Husband giving me an ultimatum - forcing me to get a job or sell our house

[namechanged808]

My husband and I have a mortgage on our house.

I am a SAHM of three children, 3, 5 and 7.

He says we can't afford the house we live in and wants to move to a rented council house.

I don't want to do that as I enjoy having a house of my own, that I can make mine. I don't want to rent for the rest of my life. I like stability for my children.

My husband is now forcing me to get a job if I want to keep the house.

I don't know what to do

LOL... I was classed as a vulnerable teen, homeless and on the streets for THREE YEARS and never got a council house.

They literally told me at 16 when I became homeless (domestic violence) the best way to get bumped up the list and stand a chance would be to be a homeless teen single mother as they took priority and even that had a massive waiting list so was guaranteed.

Someone rich enough to have owned and sold their own home, with an job income suitible to support living options, old enough to claim benefits and living stably with relatives... not a fucking chance mate.

• massive waiting list so was NOT garanteed

You won’t get a council house. But if there is a genuine concern around money, you need to be open to working. Being a SAHP is a luxury, not an entitlement. Even if it’s evenings / weekends when DH is at home.

What if he was providing to the best of his ability but it still wasn't enough?

What if he abandons his family? She'll still have to do it all and work.

She's looking at a very bleak future if she doesn't change her mindset

Any single mother will do that and work on top.

You don't need to clean the whole house every day. And how much mess do they make when they get home from school?

Sorry, you could do it (might even enjoy it). You just don't think you should.

Your husband is unreliable with work/can't keep a job. He doesn't earn enough. He does no childcare or chores. He is mean/abusive.

Don't you see that this is exactly why you need to start working? For your own sake,independence and safety and that of your children.

You cannot afford the home on his salary alone.

You will lose the house if something doesn’t change.

You need to get a job, even a PT evening job.

It doesn’t matter what your culture is because your culture is probably from a time when one wage was enough to cover all of the bills, life isn’t like that anymore unfortunately so the culture has to move with the times.
My Gran and everyone before her was the same and she’d always look down on us for working and not be a SAHM but didn’t realise that that’s just not possible anymore.

You either get a job or end up losing the home and having to go into a council property and seeing as it can take years to get a council house, you’ll end up in small bedsits or hotels until they can place you.

The alternative is to separate and then you’ll have to go into a rented home and work FT.

If no-one's at home there's no mess

How do you think other families do it?

@namechanged808 I have sympathy for your situation as you have agreed roles in the family, which you are happy with, and now your husband wants this to change. I understand you wanting to be a SAHM, especially while your children are young and your youngest is not yet in school. However I think there are two different points here:

1. with high interest rates and inflation things are really tough financially at the moment and lots of people are struggling. The price of everything has gone up. If your mortgage is due to be renewed you could be looking at at around £300 extra a month. Maybe this is what your husband is saying. He’s under a lot of pressure to pay the bills and he may be extremely stressed worrying about this. No doubt he sees the benefit of you being a SAHM but he’s probably happy to accept a slightly less clean house, maybe a few quicker meals etc if you were able to work. It sounds like a full time job might be a step too far, but many mums work part time hours to fit in with school hours etc. you could work say 10-3 every day, or maybe work full time two or three days a week and this would definitely help financially. You may also enjoy having a different aspect to your life and meet some new people. If he’s working long hours and shifts, that is hard work. Working nights can take a toll on your health too. I would definitely consider taking up some kind of job- you can at least try and see if it works out well for your family or not. I think his ultimatum might be borne out of stress. He may be frustrated that you don’t understand the severity of the situation. Him getting a higher paid job isn’t something you can just do at the drop of the hat without skills and experience.
2. the separate issue is more generally do you want to be with him for the rest of your life. What attracted you to each other in the first place? Were you happy in the beginning? Do you think the stress of children/ life has made you fall out of love with each other? Is he really an arse or is he stressed and tired from his work? It can’t be nice having a wife telling him all the time he needs to get a better job and earn more money all the time. However if he is just an arse and you don’t see this changing, then maybe you should consider leaving. It’s not up to your parents what you do. It’s up to you. It will be hard but you will get by. However I’d suggest you try first to make it work between you, get a part time job (this will be helpful if you do decide to leave) and/ or try learning a skill in the mean time so you are in the best possible place of you do decide to leave.

good luck x

Many do

Then do it again as a single parent

Is your husband also born and bred in this country, because if he is then where the hell do you live in the UK, as neither of you seem to have any idea what goes on in the real world.

I'm sure the 271,000 already homeless/living in temporary accommodation would love one of these 'council houses' your husband thinks he will get.

Both you and your husband need to get a better job/job if you are struggling with bills.

Although I think you would both struggle to get good jobs with the attitude you both seem to have after reading your posts.

This may come as a shock but neither of you are entitled to a house.

Your responses are pathetic OP,
I worked as a dinner lady in a school with no qualifications relevant bell the whole team didn’t have a school qualification between them just a clear DBS check and a want and love to work with children.

you clearly cannot be bothered to work and that’s the end of it. The world and times change including your visions of how life should be it don’t always work like that. You’d be screwed if your husband decided to leave you one day. Stop being such a stubborn wpman and do something better with your time.

OP I do all this and also work. You may have a different culture but live within the system and framework of the U.K., and here you can only afford to be a SAHM if your husband pulls in an excellent salary, which yours isn’t. Your youngest must have 30 free hours so what are you doing with all that time? You need to get a job, you can’t avoid it forever.

Why do you think the council (state =taxpayers) should support you so that you can be a SAHM. If you can't afford your lifestyle then male cuts where possible or increase your income. Can you run a small e-business from home, pick up evening hours in a job when you DH is home or your DH increase hours?
Being a SAHM is ideal but not worth loosing you home over and doesn't mean you cant earn some income. Social housing is very overstretched so it's very unlikely you'd get somewhere soon.

@namechanged808 once my youngest was settled in reception, I got a job and did it all. DH was out of the house from 6.30ish until 9.30ish every day and spent rafts of time working away too. I did it and it wasn't even about money. It was about me and my needs.

They can, AFTER, you’ve done your A levels. The op says she went to college at 16. You can’t do a law diploma at 16. Later in she says she did “legal studies” at college. Of course Store is an acceptable word but it’s not generally used in the UK. I’ve never hear anyone refer to a shop as a store

Nothing here is special and requires you to be a sah parent. I and millions of other working parents manage precisely these tasks around work. You could work part time. And you should be teaching the children and your husband age appropriate tasks.

As for your husband, dodging the taxman but still expecting a freebie council house, words fail me.

It isn’t necessarily true that schools can’t find TAs, more that they can’t afford TAs. Even when a child has funding, that doesn’t get close to covering the costs of staffing to meet the requirements of the plan.

OP, we live in London and our mortgage is £1020 (small 2 bed flat so only £100 more than you. my DH is on £75k (which i assume is more than what a delivery driver would earn though i may be out of date on this) and we don't have any kids so actually financially speaking we probably could afford for me not to work (more so than you). But yet i work because I am a human and I want to contribute to our finances.

i have a south asian colleague whose DH owns his house and has a job plus business and like my DH could pay the mortgage all on his income (house was also bought before they married). But yet she also works and wants to contribute financially. In some ways financial contribution can be more or just as important as stuff like housework. Housework can be outsourced but its much harder for money to fall from the sky. Two earners are better than one high earner because whatever extra your DH earns would be swallowed up in 40% tax plus NI (50k is not a particularly high wage these days and even in lower earning regions, can be easily reached in a matter of a few years even if its not the case now). I doubt the thresholds would be adjusted given the state of public finances. Even if your DH got a relatively well paid job, it wouldn't be a well paid job in a few years unless he consistently increases his wages by 20% every 2 years or something which most people can't do. So you have to work, its either now or even if he magically gets an amazing job (which is unlikely), you still have to work down the line. Its postponing the inevitable.

You say you have lived all your life in the U.K. so surely you realise that the majority of parents work at least part time ?
Something to keep in mind is that that IF you separate from your husband and claim Universal Credit as a single parent , you will be expected to work given the ages of your children .
I don’t know where in Scotland you are but here in my area ( East Coast city) they are desperate for Care and Hospitality staff.

Cash and carry is a another term for a Wholesalers. Not cash in hand.....

I haven't worked. I got married very young, 21.

I was married at 21 also. When I was working full time due to being an adult. Why weren't you working then?

@namechanged808 you won’t get a council house, and your husband is deluded if he thinks it’s a possibility.

Private renting is general similar cost to a mortgage, but it’s a lot more precarious. Keeping your house by whatever means possible is your best option long term.

You need to let go of the idea of being home full time. Irrespective of culture, your husband isn’t in sufficiently secure/ high-earning work to afford this. If he had been fired multiple times he is unlikely to get high-paying work which depends on reliability.

You can’t change him. You can only change you.

You need to sit down together and work out how you will divide working hours and household/childcare tasks between you. How much autonomy does he have over working hours?

It’s worth you looking for work while your children are in school- retail etc.