Husband is really stingy and doesn't take children anywhere

[cantrememberwho]

my husband doesn't like spending money on anything but essential items. he brings in food, pays bills, mortgage and then says "i've done my responsibiliy". I don't have a job as i look after the house and children.

he NEVER takes the children or anywhere like a restaurant or any play activity. he says the cost of living has increased too much. I know this is the case but how do other people go holidays and buy nice things. He drives a really old car and my son is embarrassed if he drops him off at school. he also wears old clothes and sometimes his brother drops of his clothes before throwing them in charity bin.
My husband has that motto if it works keep using it until it dies.
i think the reason was his own parents grew in poverty in their country and passed this to my husband. also he buys primark and donation from relatives for clothes for children. (apart from school clothes he gets)

it cant be good for children if they stay home every holiday and never go anywhere. he says even train fare or fuel cost to seaside will be too much for him. now six week they will be home driving me mad especially when it was really hot this week. He goes to work, sits eats the dinner i make him and then watches TV and buries his head in a newspaper and falls asleep on sofa.

what could be done to make him spend some of the money. he claims its for the childrens future like weddings and tuition money.

Its financial abuse because the OP has no input into the decision making around money.

A couple raising children are in a partnership. This DH wants a woman at home doing all the domestic stuff leaving him free to give no consideration to that side of life. If they were a partnership then both would have equal input to decision making around the family income and not be treating it as "his" money to be accounted for in detail as per his wishes.

They are not in a partnership, the DH is treating his supposed partner as the staff.

All I can say is no bloody wonder you want a few outings to restaurants if you’re busy fannying about taking 2-3 hours a day to cook one meal!

Have you actually sat down and looked at finances together? Could you not discuss that you would like days out/activities during the holiday time as a family?

Your child benefit must be £50 a week - could you use that or is it going towards bills?!

I don’t know why so many people are calling the dad abusive. He’s paying for literally everything while his wife sits at home coming up with every excuse in the book not to work.

Sounds like he's on board with the current status quo tbf and is likely his expectation to have her at home having these meals cooked for him.

There's a happy medium tho but this does sound extreme

You could get a job yourself and earn some more money - plenty of people have children, look after a house and work

If kidney beans and chickpeas take 2-3 hours to soak then you'll have to either soak it overnight and put it all in a slow cooker in the morning , or better still find something else to cook OP, like every other person does. Wash your spinach and chop it up the night before. You don't have to sacrifice your children's happiness for the sake of chickpeas and spinach. You can't cook a feast every night at the expense of your children's happiness and your financial independence. You and your husband need to change. Eating home cooked food from scratch doesn't seem to have done your husband much good anyway , as he is still tired just like the rest of us anyway.

Op it seems like you have an excuse for everything. 2-3 hours to cook- you need to make your curry bases beforehand in a big batch (In the evenings) and use prepackaged goods like tinned chickpeas and kidney beans, etc. if your daughter needs to be home, that's your husbands job as much as it is yours- he will have allowance in his job to accommodate Children’s appointments, etc. you need to get a job and stop making excuses or accept your situation as it is and get on with it.

My family ate a lot of curry growing up, my parents both worked and my dad could cook curry rice and dahl/veg side in 30-40 mins! Its not right your husband gives you no access to money, but it sounds like you are making busy work for yourself here.

Is this a culture thing? Where you stay home taking care of dh, kids and house and not allowed to work? While this will seem alien to most of us I know there are women who live life like this.

Or are you allowed to work? If you could get a suitable job that worked around the children and brought in extra money would you be willing to do this?

Being a sahp usually means doing the bulk of the work however you should have access to family money. Most families who decide on one parent staying home they will ensure that they are able to do things with the kids and are able to buy things that are needed.

I get it's difficult to get employment especially as your dd has learning needs, I've a disabled dd so I'm her carer, you must be available at the drop of a hat especially if there's health issues.

Is your dh financially abusive or tight? Hard to determine from your posts. If you needed something in the shop, chemist etc are you able to just go buy it or do you have to run it past him first? Does he question what you spend?

If he's financially abusive it's going to be near impossible to change him, he's not going to allow you to work. I know men like this and it's not easy to just go get a job. If he's just tight maybe you could work his days off? Get a morning job in a supermarket, I know you said it takes up to 3 hours to cook a meal and I'm truly baffled at this, I cook for 7 people and it doesn't take me that long.

We don't know your situation and what your dh expects and if there's reasons that you feel you can't change things. But if your dh wants a clean house, a cooked meal, kids looked after then he has to provide you with some money or take you all out. He/you would be paying a lot more on childcare. You and the kids can't stay home all the time, that is very unhealthy. If he can't provide these things then you need to do it yourself and unfortunately that means stopping the 3 hour meals and getting a pt job.

And spending so much time cooking and preparing is just ridiculous

Have you not heard of hello fresh!!!

education is very important. without good grades they wont get into a good university degree course and eventually a job.
how can you get a good job without education.
so his plan he said is to save and when they start secondary school tutorship programme and they are not cheap

Lots of children with working parents achieve well at school. It sounds like they don't go anywhere. Children learn loads by having days out - they don't necessarily need a tutor. They can learn loads by going on walks, to museums, to the beach, to London.

You're prioritising all the wrong things.

Can you not see the irony of saying how important education is for the children to get a job, but you can't be bothered to get one?

Firstly I agree with you that your DH should pay for some holiday activities, otherwise you may get bored, restless kids with a narrow experience of life, rather than well rounded kids with a rich background of adventures and exploration - something to consider when thinking about their education in a broader sense than merely passing a load of exams.

But truly OP, you need to rethink the cooking. Lovely 3 hour family meals on a couple of nights a week - yes! But laboriously doing it every single night is severely limiting what else happens in your lives - particularly your own life. Batch cooking is my suggestion, and more flexibility in your approach to food.

I genuinely may have missed it but where in OPs posts is This DH wants a woman at home doing all the domestic stuff leaving him free to give no consideration to that side of life.

The OP seems to be the one insisting she can't possibly work because 'excuse, excuse, excuse'. She hasn't said her DH won't let her (again, I may have missed it)

And it seems she hasn't even made any attempt to understand their position. He may very well be correct and they are living paycheck to paycheck whilst putting away some for their childrens future. We have no idea.

here are some of the food i cook. As you can see they are very tasty! but time consuming. My children, husband all of us enjoy these very much. we make big effort to eat together on dining room table each evening. I believe family eating together is the best thing.

chefonrhine.com/home/moti-pilaf-basmati-with-edible-pearls/

For who are you cooking 3 hours? Because your children won't thank you for living in poverty just so you can cook elaborate meals. "Oh we couldn't have braves, couldn't do football, only had second hand shit and never went anywhere because mum insisted on making half day stews".

Beans and chickpeas can be bought in brine and then they don't need to cook as long.
Stews can be made the evening before.
You can cook double portions and freeze half so you only need to cook half the week (meaning you can work half the week).
A salad is fresh and healthy and made in minutes.
Stir fry vegetables with couscous is done within 15 minutes.
Anything from the roasting tin cookbook is 30 minutes.

There are so many options, but you have to want to give your children a better life than this.

How do the finances work in your house OP? What happens when you need new clothes or want to have your hair done?

I'm going to add to the many voices saying get a job. I take the kids out whenever I want because I have my own money to spend as I wish. Whether he shares his earnings with you or you get a job, you need the same.

And you seem to think in the holidays he should be taking them out but you are the SAHP?

I assumed she meant funding it or at least going out as a family on weekends etc rather than him being the one to take them on his own

This sounds like a question of priorities. Cooking for 2-3 hours every day is not necessary. There are hundreds of delicious, healthy meals you can make in less time. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Joes-30-Minute-Meals-Healthy/dp/1509836098/ref=ascdff_1509836098/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310762441626&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13351409732728172524&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045815&hvtargid=pla-523563212619&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

I’m Pakistani, it looks like we could similar things, I have never ever spent anything like 2-3 hourw cooking a meal. Yoghurt based meals will only curdle if you cook on too high a temperature and add the yoghurt too early, you should be adding the yoghurt last, not cooking the yoghurt for ages. Kadhi for example shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes start to finish, and most of that is leaving it to simmer, so you’re only actively cooking for about 30 minutes, plenty time in between to so your salad and roti.

Why are you adding dried beans to a stew? Why aren’t you soaking them overnight? If you do that they’ll cook in a few minutes. If you don’t want to soak overnight you can make your meal in a slow cooker and leave it. Even so, dried kidney beans and chickpeas will cook from dry in 45 minutes, for 2-3 hours. Spinach only needs washing if you choose to buy it dirty, chopped, bagged and washed spinach is quicker and usually cheaper as well.

It doesn’t need to be messy, when I cook I have my chopping board and a mixing bowl, everything
is prepared in the board, any scraps go into the mixing bowl so I can easily put them in the bin.

You’re choosing to make work for yourself.

Theres nothing wrong with an old car, plus your husband does school drop offs, so how would that be a barrier to work? Theres also nothing wrong with shopping at primark.

Have a look at the sun holidays, collect the codes and find a cheap holiday.

I understand you doing all the cooking, cleaning etc is more of a cultural expectation which many of us won’t understand.

I have somr sympathy for your H. I grew up in poverty as a child and the effect on me has been huge. I have very similar tendencies to him. I've worked on myself and understand that I act from a position of fear.

My partner is middle class and finds it very odd. We try and meet in the middle but it's taken a lot of self exploration to know how I work, be willing to sit with the difficult feelings spending money brings and also to balance the needs of our family.

He will need to want to do that work and sadly a lot of people never find the ability to question why they are the way they are and whether that is best serving them and the ones they love.

@cantrememberwho can you not use tinned beans or chick peas and bags of spinach from the supermarket which are already washed.

Or soak and cook your pulses in large batches and freeze them?

I feel that you are getting a hard time from posters who are being deliberately obtuse about your culture and don't understand how difficult it would be to change your husband's misogynistic attitudes about a woman's role in a marriage.

Are you fucking serious? I was waiting for these massive elaborate meals you were making for 3 hours. But washing and chopping spinach, making salads and and cooking pasta takes you 3 hours? Fish and chips from scratch takes you 2 hours? Plus even longer to wash the pans? It’s takes 20-30 minutes max to cut and cook potatoes and grill/bake a bit of fish, even with an elaborate marinade/breaded coating. Beans can be thrown in water the night before to soak. Or you can throw them in water before your shift and take them out when you get home? Are you honestly saying you have to sit at home to supervise the beans soaking for 3 hours?? Just admit you don’t want to work op, and you’re stamping your feet because your oh won’t hand over even more cash (that he may not even have) than he already does!

Me too.