I'm so sad for my husband

[Jaynewayd]

Unsure what i want to get out of this post but maybe some advice or to just vent.

Three young children - youngest being 1.

My husband works for himself from home.

I work away. I went back to work when the baby was 3 months old. I'm away in a different country four / five days a week and back two or three. Then away again. So pretty much full time. On the side of this, I have some side businesses. So we both work HARD.

My husband is struggling. He's really unhappy. He feels left behind. I can see it in his eyes.

He's always wanted to do something different as a career. But what he wants to do cost a FORTUNE to become. And now in his mid 40s hes starting to realise he may never be able to do it

I LOVE my job but said I could give it up to stay with the kids whilst he trains. But obviously financially that doesn't work. We talked about selling the house to use some money from it. But then what , live in rented for a few years and build ourselves back up?! He shared with me recently that his business isn't doing as well as it used to and he was struggling to make some payments. Obviously I stepped in to help. But it's sad how in 2026, people who work this hard still just scrape by!

I'm just so sad for him. He works so hard. Such a good dad. He just deserves more than what hes doing now and I can't help him. Every time I leave the house for work, I can see how sad he is but will never tell me. Its breaking my heart :-(

i have no words 🤣🤣

@Goose8080 OP has said:
We have a full time Nanny for the children. She does school run, has the baby etc. Makes everyone's dinners.
His Aunty who is like his Mum also stays in the house whilst I'm away to help. He gets a lot of help From her with childcare, washing, cleaning etc. He goes to the gym and sees friends whilst I'm away too.

The poor man is hardly struggling with the school run and the baby. He gets his dinner cooked and has the aunt on standby for additional childcare, washing and cleaning.

I’m married to a pilot and work in aviation also.

I suppose one thing I would say is I did have a fair idea of what I was signing up for when we met as we have both been working in this industry and have been for almost 20 years now.

Unfortunately, my career choices are not what they would be if I didn’t have kids but we had to make adjustments to ensure the shift work worked.

We have discussed how life would work if he was to move companies which would involve commuting until at least he could get a transfer home, but it’s less than ideal and he wouldn’t be happy being away from children for so long.

i suppose the reason why he can’t do it needs to be identified - is it purely financial or is it time required to train or is it how life would work if both of you were pilots in terms of family life? Are there adjustments you could make to make it possible?

To be honest, I love my husband to bits and I’m proud of him/us but this job takes it out of you. There are so many times we wish we had a more “normal” family dynamic and a lot needs to be sacrificed. It’s not something I would enter into lightly and i do often think when people say “oooh” etc, if you only knew how much that job takes over our lives! But then if you love it, you love it.

This all seems a bit of a non problem. You’ve both got all the help you need with the children, he still sees his friends and goes to the gym. You’re earning good money. Exactly where is the problem? It sounds very nice and what a lot of us strive for.

You mention that when his business was going well he wasted energy and money and time on casinos, cars and having fun. Now he’s reaping the rewards of that. He’s having a very typical midlife crisis OP and this is not on you. He’d be having it if you were a housewife but with additional stress about the bills and a miserable wife! This is not on you!
Congratulations on having an amazing career after all the work you’ve put in. It’s an inspiration for all of us @Jaynewayd

He isn't doing all the childcare though. They have a full-time Nanny and his aunt stays with them to help with the child care too. He is also the one who pushed for a third child.

I've seen posts from women whose husbands are long haul airline pilots and they are struggling alone with no childcare help and their husbands are sleeping with female members of the cabin crew. These posters do have cause for complaint. OP's DH, not so much.

OP pays for everything apart from his own business expenses and she is trying to find ways to make her husband happier without abandoning the great career she has worked so hard for.

i’ve woken up this morning and this thread is really bugging me.

Your DH is selfish and jealous. I suspect he’s been manipulating the convos aimed at you prioritising him, or giving up something substantial (career, house, security, job) to support his endeavours.

He has had time, money and opportunity to pursue “his dream”. The fact he has not should tell you everything. This is not a man who wants to work with you, he’s wanting to sabotage you and your life to feel better about himself.

I can’t get over how identifying this thread is. You’ve given your company, your job title (which is not common amongst women), the fact that you’re the youngest female in your position (genuine congrats by the way), your children, one of whom has sen. Anybody who vaguely knows you would identify you in a second and therefore know all about your domestic set up and your husband’s feelings of inferiority. I’m half expecting you to give out your address.

I just came on to say don’t you dare think about giving up an incredible career out of feeling guilty your DH doesn’t have the same! It sounds like he had opportunities same as you. You should be proud of it.

I agree about feeling sad for someone. My DM always said that people don't always want others feeling sad for them or their pity.

It’s tough when you’ve spent a long time getting to the top of your field and your partner runs a business and it’s having a dip. Suddenly their unerring support and celebration of your success of your career can turn into resentment and feeling put upon having to pick up the pieces at home while you’re at work. Like it or not, masculinity, wanting to be the breadwinner, their own disappointments and frustrations coupled with a midlife moment of ‘is this it?’ all come at once.

for the never too late brigade, I would suggest that when you’ve spent hours and then years working like a dog to get to where you are it isn’t something where you can follow your dreams in your mid forties and expect to have the same satisfaction and success. I see people entering into my profession in their forties and think they’re mad; you’ve got only the really difficult bits before you retire and no time to enjoy the mastery, salary etc that come with years of, yes, just doing the job.

I hope his business turns a corner OP and he starts to feel successful in his own right. I’ve been where you are and you’re not responsible for him but you are a team and you both need to be happy.

Don’t believe everything you read. It’s impossible to get a nanny to work around a pilot roster. I know, I’ve tried!

A full time nanny in the south east is also completely unaffordable on a BA captain wage with limited second income.

Your DH has made his choices and now you're expected to deal with the consequences and facilitate him - over and over again? Absolutely don't give up your job. He's had opportunity after opportunity and failed to take them seriously.

He should work more on his business and turn it around. But you're expected to bail him out on that too.

I'm glad you've a good relationship, but from where I'm standing he's coming across as rather entitled. And lazy.

My sons friend always had a dream to be a pilot since being a child, at 20 he went to New Zealand to train as a pilot, following an inheritance, he has now been flying for 10 years and hates it, sometimes a dream job isnt what you expect it to be.

Likewise. Quite frankly I got sick to death of my ex husbands pipe dreams while I was working hard to keep us going.
Sometimes you just have to be grateful with what you have.
Did he want children?

He isn't solo parenting they have a full time nanny by the sounds of it when she's away and then when she's home she gets no downtime and is doing everything! Look his career is on him as is his own happiness. You are two separate people. His life is hard and so is yours. What is he doing to help himself? Can you increase nanny hours or have any GPs nearby that can take the kids for a weekend so he can get some evenings off to do a hobby or can you get some extra nanny hours while you are home so you guys can spend time together alone? It'll get easier as the kids get older.

Your DH needs to take responsibility for his own career, and his own happiness.

He sounds like he is sucking joy from those around him. He has a nanny, and his aunt to help him.

He has a wife who not only pays the bills, but bails him out when he fucks up.

Op, he’s never going to be happy until he adjusts his thinking.

He was given the opportunity to train further, develop his career as a pilot. He had the money behind him, but he splurged it all. That was a choice - his choice - so clearly being a pilot was less important than he made out.

He is jealous of your success, rather than supportive.

Would he consider counselling to help him with his misery? Or is his answer that you should be miserable with him?

This. And I think his obsession with it rising up now has as much to do with getting older, seeing OP achieve a senior status, and wanting to be the important one himself, or AS important, and associating that with her job because that's what's in front of him.

Not criticising. As someone who has been a trailing spouse I am liable to similar feelings myself. But he has a lot of flexibility to find something he DOES want to do, with all that help. Just not necessarily that one thing. Well, I'll never be a field biologist like I desperately wanted either. Because I can't afford another degree and it's not right for my family.

I think he could benefit from talking to a therapist or coach. But the people saying OP should rethink her job over this make my blood boil. Many of us have had to put our own careers second without benefit of nannies or fast cars.

Men are never happy. They are always whining about something while women just have to get on with it.
Why didnt he do this thing before or instead of having kids. He chose to have kids.

I was long haul cabin crew for years and my husband worked security (still does).
His mum would come and watch our 3 boys if they weren't in school or when he worked late as he is a door supervisor too. I always felt terrible. I had 2 or 3 day lay overs in beautiful places like Cancun, Barbados ect and he was at home. I'd be home for 3 or 4 days at a time then off again. I know it wasn't a holiday but i always felt guilty i was away in these beautiful places and he was at home. He never EVER minded as he knew it was my job but still in felt guilty.
When lockdown lifted I put in a request to be airside instead and trained to work on the check in desks instead.

I think you are amazing - I am so impressed!

I'm sorry your husband is sad about his missed chances and of course you love and care for him, so it will be on your mind too. But it is really his issue to fix if he wants to badly enough. I know you being away a lot is tough but it is just part of the job you live and you've been doing it since you met, he can hardly say he didn't know what he was getting into.

Moreover, you've effectively removed a lot of obstacles for him. No bills to pay, help him with his business bills if needed, pay for a FT nanny so he can have sport and leisure time, take over everything when you get home (do you ever get a break???) He's had a lot of opportunity to retrain and you've given him a lot of help with pilot stuff but it hasn't worked out so he needs to work out what else he would enjoy and he needs to get his own arse in gear, not just hope it falls into his lap. He has PPL so he can still fly "for fun" I presume.

I have a bit of this with my husband. He has a professional qualification and an ok-ish job though doesn't really enjoy it. But he pissed around for years enjoying an extended youth and wasting money and opportunities and now clearly feels a bit affronted that my career accelerated and I outearn him by quite a lot despite being over a decade younger. I'm not without sympathy but it's irritating when he seems to infer that it's because I'm "lucky" and he isn't. I am fortunate in lots of ways but 90% of it has been sheer bloody hard work, sacrifice and planning. Sometimes I say "what is it that you want to do, let's see if we can make it happen" ... but he doesn't really know. There's only so much you can do unless the person takes ownership of the issue themselves.

Don’t quit your job and stop trying to solve this for him. Plenty of people think they have dreams career wise when they see someone with the end result but ultimately don’t want to put in the graft to get there. He could have done it and he chose not to. It’s not for you to fix this for him. He has loads of help at home and is not hard done to. My sympathy for him is 0. Well done to you for pushing yourself and progressing. It’s too simplistic for someone else to see the shiny captain title and decide they want it too. Tough luck- he didn’t put the effort in. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

I agree with this. It’s perfectly common
for people to reach midlife and realise things didn’t work out as they expected.

His business not doing so well is the thing he needs to work on. Either fixing that or looking at getting an employed job.

But you have a lot more than many. A strong marriage, healthy kids, double income, a home. This is a count your blessings time.

If she's away for max five days and then home for three and solidly there, not working, it doesn't work out super different from someone working regular hours and commuting imo.

Extremely hard as from what you have said he wants to be in the same industry as you, in which you are very successful. Am not sure what more you can do in terms of supporting him in this, as you have already set out the career support etc you have been able to give.

i assume you don’t want to leave your job. So it sounds like there are two strands:

1. financial and the cost of his training and the practical implications for the day to day life of the family.
2. whether he will get accepted to train (there is only so much you and he can do about this, sometimes we need to accept that no matter how hard we try it isn’t going to happen).

in relation to (1) in many ways, the practical stuff is easier. Are you home owners? If so could you add borrowing to your mortgage and extend the term to finance his training? Or switch to interest only for a time to help finance it?

If he were to get accepted for training, does your employer offer things like sabbaticals that would enable you to take a longer period of leave without quitting your job?

Practical stuff is one thing and with thinking and planning it can probably be resolved. The greater challenge will be emotional - I suspect he needs to feel like he has given it his best shot to do it before accepting it won’t happen for him.