To go part time when finances aren’t great?

Why do you have the belief that promotions are à “young woman’s game”?

Who on earth told you that?

There is a saying I often think of: “there are men who want to be husbands and fathers and men who wants wives and children.

Sounds like your husband is the latter. I genuinely don’t get why it’s impossible to discuss. I know he throws a tantrum but this situation is untenable. You are not acting as a couple but two completely separate housemates who happen to live together with separate responsibilities instead of a family unit.

I get not everybody has joint accounts but these are joint responsibilities. Why should you be stressing and trying to figure out way to make it work alone. I could get a reluctance to ask for money for holidays, fancy nights out with friends, theatre trips but it is literally for the care of your children that you both have. For him to throw a tantrum over that is honestly baffling and as others have said looks like financial abuse.

Honestly if this is the case I would be trying to find ways to get childcare support so I could throw myself into building my career as your husband is a dud and I cannot see how this marriage is tenable in the long term.

There is a way to stop this, of course there is. You stand up for yourself, insist on a conversation and you insist on equal finances. If things don’t change you pack your bags and ask him how he intends to manage his 50% childcare. Or if you can’t face it you say you’re going back full time and expect him to sort out pick ups or drop offs to facilitate this, since he’s refusing to be fair about money. You get tough instead of reducing your hours to make yourself even more vulnerable. I can’t believe you’re seriously considering that tidying the house and starting dinner early is the priority here.

You’re an intelligent woman, a professional, a teacher. You’ve got a job. You aren’t the first person to be badly treated/ financially abused and you won’t be the last. But you have got to get your marriage sorted or leave.

Do you really want this for the next 18/ 20 years? Because I can tell you that kids are even more expensive as they get older- think compulsory laptops for secondary school, uniform in the hundreds, residentials which cost £500 and upwards, proms, phones, pocket money. Do you really want to have to go through the Oliver Twist act every fucking time like a beggar, when he’s on 90k a year and does no childcare?

Why do you think you are too old to seek promotions?

Start at 8.40 if you're a teacher

Why is the burden of all of the childcare left out of this equation?

Abusers very often are wonderful people to others. Interestingly when I first had a women's aid supprt worker (before i actually left) one of our discussions was about this.

If he is self aware enough to be kind and generous to other people then he is self aware enough to be deliberately financially abusing you. No one should have to walk on eggshells or take on the full burden of working out how to financially manage being parents.

I felt like this before I ended my relationship. Like I have to be the sole person sorting everything and finding a solution that worked but also didn't upset my ex. The reason you are struggling to find a sensible solution is that you're trying to solve the wrong problem.

I still don’t know how so many women find themselves reliant upon such awful, useless men. I also think you have a strange view of a professional job - that you can use the good pay to facilitate all aspects of the family whilst putting barely any effort in at work. The job requires more commitment than you are giving it really. If you worked on this aspect of your life then perhaps you’d find your career more fulfilling and would want to progress and gain some financial independence. It isn’t really the sort of job you can half arse

Please, read this back OP.

This is coercive and financial control and until you are willing to see this you are not going to find the answers you seek. It is always going to be easier to go in circles with MNers who are trying to be helpful from their own hard-won experience than it will be to see the reality of your situation. I’m so sorry.

I truly wish you well.

Can you tell your school you want to work FT but just not work period 1 every day?

Sounds like you need a big discussion with him to sort out this and finances. You must have the worst deal on finances with paying childcare and food unless your mortgage is absolutely massive.

I don't know (or care) what username you used either! But yes, it is helpful, as it saves other posters from wasting their time repeating all of the very good advice you've already had. If you think it's 'cricket' to post the same thread repeatedly, where do you intend to draw the line? 3 threads, 4? As many as it takes to get the answer you want?

I see there are no childminders, which is a shame as mine was a godsend. But is there also no breakfast or after-school club? It’s incredibly unusual as a teacher to do all of your child’s drop-offs and pick-ups, even part-time - and I know a LOT of working teacher parents. Why do you feel that you have to do this?

have now read all OP post.

What you should be considering is how you can work FT and make sure that when/if everything goes tits up with your husband, you can support yourself and still have something of a pension when you retire.

To be blunt

I’m sorry OP but you would be absolutely mad to reduce your income when you are being financially controlled by your DH. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see it that way or if he’s motivated more by anxiety than malevolence; the effect is the same.

It’s not just about your income right now. You will decimate your pension. DH left me this year and I’m about to fight tooth and nail for my fair share of his pension in the financial settlement of our divorce because his is so much bigger than mine after a decade part-time.

I also teach and if I could go back I don’t think I’d have reduced my hours. Thirteen weeks of holidays with my children go a long way to compensate for the term-time childcare.

What? I haven't mentioned your previous username, or even the fact you've changed it, but you can't expect to post the exact same thing twice and people not realise you're the same poster?