How much of a say do you allow your dh/dp to have over your work life? DH doesn't want me to work

[yoursayhissay]

just interested in how much of a say you allow your dh/dp to have over your work life?

dh earns a good wage, he is also on a board as well as a ft job, so works more than an average ft job.
doesn't want to cut down on work or go part time.
he often worls late etc

and he thinks I should take his feelings into consideration when I decide what I want to do in the future, not that I should do exactley what he wants but i
I should take his feeling into consideration
and that he should have some say in things

what do you do?

Surely the issue thown up by this thread is not that some people stay home and some don't (big news), but that some women's husband wish for them to stay home in a way that would make having a career or job very difficult. Choosing is empowering, being seen as having a second-class career and role in decision-making isn't. And like I say, I've yet to see someone saying 'I'd just much prefer it if my husband stayed home really' .

Absolutelyfabulous - you really are missing the point here. We're talking about husbands who want to dictate whether their wives work or not, and wives who let them.

This is nothing at all to do with mythical WOHMs who believe that all women should be at work. Are we even reading the same thread?

Onetoomany - well, this week DH has been home with the DDs, and it's been wonderful not having the pressure to rush out of the door at 5pm to be in time to collect the DDs from childcare. So, I'm going to break the mould and say it would be lovely if DH didn't work!!

But, only from the perspective that it would make my working life easier. A nanny or aupair would provide a similar result.

So perhaps when these husbands say they'd prefer their wives not to work, they don't mean it in a 'you should stay home and not bother your pretty head with nasty work' kind of way. But instead, it's just a practical viewpoint on their part that their working life is easier with someone at home dealing with the domestic issues.

Now as long as both parties are happy that way, great. And as long as a DH is prepared to suck up any inconvenience to himself when his wife wishes to return to work and makes any adjustments he is able to make to assist her in doing so with minimal stress and maximal sharing of domestic chores.

The problems start when the man genuinely sees any inconvenience to himself as more important than his wife's career choices and a) doesn't make adjustments even if he could or b) openly opposes her choices.

It's hard to change patterns. So if you both pick the nanny or nursery before the birth and go back quickly and he right from the start has a full time working wife and she a full time workinghusband and you divde between you wich days you have to rush home work first then it's much easier than husbando r wife gets used to the other at home and then someone wants to change.

It's adapating to change in long term relationships which is the hard thing for many - that the person you married has altered, wants something different (eg he wants to throw in the career and study art or open a vineyard or take 2 more wives who move in) or whatever the change might be or wife wants to work but married him swearing on the bible she thought working mothers were the devil incarnate which are the difficult things to which to adjust.

"We're talking about husbands who want to dictate whether their wives work or not, and wives who let them."

In France, the right to work for both parties in a marriage is enshrined in law. Which is all very well... but the tax system is such that second earners are taxed at the first earner's marginal tax rate from the first euro. And by the time you have deducted the costs of working (childcare, cleaner, transport), that often means that second earners (so often women) cannot contribute to family income by working.

I think providing BOTH parties are in agreement it really doesn't matter one jot how you slice it.
SAHM, SAHD, both working full time/part time or whatever. Providing both are happy with the arrangement and both understand the implications of that arrangement then it's all good.

AbFab - indeed, that's what we've pretty much been saying. But the main point being that both parties do need to be in agreement, not with the women being pushed into a situation she's not happy with just so her partner can trot on with his career without having to compromise.

I agree that both parties must agree. But I don't agree all choices have the same implications, especially for the woman, however much she wants it for herself.

Fine if the man wants his partner to be work pt or work ft. The choice does not involve burning the woman's bridges. But if it is to give up work, then unfortunately that in practice does burn a woman's bridges in the workplace - so she needs to go in with her eyes open that she is economically dependent on her partner's sense of fairplay to value her non-financial input on par with his, as the external world will not. If he dies, becomes disabled or leaves her, he/she had better have made advance provision for her and the children otherwise it is a precarious position to be in.

Great for a man who wants to go full tilt at his career, to have a SAHM. He holds all the financial cards. Not so great for his partner if he does not deliver the goods down the road for any reason.

Sometimes it's the simple logistics which put the pressure on one parent more than the other. I work 10 mins from home with DD2's nursery right next door. DH works an hour away. So he would have to cut more off his day than me to pick the DDs up, meaning that logically the collection of both DDs falls on me. If I need to work late, he can pick them up, but that means he has to leave work early, which means he needs to ask his boss, which means it needs to be planned in advance. If I find at the end of the day that I could do with putting an extra half-hour or so, I simple can't do it, and DH can. Which is frustrating.

But then, I don't have to put up with a long commute so it's all swings and roundabouts!

blueshoes - I would agree that any SAHM is putting herself in a very vulnerable situation, and I would hope that every SAHM has put safeguard in place for herself with savings, investments etc in her name only, and property in both names etc in case things go horribly wrong.

My dad ran off with his secretary leaving my mum with nothing after she trotted all over the world after him and sacrificed her career. She's not sure how she'll cope when she retires next year, although she's built up something of a pension and has some investment in property. My dad has retired to life of Riley in his new country home in France (which he paid cash for) with his younger model .

Don't think it won't happen to you.

It won't happen to me. I have substantial assets and half of a substantial property plus pension, insurances etc etc.

I am and would be many, many times better off in any scenario than a full time working mother on a low or medium wage.

Only read the OP

Bit one-sided all this, isn't it?

My DH would prefer me to work less (impossible in current role) and I'd prefer him not to work at all. As it is we both do what we want to do and though it's a bit chaotic at least both of us are happy and fulfilled in our work lives. Better all round tbh

Annie- excellent points. Many women just don't realise how vulnerable they make themselves - you only need to read the statistics to see the sheer numbers of women who don't have adequate long term financial provision.

But of course life is not just about money- a working life is about so many more things than that.

Quattrocento - another excellent point. Life is about so much more than just taking the narrow view of what suits us personally at any given time. I also would hav found it easier, on a personal level, if my dh had stayed home while our children were preschoolers in nursery and I was teaching 3 days a week. It would have saved writing out a humungous nursery cheque each month. It would have meant having a meal cooked for me more often when I arrived home worn out. But those are entirely selfish reasons, which would have overlooked the fact that his career matters as much as mine. It makes me' wonder whether these men referred to on this thread who 'prefer' to have their wife at home.... I'm sure it makes life easier for them in the short term but you need to think long term too

My DH neither prefers me at home or at work. As it happens, his life is considerably smoother with me at home given his demanding job BUT if I wanted to work ( actually- I do run a very small businessy type thing which doesn't make money but saves us over a grand a month so in effect, I earn) I would with no qualms and we would adjust accordingly and employ a nanny/au pair and so on.
I don't know how other people organise their lives and if they're happy - they are no concern of mine.

Abfab- you are posting as if you need to justify your own personal situation. You don't!

You have already explained that you enjoy being at home, that a job is your idea of 'hell', that you have your own pension and investments sorted, and your husband is happy for you to not work. That's great! No problem.

But the bigger picture, which posters like Xenia refer to, is that this isn't the reality for most women. A frightening percentage of women do NOT have adequate financial provision in place. Thats a fact. Also, very many women lose confidence dramatically after being out of the workplace for several years - read the threads on MN from the women themselves. In my professional role I come across a lot of women who have lost confidence and end up underemployed in low status low paid roles. I also come across women who were blissfully happy staying at home for a number of years, and then when the children are older, realise they DO want more, and can find it far harder than they thought to regain a foothold in the working world.
Its great if you choosing to not work, and everyone in your family is supporting that decision and the financial implications and long term implications are totally covered- but that is not the reality for tens of thousands of women.

Yes but then the average man earns a relatlivey l ow sum of about £20k a year anyway and plenty of women earn under that. Most women don't earn even over £25 or £30k so they aren't giving much up except their call centre or minimum wage job by giving up work. It's different if they have the capacity to earn £100k+ etc That's why the decision as to who works and whether it's worth it is often down to money and who earns what. in our case it kind of reversed. Before we married he raised it not me that if the working and having a daily nanny didn't work he'd give up teachign. I remember him talking about bringing the potential baby to meet in in a park near work to breastfeed. The nanny thing did work out ( she stayed 10 years).

Then much later when we found if I worked from 7.30am to 8.30am an he looked after the children then I'd earn his annual head of department teacher salary when he had been the job a very long time and wasn't too happy and had loads of other work on too he did give that and that was easier because suddenly there was someone else always there. That's kind of currently the position again too due to the older children being here who are adults. In a sense we need communal living with relatives perhaps because there is always someone here for the children, the door bell, the jobs etc and it is so much easier that that is so and when I'm here I'm based at home.

The thread is about whether who decides what in a marriage though and the extent to which you can adapt to a partner who changes an agreed status quo.

On violet hill's post yes that's very common and plenty of women give up work hate it anyway and wish they were back and particualrly in a recession really never ever get back which may be fine when you've babies but when you're 40, the children are getting bigger and your husband has 20 years of professional success and the new model younger wife you might wish you also had high earnings and a career you love when the children regard you as redundant. And I won't repeat the number of times silly men on dates have told me how cleverly they have hidden money from really stupid wives who don't know a P60 from a pension plan. These women need to take themselves off on to business and tax courses not how to polish my nails days.

I have one regret in life so far at the age of 48 and that is giving up work when the children were little.

On that last point, I have lost count of the number of (reasonably intelligent ) women I know who assume that as long as their husband has a decent pension they'll be ok. They honestly believe that if their husband dies first, they continue to receive the entire pension, and look at me like this if I ask whether there is widows benefit etc!

Did the OP ever come back to say whether she wanted to work and he wouldn't let her or she didn't want to work but he wanted her to?

Xenia - I am ( comfortably!) in my forties and know every penny of our finances and where it all is.

Why do you assume every high earning man will dump his wife for a younger model? I don't know anyone to who this refers and I know many high earning ,middle aged happily married men. I think maybe your own experiences means that you are incapable of seeing past that.

" How to polish my nails " days! PMSL!! It's so funny, Xenia , your view of non working women, it's so pathetically out of touch that I can only laugh at you, TBH.

See, I don't know ANY women like that Violethill. All my ( working and non-working) girlfriends are educated, intelligent and totally on the ball.

It's not just security for the woman - it's for the whole family. My DH had one of those all-consuming, highly paid jobs - and he was just as expendible in a recession as the next man. Luckily I had kept working (although financially didn't need to) otherwise we'd have been in a hideous situation.

Ah you obviously mix in more educated circles abfab

Seriously though, the statistics show that a frightening proportion of women a) do not have adequate provision and b) are not aware that they have inadequate provision

It should be a joint decision. My DH's career has been affected because I work as he goes to work late so he can take the kids to school in the morning but he actually prefers being involved with the kids and is not really that into his career. Me working takes the pressure of him to be the main breadwinner. It would be easier for me if he went part-time as I earn more but I would never ask him to do that unless he really wanted to. Plus I like working reduced hours. It depends what works for you both. I could not be at home all the time especially if the kids were at school and like the independence of working. My SIL split up with her husband because he did not like her working and she resented being at home. For me that was not a healthy situation. My s's husband would like her to work but she knows he would not help with childcare or housework so refuses to and he has accepted it. Each to their own but I would never insist a partner stays at home or works as long as we can afford it.

I do, as it 'appens, Violethill