A first-time-mum who is about to return to work after maternity has revealed her husband is expecting her to repay ‘her portion’ of the bills that he’s covered while she’s been off work.

The mum says she’s utterly confused by her husband’s demand, which has come after 10 months of maternity leave.

“My work did not provide any enhanced maternity pay because I had been there less than two years,” the mum, who lives in the UK, explained.

“So I’ve been living off Statutory Maternity Pay only which isn’t very much! My husband and I discussed this would be the case before getting pregnant and agreed we could manage as we both had allocated baby savings and my husband has a fairly decent salary (though I am the higher earner of the two of us).”

While she says she tried her best to contribute, as the months went on her savings dwindled and she was putting less and less into the bills. But, she explained that this was discussed with her husband before they decided to have a baby.

Now that she’s about to return to work, her husband has come to her with a financial demand.

“My husband has now sprung on me, that he’s been calculating how much I’ve been short every month, adding it all up and now thinks I owe him the total.

“E.g. (not the real numbers) If I usually paid him $800 a month towards bills etc and in March actually paid him $300, he put down that I owe him $500 for the month of March. If I paid him $600 in April, he thinks I owe him $200 for April. Etc. and he’s totalled it all up for 10 months and said that’s what I owe him for being on mat leave.”

The new mum says she’s completely taken aback by his demand.

“Firstly it’s not what we agreed but more importantly we’re a married couple and this is OUR baby not MY baby.”

“Am I being unreasonable to think his role here was to support his family whereas mine was to keep the baby alive? I was too shell shocked to say anything before we were interrupted and didn’t finish the conversation.

“I’m so confused, am I wrong? I mean if he suddenly lost his job or got sick, I would support our family, is that not how families work? Doesn’t the working parent support the other parent who’s off work looking after the baby? I thought that’s how this works?!”

What’s your opinion on this situation? Let us know in the comments below.