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

Thank you, he knows everything I do.

I spend the day cleaning, cooking, and it's full on as soon as the kids come back from school.

He said that since they're all in nursery/school I should start working, but he won't contribute to childcare whatsoever, and doesn't understand what it entails.

A private rental would probably cost you more.

Do you not have access to actual numbers? Income? Mortgage? Or are you expected to take his word for it?

If you finished school you are more than qualified for either of these jobs, olus supermarket, cleaning and term time admin jobs.

You aren’t stupid OP and you know this very well. If you husband is as hopeless as you paint him, even more reason for you to start working.,

Life is about change - you could afford to be an SAHP and now you can’t, your family comes from a culture where women don’t work, but you live in one where they do.

Instead of burying your head in the sand, pull yourself together and get a term time job. When the youngest is a school you can work on training to be a paralegal or something like that.

Right now I feel very sorry for your children - you see a shocking pair of role models.

I don't think you'd stand a chance of getting a council house, to be honest.
And he needs to look into how much renting privately would cost.
I rent privately, my next door neighbour's house (originally exactly the same as mine) has been extended so it's bigger than mine, and their mortgage is £200 a month less than my rent.
I'm in the North East. I don't think you'd get anything similar to where you are now, anywhere, to rent that costs less than you're paying now.

Don't think the banks care about your culture when they are re-possessing your home.

You come across as extremely entitled. How do you think you can complain about him not holding down a job when you don’t work? Every one of my friends would LOVE to be a SAHM mum, only one is because the rest can’t afford to be. I wanted more kids, I didn’t have more because I couldn’t afford it. Your culture doesn’t give you a free ride.

Do you have a daughter? Is your wish for her to grow up, marry and have babies as quickly as possible and then spend the next 20 years running a household?

If I go back to work I'm going to miss out on so much

"Back to work"? So you have worked before?

She's committed!

@namechanged808 I'm really sorry but your preferences aren't compatible with the cost of living and mortgage rises. To own a house, most households need to have two people working to be able to afford bills.

Mortgage payments are increasing due to the interest rate rising. Your husbands wages have likely not increased at a similar rate. This means that what your husband could afford maybe five years ago is now a struggle.
You have two options as I see it. Continue to live in the house and find a job. You could become a healthcare assistant and work nights, come home and take the children to school, then catch up on sleep. A lot of mums I know do this to save on childcare costs.
Second option: sell the house and use all of the money from the house sale to pay rent privately until you have savings under 16k and then the government may help you by paying part of your rent but may not if your husband earns well. But you won't have a house at the end. You may get a council house but this is very very unlikely.

I don't understand what else you want people to suggest. There is no magic fund to help support people who want to stay at home but also own a house. I know lots of women who don't work, but they either have husbands who earn huge amounts or they live in social housing.

OP Have you not seen the repeated news stories about interest rates going up? About mortgages going from £500 to £1,200 a month?

Some issues:

You clearly have every intention of remaining a SAHM. You don't want to work, you never have properly and you think being a SAHM is the perfect excuse. Every suggestion from PPs is met with why you can't. (You don't need qualifications to be a dinner lady. Or to start working as a TA even if in that case you have to study as you go along.) And then you're bringing culture into it. Culture doesn't pay the bills.

You say your DH keeps being laid off and suspended. The first could be an awful lot of bad luck. What's he doing to be suspended and how often?

I think this is doomed. You neither of you seem to have a grip on financial reality and one day it will bite you on the backside.

None of this rings true. The language in the posts is very American, like college instead if university, store instead of shop etc. That and the 1950’s attitude of the OP. All very strange.

You'd still be better off than most parents, including your DH.

After DC1, I went back to work when he was 1. With DC2, it was 7 months. With DC3, it was 2 months. We, too, had a mortgage to pay.

I spend the day cleaning, cooking, and it's full on as soon as the kids come back from school.

You spend 6-8 hours a day cleaning and cooking? Every week day?

What he is demanding is what every single man I know expects - that his wife works, at least part time. I actually know only two mums who don’t work.

Yes, he sounds like a twit if he is regularly not doing his job properly but I couldn’t imagine expecting my DH to carry all the weight of earning money. It never occurred to me not to go back to work.

Welcome to the Real world

Living costs are rising, you husband is a twat but ultimately if you can't afford to stay at home then you have to do what every other household does and make sacrifices and 9 times out of 10 that is sacrificing time with your kids.

This is bizarre. If all your kids are in school/nursery, then yes, you should get a job. At least until your family finances are a bit more stable. Look for a term-time role, such as midday supervisor in a school.

I’m having some difficulty believing anyone is quite this clueless. Is this a windup?

I only have sons. But If I had a daughter, I'd like her to have a choice and know that either way there's nothing to be ashamed of.

Yeah weird posts. Odd that someone brought up in the uk with qualifications would be like this.

This.

Don't you want to show your child that women are just as capable of working and that when financial pressure requires, even if you don't want to work, you step up and help provide for your family because the alternative is the family having a lesser quality of life / losing their home / having no savings / having one partner feeling overwhelmed by shouldering all the financial responsibility?

Don't you want your daughter to feel she doesn't need a man to provide for her?

Op I’m sorry but this ‘in my culture’ is bull.
You can either afford to stay home or you can’t. Clearly your family can’t so you need to get a job. Regardless of what your culture is or what you believe, bills still have to be paid!

The thing is he will not help with childcare.
So I will be doing the exact same amount of childcare + a full time job.
I understand some single mums don't have a choice, but when you are married I estimate you are a team.

When you did that law diploma, did you really never intend to use it? It seems an awful waste of that place, it could have gone to someone who really needed it.

I didn't see my DCs until 6pm 4 days a week from when they were 1 and 3.
No not ideal but I had a mortgage to pay. It's the same for millions of parents everywhere. You are not alone in not wanting to miss out on time with your DCs!!
Set them a good example and get a job.