Hi everyone, looking for opinions on something I have been stewing over for ages. I think it's long, sorry.
DH and I have been married for 14 years and together for 16. He is 48 and I am 44. No kids, not for any real reason, just a combination of things (I know this is MN but I also value the honest advice so hope it's ok that I'm not actually a mum?).
Anyway, I have been working for 30 years now. My parents were very old-fashioned and insisted on me bringing an income into the home from when I was old enough to get a job. I was only allowed to stay on to do A levels providing I worked the equivalent of full-time and so was working 30 hours a week from the age of 16 onwards. Through uni I always worked, including 80 or 90 hours a week in the holidays.
I now have a very successful but very stressful job. I am expected to answer phone calls from junior staff day and night, always be on my emails, develop any new skill to support the business at the drop of a hat (I have just been put on a £5k professional diploma course without being asked and have had to then negotiate the time to attend the classes and the work). I am well paid for this and I am not trying to make out that I am hard done by. But the reality is that I am knackered and I feel like an old lady although I'm only 44. I am stressed, anxious, get depressed and have a therapist. I do feel I could burnout at any time.
DH works in a relatively low-skilled job, literally 8-5 M-F with an hour for lunch. No emails outside of work, no real responsibility. He earns about a third of what I do. I pay 2/3 of all our household expenses and have outgoings that he doesn't (I have a car, he can't drive; I'm expected to wear professional clothing at work which costs money, he has a uniform; I have to go to work events and conferences which I get reimbursed for but need money for upfront). I also spend a lot of money on health-related things that I feel I need (such as therapy, physio) while he doesn't have those kinds of costs. I am also putting a lot of my income into a pension (£500/month) for us to both live on when we retire as he has the auto-enrolment which he only started when he had to, when he was 40, and pays the minimum. We split most household chores 50/50, I cook a bit more because I enjoy it more. We also don't mind about what each spends our surplus income on.
DH has loads of skills, he is super literate and numerate, very clever, and quite frankly could do much better for work. However, every time I try to get him to consider changing jobs there is always a barrier. Not being able to drive is a big factor as it makes it hard to get to workplaces/be flexible but he adamantly won't learn. He won't consider any role which needs evening or weekend working. He isn't super IT literate and won't develop this although I have offered to fund training for him (in this or anything else). I recently started pushing him again to look for jobs and tbf he applied for a few but he always buggers the recruitment process up. He won't ask for advice from me (who recruits people as part of my job) or his sister who is a HR professional, so if he gets an interview he doesn't prepare and then just doesn't get the job. He seems to think if it doesn't fall into his lap then it's not meant to be.
Neither of us wants to change our lifestyle- we like our house and where we live although I worry about the cost of bills since everything has been going up. Our mortgage went up by £500 in January and I have been paying £400 of that. He leaves all the bills and that kind of admin to me and simply says he can't afford to give me any more money- but he also won't countenance restricting some of the things we like to do like going on holiday.
The thought of still doing this job (or one like it) for another 20 years fills me with dread. I don't think I have it in me. We are very happily married right now but this issue is starting to fester with me and I don't want to it to lead to me resenting him. I have tried to discuss it but he just says he's tried and we're fine because my job is secure (true) and I could be a bit less stressed (possibly true).
I am starting to think he just needs to suck it up and get a better paying job so that I can either cut my hours or look for a less stressful one- but AIBU?