can i ask how much your dp/ dh does at home?

[hugeleyoutnumbered]

i mean in terms of getting up with the children, housework, and sharing the responsibilities of parenthood?

It's an argument I've come across but TBH I've never seen why 'parity at home' has to come at the expense of 'greater equality in the workplace.' Surely we should have both?

I think women can fight back at the grass roots level by trying to achieve more domestic equality. In the workplace though the drive has to come from legislation IMO. THere are too many pressures against women that they simply cannot tackle on an individual basis.

My golden rule with living with anyone other than children is that it should make your life easier not harder. This should apply whether you are a SAHP, in a middle-of-the-road job or in a high-flying career. I have to clean up after myself because I am a single parent. My DC (twins aged 4) already make their own beds and put their own dirty clothes in the wash basket. It's not hard and to leave it to someone else is just disrespectful. I would not do that to my partner even if they earned nothing. I have had it done to me though, which is why I am now single.

He irons, puts washing out and away, cooks occasionally, clears up after dinner and does 30% of the cleaning.

I put washing on, do 70% of the cleaning, and most of the cooking.

I do most of the running round on child related activities (dance class etc), he does mornings with dd as I set off for work earlier, I do afternoon childcare as he is home later.

He does errands ( going to bank, paying bills, car servicing etc).

So a 50/50 split I would say.
We work similar full time hours but he earns substantially more than me.

Sorry if I sound all preachy Spuddy. I've been where you are and put up with it for years longer than I should have done. I'm not judging you or telling you what to do. I m just trying to get you to see your true worth and that your H is not giving you the appreciation or respect you are due.

Oh, and all money goes in one pot.

Cheers sunshine - i know my worth ta i am very confident and i only do what i want. if i dont want to do it i dont - i grew up with a bully father who sees all domestic chores as womens work.
As i said earlier it's the money thing which is tricky. I think he just doesn't get it at the mo' as he thinks i can earn more. But I know he has already started an investment fund for me when i have a dc it is up to 12k which means i can have 1k per month for me and baby and i have already said he cannot tell me what to spend it on.

spuddy - I wasn't going to post on this thread again but since I've read your posts I feel I have to.
I know it's different because we have a DS, and we're married, but my DH has just happily paid out around £2,500 in travel fares for DS and me to go to the UK without him. He has paid it because he is the earner - I am SAHM.
What you have to wonder about is how your P is going to react to "paying for you" if you DO have DC - is he still going to quibble about paying for you when you are not earning/on mat leave? Is he still going to expect you to pay your 1/3 of the bills out of your mat pay? Because if he IS then run away fast, do not have DC with him.

Because love is not enough - he doesn't value you. He likes to have you around because you housekeep for him and care for him - but he has no idea of caring for you. As far as he is concerned, you are a housemate he is shagging by the sound of it - and that isn't enough to build a decent relationship on.

Otherwise you are going to find yourself in a much worse position some years down the line, when you have a couple of DC and he is STILL the only one with spare cash, making you pay for the DC because "why should he spend all his hard-earned money on them?"

You can see his point - yes, so can I at the moment. It's his attitude that stinks and you need to see that for yourself and decide if you want to be kept barefoot and penniless because he is too fucking selfish to want to look after you as well as himself.

Xpost with you - but I still don't think it's enough.

Hi thumbwitch - i wont get mat pay so no he knows when i have a baby it's all up to him. I also wont have a job to go back to so may find it very difficult in this climate to even find a job - let a lone one which fits with a dc.

He worries so much about not being able to look after me and a baby that it clouds his judgement i think. He talks about it all the time. He wakes in the night and says panicked 'what if i lose my job'.

Obviously these posts dont give the whole picture and i defo would not be with anyone who i thought would behave like that.

Spuddy, do you think he has some sort of major psychological issue concerning money?

From what I've read on here, every alarm bell I have is ringing. I am particularly worried by your 'pimping' analogy and I am very concerned about how you will be treated if you have a child with this man. However, I am not arrogant enough to assume that I, a perfect stranger to you, can know the reality of your situation from a few posts on the internet. Ultimately, it is your life and your call. If you truly believe that he is a decent man and will not financially abuse you, then there has to be another explanation for his behaviour with money. As you've just mentioned his anxiety over it, could there be something else going on that is causing his behaviour? Might counselling help him or you regarding this?

His parents are totally insane. they have lots of money but wont spend any of it. they are convinced everyone is after it and only buy stuff from massively discounted places or jumble sales.

They invest on the stock market because they are greedy and just want more (although i dont know why as they never enjoy any of it) and if any shares go down they go mad not speaking to each other and ringing dp crying they've lost all their money (they haven't).
His mum looks at house prices constantly and keeps emailing him telling him his house is 'worth' way more than anyone would pay for it.

They think the only worth in anything is monetary and they lie. They but shite from a car boot sale and self value it as an antique and say it's worth thousands of pounds. Plastic jewellery from next suddenly becomes vintage. it is pathetic.

His mum has tried to get involved in our bills and stuff saying she could get it cheaper. When we renewed the car insurance it turns out she called them and said she was us and we had moved to her house so the car was registered somewhere £10 per year cheaper. DP went mad as it would have meant we were guilty of fraud and if we had an accident wouldn't have been covered.

All to save ten quid!

Ok, that sounds bizarre. Might well explain your DH's attitude to money though. I really think it would be a good idea to go talk to someone professional about this before you have a baby. Even if he loves you more than anything, the extra stress of knowing he now has a baby to look after may cause him to behave even more erratically with money, which could leave you in an impossible situation.

Spuddy - you are right, obviously you know him better and it sounds like his family have real ishoos with money all round - but he does need an attitude adjustment or you may well find yourself accounting for every penny you spend of "his" money. Of course, he could do a complete volte face when you have DC - but do you honestly think he will? Because if you read the threads on here where women are completely financially dependent on their DH who has a control-freak mentality when it comes to money, it's very uncomfortable reading.

Still - if you go into it with your eyes open you can hope to change him before it gets out of hand.

Pretty much 50/50 even at the moment when I am on maternity leave. I do more deep cleaning, he does more day to day tidying. Though today I went shopping with the kids and he stayed home and did housework including all the floors. I do pretty much all the family organising though.

Mine does all of the cooking, washing up, Laundry, shopping, light cleaning, DIY.

I do his taxes, manage the finances, anything that involves research ( booking holidays, house hunting etc) and bake on demand.

We have a cleaner to do the heavy cleaning eg bathrooms, ironing, etc

We both have demanding professional jobs and earn similar salaries.

thanks again to you all. as i said earlier i am too laid back about it and very forgiving but it's time i was more direct.
he acknowledges his parents insanity and says he doesn't want to be like them - which is why he spends lots on himself (he has seen there self denial and misery) he just needs to realise spending on me is okay too.
He wanted to go on an expensive hol but i said i couldn't afford it. he said that i should save up, knowing i only have £100 per month for myself. So i said did he think i should put that whole amount away for 10 months to go on a 10 day hol? and he said yes, i had to learn to save!
I said if he thought i would not go out or buy a lipstick for 10 months just to go on hol for 10 days he was mad. he thought about it and agreed and paid for the trip for both of us.
He just doesnt understand the concept of having no money. When i say i have none he says 'go to the bank' he just doesn't seem to get that 'no, i dont have any money'!
He doesn't pay any bills or even open the envelopes. When we first moved in he was supposed to be paying the council tax and just didn't. it wasn't till we got a court summons that i opened the letter and had to sort it out.

all very bizarre.

But anyway thanks again for the support i do really appreciate it.

Spuddy - if you do have children with him you need to get something put on a formal footing, I think - I have never been a fan of having one pot for all money because if one partner goes off they can (and do :() drain it all - but I am a big fan of having one joint account for all household expenses and keeping own accounts for "own" money.

So if your DP isn't paying any bills, is he giving you money towards them? Or are you actually paying them all yourself?

My parents had a very old-fashioned set-up (IMO) whereby my Mum paid all the bills as part of the housekeeping "Job" and Dad paid her housekeeping money every month to do so. They didn't have a joint account at all, only separate accounts, but Dad effectively paid all the household bills and he paid the mortgage. Mum did work as well, when we were at school.

Anyway - it seems as though you have him in hand - keep plugging away at his attitude change, looks like you're doing a good job. :)

Thumbwitch - he pays the mortgage and i pay the utilities, it works out 1 third me 2 thirds him.

No one has a right to live off someone else's money. there is no reason a woman rather than a man should give up work. If both don't agree one will give up work then you can both work full time. In that way women advance and you might end up earning more than he does.

On this:
"Xenia - but what if your skills lie in the professions which are traditionally low paid? sometimes the career picks you as it were and sadly we live in a society which has arbitrarily selected male professions as valuable - ie high paid, and traditionally female professions as not valuable and therefore low paid.

Well done you tho for having the foresight to choose a well paid job. Out of interest is that one of the reasons you chose it or were your skills leaning that way too?"

I think the skills thing is a red herring. You sit there as a teenage girl and you know nurses earn nothing and leading surgeons X. Bankers, actuaries etc etc earn Y. If you're an idiot or a low IQ or from a sexist home you pick the low paid stuff and end up cleaning or a class room assistant.If you're quite bright and work very hard at your exams you get the grades you need to pursue lucrative careers. There are no male and female careers.

It's much harder later to change career but plenty of women set up businesses and work very hard and do very well. On the oher hand most people are pretty lazy of both sexes and don't get anywhere. Many men or women would love to have someone to support them (and I am not suggesting staying home with 3 babies is easy of course but it's also very low grade, not appreciated - you never hear a child saying mummy I am so glad we live in poverty and you were at home or I love muymmy much more than daddy because mummy wipes bottoms and daddy earns £200k).

Xenia. I disagree with that last point. I see plenty of children who have a significantly better relationship with the one parent (usually the mother) as a direct result of them being the primary carer and spending more time with them. It doesn't have to be that way, I agree, but it often is - because as you say most people are lazy and this includes many men who go out to work leaving the childcare to the mother, and then come home and want to sit down and relax rather than muck in with the kids. Kids will always have a closer relationship with a parent who shows that they care.

As for career choices reflecting only intelligence, hard work and free choice, you're not STILL clinging to the idea that we live in a fundamentally equal society where the bright always rise to the top are you? Seriously?

1 in 4 women experience violence from their partners (the real figure is probably much higher as this only includes violence resulting in charges)

The full-time gender pay gap between women and men is 15.5% Interruptions to employment due to caring work account for 14% of the gender pay gap.

64% of the lowest paid workers are women, contributing not only to women's poverty but to the poverty of their children.

There are almost four times as many women in part-time work as men. Part-time workers are likely to receive lower hourly rates of pay than full-time workers.

Unless you genuinely believe that men are more intelligent than women, the reason women have less economic power is because society is set up in a way that makes them mostly responsible for caring for their children. How can women possibly address this when the legal framework is not in place to help them? Where's the childcare? Where are the laws allowing men to stay at home for the first year caring for the DC?

Also, you keep talking as though everything would be fine if women just became top lawyers or surgeons. Given that only 10% of people in society fall into this category, don't you think that's a tad unrealistic?

I don't think we disagree. If women could ensure if anyone goes part time it it the man and if they refused to accept sexist sets up at home they would benefit their chidlren and other women.

I don't just mean women have to be actuaries etc. If we accept the average pay is about £20k then if women married men who earned less than they did as a matter of course their position would ultimately be improved.

Secondly if they didn't go part time but had their husbands do so they would also do better too.

On a personal level though without doubt it does girls more good in their teens to get good exam results, work hard and obtain fulfililng careers than being shelf stackers or whatever and we are not pawns. We are adults and can make choices. Those choices have consequences. Women are not fragile things to be looked after and kept by men and it is perfectly right for a husband to say hey I don't want you working full time when we have children, why should I take on the burden of main earner. This should all be discussed before people marry of course. Just as most of us don't marry the sexist pigs whose mothers have always done everything for them, those with any sense. You do your due diligence before you get too far with someone and that works both ways.

Xenia, with all due respect, aren't you divorced?

Definitely more than me, although I have had to 'relax' my standards a little since our role reversal . I work full time and he doesn't.

Xenia-what a pile of shite you are talking! I worked hard at school,went to university and got a degree. I also made the choice to give up a career to be a sahm because I believe I am making a valuable contribution to them and to society by doing so.
Sadly I am married to a man who has a simliar attitude to yourself and sees no value in what I do.

i think life is much more messy than you say, xenia.

Most of us are clueless about the harsh reality of being working parents/division of labour etc before we get to this lifestage. Dh and I did talk in advance about what we'd do but it's all gone by the wayside in the daily battle to pay the mortgage/keep on top of things etc. It simply came down to who earned the most, what could we afford re childcare etc. He earns SO much more than me that it was a no-brainer for him to be f/t and me p/t..He's the highflier that I'm not.

There's room for all of us in this life, we can't all be top lawyers/surgeons etc nor should aim to be so..I speak as someone with a brain, a lengthy career (now stalled due to being overseas) and 2 PG degrees so I'm by no means an unachiever just much less driven/marketable than dh and therefore not able to earn shedloads..