When you’re in a long-term relationship with someone who earns a lot more, it can be hard to know how is best to balance finances.

In the spirit of fairness, you might want to split outgoings – things like bills, mortgage or rent payments, and childcare costs – 50/50.

But if one person earns thousands more each month, and the other is shouldering much of the mental load, looking after kids, and general running of the household (a series of largely unpaid tasks), resentment can start to grow.

Such is the case for one parent, who took to Reddit to explain that since having a baby, they are “realising how tricky it is to balance money fairly”.

The parent said their husband earns more, but they provide “most of the childcare” having cut back on work. “We’ve always split things 50/50, but that doesn’t feel right anymore especially when I’m handling most of the day-to-day stuff at home,” they noted.

“We’ve talked about it a few times, but it always ends up feeling awkward. He doesn’t want me to feel like I ‘depend’ on him, and I don’t want him to feel like I’m keeping score.”

But the imbalance is “starting to quietly weigh on both of us”.

“I handle most of the childcare, meals, and scheduling, while he covers more of the bills. But I can’t tell if that’s really balanced or just temporary,” they explained.

“How do other parents handle this kind of situation without either person feeling guilty or resentful?”

It’s such a loaded topic

Gender inequality is very much alive and kicking in the UK and the gender pay gap isn’t closing fast enough. “At the current rate, it will take another 44 years to close,” said Jane van Zyl, CEO of Working Families.

“That means multiple generations of women, especially mothers and carers, will continue to earn less, save less, and retire with less.”

She said when one parent steps back from paid work to care for children, the financial gap “can feel like a chasm” – and in a lot of cases, it can force the lower paid parent to either reduce their hours or step out of work altogether.

Research from the charity found women are twice as likely as men to reduce hours for childcare........

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