Feeling disappointed with husband

[chocolatebubbles]

Myself and my husband celebrated our first wedding anniversary recently. I wanted to do something special so booked a city break for us to Christmas markets as a surprise but told him three months before we were due to go to give him heads up. On the day of the anniversary I got happy anniversary from him no card or little gift. I then spent ages in shower trying to hide how sad I felt but eventually he triggered I was crying. He then tried to cover it up by giving me money (still no card) and I told him any money I get always goes on house or kids and it would have been nice to have been bought a gift so I gave him the money back. Later we're out shopping and I saw a beautiful bracelet and he said he'd buy it for me. The bracelet cost £50 more than what he had given me so he goes that will be your Christmas present too. I don't mind that too much but my AIBU is I work part time to be at home with our kids as he travels a lot, he earns 3 times more my salary and yes he does put a fair portion to cover bills, food etc as do I with my salary. I got told that he works more so I should do more around the house which is true but he only works 1 day more than me and when he's away for weeks at a time it is only me at home juggling everything. I feel really let down by him as not once did he say thanks for the break or it was a lovely surprise instead all he moaned about was how expensive everything was this close to Christmas even though I did all the Christmas shopping in August/September to take the heat off us financially in December. I just feel so disappointed but I'm not sure whether I should be.

I never understand couples who do this with their money. My Dp earns twice what I earn. Both sets of wages are paid into one account, it would never occur to either of us the money isn't 'ours'. We are a family, we have kids, we share everything!

You have a major financial and housework organisation issue.

And yes he is being a prat about it. By working 'only' 4 days you have enabled him to get a promotion and do the work he is doing now. He should be grateful for that.
And if you had the same salary one year ago, I can't see the difference in wages being so so big (like two or three times your salary) now.

Time to put the cards down and review income, spending, disposable income for both of you (how much money do you have left for yourself) and how much spare time do you get (remembering that looking after the dcs is NOT having time for yourself, which means you have no time for yourself at all when he is away!!).

The wedding present is only a symptom of a much bigger issue IMO.

YY about the fact he still has his evenings, doesn't need to do any housework or deal with two young dcs when he is away.

And I actually think he has no funky clue about how much work is involved in looking after two young dcs and do the housework etc...
The best thing I found is to ensure that he has to spend time with the dcs on his own regularly so he can get it. But with the sort of work he is doing, it looks nearly impossible.

pigeon I get what the OP is saying about 'any money goes on the kids and the house'.
That's because she puts that money
On her account and then ot gets used for everything whilst she will not spend money on herself. It's something that most mothers seems to do but very few men/fathers....

And it's not because it's the set up yof u have that the OP has to accept it.
I had a similar set up. DH 'changed jobs' and started working away just on the month I gave birth to dc1.... it was crap, put a huge strain on our relationship and nearly saw us separating. That wasnuntil he put his act together and started to realise what I was doing WAS hard work. And that he started to respect my work and my input into the running of the house.

The OP is unhappy about the setup. It needs to change if the relationship is to carry one (because otherwise resentment sets in and that's the surest way to a divorce)

OP, the thing about the card is really shit and horrible and thoughtless. You do need to tackle it with him but I wouldn't get it mixed up with your point about the housework because you're on shaky ground there.

You do sound very eeyorish about it. It sounds like you're talking about about a period of around six weeks and he's been home for two days and had a mini break plus if you went to the wedding you had a night out together and you've been off work one day a week. That's actually a pretty good deal TBH. A lot of people don't get anywhere near that. It is tough when you're pregnant, but unfortunately you don't just get to turn your partner's job on and off to suit your home circumstances. This is something I had to deal with this summer too, it's not nice, but it's also not his fault.

Have you asked him about why he didn't get you a card and if he is upset about anything? Because I'm wondering if perhaps given how he had spent the last few weeks being booked into yet another hotel and sitting in yet more airports wasn't exactly his idea of fun for his only considerable chunk of time off and he felt that your gift was actually getting something for yourself rather than genuinely being for him.

"You're talking as though his time away from home is null time which is only of benefit to him. It's not."

billsykes - I say quite clearly in my post "Now presumably they've agreed between them that this makes sense because he is able to earn more money for them as a household unit."

"What you seem to be saying is that if one member of the family is a high earner then the whole family should benefit from the money but the partner should expect to carry on as though they have a partner who works 9-5."

No, my point is that the high-earner as a parent is RELIANT on an amount of invisible, unpaid labour that is being done by the OP around the house, and that this can only really be fairly resolved if we stop thinking of wages as something individual, and start seeing them as something that is decided at the level of the household unit. As soon as someone is out of the 9-5 and not doing the 50/50 around the house, someone else is stepping in to pick up that slack. And that 'stepping in' needs to be seen as part of the higher wage - it enables the higher wage earner to do their thing.

This has nothing to do with free time. I am not saying the husband should be spending every spare second that he is home doing housework - the bargain that has been struck is not of that nature. It has to do with the monetary compensation that is provided to the person doing the enabling work of social reproduction. Further, the OP has also stated that her partner does get quite a lot of evenings of leisure when he's working away - I presume she's doing dinner, bathtime and bed at home, which isn't exactly the same kind of fun! There's something important about the nature of work here too: doing the same drudging routine every day is a different kind of tiring and disspiriting.

I think we agree that a decision has been taken by the couple with thought to the whole household unit. Parties are contributing different kinds of labour for maximum collective benefit. If that's the case, it means that thinking of salaries as "individual" no longer makes any kind of sense. (I also imagine that the OP's decision to change her job had a lot to do with a pragmatic need to maintain a household and childcare in the way that both parents wanted). In most families I know, a pragmatic balance is struck on the basis of something wider than individuals.

(Three weeks that should have read)

Op, I totally get what you are saying. This isn't about money or shared finances. It's about your DH putting any kind of thought into your anniversary. YADNBU.

Tell your DH how you feel and explain what you want to happen next year. Buying you a card and a bunch of flowers is the minimum he should have done.

It might just be that you have different expectations of what an anniversary means. For our first anniversary I bought my DH an 'experience' we could do together, a bit like your city break. I made a nice voucher and bought a card. He bought me nothing - it just didn't occur to him that it was important. I was upset, but we thoroughly enjoyed the experience and I reined in my expectations for the future. We now buy each other a card ( if we remember) and several years on we're pretty happy. He's pretty rubbish at present giving but he has lots of other qualities. Value your DH for what he is, not what you think he should be.

Oh, and as someone who used to travel a lot on business it really isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Given the choice I would rather be at home than alone in a hotel room any day.

He is being a mean sprited, selfish man and father.
The mother of his children supports his career by managing his home and the children he created,you should be given equal access to the money you enable him to earn.
Unless you are wreckless with money.

I think that's why I'm so upset because he decided to do nothing to mark the occasion knowing it was important to me and when realised he was in the wrong handed over £100 cash from his wallet. I don't mind doing the majority of housework/organising etc in the household but for him to say I get a lot more free time to myself if rubbish.

handed over £100 cash from his wallet
That is so many kinds of wrong, that I can't even begin to list them.
Just horrible

He was being thoughtless and rather unkind. What he should have done is apologise, sneak out and get a card and buy a present and then say sorry again when he handed it over.

His actions made the whole thing in to some kind of financial transaction - which it isn't, and by doing so and then crassly adding in that your present was for Christmas he also devalued his gift.

You are right to be upset.

If on Christmas morning he said listen I was going to get you X but the extra money for the bracelet set me back a bit I'd understand that. One of my pals told me her husband got copies of all their wedding pictures and put them into an album he did online which I thought was lovely, another friends husband got their wedding vows done in fancy script and framed. Both these to me are thoughtful gifts and didn't cost an arm and a leg but are so meaningful and thoughtful.

TBH if I was in OP's DH's place I would assume the city break to be a joint present to both of us and I wouldn't have got anything else either.

Did you DH actually want a city break, is it (for example) somewhere you've always wanted to go? IF he didn't then certainly he may be feeling that OP has got "him" a present of something she wanted herself.

If it's was a joint present, then the dh should give the OP £300 - then they've paid half each.

I think it's fair to say the dh is a deeply unromantic person. Personally, I have every sympathy for people who don't like the whole present-giving thing, but a card and a little gift is really not too much to expect to give if you are married to someone who clearly is into presents and romantic gestures. After all, he did choose to marry the OP, so he must know what she is like by now! He acted like a complete tosser and seems to be begrudging both time and money spent on his dw at the moment, which is frankly concerning with a third child on the way and only one year of marriage behind them.

If he hates the idea of Christmas markets and thinks it will be all shopping and no gluhwein, then he has at least been kind enough not to express that thought in words, but failing even to give a card seems to be saying it, anyway - dw and her anniversary are being a bit of an inconvenience to him.

roundaboutthetown

If that's how it works, I'm buying a PS4 for both of us for Xmas and asking my OH for £200 for her contribution.

Sounds like a good deal. It's not actually how I think it should work, just setting out the obvious conclusion to the suggestion made above that the dh is assuming the Christmas Markets trip was a joint present from both of them to each other.

If the dh thought his present was his presence on his dw's trip to the Christmas Markets, then they are not looking hugely compatible, tbh! Would you be ecstatic if your dw joined in playing on your PS4 with you, whilst simultaneously complaining how expensive it was?

I'm not saying his presence is his present. I'm suggesting the OP bought a gift for herself.

My OH would probably just laugh at my demands for cash and assume the PS4 "gift!" was a joke. Then beat me at SFV.

With three months' notice of the gift, the dh had plenty of time to suggest this was not the way he wanted to celebrate their anniversary. By not saying so, he was quite obviously either accepting it as something they would both enjoy, or considering his presence on sufferance to be his present to her.

Is your marriage otherwise good OP? To be honest he sounds financially controlling to me.

After all, if my dh were to give me notice that he wanted us to get a PS4 for Christmas, which I must play with him as it was his gift to me, I would have found myself more than capable of telling him what I thought of that idea!

I never understand couples who do this with their money. My Dp earns twice what I earn. Both sets of wages are paid into one account, it would never occur to either of us the money isn't 'ours'. We are a family, we have kids, we share everything!

Exactly! My DH and I have a joint account, I can understand people having separate accounts for personal spending so you don't feel guilty about buying this or that with joint money. The thing I can't imagine is one person having more spending money than the other, I would never want to be buying nice things for myself knowing that DH couldn't do the same and he wouldn't want to do that to me. How would that even work if one person is doing more housework/childcare than the other - do you effectively pay your spouse to do these jobs?

I think the thing is if he didn't want to go on the trip he should have either said so, or if he didn't want to spoil if for OP gone along with it nicely (and then maybe mentioned at some later point that he wouldn't want another "trip" gift). I also think the bracelet thing is a bit grouchy. It would be fine to not buy an expensive xmas gift for OP if he got her an extravagant anniversary gift but saying "you're not getting an xmas present now" is pretty lame.

Maybe OP should try and suggest inexpensive but thoughtful gifts from her DP, if he gets worried about money making the focus on the gift being thoughtful rather than expensive might motivate him a bit.