Not sure how I can earn what DH suggests upon return to work

[HowcanIearnthis]

Apologies in advance for the length of this - trying not to drip feed.

DH is a high earner and has worked very hard for his whole adult life. About a year ago, I became a SAHP, but prior to that I had worked similar hours to DH. I am slightly younger than DH, so had not worked these hours for as many years. In addition, my profession is a bit lower paid than that of DH and frankly, he was unusually successful in his profession, whereas, whilst competent, I wasn't exceptionally successful in mine. As a result of his career success, we have had a comfortable lifestyle, paid off our mortgage and whilst we don't spend excessively (both of us being from quite frugal, sensible backgrounds), we have been extremely fortunate in that we haven't had particular money worries. I know that we are very, very lucky.

When I became a SAHP, this was a joint decision, although a contributory factor was my mental health and the impact on it of a horribly stressful job. Even today, one year on, I quite often find myself in tears and sweating at 3am about the situation I left. We decided that it would be best for all of us if I were to be a SAHP until all of our DC started school. We are now expecting DC2. DH says he still feels that it is best for all of us if I continue to be a SAHP for now. I was happy with this until very recently, having taken steps to protect my own financial position etc. DH's job is very demanding and it is true that I don't think he could do it if I were doing my old job and unable to be the "default" parent, as I am now. We live in an area with very little childcare provision and my returning to work would realistically mean DD being in childcare from 7 am to 7pm every day, which I would prefer to avoid if possible.

However, DH now says that when the DC start school (so in 5 years or so), we need to share the financial responsibility for our family down the middle. So far, so reasonable - I was very much intending to go back to work. We have worked out a budget as to what income we will need to meet our outgoings. However, what this means in practice is that from his high earning position, he will only need to work 1 day/week. Even when I manage to get back into the workplace, it will mean me having to work 5 days/week, because I will have disadvantaged myself so much in career terms. I feel that my being at home has directly contributed to this situation - increasing his earning potential massively and reducing my own - and that it would be fair to take account of this. I pointed out that if I made a unilateral decision that I was only going to "work" in looking after the DC 1 day a week from now on, he'd have serious difficulties. I feel that it would be fairer to, for example, work three days a week each, if such roles could be found. He says that he has worked hard for many years and deserves a break. I feel that I could say the same, but I have a (shared) responsibility to look after our kids financially and emotionally. Being at home with small children isn't a holiday and I feel that it's not fair for me to do all the years of wiping snot, night feeds and chasing poo around the bath and then for him to want to swap and be the SAHP once they're both in school and he can read his book on the sofa.

I'm also a bit upset because we have always had shared responsibilities and finances. He's an amazing father and he worships the ground DD walks on - he's not some sort of absent parent and I would never, ever have said that he was someone who shirked responsibility or was looking for a free ride on the domestic front. We are a family - we have always mucked in together. That's what families do, isn't it?!

AIBU?

It's never easy,. We started out on the same salary and I ended up earning 10x more. We both worked full time though and similar hours by the way and he worked every Saturday for about 10 hours at least and sometimes on Sundays. I never thought okay I will work one day every fortnight and he work full time and then we will earn the same (I wanted the money too much actually)......

He should have married someone who earns what he does and wanted to forge a career and was happy with long hours I suspect. He has made his bed and allowed you to stay at home - plenty of pouses will only marry if the other half will always work full time so he will have to live with the consequences. You do sometimes get retired much older husbands that women are silly enough to marry (you then become their nurse in practice) and the woman with 20 years more full time work ahead of her so it's not that unusual a dynamic - woman working full time man doing very little at home and the planet over women work hard and look after children and men sit around or run off once they've had their fun.

Good to hear your update OP. It's easy to say things that sound unreasonable to others from time to time. Especially when tired and stressed. You've got a good one there by the sounds of it, given that he's listened and apologised and come up with a more equitable plan. Good luck.

I think the idea of working equal hours (and splitting the parenting/housework equally too, I hope) sounds a lot fairer!

Have just read the thread feeling utterly bemused by his madness! Glad to see the update.

I think he would be shocked at what a working parent (in a family of two working parents) has to do in order to keep everything going in both places.

Oh to not have to worry about getting a phone call in the office when a child is ill and needs to be collected! Make sure he's ready for that when you go back to work OP. He'll be doing his share, won't he?

"He should have married someone who earns what he does and wanted to forge a career and was happy with long hours I suspect. He has made his bed and allowed you to stay at home - plenty of pouses will only marry if the other half will always work full time so he will have to live with the consequences. "

No, Enormous Tiger, I don't think it's fair to say that he has made an error in marrying someone insufficiently committed to her career and now has to pay the price, poor thing. As I mentioned in my OP, we made this decision jointly, due in part to pretty severe ill health which we could not have predicted all those years ago, and over which I had no control. And he is very actively saying that he does not think I should return to the workplace yet, despite my having asked him this question about 6 times this morning. I assure you that I have not hoodwinked him. Mental health difficulties are not due to some kind of lack of moral fibre, honestly!

To me, the issue is that he seems to fundamentally resent you, and think that you've had (and will continue to have, when dc2 arrives) an easy ride doing nothing in essence, whilst he is working hard at his important paid job. Having a young family and how to best work out the divisions of labour and finances etc is not always easy, but his suggestions for the future , and being 'paid back' by you (going out to work full time, whist he works one or two days) seem simply bizarre, and does not bode well for the future.
You seem to be in a very fortunate position financially with having paid off the mortgage etc, and I really wonder why he isn't approaching your joint future from a completely different and more positive angle, and suggesting exciting ways to enhance the quality of life for both of you that would benefit all the family? You could both work part time 2 or three days a week each and still have some time for each other while the dcs were at school. The possibilities for balance and happiness are endless and you could so enjoy life together, as equals with the right planning and attitudes. But, and it's a big one, he has to decide if he is going to be a team player, or only consider self serving plans that use you, so that he can semi retire. He seems to see you as a domestic worker at the moment, and is planning how best to change your role to cash cow in the future!
Also, I must say his timing in telling you this whilst you're pregnant again, is complete shit! Surely he should have shared these thoughts with you before the second pregnancy, so that you had a choice about having a second child?

Of course he doesn't want you to go back to work just yet Howcan.

Too much heavy lifting involved for him to have to weigh in with childcare support at the minute.

But if he genuinely thinks that you should be earning 50/50 then the logical conclusion is that you don't stay out of the workplace a minute longer than you need to as every year you're off compromises your earning power.

Agree pinbasket - interesting that he chose to wait until OP was pregnant before bringing this up.

I think you should call him out on this right now! Say as from x date you both should be working 2.5 days each.
He needs to step up and provide an equal part the 'valued' role he expects you to do to detriment of your future earning potential.

Why should you be the one to suffer in the future years because of this weird way he's looking at your finances.

He's not appreciating what's best for your children, he's not vaulting you as a mother. He is in effect charging you to be at home now saying you can work the extra days later!

Stuff that! Call his bluff. Write down your day to day duties and childcare you do. Shopping, doctors, dentist, school stuff, holiday planning, gardening, cleaning, buying clothes and uniforms, after school clubs, homework.

Write everything down.

Then do an average week split. Tell him the future financial arrangements are not fair as you are providing a valued service for the family. If he won't see reason then he has the option of going part time whilst you work back up the career ladder. It's then fair. 50/50

I expect it's never even occurred to him that you staying at home is jolly hard work and a much need role.

He's in effect charging you to raise his children in the difficult pre-school years. ! Aaaagghhh

Sorry, I missed the fact you were mentally ill although surely being home with chidlren is more not less stressful than most jobs! I always found it so. Rhe most stressful of all for us was being home with 3 children under 4. Work was a walk in the park compared to that.

I'll probably get shot for this - but I think there's a bit of over reacting. My DP and I have about the same earnings ratio that you have. That's just the way it is. Looking back on your past 5 years, you have both worked, differently, but equally. You have no mortgage and a very good standard of living. There is nothing wrong with re-evaluating the situation at key points. From a different PoV - you cold look at the situation and say - why on earth are you a SAHP with your kids in school? However - this is all 5 years away. He may be retired, made redundant by then, who knows. You may have no option other than to switch roles., but its 5 years away. you have at least 4 1/2 years of the status quo. Don't worry about it. for what its worth he's not being a "dick" as some have said.

No shit he doesn't want you to go back to work straightaway. You're doing all the gruntwork. I'd start up a spreadsheet of all the tasks that you do. Then when the baby arrives, walk the walk! Start looking for a 2.5 days/week job and he does the same so you are both working the same amount of hours. Bills paid in proportion to income and you split all the work.

When I started reading this I though it was someone moaning about being stressed working and then being a SAHP and then moaning about the 'stress' of that too.

However what he is suggesting is plain daft! I speak as a full time working mother. What sort of job will allow him to work 1 day per week?? I suspect he has become detached from reality with regard to child rearing and I agree with you. The first few years are the hardest.

Also I agree that this idea is well in the future. All sorts could happen between now and then and I wonder if its the stress of his role talking. Whatever it is DO have a Plan B in case but 4.5 years is a lifetime away!

Sounds like you shocked him into some sense this morning - well done! As I said, his problem may well be real but the solution was bats!!

Apart from anything else I can't imagine loving someone and insisting they work full time if I had the means to earn enough money in a fraction of the hours. Completely different if you wanted to work full time of course but a loving DP would be finding a solution to make both of you have the benefits of his salary (both work part time or whatever) rather than him hardly working while you work full time. Hardly what a loving partner would do.

OP I know lots of people are saying go back to work now but I am assuming you like being at home, are enjoying this time with your child and looking forward to five years at home with the next one? It is also giving you a chance to recover from what sounds like a pretty awful time at work, I had a job like that and I really sympathise. My advice is enjoy this time with the children, you can't get it back and maybe one day you will earn less than you could have and your pension might be less than it could have been but it doesn't sound like your are in poverty or even close so what the hell.

I was rushed into hospital last week with symptoms of a heart attack, I didn't take it seriously and thought everyone was overreacting but sure enough it was serious and I was in for 4 days and had treatment. I had to work when my kids were little, my husband was disabled when I was pregnant with the youngest so no choice for me. I remember lying on the bed with my baby the night before I went back to work and crying because I didn't want to leave her. I wish I had those years to enjoy with her, what people are calling grunt work is far more precious than a career. As I lay in hospital wondering what was going to happen I thought of my kids, my career and the money I earned didn't enter my head. I had to work and lots of people do, some people prefer to work but if you are enjoying your time at home then good for you and I hope you can work things out so that your husband gets to enjoy some time at home as well.

From a newly philosophical granny.

As a PP said,it's very bad timing to be putting that kind of pressure on you when you're pregnant with his second child? Making you feel panicked and inadequate. Why is he doing that do you think?

I get that he may be feeling burnt out. Maybe he resents feeling trapped in his work role for the forseeable future now that there's a second baby coming along. But still...

DH and I were similar in that I gave up work on becoming pregnant with our first. 14 years later, we're in a stronger financial position as a result of this than if we'd both been working and juggling hours around childcare. Basically, I just let him get on with it. Within 10 years, he founded and sold a quite well-known .com, plus various other business interests. He could not have done half of this through working limited or predictable hours, so this was the decision we made. It's been fine though because he totally recognises and appreciates that the only way he's been able to do what he's done AND have a wife, a home life and four DC is because I've facilitated that. There's no resentment on either side and never was.

I hope your DH can come to see that a partnership means valuing each other for who you are and your individual strengths. Nobody should feel defined or valued by their salary.

And he is very actively saying that he does not think I should return to the workplace yet, despite my having asked him this question about 6 times this morning.

Erm, I don't think anyone is particularly surprised by that response OP...

Well she's pregnant and has mental health issues, if he was forcing her to get a job now it wouldn't be great would it.

Seriously op tell him you'll return to work after 6 months after you've had this baby and he can work two day a week and you can workpart time and he can do all household tasks and childcare.

Otherwise bill him for your services.

He sounds like a dick.

Figure out how much 50 hours a week of childminding would've cost, multiply that by the number of weeks/years you stayed home, and tell them he can put that towards "your half."

Better yet, explain to him the inequities and how you'd never be able to match him pound for pound, and suggest that you each put in $W or X% of what you make, with a cap of Y$ or Z%.

I know someone whose husband had this idea, they had twins and when they start school he said it was his turn to be a SAHP.

She left him.

Of course he doesn't want to split the family / work responsibilities now, while family life with a baby and toddler is bloody hard work! He doesn't want to have to cancel his work to look after a toddler with a stomach bug while simultaneously trying to care for a small baby. He doesn't want to do the nappy changes, the potty training, the night wakings.

He wants to show up as doting dad at sports day / parents' assemblies once it's all a hundred times easier.

I do think you need to think more about what you want to go back to, so that you don't end up with hobson's choice in 5 years. Good options take a while to re-train in. I do agree with granny though that otherwise you can't get the time back with small children, I'd just lay longer term plans as I'd have lost some confidence in my DH after those comments.