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)

*could afford to stay out of the workforce

Where I live full-time nursery is around £1,500 per month so you are currently saving ‘him’ a fortune 😉

You need to have discussions about how cost of childcare will be split, how to manage finances going forward

To be honest I am one of the people who cannot understand separate finances once you are a family, it seems madness to me and causes unending problems and total waste of time

The childcare arrangements for your DD need to be a joint decision. You need to both decide if you feel that, for you all, it's better than your DD stay at home and therefore one you are at home every day.

However, there are also other things to discuss. Some couples very happily live with separate current accounts. But this arrangement of yours is not right, or healthy. Where are these savings for your house? Do you see any of it? Whose name is the rented house in? Are you even a registered tenant? Who pays for stuff for your DD?

Your friend is right. Your family should be a team, a single unit, a lone entity. Family money needs to be family money. And expecting a lower earner to pay half of everything isn't right. You need to address all this and find a way forward before you stop work.

For other reasons I would also advise you keep your foot in the work door. We (DH and I) were always adamant our DCs would be at home whilst small. Practical circumstances at the time meant it was me who stayed off work. I loved it at the time but 7 years later the industry I worked in has moved on immeasurably, my confidence in my own capabilities is rock bottom and going back to work is yet to happen. I'd be starting at the bottom again.

No advice as I'm a LP so it wouldn't be possible to me to say what I'd do!

But I am shocked at the general attitudes towards SAHM now compared to when my parents had me and my siblings.

Is it a general consensus (or just a heavily weighted thread) that woman should work now when the family doesn't financially need the wage so she isn't financially "dependent" on her spouse?

@YellowMakesMeSmile expect in this case the op doesn't want to- so should get to stay home and he do whatever means possible to support their family and make up for the drop in income

—Is it a general consensus (or just a heavily weighted thread) that woman should work now when the family doesn't financially need the wage so she isn't financially "dependent" on her spouse?—

It’s a consideration. everyone should make a decision for themselves, male or female. Alarm bells are ringing with a lot of posters as the OP talks about being grateful for her DHs earnings. Is her DH grateful for her wifework that saves him 1000’s in childcare costs every month? Doubt he’s even thought of it.

OP, what if you earnt a great salary and had £10k left over at the end of the month? Would that be yours? Or would he expect this to be shared?

confused one person should not expect to stay home while the other is expexted to just provide.
It is a discussion between both parties.

Sailorcherries That assumes that being a SAHP is the desired option for both parents. Very often it's not.

I went back to work when my twins were 9 months old. In many ways it was a simple choice as we needed the money and DH begged his parents to child mind for a day and my mom did another.

I wasn't sure at the time but was later glad I'd kept my career going, not just for financial reasons but for my own self.

I was later made redundant and we scraped by on DH salary of 27k. Throughout our finances were always joint. During those tight years I withdrew and used money with equality and was never questioned - even though we were watching the pennies.

I never thought it should be any different. The only reason I wasn't earning was because I'd had kids. Our kids. Been easy to push out from work as part-time with kids, not the lone single male hero at work who could work every hour God sends and attend all evening dos.

I have other gripes now we are both working and I'm left to handle all the kid and house work too, but have never regretted going to work and have never compromised (or been expected to) on joint bank account.

You need to talk to your DH and think carefully about work and what's right for you. Some women go back part time, some full. Some are SAHM and some start their own businesses There's no right answer fits all, but what is wrong is not having equal access/freedom with household decisions and money.

Sailor I agree that it should be a joint discussion but I also think that a sahp is providing. It’s not a direct financial contribution but it still has a huge financial worth. A sahp and a wahp are both providing, in my view

You keep mentioning he buys dinners and you're very grateful.

Big fucking wow. You're his wife. You're not dating him.

You have bore his child.

I would be having a serious conversation about joint finances.

OP do NOT become a SAHP with this man. Do NOT even go part time.

He is selfish and self centred. He has thousands to spare every month and you and his child have whatever is left over from the £400 a month food bill.

This is bordering on abusive.

For those of you trying to make this an anti SAHP thread, please stop.

Consider what the OP has written about her own circumstances and take your general ideological points elsewhere.

It also completely negates the role the SAHP plays in enabling the earner’s career.

I don't get that? There was a great thread the other day about how its mainly women who faciliate men's careers/lives and why most feel that's all shades of wrong.

OP...if your DH worries about money this may be the way to get what you want. You need to get a quote for 2 days nursery care and then add the costs of you being back at work with commuting costs/clothes/lunch etc and then present that to him with also the suggestion that on the days you work he needs to do nursery drop off or pick up and share the cooking/household jobs on those days. See how he responds to that.
Many women find that returning to work does not make sense financially with very young children. I think if you can afford not to work at present and you want to look after your baby, then look after your baby. Just talk to him and put the facts and figures in front of him. xx

It's not about what's best for Op or her DH, but what's best for the baby.

I'm not going to get into the whole SAHM versus working mother debate. Lots of mothers don't have a choice and I don't want them to feel bad about it. But Op and her DH do have the finances to choose. I would focus on the advantages for the baby if looked after by its mother versus childminder or nursery. And how long you would plan to stay at home.

Obviously, it needs to be a joint decision and there needs to be a discussion about how finances are arranged, but don't lose sight of the priority here.

I agree wth Millhouses. He is not buying you dinners . You are not dating anymore - you are a family with a baby! You say you are very grateful for the £400 he has been giving you while you've been in maternity. Again, he is your husband - not a random benefactor.

His mother sounds unhinged if she really has told him to never share his finances with a woman. What planet is she on?

You should not be made to feel like an inconvenient extra. Most men realise that having a baby is a life changing event - not something you can bung £400 at for a year and then expect to proceed as if nothing really changed - like flatmates sharing the bills.

We had 4 DC with 2-year gaps between them. My husband was fully aware that I was the one affected by pregnancies, BF and so on - also that it's quite normal for women not to want to hand DC over to someone else. To him, if you can't see that having a baby affects women more than men and be prepared to factor this in to your lifestyle and finances, then you shouldn't become a father.

Yes you may not be money grabbing but a person who makes his far lower earning spouse pay 50% of the household bills is definitely money grabbing!

OP can I just check that you are legally married ? I know you refer to your ‘husband’ but sometimes people use that term when in fact they only had a religious ceremony that’s not legally binding . Or are in fact cohabiting but the person writing considers that they are “ as good as married “.

finances need discussing in any way - even if op goes back part time and there are childcare costs attached to her going back. who is going to pay that?

but OP, I would not give up work. I'd actually try to go back full time rather than part time. he sounds like an abusive cunt.

he already manipulated you - or how could you otherwise explain your feeling of being 'grateful' for receiving £400 out if a god know how many thousand pounds monthly pot? this is not normal reasoning on your side! And it's not just what is good for your DD (btw, ursery won't harm her at all) but what is good for you - making your self dependent financially from an abusive partner can't be the right way forward.

many poster tell you to talk to him. I have been in a relationship like that - men like that do not change. Not for good and not in the long-term.

maybe move this thread to relationships?you don't have a money problem but a husband problem.

I notice from your OP that on your in laws’ advice, your H hasn’t got a joint bank account with you. He is now saving stackloads of money, presumably to get a mortgage? Will his parents suggest he gets a solicitor to ringfence the deposit that ‘he’ has put in? Will the house be in joint names?

I have to say that over the years I would have loved to give up work and be a SAHM. I’ve always worked part time and was quite envious of friends that didn’t have the stress of working and childcare etc. Now though, I have a senior role at work and years of experience and those same friends are being turned away from minimum-wage jobs as they’ve been out of the workplace for so long. That has given me some perspective about it all and I’m glad I did what I did, even though it wasn’t always easy.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with one person being a SAHP if both parents agree. It doesn’t sound like your H would though. What has he said when you’ve discussed it? I presume you’ve talked about things like this over the years?

I wouldn’t give up work completely based on what you’ve written here.

amicissimma
"When you have children there are three areas that need taking care of:"
"1) The child/ren. Potentially 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Certainly the carer needs to be 'on call' if not actually performing care."
"2) Money needs to be brought in. Enough to cover the family's needs."
"3) The house and possessions, paperwork, etc need to be looked after: cleaning, bill paying, laundry, shopping etc."

"No one of those things is more important than the other. No one is 'better'. The adults in the family need to decide how to divide these 'jobs', bearing in mind that if one is not done, the whole family suffers. Some do half of each each, some allocate one to one adult, one to the other and share the third, and so on."

^^ THIS. Exactly. I posted almost the exact same point a year or two ago (under a name-change). Staggers me how many people STILL underplay the massive contribution those looking after the children and home make.

And OP, I notice you still haven't said who's going to be paying for childcare when you return to work.

Is her DH grateful for her wifework that saves him 1000’s in childcare costs every month? Doubt he’s even thought of it.

He absolutely is yes.

I won’t be sticking up for him on this thread as I know how easy it is to jump to conclusions about someone on AIBU when you only have the tiniest inkling of their lives. But I will say he’s a wonderful person and a wonderful father, we have an amazing relationship and never fight over anything. He respects me fully and in general is a very respectful person. He doesn’t flutter away £3k a month, he saves most of it. But this ‘saving for a rainy day’ attitude is generally where we differ.

I think he is just finding the transition from having his own money to sharing everything difficult, albeit not entirely. He takes a lot of advice from his parents who have quite weird ways in which they do things (have never had a joint account etc).

I’m going to have a bit chat with my awful abusive brute of a husband and see where we get to

@FitBitFanClub we have family members who would possibly like to look after LO (my mum, his folks) and possibly one day childcare - if I worked 3 days. He would probably pay for it.

The problem is that even if I value the role of a SAHP, the courts and society don't take the same view. It's not that more women choosing to work has diminished the role of SAHP. It's that fewer women who have the choice are prepared to be SAHP because it has such low status. Think about it: if being a SAHP were such a valued role in society, wouldn't white straight men be all over it? Course they would.

So in summary: do I think that SAHP play an important role? Personally, yes. Do I think that, given society and the courts' treatment of SAHP, that becoming a SAHP when you are the OP (with a DH who is borderline financially abusive) is a good idea? Hell no!!

The problem is that the financial settlement given to divorced spouses who have been a SAHP rarely adequately reflects the potentially life long earnings impact, especially given that most resident parents in single parent households are women, which already massively impacts their career options in a way that it doesn't impact the non-resident (typically male) parent.

Therefore while it shouldn't be the case that women are financially penalised by becoming SAHP, the reality is that they are.