To wish I hadn’t married a man with a well paid job

Absolutely! My husband does more school runs than me, despite earning more than me (roughly same full time wage, but I work 4 days and he is full time). But his job works with wfh, my job doesn't work for wfh as a physio, so he does more school runs. There is no 'I earn more so you have to do the child stuff', he just does it because he is able to do it, and likes doing it.

Be grateful that your issue isn't scraping by. In reality life would be far worse if he was in a low paid job, and generally part of having a higher household income is some level of sacrifice time wise.

Welcome to the world op.

It sounds as though you are relatively ordinary.

Roof over your head
Clothes on your back
Car on the drive
Food in your bellies
Toys in the cupboard
Able to use the heating

I am sorry you are discontent. The only way to change it is to seek co.promise and work harder if possible.

Here is a half full glass. It is better than one which is half empty.

So you've made choices to have kids with someone who earns nearly 100k which makes you feel your career is very much second place.

And you've made a choice to live rurally with a lack of childcare provision.

Yeah, I get it, you're frustrated. But other choices are available!

The grass is always greener though. I earn more than DH and our marriage isn’t great. I’m completely trapped because of this - if we split he’d be entitled to half of everything despite the fact I pay all the mortgage, owned a house before we met and have a NHS pension I’ve been paying into for 22 years. I would have to massively increase my hours to afford a divorce basically. It’s not as if his career took a back seat due to mine either - I work PT in term time so I do nearly all school runs and the “mum admin.”

That rather depends what your expectations of your lifestyle should be.

Your career would take a back seat anyway I'm afraid. Default parent doesn't only happen to women who "marry well"- you just don't also have to worry about losing your house while your career is being stiffed

And if your children are nursery age, then most day nurseries open sensible hours, 7:30/8 am until 6pm. But if that's still not flexible enough for you, a childminder is still the way to go. Cheaper than a nanny. Totally doable.

So move? Or accept that your desire to live rurally outweighs your desire to have a career.

Salary figures don’t really mean much without an understanding of cost of property where OP lives. (Not suggesting you tell us OP)

Your kids are still pretty young. Once they are established in primary school you could use a childminder after school that would allow you to do a full working day.

Does your career not lend itself to WFH at all? That could give you at least a couple of days where you can do school pickup and get back to work when they are older- my 8 year old amuses himself happily after I pick him up at 3:30 then come home and get back to work ( senior professional services job).

Then what about a local childminder? I have always worked and i’m a single parent (their dad largely works overseas, and my family all 250 miles away). If our wrap around closed that early i’d have got a childminder. There are options. Doesn’t mean you have to take them, but it’s not true to say you can’t have a full time career. I had a serious health issue thrown in too, but the DC still went to all appointments, I attended assembly's etc. Their dad didn’t, but he chose to put his career ahead of the DC. His choice, and he has missed a lot. I wouldn’t say I have it all, as I don’t but I don’t believe it’s true that you can’t have a career and raise kids successfully. Mine are 20 and almost 17 now, both exceeding academically, no hang ups on going to wrap around care and I genuinely believe that they’ve only benefitted from me being a working mum.

Make it work so that you can work full time and invest in your pension to protect your future.

What is your earning potential and why couldn’t it cover good childcare?

With your dh’s salary together you could afford it?

A childminder will be more flexible than school wraparound care. That's what we used once the children were school age. We had no before school club, and the after school provision was only until 4:30, absolutely useless for us. Dh or I dropped the children at the childminder at 7:30 and she'd walk them to school. Reverse in the evening.

Why don’t you, between both of you it looks like you can afford it .

I understand completely what you mean. my husband earns around 3x what I do, and I’d say I earn a decent wage myself. the nature of his job is that he works long hours and also gets moved around a lot so it’s hard to settle, I’ve chosen to “sacrifice” my career for his because 1. I’ve never seen someone love their job as much as he loves his and 2. He earns way more than I could ever dream of and if he changed to another job and I continued in full time work we still wouldn’t make up to his current salary.

sometimes it upsets me, but I knew what I was getting into marrying him. A lot of the men in his (male dominated) work are divorced, and those who are not - their wives have their own “widow” club, as they say they have lost them to the work🤣

People are allowed to post about whatever they please. There's no need to be so rude.

Must be a hard problem to have.

If he doesn’t earn enough for you to stop working then your jobs are equally important.

You don't have to give exact figures, but what kind of well paid but not that well paid salary are we talking? My DH earns more than me, but not enough for a nanny or for me not to work. Therefore, my job is important too, and we both have to take the hit with pick ups, sick days, etc.

For goodness sake! We all have problems and they matter to us despite there being starving children in the world.

95% of mumsnet would close down if everyone had your attitude