To want to stay home a bit longer..

[crazycatlady5]

Aibu?

I’ve been on maternity since December. I’m due to start working again in January but I’m absolutely dreading it. It’s not like the normal anxieties, I actually really want to be able to look after her at home for longer than her one year of life.

My husband earns a pretty decent salary, not talking triple figures but pretty good. After all his outgoings (rent etc) he is still left around £3/3.5k to play with each month.

We have always split bills and everything down the middle even though I earned half what he did. I never made a fuss about this as I am not a money grabber. Having said that, since I’ve been on maternity, he’s given me around £400 a month as extras.

I really want to approach the subject of staying at home with or daughter but for some reason it sits uncomfortably with me as I have always earned my own money and have never wanted to be a ‘kept woman’ - but my friend rightfully pointed out today, it’s different now. We are married and have a family, we are a team. I am actually quite jealous of those couples of have joint accounts as that is out of the question for us (his parents told him at a young age never to get a joint account with anyone )

Aibu to want to stay off work for a while longer and ask to be looked after?!

Ps. It may sound like he is incredibly tight, he isn’t, he pays for dinners out and gifts and lots of lovely things and has also been entirely responsible for building up a chunk of savings for a mortgage (that we don’t have yet)

Yanbu to want to stay home longer. Yabu to not discuss this with your DH and to decide that because he can afford it you should.

It sounds as though you and DH each take responsibility for your own portion of the bills. Who pays for the bills whilst you're on mat leave?
Is he "giving" you £400 per month or is he transferrinf money to let you enjoy time with your DD without worrying when you aren't earning?

Personally I don't think one parent gets to just decide. Would you be happy if he suddenly decided to be a sahp without discussing it with you? You need to work out what is realistic for your family; be it part time work, being a sahp or returning full time.

@sailorcherries he transfers the money into my account at the start of every month and it was his suggestion, I didn’t ask him to, so I’m very grateful for it. I understand how I’ve made him sound as though he’s really tight but he’s not he just likes to look after his own money even if it means giving me a portion of it monthly and buying dinners etc.

I absolutely need to talk to him about it before any decisions are made. This morning I mentioned the fact I was feeling down as I don’t want to go back to work and leave DD... we didn’t get a chance to talk today though.

Could you go back part time? Earn enough to contribute to a few bills and then have the rest of time with your daughter?

I don’t understand why people are annoyed that he’s sending you 400 a month., the same people who would probably be annoyed if he didn’t send you anything. ...

My advice to any sahp would be to have a savings account in your own name ( and working parent have one too). then any left over money at the. end of the month is split between the two accounts

crazy I wasn't suggesting you made him seem any which way. It was more the posters who were horrified at this "allowance" and I just wanted to clarify whether it was an allowance as such or him knowing you would be struggling financially and helping out, like couples who have a joint account and transfer personal spends in to individual accounts when one is a sahp. It's not an allowance as such but help.

@sailorcherries yes absolutely

I went back to work part time when my first DC was 4 months. It was the best decision I ever made as it clarified for me that I definitely did want to be home with him. I became a happy SAHM when I got pregnant with DC 2 and was vomiting all morning every day from the smell of the underground going to work. I have always been grateful that I tried the working route, so that I knew I didnt want it. (Especially on those days when you have had little sleep and the DCs are whiny/sick)

YANBU and in an ideal world this shouldn’t be about the money if your household has a good income. If staying at home for longer benefits you and your child, your husband should be supportive and recognise that while you might not be contributing financially you’re doing so for the benefit of his child and your family as a whole. My partner’s work has involved long periods of travel since my ds was a baby and I was a sahm until last year - from the outset his income was ‘ours’. I freelance (part time) now and earn a small fraction of his income and once bills are paid we both draw the same from a joint account every month. If my expenditure on anything relating to the home or ds exceeds his, I get reimbursed every few months when we look at the accounts. I realise I’m very fortunate - financially I don’t have to work, and it sounds like you can afford to do this, if only in the shorter term, too. I work now because I’m able to with ds at school and I do like to contribute. My only regret is that I would be up shit creek if we were to split because I don’t have a career (tho I’m sure I’d manage). But I do trust that my partner has his family’s best interests at heart, and you should be able too as well. I’d be very tempted to question the lack of joint acct now you’re the mother of his child. You’re a team and if he’s fortunate to have a comfortable salary, money should be the least of your issues at this point in time. And have a frank conversation about what would make you happy. It’s not like you’re giving up on your career to sit on your arse for the next decade! X

I am a SAHM at present but I wouldn't consider doing that if my DH didn't share all money in a joint account. Get that sorted first, if he won't share, keep working...

It's not about him being "tight", it's about his attitude that the money is his to control and dole out. It isn't - if he didn't have you, he'd have to stay home to look after his child, or pay someone else to, so the money has been earned by both of you.

"We have always split bills and everything down the middle even though I earned half what he did."

You are married. It is your money. He took 2/3 of your joint income and you took 1/3, then you split the bills 50:50? Fuck.

"But he ALWAYS seems to worry about money sad worrying about paying £20 off his credit card ASAP and never going into his overdraft."

I get that. I feel exactly the same way- loathe being in the slightest debt; hate wasting money; fret about providing for DW and kids. Doesn't change that it's our money not mine, and on the occasions I slip into being a dick about it, I get told.

"he transfers the money into my account at the start of every month and it was his suggestion, I didn’t ask him to, so I’m very grateful for it"

Oh, fuckity, fuck, fuck-no. Read this back to yourself. That's not a marriage.

Massively easier for one of you to be part time when you have kids. Do yourself a favour- grow a spine, have the big argument and sort out joint finances. Please don't have another child before your relationship is healthy, honest and equal.

What is he actually doing with this spare £3k a month though? Over £30k a year! You could easily afford not to work. Why wouldn't even consider you in this? You had £450 left a month yet still bought food. WTF!

Bet he has his own savings account and you have nothing.

We don't have joint accounts. DP earns 3 times more than me now as I went part time after DD1. He just took over more bills to make things even.

@Parisa78

I'm sorry OP because you sound lovely, but I find this very shocking. How can you be married with a child and not have shared finances?

Surely if you trust someone enough to make a child with them, you can trust them with your bank account?

You are not flatmates - you are married. You are a family!

Of course YANBU to want to stay home with your baby a bit longer. You can afford it. He needs to step up and support his family like a normal husband and father.

Do not accept this business of being given an allowance like a child. You are his wife fgs! You can't carry on like this.

If he has some kind of neurosis over money then he needs psychological help because this is NOT normal.

THIS ^

This whole situation sounds archaic and horrible. He has you over a barrel. He has fuckloads of dosh left over to piss around with, and he hands crumbs of comfort over to you when it suits.

You need to have a long and serious chat with him about how you NEED to pool finances. And if you want to stay off work to be with your child, then do it. With £3K a month 'spare' your family can afford it!

I don't buy into this 'a woman is risking a lifetime of poverty if the man leaves her, and she has given up work to raise the kids' adage either. Even if you work while you are raising your kids, you will struggle just as much if you split, as you will if you have been a SAHM for some years.

Too many men seem too keen on keeping their money to themselves, and too many women allow it.

Take control now. Before you end up living in penury while he fucks around with £3K spare money a month!

YANBU. It's sad that women are made to feel so ashamed for opting to be SAHM as if you have somehow crippled yourself or are being unfair on your husband. If that's what you want then tell him. He may actually prefer that you stay at home with your DC as well.

A kept woman is a mistress fucking for her keep.

If one partner is working for money and one is are working to look after the child, that’s perfectly normal.

What’s not normal is your DHs attitude to money. I totally support any mother why wants to look after their children full time, but I think it may cause problems for you and I’d be loathe to be financially dependent on a man like your DH. I’d worry you might end up getting financially abused. Mind you you’ve got problems with your DH whatever you chose to do.

You need a major discussion with him about his whole attitude to money.

So I think I'm in quite a similar situation to you here. My husband also earns a lot more than me (although I was a reasonably good earner - just less than half his salary). Until maternity we also split stuff half and half - not financially abusive either but I still had enough to get myself nice stuff and he saved a lot from his salary which was used for home improvement etc.

I worked a lot of extra hours while pregnant to pay for my years mat leave (I was due back at work in Nov) and again this wasn't because DH wouldn't support me but just that I was so used to paying for myself I sort of did it without there being much discussion or thought about it.

At the end of my leave I felt very similarly to you, DD just isn't ready, I don't feel, for long days in childcare, her sleep is still very poor, and I feel like I'm just starting to enjoy her.

At this point me and DH had the conversation that I think you probably need to have with yours and he was very happy for us to pool 'his' money so I could provide care for our DD rather than returning to work straight away. In our case the length of my commute and travel costs meant that financially there wasn't a huge gain to me being in work anyway.

So our set up now is he gets paid into his account, I was already managing all the direct debits so he transfers enough to cover all of those to me. We've basically worked out what the total of all our outgoings are, we then each get and allowance for personal spending for the month (same amount each) and the leftovers goes into a savings account.

This can be done without joint accounts if your husband is averse to them.

OP what happens to the £3k surplus after bills every month? Can your DH spend it on whatever he wants or is it going into a savings account to help towards a deposit on a house?

I think if you do not want to go back to work you will have to do the maths regarding repaying mat pay and what your plan is long term; can you take a career break and know you have a career / job to return to or are you just intending to resign? What are your plans about buying somewhere to live and how does the decision to not return to work impact on that? Where do you see yourself career wise 5, 10 and 20 years down the line? Is it just going to be a short break or don't you want to go back at all?

Yes the OP can decide if she works or not but likewise the DH can walk away as that's not the deal he signed upto. Given they have paid 50/50 so far it's clear he wanted an equal as a wife rather than a kept woman.
I am a so called 'kept woman' and am absolutely my husband's equal.
I don't get this ludicrous new thing where modern women think the only contribution that counts is financial.

I'd have the conversation, and see how he feels about it. My husband is very keen for me to stay at home while our daughter is little because we both think that's how she's happiest. Yes we cut back on other things and I work from home part time, but it works for us.

You see "grateful" he transfers you picket money every month?? I don't get this at all. Couples share a house, a life, a marriage, chosen, a bed and bodily fluids....yet they can't share money, especially when children come along? And it is usually the woman whose income changes simply because if pregnancy and maternity leave.

And staying at home to raise your partner's child is not my definition of a "kept woman" either.

“We have always split bills and everything down the middle even though I earned half what he did. I never made a fuss about this as I am not a money grabber.”

This is so wrong. Seriously, your attitude is completely wrong and so is his.

“I don't get this ludicrous new thing where modern women think the only contribution that counts is financial.”

I agree. I think it’s destructive, dangerous, simplistic, wasteful. It creates massive imbalance and in some extreme cases, parts of the family live in near poverty while the earner enjoys a comfortable lifestyle. It strips children of time with parents who feel forced out back to work even if they, as part of a family unit, could afford to stay out of home. This attitude keeps stay-at-home parents at a low status in society, even though they are working hard to support the happiness and comfort of the entire family. It also completely negates the role the SAHP plays in enabling the earner’s career.