I dont want to work

[LadyOfPleisure]

I have moved heaven and earth, done extra studying, to return to work in a fulfilling and interesting career. I should pat myself on the back, and be bloody glad, but I am not. I am earning reasonably well per month, and it is not full time but 60%. In a standard week I will work from around 11.30 three days per week, and from 7.30 two days per week, until 16.30 all days. So two long days, and 3 short days.
I am a well educated woman, with a bachelor and two master degrees. Still studying modules, to add to my qualifications. Being an airbnb hostess because I like to have guests to broaden our horizons, and I like the extra income.

Dh travels a lot with his job, I do the lion share of after school activities and sports. My two dc are different ages, and they do the same sport but at different times, in a different place twice and three times per week. The older one can cycle, or take the bus, the younger one cant. They need to have dinner before they go, as activities are around 6pm, lasting 60-120 minutes. The older play at regional level. This will mean that ds1 (15) will need to sort dinner for the two of them at least once a week.

My dh earns more per week than I do per month. We dont need me working to make ends meet. I took a long career break when the dc were small. I felt it is my turn now, before I get too old. I have retrained, and worked hard, and I am enjoying my first proper summer holiday in years. I dont want it to end. Part of me want to continue just doing what I want! Relax, chill, enjoy my kids. I go back to work first of August, and I just want to .... resign. I want to STILL be there when they get home from school, cook their dinners, get them to their sports, and be there. I know it is silly.

The feminist in me is angry with myself. The lazy gobshite in me wants to raise my glass to egocentricity. I want to go to the gym when it is empty, go for coffee, go shopping....
All my friends work, so it will be lonely...

Dh is happy for me. He says I should absolutely go out there, enjoy adult company, have good colleagues like he has, and not waste my brain at home.

Only, reality is that he wont be around to help with much. He tries, but he has a demanding job. At his level, although his boss is flexible, he is working with both the US office and the UK, and his hours are long when he is home. He cant just cut a conference call to the US and say "sorry chaps, got to take my kid to sports, my wife is knackered".

First world problem, I know. And I am 45. It is now or never. So why am I so sad, and why do I dread going back to work so much, I spent the last 8 years moaning that I am "nothing but a mum and have no life at all"!?

I've skimmed this thread, but read OP's posts.

OP, seems as if your DH and his unpredictable schedule is the problem, and the fact that your schedule is changing/will change too as you progress/get more senior.

You love work. Your DH loves you to work (and also loves his work).

You want your DC to have the opportunities you gave them when you were at home full-time. That is natural.

So, both you and DH need to re-negotiate a new working and home pattern to enable everyone in the family to get what they want with the stresses evened out.

This may mean that your DH needs to have a frank conversation with his employer about more predictable working patterns. There is (presumably) no reason he can't have this discussion. Just because something always worked one way, does not mean it is business-critical that it continues in this way. If they value him as an employee, they will be open to changing things to keep him.

I am firmly with all the women on this thread that said they have arranged their working lives so that work and home can co-exist properly. There is no reason that your DH cannot help on this score.

Don't take on EVERYTHING out of guilt, and then wonder why you feel resentful of it. It's not sustainable.

Everyone likes the holiday feeling - life is more relaxed when one parent can facilitate everyone else's lives. But in the not-too-distant your DC will be teens and not need you in that role. Don't sell yourself short now for the sake of some short-term readjustment of the domestic-work landscape for both you and your DH.

I'm lucky to be in the position to be a SAHM but my husband works away from home every 2 months (home for the same amount of time) it is a very lonely life as all of my friends work and as I can get out at night I see very little of anyone by my folks (and in laws) asvwechave our 5 yo DS (who's autistic) It is good in many ways but in others I do miss adult company and I hate the looks I get when I tell people I'm a SAHM. I feel like someone on the bottom of people's shoes sometimes.

In many ways it's fantastic but it's not without cons

If you are a feminist, then do what you bloody well please. Stay at home, and while you're at it tell your husband to fuck right off. People who say you "waste your brain" staying at home do my fucking head in.

My advice after years and years of working is this:
If you don't have to work then don't BUT you might want your very own bit of money!

Skim read admittedly but really, all the people saying how 'exhausted' the OP must be? Try being a full time working single mum then you'd know exhausted along with the constant terror of not having enough dosh to see you through the month which adds to the exhaustion I can tell you
. Having said that if I ever had the choice I would still work (maybe not as much as I do) - one to be an example to my daughter and two because you need some kind of financial independence if your 'perfect life' should ever go tits up.

Exactly likybookins. This post is classic mumsnet. People with lots of money and choices feeling sorry for themselves. I couldn't read it all, it makes me too angry.

I have not read all the thread. I was forced to cut back drastically on work when ill health hit me when youngest (who has special needs) was 9. That was 8 years ago and slowly I have got somewhat better (although not fully fit - I never will be). What I would say is giving up work completely (as I had to) is very difficult to get back from (well in a profession-or any job where you need to stay up to date on the ball and confident in a particular field). It is particularly difficult to return part time in some fields after a long stint at home. I suspect it is better - if you think you might want to go back to the same type of skilled work when your children are older-to try and keep your hand in so to speak. So I agree - try and cut down your hours, and your commitments (out source if you can like the ironing or food shop )- probably both. Its all about balance. If money is not critical - could you have a day (or two) off a week to slow down a little?
I love my work - but when my home life is busy I can dread work too-especially after a holiday!

There are some rude posters here.

We are all hugely dependent on the army of unpaid workers (parents, carers, volunteers, housewives etc) that keep society going.
All that they do is work. Financial remuneration does not make work more valuable, more important nor essential. If all the unpaid labour was stopped society would fall apart.
Yet currently society is set up in such a way that it is very hard to exist without money from paid employment.
What is Money? a tool to help us exchange goods and services for the benefit of ourselves and society. It makes work visible, it can confer status, and it is in the governments interest to promote paid employment as you cannot tax anything which does not involve a financial transaction. You also cannot monitor what people are doing, and there are vested interests in keeping the status quo
Ergo unpaid work is valued less and is seen to be valued less in a capitalist society.
Who does most unpaid work, women. Who benefits most from the status quo white men. Who currently wields the majority of the power and wealth? White men.
Is the deck stacked? You betcha.

Good point Lilybookins - I'd also add, if SAHM think they're judged, try being a single parent. At various times I think we've been blamed for just about evil in the world.

A typical office job is 35 hrs per week depending on what lunch breaks you have by my calcs you are doing around 31 hours a week that's quite a lot if you are hoping to balance work and home life. Maybe do something with less hours to keep your hand in? My job is important to me and I still wish to have a career however as others have said you will never get this time back with your kids. It's not being a feminist working because you think you should. You are lucky enough to have a choice - choose what makes you happy

Ah
Misery top trumps
Always ends this way....
I would not wish the last 3/4 years my family has had to endure on anyone
Multiple bereavements, 3 lots of emergency surgery, my 38 bil nearly died, family members with MH issues....i could go on.
My dad dropped dead in front of me. Dh and I did cpr but it was too late. 8 hours later mum had a heart attack.
She is now very frail.
My children both have multiple chronic health issues (asthma, migraines....)
I am being investigated for a nasty auto immune disease.
But yeah
Ok
I have it easy
Im leaving the thread now as none of this is helping the op.

Pity MrsMartell08, I enjoyed your posts and found it refreshing to read somebody who is not reducing the quality of their own life to win the approval of strangers! which is what I have done for a long portion of my life I now realise.

Meh
It's ok
I'm ok
Just hope the op is!!

✊

These threads always go the same way MrsMartell.
I for one am sick of reading posters implying that I would have more "self-worth" if I wasn't financially dependent on DH, blah, blah.
We are a couple and we made our own choices. At the end of the day he did what motivates him (business) and I did what motivates me (the DC).
Also, it's naive to think that everyone works predictable hours or is on a salary. If you're an entrepreneur, you do what it takes for however long it takes. Often there's no distinction between work and family life. My DH's work became all our lives. That's how it's been for over 10 years. I've been the SAHM to 4 DC and I don't regret a day of it. I enjoyed work before, yes. I had a postgrad qualification and profession, but in all honesty, it paled into insignificance once the DC came along.
Supporting DH made economic sense for all of us. All our property and all funds are in both our names. He has been able to give his business ventures 100% commitment and will retire at 45 with all of our future finances secured.
Every family is different and you deal with the opportunities you are presented with.

This thread has been massively derailed. There is a world of difference between someone choosing not to work so she can go to the gym when it is quiet and drink coffee - as the OP said in her first post! And people who are holding their extended family together through illness, bereavement and other difficulties.

I really must go and pack! But....
Life doesn't always go how you plan...
Im sure LPs don't plan to be LPs
Im sure people don't plan ill health
My 17 year old self would prob be horrified at my life 😁
But at 17 what did i know?
Nearly 30 years later I know what's important to me
The op needs to figure that out and go from there

But if you can go to the gym when it's quiet and drink coffee etc because you can afford to live that way - then that's ok too, surely? Nobody in any walk of life actually sets out to make their lives harder, do they? There are families where neither parent works because they can afford or choose not to. As long as they don't impinge on anyone else, what's the problem?

I did t read your OP very carefully but the general premise did interest me. I think you don't want to work then don't. There are so many people on these boards that would slam you for not contributing to society, wasting your education etc but so blimmin what?!

I'm looking at a similar situation over the next couple of years. My youngest will be in school full time in just over a year and my husband said last week that I didn't have to go back to work if I didn't want to. A big part of my brain whooped! A small Part felt guilty about something, but I can't quite see what.

Just because it's the 21st century, it does not mean you have any obligation to work just because you are female. You have the choice. Embrace it.
Xx

Only read page 1.
My thoroughly lovely, kind supportive caring (2nd) husband earns less than quarter of what I do, works locally and within 15/20 minutes of both my DC's schools. I work at least 40 mins away (up to 2 hours when in the UK and I'm off to London, Lille o r Brussels a couple of times a month...and I am still the one they call and who comes if I can.... It was different for me because it was the life I had before he came so he does not need to step up (though it would be nice). In every relationship with kids someone needs to be able to do this. While your DH is encouraging you career ambitions is he actually on board with the repercussions for your family...

I'm absolutely with you here - and if you are BU then I am too! My husband earns about 7-8 times my monthly salary and very generously supported me for the past year while I took a career break to write a book. I've not found an agent yet and I've had an offer to go back at 60% (pt hours). He's thrilled but I'm not! I already do 100% of looking after our (very active) kids, the house, the dog and all his admin (work and personal) and he just wouldn't take on half of that as his job is so demanding. I feel like I don't want to work every spare minute, only to go home and rush around after everyone else until bed time - just to make him feel better / as though I'm contributing, when the money I earn is a drop in the ocean compared to his. I also don't want him to feel that I'm sponging off his hard work though so it's a difficult position to be in.