To tell dh that if by some remote chance I get a job that's it?

[Lovedmywildway]

I've been a sahm since ds was born five years ago. When he started reception last year I didn't go back to work and instead we had three rounds of failed Ivf. I volunteered four days a week instead so that I was doing something and so that I could take time at short notice to attend appointments, have egg collection, recover from yet another failed cycle etc.

Dh wants to keep trying, we are now chasing this pipe dream by planning on going to Spain for donor embryo treatment, we can afford another three cycles.
However he is also putting a lot of pressure on me to go back to work. He doesn't see why he should carry all the financial responsibility which is fair enough. He earns approx £90k so we can afford for me to stay at home, it's more he thinks it's unfair that I'm at home. Well volunteering but not bringing any worth to the house.
I've applied for jobs and miracously have two interviews next week. We were planning to go to Spain in January but I've tried to explain that if I get one of these jobs it won't be possible. They are teaching jobs. I cannot start a new job and then ask for days off to go to Spain, particularly a teaching job. His blasé repsonse was "you'll just have to phone in sick" which I'm not doing, I can't cope with the stress of Ivf treatment abroad, ds and trying to organise a full time teaching job around it. I just can't. If I wasnt a teacher it wouldn't be so bad but I feel even if I get a job doing something else asking for time off at short notice is going to be hard when I've just started.

I've said we will have to wait for next summer and hope that my cycle fits in with the holidays, which it might but then it might not.

I'll probably be told I'm a lazy wimp, im sure most people could cope with the stress but I honestly feel for me it's one or the other. I can go back to teaching or I can pursue this fertility treatment further. I cannot do both. I genuinely think if I do I will have some sort of breakdown. Individually they are stressful, doing both together I just don't think I will cope.

So Wibu to say to dh if I find a job then that's it? No more?

Haven't read the thread, but fwiw you can have time off for fertility treatment. I don't see why that shouldn't be the case because the treatment you are going for is in Spain.

That said, from just the first page of your thread, I realise that's not really the point. Do you want to do it again? Fertility treatment nearly destroyed our relationship which wasn't under the kinds of pressure you describe in your OP as we were childless and both working at the time.

Oh and DH regarded me as a partner and not a gold digging uterus.

Get the job, then get the fuck away. He sounds like a controlling arse. If I were you, I certainly wouldn't be considering having a second child with someone who treats me like an under-utilised asset.

I had IVF while teaching. I was part time and had an amazingly supportive head and it was still very very difficult. Really you would find it very hard to have IVF and full-time teach in a new job. If I were you I would look at supply/tutoring for a while which would enable you to earn money but still have time off when you needed it. (I am ignoring the whole husband attitude thing here).

I think to be honest that I'm just so brow beaten and fed up with everything in general that I no longer know what I want.
Periodically I think about how nice it would be to just no longer BE. Not actually killing myself, but you know, daydreaming about dying in an accident or something.

I think best thing is to see if I get offered a job - which is unlikely anyway given how long I've been out of it - and if so take it from there. If not I will look into supply, there's not as much about I know as it's so expensive that schools invariably try and cover it themselves but it's definitely worth a try. Even if I got one or two days a week it would be a start.

I'm sorry OP, but your "d"h sounds like a right dickhead!!

I think most of your heartache will diminish if you resume your career and decide for yourself how you want to organise your life.

I have so say, your DH sounds vile.

Your dh has no right to make you feel brow beaten. If he is not someone you can explain this to and who will listen I think you should maybe think of living independently.

Op, please listen to the advice you're being given, your life can be better than this.

Op from what you've written your dh sounds horrendous.

But I will assume he is stressed and feeling a burden of providing and the fertility difficulties have hit him hard...Can you find a way of communicating to him that this is just too much? That you need to pull together?

Although it sounds as though if you could get part time supply work you might be better off.

But look after yourself- I've had a breakdown as a result of the combinations of a young child and too full on a job and all the household responsibility and it took my dh seeing and caring for me through that terrible time to take the over burdening seriously. Not great. good luck

wow! :(

whether you go to spain or not love, you've just started your next journey - to the realisation that you're in a deeply dysfunctional relationship.

you are aware that even if you got a job paying £100k he'd still treat you like a sub-species?

please don't have any more kids with him, please get away and get your ds away from such a hideously corrupting influence.

he'll grow up and treat you like shit too, cos that's 'what men do' in your household.

you can change the future, you don't have to let this happen to you/ds.

I agree wholeheartedly with the above comments re you H's attitude

One more thing to add tho - as a manager, I'd be really pissed off if I offered someone a job who then said they need time off for IVF treatment, because I'd know that the likelihood would be that I'd be looking for mat leave cover in 7 months time. (I'll get flamed for that no doubt). I believe that supply would be the best bet if you're going to give in to your H and continue with this plan.

No I entirely agree with you. I don't think it's fair to take a permanent job and then have treatment either.
Although actually given the poor success rate (30% for ivf) you probably wouldn't be looking for maternity cover. Actually you'd be more likely to be looking for maternity cover when employing someone with normal fertility who's ttc. But obviously you wouldn't know they were ttc.
Anyway that's by the by, I agree with you.

You can have time off for IVF. I know colleagues who have done so. As someone suggested, do supply work if you are worried about negotiating time off.

Please don't listen to posts telling you to LTB. Such ridiculousness. I wonder about people on here on advise this for couples who are going through a rough patch or minor arguments. Have any of you actually been through a divorce????

tryharder ,have you actually read the thread ? OP I seriously think you should think hard about whether you want to bring your son up in a household with the attitude of your husband . I think if I were you I would concentrate on getting a job and becoming financially independent ,not tying yourself in to more years of being undervalued and undermined .

tryharder It's more than a rough patch, it's the OP's husband's persistent attitude that she is worth less because she doesn't do paid work, undermining and underestimating everything she does at home, the childcare she provides to allow him to do his job and her volunteering work. The OP is at breaking point with fertility treatment and he is pressuring her to go back to work immediately even though it's not financially necessary, while refusing to listen when she says she can't do the fertility treatment at the same time. He insults and belittles her, he is emotionally abusive. Why do you think someone should have to put up with that?

you probably put as many hours of work in as he does 7-9.15 to get the kid ready for school, a couple of hours cleaning each day, childcare and cooking 3-8pm and all weekend on top of that. So actually excluding the weekends you already put in about 50 hours and that's without having a paid job! You get four hours a day to yourself only on weekdays and you kindly volunteer.

Having a child, he can only pursue his mobile career and all weekend hobby because you are there to take charge of all the fine details in his life. He doesn't appreciate this though. He's obviously very money orientated and grabby. Maybe you could look at how much he is saving by having you there - work out the cost of employing a cleaner, a cook, a taxi service for your child, a childminder because you are all of these for free.

Actually you should be having exactly the same amount of free time. If you worked full time and continued with all the house/child responsibilities, you would have zero free time and he would have all weekend plus how ever many hours mid week.

What do you want to do? Work or try for number two? What you want is important.

I would make time to have a discussions about options. So either

• you work full time, employ a cleaner, stop TTC, employ childcare so you can leave work at 5.30 having completed marking/lesson planning, DH also takes charge of DC one day at weekends so you can have a break/mark

• you continue as you are and TTC and look at doing odd bits of supply if you think it's appropriate