Why did my husband bother having a family?

[Alonebutmarried]

Since he’s clearly not bothered about us.

I’ve been a single mother, as in parenting alone, for my children’s whole lives. He is a complete workaholic, spends most of the year away from home. If he is home, he usually leaves before anyone is up and gets home around 9pm.
It is impossible to pin him down. Example of how it is - if we want to do something like a holiday, it can’t be longer than 5 days, has to be booked many months in advance, I have to remind him weekly, he will still accept ‘completely unavoidable’ work, usually end up working the day we leave so we then have to travel there separately which means I end up doing all the packing and travelling kids about.

He takes no part in schools, hobbies, Christmas, birthdays etc. He doesn’t go to the Christmas play etc because he’s working. His workload is unreal, he works 4-5 peoples worth of jobs which is all his own choice. He expects me to help run the business to the detriment of my own career, which I have to do extremely part time and with no time for professional development. He is never around for childcare.

He is successful and makes good money. He is a kind, well thought of and well-liked person. The children love him. But in all honesty I am growing to hate and resent him.
Any attempt to discuss this ends in a horrible argument, since I ‘don’t understand the concept of hard work’ ‘happy to spend it but don’t understand he has to earn it’ ‘he’s doing it for us’ ‘things will be better after xyz project.’

The children haven’t seen him since Christmas as he has been working away on a big project. He was supposed to take a break to visit us, but hasn’t had time apparently. This Friday he said he would visit - great! But it turns out this is only because he has a business meeting for the next project which is being held not far from where we live. So he can break away from the current project for that but not for an actual visit to see us.

I said oh great, the children will be so excited. They will be home from school at 4pm. Then asked today what time is your meeting? He said he’s booked it for 4:30. WTF said I, the kids are expecting to see you! Well work is important, I’m sure it’s not a big deal.

I am just at the end of my tether with it all.

I reckon he’s got a secret family somewhere. No way is he working all that time!!

@Springflowersmakeforbetterhours
Are you certain he isn't a bigamist op?
It isn't beyond the realms of possibility he has another life /family...

This.

I’d say leave him but there’s not much point if he’s never there anyway, instead decide that you are to all intents and purposes a single parent and enjoy spending his money, don’t ask him for anything, make all decisions yourself and go on a nice two week holiday abroad somewhere.

Well, he wants to be the money and nothing else - which may be almost tolerable to some if he wasn't lording it over you too. You need to either accept the terms or move on because he isn't going to change. What a joyless life he is engineering, hopefully all this hard work is going into some great human endeavour?

Your choice is divorce or put up and shut up.

The former would be my preference.

Do your homework(*) and see a competent family solicitor.

(*) Wikivorce, Divorce for Dummies, Form E.

Divorce.
You'll be happier.

Are you sure you’re his only family…..

If you don't want to leave him and don't want to be in another relationship you will just have to adjust your expectations/emotional response. It is shit but it is all you can do.

So stop expecting anything of him. Just stop. Treat him like a visitor who pops in every now and then. Accept that you are effectively alone in parenting and do whatever it takes to make that as pleasant as possible for you and your children. There is no need for you to be the exhausted cross one all the time. You can be the one who gets to hear what is going on in school, has a movie night with popcorn, knows who their friends are, sings along in the car etc etc. Buy in whatever help you need (cleaner, dog-walker, babysitter) and stop thinking about him. You simply can't change him.

I worked with guys who spent a lot of time overseas on assignments. They were the big hoohah and their wives were at home managing everything. For several of them I noticed that they really feared retirement because they had no life outside of work and their wives had long since created a life that didn't include them (as they were simply not there most of the time) and weren't about to change it for their retired husbands.

OP, I would ask him for a trial separation as an alternative to a divorce.

He moves out (which shouldn't be difficult given he's hardly home anyway) and you arrange times when he will have the kids without you there. You're both free to see other people (or not).

At the end of a certain length of time (maybe a few months), maybe you'll both have a bit more clarity on the extent to which you value your relationship. And he might have developed a more functional relationship with his children by that point.

Personally to me, you and the kids sound like one of those "tick box" items on an achievement list. Achieved and then not bothered about. "Get married, check", "Buy house, check", "Have kids and dog, check", "Become multimillionaire, in progress". Essentially, he wanted a family because that's seen as one of the hallmarks of succeeding, but now you're here, he's not particularly interested in you all.

I hope he's earning the top end of 6 figures for this and that you have access to money and he doesn't quiz you on what you spend.

Pack a bag, and next time he's on Disney Dad Duty - leave. Without the children.
Switch your phone off for as long as you can bear to and go stay somewhere nice and relax, and after a day or 2 switch your phone back on and negotiate the future with him from a place of distance, and DO NOT be guilt tripped into going back before you're ready to.
And say it either changes now or within a week you'll start divorce proceedings.
And mean it.

I had one a bit like this but not quite so extreme. He didn’t work away but was up at 5am most mornings to go to the gym then not home until late every evening. Weekends there was usually one day out either cycling or playing golf. I did absolutely everything for DS which was particularly galling as I didn’t particularly want kids, it was all him. I left in the end and have a lovely life on my own and with DS when he’s home from Uni. Absolutely no regrets.

I agree with this. You can either stay and be a 'single mum' or leave and be a 'real' single mum. So think a bit and decide which will give you the better standard of living and whether or not you can learn to live without putting any expectations on him. Obvs if there's more to this than you're saying, if he's financially controlling, abusive in any way, or unreasonably demanding or critical of your time when he's gone, then of course you should leave.

And if you truly feel you can't, shall we say, 'emotionally' separate from him or if you really need an affectionate and involved partner, you should leave then too.

Remember too that should you go the divorce route, he probably isn't going to be any bigger of a presence in your children's lives than he is now. If he doesn't make time for his children now, he isn't going to make time for them when it's his access time.

He genuinely is. Don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but he genuinely is.

OP - our Managing Director is just like your husband. Takes on a ridiculous amount of work (all because he can't bear to delegate and struggles with control issues), works stupid hours each week and rarely takes a holiday. He is a workaholic and loves nothing more than sitting at his desk all night typing away, researching new ideas and drafting proposals to customers.

HOWEVER, he does leave at bang on 5pm every Friday for dinner with his family and also spends his weekends taking the kids to various sports / drama / dance classes and doing other activities with his wife and children. He has been known to reply to emails at 3am on a Saturday when his wife and kids are asleep but to be fair, he does devote his time to them over a weekend. I know his wife and she will absolutely have put that rule in place as otherwise he would end up like your DH @Alonebutmarried .

Can I ask why aren't you giving him an ultimatum on this? i.e. Spend at least one day a weekend with us otherwise I'm leaving you and taking the kids with me?

I’d threaten to leave, taking more than half of everything with me, unless he calmed the fuck down and actually took part in family life. Although I’d probably be so resentful that I wouldn’t want him involved now, he may as well just fuck off and I’ll have what I was entitled to.

Either for his image or to trap you.

If you stay then live completely separately

Separate rooms, separate meals. Don't do anything for him - you are not a concierge service

Do not work for him

Have your own job and life suited to you and the children

When he pops home be out

Up to him then

What would his reaction be if you said you wanted a divorce?

You are definitely not a single parent, that's very insulting to the single parents who are actually doing it alone, although you may feel like one.

He IS earning for you and DC though this doesn't excuse his absence from family life.

You both need to sit down and have a proper chat to see if you can redress that balance.

I can tell you now that you won't be better off as a single parent though. It will be just a different version of difficult.

OP, the point of divorcing would be that you deserve to be happy and fulfilled too.

It sounds like you don’t work. Could you think about getting back into part-time work, to give you something of your own that isn’t just domestic slog? Or if you can’t/don’t want to, what can you do for you - volunteering, hobby, etc?

Stop trying to arrange holidays around him. Book a trip for you and the kids and tell him when you’ll be away. Then book a trip just for you and tell him when he needs to be home for the kids!

Just get a nanny and live your life with your children. Pretend he doesn't exist and live your life with the kids

If you have told him how unhappy this way of life makes you and he has refused to change or even listen then you owe it to yourself for your own self respect to divorce him. And stop working for his business RIGHT NOW.

Nobody will miss him, you could probably get away with not even telling the kids!

The kids won’t get a stepmother as he will be too busy to form a relationship. You don’t have to find someone else for yourself, but you will respect yourself a lot more without him.

This is the sensible answer. Thank you for wording it.

This could be the solution if he's willing to fund it, assuming you're not interested in a relationship with anyone else.

I would consider stopping doing any of the work for his business and using the threat of divorce (assuming he wants to avoid this for reputational or other reasons) as leverage to get him to pay for some proper childcare so you can focus on your work.