That marriage is just a financial transaction that serves many women badly and want to warn others before they take the leap?

[thinkingmakesitso]

I just don't think it is made clear enough that marriage is all about money and that people who marry people who do not earn as much as them stand to lose so much and do not realise it.

My stbex was a sahd but had never had a career before he met me - he didn't want one as he sees himself as a musician/writer/free-spirit/free-loader. I am a teacher and have struggled over the last 8 years to excel as a mother and a teacher, cramming as much work as I could into my dc's sleeping time and devoting all my free time to my children, pretty much.

Following his infidelity, which I cannot divorce him for due to not 'getting my head around it' during the designated 6 months the law allows, partly as a result of his failure to disclose the whole truth, I must apparently give him half my pension and, though our house has insufficient equity to make it worth selling it, should consider him a primary carer as he still takes the children to school and picks them up. Yes. Because he has no job as he doesn't want one. I have had three child-free days this week and have spent them working, Christmas shopping, cleaning dc's bedrooms and buying them bedroom furniture and rearranging their rooms to accommodate it. I am exhausted. He has spend his child-free days (6 days) writing his novel and hanging out with friends. Yet he is the main carer because he takes them to school and picks them up. WTF. All organising, thinking, planning is done by me. Yet if he wanted the dc (I am almost certain he doesn't, but will find out for sure when I raise the 'd' word with him) I should accept that he may well get them and I would therefore have to subsidise him to enable that to happen.

I have a friend who is about to enter into a very similar arrangement that I had with ex and I want so much to warn her. Of course, she and her dp are happy and in love now, but I did not marry and procreate with ex thinking that he was a shit who would do me wrong, yet he is and did. I know I WBU to say this to her, but I really think many people enter into marriage unknowingly.

I worry about who is seen as the 'primary carer' because it could result in him being awarded a greater share of the custody than me and, even if it were 50/50 I would have to support him financially to achieve this as he could not afford it. In doing that, I would probably have to sell up and the children and I would be put through enormous upheaval. He told me in the summer that he was going to 'try not to work until Christmas' in order to finish his novel. FFS, in what world does a responsible parent talk like that - I know, one in which someone else is being the responsible one.

I am more than happy to let him continue doing the childcare (and that is all he does atm, though he did do more when we were together) but he is being increasingly awkward about it - complaining if I am slightly late home on one day, then insisting on staying until bedtime on another when we are supposed to have set days when he does this. He wants to treat this like it's still his some - legally it is, I know, but emotionally I can't cope with that. Think next step is mediation for us, but I don't know how I am going to get time.

The courts would give you both set days and times to see the children, and if it was one of "your" days, then he wouldn't be allowed to decide to stay until bedtime.

Divorce is always unpleasant, but I really don't see that the courts would take their children away from you just because you work full-time. A friend in a similar situation was awarded joint custody. Also, I would imagine that the judge would take into account that your children are now school age, and would expect him to get at least a part-time job. This happens when it is the woman who was the SAHP - the man isn't expected to keep her in perpetuity.

You may well have to sell up though - its a bummer when he's cheated on you, but in the case of divorce it really is only fair that both people get a share of the marital assets and, as you say, he did look after the children well when they were under school age.

Focus on the positives - it sounds like your kids had a really fab upbringing when you were together, with one parent at work and one at home, so do give him credit in your mind for the fact that he was there for them when they were littlies.

Most female sahp do the washing up, laundry , school admin etc etc. The ops oh does not.

Yes, but we don't know what he did when the children were young. I agree that he seems lazy now (why can't he find a job now the children are at school), but staying at home to look after children under school age is not laziness, whether its a man or a woman doing it. And not all female sahp do all the housework - plenty of them on mumsnet seem to have cleaners! I'm a teacher like the OP, and its a full-on job during term-time. I would imagine that having a partner at home would have been really beneficial to the OP - lots of parents evenings, school performances etc go on until well after 9, and nurseries aren't open then.

If this was reveresed you would be flamed. Hes a shit, he had an affair.

The problem is very very very few couples get 50/540. In most cases the chidlren live with one parent primarily after divorce, bond with that one and the other they don't see that much of. My own case is extreme as their father doesn't choose to have them even one night a year but even in more normal cases the children might well here live with the father and the mother gets some limited contact.

So if at the moment both these chidlren are school age and the father does drop off and collection it is not the same as toddlers with father doing 24/7 care. So it may not be too bad but most children want one home not two so it is unlkelyto be in their interests to become gypsies between two homes most of the week. that that is the problem for the non primary carer they basically lose their children and become Disney fathers or mothers just doing occasional treats. That is not what most parents want to do after divorce but you cannot chop chilren in half. It's a huge dilemma.

Deo Gratias I don't doubt that some and possibly the majority of children prefer one home.

However, I find your "like gypsies" comment unnecessary and annoying.
My daughter has two homes, she calls them both home. In her personal best interest, two homes is the solution she chooses. I'd love to have her more. She wants to see us both a lot, and likes both physical spaces. She chooses sometimes to go to the other if she feels she hasn't seen the other parent enough (we have variable days).

Obviously, I have a vested interested in finding that OK. But you're also biased because your ex doesn't bother with his kids. But trust me, 50/50 works for plenty of kids - please don't feel sorry for our gypsy children

I can't get my head round splitting equally between two homes, I just can't. Isn't it exhausting and confusing for the child?

OP, I sympathise. You sound sad, stressed and scared and I don't blame you.

By the way, I agree with you. I think that SAHMs are often socialised to do everything that the family, the children, and the household need, and do it properly. In cases when a man works full time and his wife works very hard unpaid, she is absolutely entitled to material recompense for her loss earnings and damage to any potential career when they divorce.

On the other hand, men who don't fancy earning money are often not remotely socalised to understand what goes into proper parenting, proper home making, representing the family in the community by volunteering at school etc, and they just dick about spending money. I think SAHDs are quite often pretty shit and I worry about the cost to their wives if / when they divorce. Some of them are great - but I know more slack ones whose wives still take care of all the home admin, cook, do school stuff etc, than the other kind who treat it like a job. I know two children who had long term issues with toilet training because their parents didn't pick up a health problem and just thought it was easier to keep them in nappies till they were 4 - both dcs had SAHDs and mothers working long hours. In the end both were helped by their mothers, who researched the problem (probably on mn!), took time off work to take them to appointments and to stay at home with them supporting them in toilet training. Then they went back to their busy jobs, having spent annual leave dealing with shit, and their dads carried on doing whatever they did, probably watching sport on TV.

When I was in a rocky patch with DP I consulted a solicitor who started off from the premise that it was a disaster for me that we weren't married because she just assumed that I would probably want his money. Actually he hasn't any, I have more, because I have bloody well earned it. We have a house that I put the deposit into and I would happily buy him out of his share as that's fair and I would hope he would put that money into some other decent place that he can then have the dcs in. He does have a job, and I wouldn't want to see him in penury anyway, but seriously I have worked my arse off for 20 years while he has never really had his foot on the gas. If we were married I think I would be worse off.

If I were you I would move heaven and earth to tweak your hours to do some school runs. I work from home as often as I can so that I can do that as, although we seem to be ok at the moment, I will protect myself from him being "primary carer" as I work much harder for this family and our children than he does. I wouldn't ever stop him seeing them, I will always encourage them to love him, but I am buggered if I am paying him to subsist just because he doesn't like work much.

I'm cynical but I didn't choose to be. I got here from experience.

DeoGratias, what happens in the majority of cases is not necessarily relevant because a lot of NRPs don't care much about their children. Not really, although they might be sentimental about them.

If I split with DP I know he would love the children very much still, he has always been very involved with them and genuinely taken a big part in their lives. So have I. It would be very wrong for either of us to become some sort of vestigial parent. I actually think a lot of NRPs don't care that they don't live with their children so it is to be expected that the children in those families end up deeply bonded with the parent who takes care of them and not really as involved with the other. It doesn't mean that's the right way for these things to unfold in all cases.

throwingpebbles surely it has to depend on the child and how the split is managed?

Mine was always utterly avoidant of any semblance of routine (killer for early years of sleep!) though a blessing now.
Happy with any change of plan.
Used to me working away long before the split - so used to primary care from either parent, although at that time in one home.

She has toys and clothes in both homes.
They're a 5 min drive apart.
On very very rare occasions (3x in 2+ years, max?) we've called to pick up something desired from the other home.
Her things are hers - she can take anything from one home to the other, there's no crap about "daddy paid for that".

She calls one (name change!) "number 22" and the other "The Laurels". Or just mummy / daddy's.
If you ask where she lives, she'll usually say the one she's just been in (she's only 7) but often she'll say "I've got two homes". (and quite smugly too!)

I actually think it'd be harder for a child who spends, say, 1 night a week in a house they don't think of as a home.

What I hope will happen as a teen, is she'll have a bike and a phone and she'll just choose where she goes sometimes.

Plenty of adults maintain two homes - work flat and family home, suburban home and country cottage, town flat and caravan park, city terrace and holiday villa - etc! And still feel both are home.