should I wind down my business to be able to clean the house properly?

[SleepIsForNinnies]

Had a massive argument with DH about my little fledgeling business. He says the family is suffering because I spend too much time chasing too little money (well, I've only been going a year or so, plus I'm not in a terribly lucrative field). What he really means is I'm not spending enough time cleaning the house. We don't live in squalor - far from it - but if I get several jobs all at once then I won't have time to hoover or cook elaborate meals. He does his fair share of housework and cooking at the weekend, although he works 60-70 hours a week and is too tired and stressed for conversation most evenings. But then, he does get compensated very well for it. I don't, I probably never will do, but I absolutely love what I do. He's the materialistic one, I'm not one bit. The argument started over us hiring a cleaner. In principle I'm in favour, but it comes down to who pays for it. He wants me to pay for a cleaner, but I feel at least one of us ought to be saving something for a rainy day for the family - it's not like we can't live on his income, just like we have been doing before I started my venture. I'm worried because despite his decent salary he's not saving anything. Who's in the wrong here?

You're as entitled to a job that gives you satisfaction as he is, being a woman does not mean your first obligation is to do the daily drudgery
How are the outgoings split between you? Do you do it relative to your incomes, a straight 50/50? If he has more money, isn't saving any, and I suspect is probably getting a lot more play money than you, then I think it's fair for him to pay for the cleaner. If you split the outgoings relative to income then I don't think it really makes a difference, just treat it as a household necessity.

Difficult to say. You and me have been in similar circumstances, OH working long hours, me with a fledgling business.

Differences are though OH wouldn't complain if I did too little housework ( he would be sleeping in the car if he did) and we have joint finances so it wouldn't be a case of who pays for the cleaner- which we don't btw.

Sorry- that's not much help is it. I guess I'm trying to say it's more about the power/money dynamics of your relationship.

The house won't fall apart if you don't hoover for a week. I let housework slip when I am busy and keep the freezer stocked with home cooked meals for these times.

When work isn't so hectic then I can do more housework. Not the end of the world.

I can see two sides to this.

On the one hand, he's being a bit of an arse if he's basically demanding that you ditch your startup business so you can go back to being a skivvy. That doesn't sound like a very supportive partner to me.

On the other hand, being 'non-materialistic' is a luxury that's really only open to those whose OHs earn good salaries. Do you think your DH would be more supportive if your business looked to be more lucrative? If in effect what you have is a self-funding hobby rather than a viable, profitable business I can see why he might be objecting to you spending all your time on that rather than holding up your end of the SAHP/WOHP bargain.

"he won't pay for a cleaner" ?!!??!?! I think that says it all

No, I don't think you should give up something you say you love to do housework. He should understand how much it means to you, maybe go over this with him in case he doesn't understand how much you get from it other than money?
Re: paying for cleaner, can you afford to do 50/50? It may not be fairest relative to income but seems the simplest solution, especially as you both live there so are both responsible for upkeep/cleaning etc?

Am confused by the "who should pay for a cleaner" argument.
Surely together your finances and time contribute to your household and family. So your total joint income is what you should be looking at and your total hours available.
It seems to make sense from what you've described, that you get a cleaner to help, but I think you need to look at how "your" and "his" money is thought about.

No don't give up your business to clean-if he's not happy with the standard he can help to pay for a cleaner or help more with the cleaning.
It isn't all abput earnings.
Does he want you to feel like a drudge.

Watch out or you'll finish up with a username like mine

What's your hourly rate?

Perhaps you could send him an invoice for the time you spend cleaning!!!

This is a prime example of why having separate finances is not always fair.

OP your OH works long hours ( as does mine), but can only do that because you facilitate that. You are presumable doing the larger shre of looking after ( his) kids, (his) home, shopping cooking etc.

Yes he earns more than you but at your expense. If he had to pay a housekeeper/cook gardener/nanny to allow him to work his 70 hours a week he would not be is such a financial position.

A partnership is more about effort put out than money coming in.

My OH knows that he wouldn't be able to put in the long hours he does, safe in the knowledge that our ( his ) kids are being well looked after.

That's why we have a joint account and never questions a penny of my spending.

We both work equally hard to maintain our family, we share the work and the financial resources.

Tell him you can't afford a cleaner currently but if he takes the kids out on Saturday morning between 9am and 1pm, you can clean the house, and the following weekend, you take the kids out 9am to 1pm and he can clean the house.

And DEFINITELY don't give up your work.

combust22 has it bang on.

He's getting the house he lives in looked after, free, which enables him to earn a large amount of money from which you get little benefit. From the way you describe it, if he halved his income by working in a job that didn't require 70 hours a week, you'd see no difference, is that right? In which case, your finances are not helping you.

We've always paid into the joint account in rough proportion to our incomes, keeping a small amount for our own purposes, but with all household expenses coming out of that joint account. We've each been through a variety of scenarios, including maternity leave, working 0.3 FTE, being full time students, living off redundancy money, and at various times one of us has earned four times the other's income (in both directions). But the joint account consistently gets the money to run the house, the children, the cars, and all our savings are notionally joint.

We took advice when we were first living together thirty years ago from people whose relationships looked solid. This was how each of the couples we asked were running their finances. Nothing I see of people who run entirely separate finances makes me think we're wrong; such systems don't seem to survive children, redundancy or retraining.

Does he love what he does?

Could you live on your income?

I think it's a bit rubbish if you have to give up your dreams to clean the loo. However, it's also unfair if he has to subsidise your dreams doing a job he isn't that thrilled about.

Like other posters, I don't really understand the 'your' money and 'his' money thing.

What combust said.

Yanbu op

well said combust

Is your business an actual business, or a vanity business that you can only do because he pays thre mortgage? If the latter, and you do shorter hours than him, I see his point. If the former then you need a proper chat as to what you see as each of you contributing financially, in work hours, in domestic hours, and how much leisure time and leisure money you each have.

Does he love his job, OP? If he does and you're facilitating that by doing the housework then overall I think YANBU.

But if he's working 70 hours a week at something primarily for the money while you waft about being all non-materialistic and job-satisfactiony on his paycheque then I think he Is NBU to be a bit resentful.

TBH I think you soud a bit muddled. You want him to pay for the cleaner so you can save more from your earnings, or else you think that he should save more from his salary. But you also say that you're not materialistic and your job is never going to make much money. Surely the solution to all of this would be for you to work on earning more money? If you earn enough to justify the time you're putting in he will be more supportive because he'll see you are doing something that makes a tangible difference to the family coffers (or even lets him feel he can work fewer hours as the pressure is not all on him) plus you'll have enough money to pay for a cleaner, out of family money, and still save. But if you insist that your job satisfaction is the most important thing then I think YAB a bit U.

Thanks for all your replies - I am overwhelmed by the support and advice in your replies. OTHM - my thinking is definitely a bit muddled up at the mo so please bear with me!

I don't know whether my business is a vanity business or not - not yet. The field is definitely not lucrative, but I can see that if I get enough experience I might be in a position to either charge more or get a relatively decent job.

What makes it more difficult is that I have a disabled child from a previous relationship to look after (sorry for the drip feed!) - so DH is very lovely to have taken my eldest on (not that we realised about the disability when we married). But this makes it impossible for me to find childcare outside of school hours. So my only real options for employment are to work within a school or be self employed.

It just seems I'm not practical and organised enough to have an immacculate house whenever work gets busy (feeling sorry for myself here).

Oh, and for those you who asked about money - I have earnt the grand total of £3500 this year so far (but in fairness I only take on work during term times), and every penny is in a savings account for a rainy day. Oh, except for one meal for the extended clan that I paid for, plus my latest car service, which I was proud to pay for all by myself. I've been a SAHM for the best part of a decade now, and I really need to feel worth something more than a cook, cleaner, nurse, etc.

Is that 3500 gross or net?

If you worked out your hourly rate, what would it be?

(I do agree that caring for a disabled child puts a different complexion on your situation.)

Incidentally, DH once worked out that in a previous job (on the face of it pretty well paid) the hours were so foul that his hourly rate ended up actually being quite shockingly low. It might be worth calculating your DH's hourly rate to see if it really compares so badly with yours.

When I started working after being a sahm for 8 years I said my dh had to take on more housework as I was tired doing it all. He said he would, after a lot of moaning, but then never really did it. I said he either did it or we got a cleaner. Now we have a cleaner, he pays two thirds as she is doing his bit and I pay a third. (We have pretty separate finances!)

Few thoughts.

He doesn't seem very supportive of your dreams/ideas. I could understand him feeling strained by it if it was draining the family finances but from what you say this isn't the case - actually it's making money. Plus it sounds like it could lead to good things career wise. So yes practical considerations are important but ultimately it's important for a couple to be supportive of each other as far as is practically possible.

Leading off from that, no it's not fair for him to expect you to be a SAHM/housewife forever. You've done that for a long time and want a change, he needs to understand that. If the childcare situation is difficult then you should work together to find a solution even if it's not immediate - he shouldn't assume that he gets to keep his career no questions asked (though if it brings in more, it might be the practical thing to keep - that's up to both of you to discuss.)

Separate finances .... I think this is one of those situations where you either need to split it, have a joint "third" pot for it to come out of, or if you're paying for it, then the cleaner covers your "share" and he still does the same amount of housework. That's fair. It doesn't really work for him to expect you to pay for it AND you only get half of the benefits of it. Or even he gets the whole benefit of it.

I'm just getting the sense from the whole post in general that you're not really acting as a team. He's got his thing going on, you've got yours and you happen to live in the same house and presumably enjoy your free time together, but all of the logistical stuff is separate which is what's causing the problem, because you want to go in another direction but that's going to pull him off course. Being part of a team isn't about that, if one part of the couple isn't happy then that (should be) a problem for both of you, one which you need to work together to find a solution to. If he's leaving it up to you that isn't right and points to bigger issues (IMO).

Lastly don't ever feel grateful that he "took on" your child(ren), even if there are disabilities (but especially if that happened after he joined the family!) Presumably he wouldn't stop feeling responsible for his own biological child if he found out they had a disability, it's the same for a stepchild. He took on responsibility when you got married, that responsibility is there for life, he can't just decide that he doesn't want it any more.

Purely on the maths though, paying out £1000 a year for a cleaner, would still make your household £2500 better off than if you didn't do this business.....

Just saying.

SO all the money you are making is going into savings and you both have enough to meet your needs? So presumably you actually have access to his income for your needs.

If so, I'm not sure I would argue the toss TBH. If DH doesn't want to pay for the cleaner, in the end it is just less money into savings

So you've had a sahp/wahp situation for x amount of years, but now you are in a wahp/wohp situation with him working massive hours for lots of money, whilst you work term time only for significantly less money.... And you are essentially KEEPING everything you earn, whilst your Dh pays for everything else bar one meal and a car service?

Sorry but I think YABU. Your Dh is covering ALL your outgoings as he did when you were a sahp, when the deal was he earned the money, you took care of the home. The difference now is you are both earning money, you aren't looking after the home and you aren't covering any outgoings either!

If I was your Dh I'd be passed too! Not only is he paying for everything with his wages, you want him to pay for a cleaner too - whilst you keep all your earnings! Unfair op.