A wife has shared her frustration at learning her husband has been “lying” about his salary earnings for more than a decade. After connecting the dots and hearing her husband “complain” about not having any money she had a “suspicion” his take-home pay was less than he claimed.
First believing he earned a “comfortable” £50,000, she realised his “take home” pay was much less and close to £25,000. Asking for validation on the website, Mumsnet, the woman posted her thoughts to see if anyone else had encountered a similar situation.
She wrote: “He had always framed it that he earned 40k take home and I believed him, I knew this wasn’t right and there was no way he was paying 15k a year tax.
“So for the first time, I googled his salary at his company and for his exact role his pre-tax pay is £31,000 bringing his take-home pay to that £25,000 he was talking about.”
One Mumsnet user revealed their true feelings on the situation: “I absolutely hate lies. I can’t see anything but the mistruth. For me personally, I don’t know how you can go forward.”
Another wrote: “Marriage should be a partnership which this clearly isn’t. My guess would be that either your husband has debts or a huge sum squirrelled away to which you have no access.”
One sympathetic user sided with her husband: “Well if he said he earns 40k he’s not lying. No-one really gives their salary as the amount pre-tax.”
The wife explained that the couple didn’t share finances or bank accounts, but she had never probed him on his salary because she had no reason to suspect that he wasn’t telling her the real number on his paycheck.
This formula had for the most part worked out for the couple, but the only problem they had faced was that her husband had regularly complained that he did not have any money.
Overall, the woman admitted: “I’ve always felt like my husband is financially controlling, tight and a Scrooge when it comes to money, I’ve always felt like he uses money as a stick to beat me with”.
