To not want to work?

[jenrose29]

I have a 4.5 year old and a 4 week old. When I fell pregnant with DD1 I gave up a place at Cambridge University to stay home with her, my ex husband supported this and we spent the first three years of her life going to baby groups, the park, walking the dog, baking etc. We loved it :) When ex and I seperated I began a degree with the view of going into teaching when I'm done, I met DP with whom I have a 4 week old and I love him very much. However, though he wants more children, he expects me to work full-time. He earns well and could support us but is eager to have wages from us both coming in. At the moment I take DD1 to and collect her from school everyday, take her to lots of activities, to playdates etc and when baby gets a little older I want to give her the same childhood and attention DD1 had. I simply don't want children that I only see before/after nursery for a couple of hours when it isn't financially necessary to do so. I want the baby and any subsequent children to have the same opportunities/experiences DD1 has. DP wants to try for another baby straight away, which I would too if I could stay home to raise them. Am I being unreasonable?

He also seems to not want another baby out of love, but because he didn't want your DD and actually wants a boy?

What if you have another girl? would you have to keep going until you had a boy because that would make you 'perfect'?

Would he be more willing to support you/join finances/get divorced if you had a boy?

Jen, he should value you for the kind and clever person and good mother you already are...this should not be conditional...

I appreciate your concern, I really do. But starting another thread in relationships would just lead to more people telling me I'm a fool/to leave him when things aren't that simple. DD sees him as her daddy and his family as hers; she'd be heartbroken if we split particularly with having to see him all the time when he came to collect the baby for contact but not her. It'd be awful for her. Never mind the fact that I have no family or friends - she'd only have me.

Jenrose, what do you want people to tell you. People are trying to help and sympathise with your situation. But it's really difficult to make any further suggestions. You obviously don't want to split up. That's totally understandable. But you have to make the situation for all of you as happy and fair as possible.

Your baby is only 4 weeks old so it's not as if you have to make a decision right now as to whether you will work or not before she is five. Do you have to keep worrying about this right now when the decision does not have to be made for quite a while into the future.

Jenrose, none of us really know the full story. We can only say whether YABU, based on the information you have given us and you can see what a difference a couple of pieces of missing information can make given the massive u turn in the direction of this thread.

I think you are also missing some vital bits of information from him on the state of his finances.

I suspect there's not quite as much money as you think available and he's stressing about supporting everyone, but he probably thought it was manageable while you finished your degree and then went back to work and there would be more money coming in. Then he got an almighty shock when you announced that you would finish your degree and be a SAHM.

You need to sit down with him and have an open and honest talk about finances and how you both envisage things working including filling him in on the actual costs of childcare.

If you truly believe he is committed to you then you need to do what you think is right and not what anyone else tells you. Just make sure that you protect your future and that of your children.

I haven't asked him to support me or announced I'd be a SAHM, I just know our opinions on what our future holds diifer greatly. To be honest, other posters have made reference to how I was dithering over whether to move in with him or not due to his lack of divorce/not having sorted contact with his kids and I have stood my ground and I haven't moved in. The SAHM issue is one that needs resolving soon, as along with the numerous other issues, it determines whether I should move in or not. It was difficult to find a landlord who'd accept DD and I as I'm paying rent with savings as opposed to earnings and I don't want to jeopardise that if things didn't work out with him. It's been over 4 months now since I told him I wasn't happy he hadn't sorted his divorce and wouldn't be moving in until he had and there has been no progress. He told his ex's solicitor he'd been applying to the court for contact in March - again, no action there either. I would have thought that not living with his baby would be enough to spur him into action on these things, but apparently not. He keeps saying how much he loves our family, but realistically I'm doing it all alone and we run around after him and I'm more than fed up of it.

I've just been reading this thread. What stands out to me jenrose is that you seem to have settled for very little security before having a child. That you could very easily end up doing that which you hate -single,working,full-time mum. SAHM's are usually married and sharing finances first, as you are finding out, it doesn't work the other way around. You don't have the baby first then try to match your wishes after. You are not even living with this man :-o. What you have is a baby and a BF who could chose to dump you at any time.
I can only guess -as a lot unsaid in this story -that you did not have the best of upbringings yourself, given that you say you moved out of home at 14 yrs old!! Look within, we are to a large degree creators of our own destiny. If you don't like what's happening around you, you have to change the circumstances and take control because you can wait a lifetime by falling back on others

jenrose29 I wonder if you have ever questioned why being a SAHM is so important to you? Every post you make, it seems to come back to that. It seems that its so incredibly high on your list of priorities, its overruling common sense and normal life planning.

I, along with most people I think, see being a SAHM a bit of a luxury. Its something not everyone can afford, unless you resign yourself to a life on the breadline and/or benefits.

The logic being, that unless you marry a wealthy-ish man, you're unlikely to have the security or finances to support being a SAHM for very long. You must be intelligent to get an offer from Cambridge, so I don't understand why your ambitions in life at this age are so low, and so inflexible. Why on earth is it so important to you? What is really that wrong with working to help out with finances, when you choose to start a family young, and your chosen partner has another family to support already and isn't a high earner?

Hi Jenrose,
I read your posts and really feel for you as it seems that you really feel strongly about staying home with your children.

Unfortunately you cant FORCE your DP to do anything! So you need to change the things in your life that you are able to change. This is the hardest thing for you to accept, but once you have accepted it you will be able to start making decisions to improve the situation for yourself and your DDs.

Now that you have revealed that you dont in fact live together as yet and you are actually paying for EVERYTHING for yourself and your DDs this is a real concern as you say a large amount of your current expenditure comes from savings.

You dont say whether you are receiving any benefits at all and he really should be paying child support for your baby DD if you are living apart!

Savings dont last forever so you realy need to sort something out before you start getting into debt or you risk falling behind in rent and becoming homeless.

Upthread someone suggested childminding and you dismissed it quite quickly I feel.

You said that your partner likes to spend evenings with you and you feel that childminding paperwork would affect this time together. Well your DP cant have everything his way either! Maybe look into childminding for before/after school/school holidays school-aged children as this might fit around your studies better.

Or maybe you could put both your DDs into a childminder after school hours and do tutoring for primary aged children in that time instead? You wouldnt be away from them for very long each day if you do this.

Try to start thinking logically about it all and planning for the future in a practical way, small steps at first, putting yourself and your DDs as the priority.

If you DP starts taking on an active role in your relationship, divorces his wife, takes on more of an equal role as a partner (and this includes being honest about income/debts etc) then maybe you can consider moving in with him and then you might consider having a 3rd child.

Please dont waste years waiting for him to do what you want him to do!!

Sorry if this is going to sound harsh.

You say that you are living on savings. Obviously this is nosy, but are they from when you worked before your first daughter was born? You said that you had saved up to do a degree which you are doing now.

That must have been a lot of savings if they have lasted you all this time? Also, you must have had quite a good income if you have saved so much. I find it terribly hard to save money to be honest.

Just to mitigate my comments which might seem intrusive, I'm 40 now and have been a SAHM (though I hate the term) for 4 years, although do exam marking and tutoring. I wasn't entirely honest with my husband about how soon I'd go back to work, I should have been, really. I'm not saying you aren't honest, I'm saying I'm not a paragon of virtue.

I didn't realise you weren't living together. So when you said earlier that 'he pays the rent', you meant for his own home, which you don't live in? You are paying your own rent out of your savings?

Yes surely he should be paying you child support? He's married to and has a family with someone else, you don't live with him, and he isn't supporting you or your child financially - you are a single parent. Are you not entitled to some benefits then?

If you're not living together, and you're having to chase him for contact etc, how would splitting "officially" be any different to how things are now?

The fact that if you split he wouldn't want anything to do with your dd1 speaks volumes tbh. Splitting up shouldn't mean losing family, and surely you expect a new partner to treat your existing children as their own?

Perhaps if you weren't so busy tying yourself up in knots about this man you'd have more time to rebuild friendships that have fallen by the wayside, and make new ones?

Did you have friendships when you met dp that you've let drop, or is is just a time issue?

I'm sorry but I really can't see any benefit to this relationship at all.

I'd also strongly urge you not to move in with him.

I'm a lp (one child) who had similar problems finding a rental property as I was a student (and therefore had an income but no earnings).

Lots of places wouldn't even let me apply for properties despite a guaranteed income and 10yrs of perfect references.

You'd be putting yourself in a very vulnerable position, and therefore also your children.

Does it not concern you that no matter what aspect of this relationship you post about you seem to receive largely similar advice from a group of people with absolutely no other agenda than to offer help?

I thought they were living together, but it's only a recent thing?

It sounds like you two have very different views on how the family should be run. You really need to talk. Neither of you are being unreasonable. But you need to come to some agreement.

And VolAuVent, it's not true you have to spend a lot of your income on childcare. It depends on how much you earn .

Ok, now I'm confused .... Ignore what I say.