DO NOT BE A SAHM!!!

[Blindinglybaffled]

Oh God it’s long, sorry!
Urgh, I’m having a bad week😔. But please can I ask that anyone considering being, or in the early stages of being a SAHM - seriously think(!!) and DON’T do it! I know, I know there are loads (?) of women for whom it’s worked, 18 years ago I’d have told you it was THE best decision I ever made. Dh & I agreed that when we had kids one of us would stay home and whoever had the best career prospects at that time would continue…for a while it looked like that’d be me …but it didn’t last. I loved being a sahm and when we moved to ‘paradise’ (/middle of nowhere) we again discussed and I pointed out I would never be able to regain my career in that location. DH said no worries, he was thrilled with the arrangement. He was so capable financially - tighter than me which was a real feat! - just really careful.… 20 ish years later and he’s mismanaged our assets, on a huge scale on top of which he invested in a company I told him not to and it looks like we’ve lost £100k at least…and he’s been made redundant (on 💩 terms). Our eldest teenager came down earlier and gave me both barrels because “if I just earned some money it’d never have got this bad” - WTAF. Dh has obv fed the kids the narrative that it’s all my fault. I do believe having a parent at home is the best way to parent if you can. But(!) it’s just not possible these days and we need to leave the model behind. To the sahm who thinks it’ll never be her, I never thought it’d be me. Please protect yourself- one or two days a week is enough if you can. Just never stop! The next 25+ years of my life are going to be pretty feckin rubbish. It’s my own fault, please don’t be me.

Lots of women hit their middle years and then disaster strikes and the future they had been working hard for is gone in a split second. Partners cheat, partners die suddenly or they fuck up the finances. None of which can be prevented by not being a working parent.

Of course you can’t always prevent life changes, but those changes land very differently if you have your own resources, an established career and choices open to you.

Women who choose to stay home and don’t work leave themselves very vulnerable to those life changes and often then have to try and build earning power while also going through the distress of the significant life change. It’s incredibly naive to put all your eggs in one basket (ie his career) when that basket could walk out the door tomorrow with no obligation to you other than a paltry sum in the form of child maintenance. Yes it’s shit, but it happens time and time again, and women invariably carry the cost.

@Laurmolonlabe I chose my own investments and DH isn’t involved but I feel like it’s my money to do with what I like.

I agree with you OP. I see SAHMs who adore it when their babies are young, and then when they grow up and leave home they are bereft.

Similarly I've seen women at work go part-time to fit around their kids, then when their kids get older they go full time and jack up their career - get promoted, socialise with work drinks, have a full happy life while the SAHMs are lonely.

That could only happen because they "kept their hand in" while kids were young.

I work full time with little ones and I don't think it's the best balance, but I work flexibly so I see them all a lot during the week - and even one day WFH with them all with a nanny at ours, so I have breakfast/lunch/dinner with my kids. I would never give up my job and financial independence

It’s not that you were a SAHM - it’s that you’ve been financially abused. You should have both been overseeing the finances and you should have at all times been aware of and involved in how finances and assets were being managed. No investments should have happened without your agreement. If you are SAHM then the finances are joint and should be treated as such. If the situation is that ‘D’H took the reins on money as he saw his earnings as ‘his’ then he is a dick and no amount of you working would change that. And I say this as someone who would never ever give up my job to rely on a man (in fact my DH was SAHP for first two years of our DD’s life and still works PT to be there for her)…

Sorry this happened to you OP. But it isn't that black and white. DH earned the money, I stayed at home and handled the money. For tax purposes especially, I always had money in my own name, and although he has a large pension, he gifts money to me to invest. We spread our assets in terms of investments, bonds and cash.

I hope you have the house in joint names too?

But this has absolutely nothing to do with being a sahm. I was ( not know ) and knew exactly where every penny was going ?

Nothing to do with sahm. This is more a misogney and letting the man take care of all the finances

@Blindinglybaffled This is down to DH if you agreed your life style arrangements. He’s lost the money! You
moved to somewhere that he knew didn’t suit your career. Yes, teens see things in black and white. Is this a boy that gave you both barrels? He’s a charmer isn’t he!? I’d say both of you have failed with him!

It’s perfectly ok to be at home with a decent loving husband who is good with money. Look at various private schools and loads of mums don’t work.

A couple of days working in a low legal
job without any pension much would really have got you nowhere. You now need to hone your skills and start work.

What did you do? What about child care? Working in a school? What qualifications do you have? I totally understand that confidence goes but you’ll have to put your big girl pants on! Are you staying with this lying waste of space?

I hope you feel better for getting this off your chest, OP. But what's done is done - you need to regroup, think ahead to your plan B. First of all definitely put that naive teenager of yours to rights and apportion the blame where it's rightfully due - your husband - make sure to have a calm conversation with her when your husband isn't around, maybe give it a few days until you start feeling less blindsided.

You have options - you have a degree and professional qualifications and you can absolutely get back into the workplace. Start looking and applying now, your kids aren't young any more and you absolutely can and will get a job in due course. Even starting at the bottom, you will be able to work your way up and get your pension back on track. Of course you will have NI credits for the years of being at home with your children, up to the age of 16 (Home Responsibilities Protection).-

Similar happened to me - looking back I realise I was a bit naive and wanted it to work out being a SAHM mum, this was despite being older and already having over 20 years in a good job, thankfully with a pension, albeit obviously deferred. The inevitable happened - divorce due to lots of lies about job loss and dire finances - and I moved in with my parents for a while. I pretty quickly got another job, in the public sector this time, which also came with a pension. I rebuilt my and my daughter's life I would say within a year for the new job and about three years to buy another house for us both.

You will need to have a good hard think whether your marriage is salvageable, I suspect not after this betrayal - take your time and map out a better future for yourself and your children OP - wishing you all the very best. It's so easy to be wise in hindsight but life happens - not always how we want it to be - please try not to blame yourself here. Positive action - onwards and upwards.

@Blindinglybaffled He was so capable financially - tighter than me which was a real feat! - just really careful.… 20 ish years later and he’s mismanaged our assets, on a huge scale on top of which he invested in a company I told him not to and it looks like we’ve lost £100k at least

Investing in an individual company is stupid.

Losing £100k on a single company is really really stupid.

Husband is at fault here.

You married the wrong man.

Some massive generalisation here , I’ve been both pt and a SAHP , haven’t worked full time since I was about 20 and I’ve never been bereft about my children growing up or been lonely . You do realise that you can have friends and a social life independently from work / mum friends . Anyhow ,being lonely or bereft is not the OPs issue , her issue is that she has a rubbish husband and an extremely rude child , which must in some part be down to her seeing as she helped raise the child .

Your problem isn't you being a sahm, your problem is you stuck your head in the sand, coupled by the fact your dh is zn arsehole.

So it was fine for you to be a sahm but you don’t think others should be. You could have gone back to work at any point in the last 18 years, you didn’t because you enjoyed being a sahm and not working. Nothing wrong with that but you knew the risks and that it’s meant your weren’t building a career and risking financial stability.

Our eldest teenager came down earlier and gave me both barrels because “if I just earned some money it’d never have got this bad” - WTAF

Well id be telling her she can learn form this situation - not to marry a feckless fucker who invests against her wishes in a company that has gone tits up and to ensure joint decisions are ignored and keep on working when you have children

I see your teenager has absorbed the belief that everything men do wrong is a woman's fault somehow.

Daft thread. I was a SAHM before my kids went to school then went back to work and have a lovely career which has seen me through my divorce.

Your teen is right, you should be bringing money in. You are not a SAHM of teens there is no such thing. You are long term unemployed and there is no resilience in your finances because of that.

Ok maybe this isn’t so much don't be a stay at home parent. It’s more “make sure you keep abreast of the home finances”. Different things work for different families but both adults should be involved in the finances

Hope things improve for you

It’s perfectly ok to be at home with a decent loving husband who is good with money. Look at various private schools and loads of mums don’t work

And yet sometimes these women end up divorcing & their future still looks very different from what they envisaged.

What has happened had nothing to do with you being a SAHM and everything to do with your dh not being great with finances

Theres being careful and there’s being smart with money they are 2 separate things.

Why weren’t you in charge of the money?

Why did you move to a terrible location?

I was a SAHM and made money without commiting to a full time job. Most of my other SAHM friends did (one earned so much that her dh and brother now work full time with her)

It sounds like you cut yourself off from everything and your dh lost all respect for you
so took no notice of anything you said.

Why do your children think this is all your fault?
Are they saying that because you never earned anything that was the reason their father took no notice of you and then lost his job and his redundancy package was shit

Are your children so naive that they haven’t realised that they were the reason you couldn’t go to work
How would they get to and from school, go to friends houses or ECAs

Where are these jobs that you should have got and how much would you have to pay out to do these jobs.

Wrap around care/taxis/holiday clubs they all cost money.

I think ultimately moving to the middle of nowhere was your first mistake
Your 2nd was leaving your dh with sole responsibility of the family finances

Being a SAHM wasn’t the mistake

Have your kids left home yet? I'm not that age yet but this is something I've seen in the women I know who've kids have left home. I also read a study that found SAHMs were the happiest group out of SAHMs, part time or full time working mums when kids were little. Interestingly, part time workers were the most miserable.

Then once the kids left home full-time working mums were the happiest and SAHMs were the least happy by a wide margin. So studies do back up what I'm saying!

I know OP's post was about finances but I think there's a important social aspect to it too, which I was pointing out

SAHM, not SAHM, what's important is financial independence however that's achieved.

In this day and age when we all have relatively equal access to education and employment, it makes no sense for any woman to bring a child into the world if she can't support it on her own if need be. Hoping another adult will hang around and live long enough to pay for everything is not a sound strategy.

It's much harder now to support a family on a single salary and costs increase as kids get older and want more financial support and stuff rather than time. It's just one of those things. Hopefully your husband gets a new role soon.

The problem with living in the middle of nowhere is there is nothing there. That’s the whole point.

The schools are probably miles away, no public transport and unless she became a TA or school dinner lady then most jobs outside of this would barely cover the petrol money to get there let alone wraparound care and holiday cover.

Being a SAHM is one thing

Moving to the middle of nowhere taking away your choices and handing financial responsibility to someone else is a recipe for disaster

That’s why we have life insurance and divorce laws