to not want to be sole earner forever and consider leaving DP because of it

[Anapit]

be frank.
I am 50, been with DP for 15 years. We got tog and had 3 children pretty quickly.I had known him as an acquaintance for many years. Comfortable loving relationship at outset, no lightning bolts which perversely drew me. Relationship now crap.

I had had 2 previous marriages ( 6 years each), no kids in either. good friends with both ex Hs.

for entire 15 years I have worked, he has not. He had no property/ savings when we met. In fact I paid off his 10k debts. I have financed himthro uni. He can't /won't get a job.

I am ONLY NOW deeply resentful of fact I payroll the whole damn thing . I have my own business (which took me years of hard work to establish) and share all my earnings.Never set any limits on his spending .He spends as much time on his expensive hobby (scuba diving) as I do at work. I pay for all his kit and holidays. I earn a lot and am very generous - give thousands to charities every year.

Made sense when we were a couple He technically is the stay at home parent but the youngest is now 10 and I only work 2 days a week and when at home do ALL the home stuff.

I am silently seething because he does very little at home ( house is a dirty mess) and he wont get a job because I earn so much he thinks it's not worth his while.

Please advise. The relationship is crap.

Some strong women fall for weak men because they like the dynamics of that relationship, in the same way that some men like women who don't challenge them in any sphere of their lives.

'if you can't offer support, why are you posting ?'

Because this is AIBU not relationships and I wanted to put an opinion that was reflective rather than just unquestioningly supportive. I had a SAHP for a decade too, and I'm still married to him.

MoreBeta - this guy got another job, but he quit

Goblin - shit are men who work time not supposed to lift a finger otherwise? Shit, poor DH, here I've been all this time presuming he's just as capable as I am of pulling his weight.

I don't think what happened in the past really matters.

It's here and now that counts, if you're sure you want to end it, end it.

You've been shrewd financially, so you'll be ok, he's been naive financially and will have to get a job.

If the children are going to live with you, and he has no money you're going to need the assets anyway.

anapit - I read one of your other threads where you say you deliberately didn't marry DP so he would not get access to your assets. You have repeatedly discussed your concern about him getting some of your assets if you split.

That is a business decision.

i'm getting swamped by all these messages and thanks each and every one of you. Wmster, thanks especially for your balls to the lawyers post!
AF , thank you for your excellent attempts to bring the discussion back to the stuff that is relevant in my own particular case.

The problem with long threads is it is hard to pick up all the detail and the longer it gets the more chance of someone adding something that is not relevant. I do understand that.

I really appreciate ALL posts, including the critical ones. And the person( sorry, forget who) who said further up that I have been married twice, it might be me that's the problem , that's a very valid comment!!

do we all think people have the right to fall out of love ?

to grow, to develop, to change their mind, to realise what may have once worked for them no longer does ?

that they have the right to leave a relationship, because they want to ?

because I do

some of you seem to be arguing against that right

the only proviso I put on any of that, is that the leaver is honest with the leavee

I see no signs here that the OP is planning to deceive, mind-fuck or other wise treat this man badly

so all this guilt-tripping people are trying to do, makes no sense to me

I think having a full-time job, being responsible for all the family financial commitments and being a father who spends time playing and interacting with his children is pulling his weight.
I felt the same when I was working full-time and OH was doing the SAHP bit, and so did he.
I said I'd read threads and not commented because there was no point, you have not changed my opinion AF.

Ana, I think I am about spent, tbh

gawd knows how you must feel, this is your life, after all

haven't got any more to add to this thread, feel free to pm me anytime

all the best, love x

Yes Morebeta I absolutely deliberately did not marry because he was penniless and in debt . Quite bloody right I was too and I would advise my children to do the same if they were ever in my shoes.

That does not mean I run my life like I run my business. That is a huge leap.

thank you very much AF, your contributions have been especially appreciated.
I am even getting sick of this myself now

boshankles said

"I don't think what happened in the past really matters.

It's here and now that counts, if you're sure you want to end it, end it.

You've been shrewd financially, so you'll be ok, he's been naive financially and will have to get a job.

If the children are going to live with you, and he has no money you're going to need the assets anyway"

that is pretty succinct! Thanks

Hmm. I think that a woman who gets together with a partner in her mid 30s, has three children very quickly thereafter, and quite deliberately chooses not to get married in order to protect her assets, just maybe never really loved said partner and was more interested in finding a father for her children than a life partner to whom she was prepared to commit. By her own admission she chose him because he was a decent man, but there were never any fireworks. Its hard to tell whether he ever loved her, but surely 15 years of not being loved is enough to make any relationship completely dysfunctional. Personally I think in a lot of cases, not loving the parent of your children enough to marry them is a bit of a red flag.

" Personally I think in a lot of cases, not loving the parent of your children enough to marry them is a bit of a red flag."

Thank goodness I don't subscribe to the view that if you love someone "enough" you will marry them! I'd be in deep trouble if I did

Well, I suppose you've tried it a couple of times already, so fair enough if you decided not to go for the hat trick.

goblinchild, yes , that had a lot to do with it
I did love DP very very much, and by the no thunderbolts I meant I was not crazy madly in love in a kind of the only way is down way.

I thought at the time that was a very good thing . Seemed like a mature love that had grown from a friendship of many years.

It was still very deep and felt solid.

So it is you that has changed, not him?
He's unlikely to understand what the problem is unless you sit him down and have a very frank discussion, even if he has a flounce and sulk in the middle.
I'd find it hard to do if my children loved him, but I understand that is a very subjective and individual view, and it isn't intended as a criticism or a suggestion.

Although I very much do think that a lot of people would most definitely be on the 'dp' s side here if the genders were reversed and the opening poster would get a flaming, I have to say I am not one of those people.
In other words, I'd still think 'you owe her nothing'.

There are two reasons for this:
1, Firstly, the person doing the childcare has been paid in kind via free meals, bed and board and so on.

2, They are not married. Sorry, but I should be able (like everybody else) to live with a partner without having to shell out for them financially at a later date (other than the sorting out of jointly held assets, of course ie two cohabitees own a house and it's all on paper legally).
Marriage is different as the people involved have signed the dotted line and have to be held to account if they want to break it up. If they didn't want to shell out, they shouldn't have stood there in front of the world and declared that they'd support each other forever.

If you were married, Anapit, I'd say you should be giving him money now. You're not married, you owe him nothing in my view. Tell him to get out.
I don't know how things work in Scotland, but my guess is that the cohabiting cases involve two working people who can afford the fees and are arguing about things like one of them actually contributing to mortgage (and being able to prove it-that is key) without being named on actual paper as owning house. See the difference between this and your situation?

Wamster, I have to disagree with you about the SAHP being paid in kind via free meals, bed and board.

Very often it is because there has been a SAHP, that the working partner can focus on their career. They can stay late, travel, not take time off in school holidays and when DC are ill. This puts them at an advantage in the workplace. They can also relax in the knowledge that their DC are being looked after by their other parent and don't have the worries of other working parents who have to deal with the logistics and issues surrounding use of nursery/ CM.

There is also an element of sacrifice made by the SAHP. They lose out on the promotions and increased earning power that they could have had in the workplace, not to mention pensions. When a couple agree that one of them will stay home, it should be in the full knowledge that it may well be for much longer than the time the DC are very young, because it can be hard to get back into the workplace and takes a long time to make up the lost time in terms of earning potential. Sometimes it's not possible at all, to regain a former career.

The SAHP shouldn't have to lose out on a career and then be told 'tough shit, I fed you' further down the line, because we are talking about partnerships. Wrt the OP, she is not getting any kind of support from her DP and I can see why she wants out. It also appears that he's not done a great deal of what a SAHP actually does, but he has been with the DC, maybe giving her the freedom to concentrate on her business.

I do agree with you that living with someone shouldn't result in the same rights as if you were married to them, or what's the point of choosing to get married, or not.

Hi

i tried to post this yeasterday but i lost it thanks to upgrades on the site!

Have you considered a trial separation? If he can move out and you can have some space and find out how it would work with the children and access.

It will also give you time to think about what you want in life, 50 is not old these days.

If you feel better with him away from you then make it perminate. Bt as the father of your children you will always have to have contact with him and be civil.

It might also give him a wake up call and sort himself out.

I dont think its about the past or the set up of this partnership. Its the relationship it self and as the OP said its crap, she can work on it or she can get out of it.

I think she did the right thing in not getting married, if more people think about their rights and assests more and how to protect themself in a relationship there would be less pain when the relationship brakes down. I will be telling my children the same thing.

Despite many wise posters whose opinions I usually respect all weighing in behind the OP, I can't help feeling for the DP.

OP wouldn't marry him for financial reasons (it's clear he wanted to marry, from the tone of the OP's posts)

She doesn't value the contribution he made to the household in the past, which allowed her to run her business very successfully. He might not have much practical childcare to do now, but sure as eggs is eggs he will have been very busy until fairly recently.

She doesn't think he has a right to have a hobby.

She criticises his housework (and it may be dreadful, but equally she may have higher or different standards from him - we see that coming up in thread after thread).

She doesn't see her possessions as their possessions, only hers.

Surely this is the time in their lives when they should be enjoying the fruits of both of their labours - reduced working hours, hiring a cleaner, take up a hobby together, enjoy their children?

But marriage isn't just about gaining access to someone else's assets, surely?

What about love? Stability? Declaring to the world that your partner is the one? Wanting to offer the person you love financial protection in worst case scenarios?

If marriage is only a financial transaction then the institution is surely dead.

CinnabarRed, I'm afraid that I do see it as a financial transaction; why does a person need to be married to love somebody else? It makes no sense to me why marriage is necessary for emotional reasons.

I, do, however see that it is vital for legal/financial reasons: if the op and her dp were married, his contributions would be recognised as having worth and he may get recompensed for them by the courts.

But they are not married and as I think that the law keeping its beak out of people's relationships is worth more than the price of some unmarried sahps losing out, it is OK by me that he leaves with nothing.

Also, he has not just been a sahp, has he? He has sponged off her in ways not related to being a sahp.

He sounds a right whiner, though: feels hard done by, moans that she would not marry him. I don't think he is the type to go quietly.