(our kids) need something and either of us has the money we are both willing to put out for them. If his son has needed anything that I could help supply I have willingly done so. Not so much in the way of money as much as taking him out to donner or other forms of entertainment, school supplies, clothes, christmas presents, etc... For a while my B/F wasn't working but I don't see why his kid should be without necessities and even pleasures in life if WE can give it to him. His mother makes about the same amount of money that I do with a 2 person household compared to our 8 person household. I feel she could better afford it and she does cover almost everything, but I personally would not hold the money against the kid and that is where I see it goes to.
Money is not near as important as the relationship. On this one I would let it go and know that if you are there for him when he needs it then he will be willing to be there for you if God forbid you lost income and NEEDED him. Good Luck.
Lisa Dawn

Thats what came to mind, and that he's taking too much out for his child. I do like the idea of a house account that solely pays for all bills house related. That way its understood that your husband cannot touch that for his son, so I would push that; adamently infact.
How old is the son? Because the week on week off won't last as he becomes older, and you guys will need to go back to court to get it modified. He'll probably want to live at the moms and be more stable, so maybe you can just have visitations, and have the child support based on dh's income come right out of his check. That way you guys can put the rest toward your expenses. Just a thought.