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)

To suggest you need to give up work to supervise the practice is nonsense

No-one actually made this suggestion if you read the thread.

I think being forced back to work can be a source of massive resentment. One of my best friend's husbands absolutely refused to countenance it although they could have managed financially and her job would have been kept open for 5 years.

They ended up with an uneasy compromise of her working four days a week and she had 3 babies in 4 years in order to get some maternity leave at home with them.

Their lives were quite frantic for many years; they spent a lot of their money on buying in help: childcare, cleaner, gardener, running two cars and buying expensive clothes for work, posh readymeals and treats to help them relax and expensive activities to make memories because they hardly saw their kids.

They were no better off than us with me at home and our chilled lifestyle.

Of course you don't need to give up work to enable music lessons In fact taking kids to lessons and clubs is the easy bit! It's all the humdrum, unstructured time in between, all day every day, that is the work. Not saying it's harder work than x, y or z jobs, but it is what it is.

I think being forced back to work can be a source of massive resentment

Just like being forced to be the sole earner, I expect.

her Dp potentially Being compelled to be sole earner needs to be discussed and agreed
Her dp has the right to say,actually no.on balance I don’t want that huge responsibility
Parenting is a joint enterprise,both parents,and not an expectation of being sahm

I really don't see how music lessons have anything to do with whether you work or not.
There may be opportunities open to those with a sahp that aren't to wohp/ available grandparents, but it certainly is no barrier.

There again I don't hold with Suzuki and starting at 2, it really isn't necessary.
Having ferried my dc around for 25 years I never found that children missed out with working parents, apart from those who obviously wanted to take it further afield and had nobody to take them.

If parents are needed to supervise practice after primary, the child clearly doesn't want to do it. Those that do will get on with it themselves, with no encouragement bribery or coercion necessary.

What tatiana describes her sister doing earlier in the thread (4 hours of supervising practice a day across 3 children) is in no way necessary for them to achieve a high standard in music.

OP - As others have said, I think you just need to be honest with your husband that the prospect of returning to work is not sitting well with you at the moment.

Presumably when you buy the new house, it will be in both your names and the mortgage too, if there is one? So tell him that as you are going forward with joint assets / debt (and a bsby!) it follows that you need joint bank accounts (even if and when you do return to work).

What is his vision for your family's future - e.g. does he actively want you to work? Is being a sole earner too much of a burden or is he fine with it? Does he have a view on childcare? Is he entirely comfortable passing this responsibility to family members? Does he want more DC - what then?

Good luck!

No.it doesn’t follow at all if you have mortgage you must have joint account
We have a mortgage and no sole joint account.hes not compelled to do so
This is probably based on advice you don’t work and dip in/out of his salary via a joint account

It’s not necessary but it’s very nice.

By way of example, I got a music scholarship at 11 and grade 8 distinction on two instruments at 13. I’m not so arrogant to think I would have achieved that off my own bat, or if I hadn’t started so young. Parental input was key.

All of which is completely irrelevant to the OP who wants to know if she’s BU to stay at home some more with DD - to which the answer is no.

I can't understand all this "his" money lark! Surely it's joint money?! I'm a sahp and DH salary gets paid into a joint account which we both use! Never had a problem. It's "family" money.

Well of course you’d be inclined to say that seeing you don’t earn a salary.its advantageous to you
My money is my money, dp has his money. And there a joint acc for bills,mortgage

For your relationship to work you both need to communicate. Sit down and discuss your childcare options, including each other as one of the options. Look at cost but also what you both want - you both need to agree.

I wouldn’t appreciate my DH telling me that I was now 100% responsible for all of the money being earned for the household in the same way that I wouldn’t want to do 100% of the childcare - during the working day anyway. It needs to be a discussion and a compromise.

If you want to be a sahp, you both need to agree. Look at finances clearly and work out a budget that you both agree on, it’s not sustainable to ask for pocket money.

Yanbu to not want to work. He’s nbu to not want to be the sole provider, especially if he’s anxious over money anyway. Talk to each other!

Do think about the whole future though - pensions, savings etc

OP, there is nothing wrong with sitting down with your DP and telling him that you've been having these feelings, as long as you share ALL of them. Tell him that you don't want to be a "kept woman" (although I disagree completely with the idea that the partner who is working their arse off at home is "kept"), that you don't want to stay home forever, but that you aren't ready to return yet, and see what he says.

FWIW, splitting expenses evenly when he makes more than twice your income is unfair. This is the next thing you should discuss if he is unwilling to be sole earner for awhile.

You didn't mention whether he liked your staying home for the past year. Some people really prefer one partner having more time to take care of all the household things, whether they're SAH or part-time.

I truly don't understand why anyone would have a baby, mixing your genes to create a whole new person, when you won't even mix your money to create a joint account.

I find it baffling, and yet so many women do. And they are almost always the worse off for it.

Even before we had DC and I was working, we just put our money in the same account. But once you have children, there are such a multitude of expenses and how could you possibly decide who pays for what? What's the point of transferring money to your wife if it all gets spent in the same way regardless?
The only circumstances I could see a need for separate accounts is if one person had a gambling problem, addiction, or was a spendaholic, so you couldn't trust them. I could also see how you might need to protect your finances in a second marriage - e.g. if one or both of you were also supporting other children. Otherwise, it just sounds like hard work.

Having children doesn’t mean I’ve lost my financial awareness or autonomy
Because I have had kids doesn’t mean I needs to wholly share finances
But it’s advantageous to sahm they gain access to their partner salary

I don't think Op is planning to be a SAHM for ever. It sounds as if she would like to extend her time at home to give dd the best start, in her opinion. Dh is more likely to prioritise saving for deposit on buying a house. Her full-time salary could help them to do this more quickly.

Neither is being unreasonable. Op - you need to research the cost of childcare. It will help to put a monetary value on your work as carer for dd, as he might be less convinced by emotional factors. I know of couples where the cost of childcare and commute leaves very little financial advantage.

I must be an exception because I'd never have a joint account. I'd even go so far as to want a pre-nup drawn up to ensure my assets and my future husband's were kept separate. I just can't get my head around feeling entitled to money that someone else has earned, or a partner feeling entitled to my earnings just because we're married. It just doesn't feel right to me but I realise that's not the majority view here

Why is it hard work to maintain separate accounts?phone,online banking all ease transactions
I’m v prudent as is my dp.no addictions or untoward expenditure.simply don’t want joint acc
I was brought up to be financially solvent and not have a joint acc.good advice

I just can't get my head around feeling entitled to money that someone else has earned, or a partner feeling entitled to my earnings just because we're married

If you have a child and one of you stays home to care for it, you think the earner should be rolling in money while the one caring for the baby has what? child benefit maybe, and whatever they've managed to save?

I can't understand how anyone thinks that is ok.

I don’t understand why people don’t work out a solution that suits their own family instead of coming on here, knowing there will be so many families in so many different circumstances/cultures/Regions, with different values.

It’s always going to end badly.

I stayed at home because I wanted to. My DH wanted to work. We work as a team. It works.

And now some of my children at a lot older I do not regret a single milli second of my life.

slothface,your arrangement is v sensible.i ageee a partner or spouse has no enetitlement to monies you earn

I’ve been on mat leave since December (baby number 2) and like you was planning to go back in January but have now extended that to late February. Mainly because DD was an absolute nightmare for the first 4 months so I feel like that time passed by in an awful blur and I’d like to make the most of her now! So of course YANBU.
But to not have joint finances is rather strange OP. DH and I earn around the same, we pool our salaries every month and then the money goes to where it’s needed. While I’ve been on mat leave nothing changes but we don’t have money for savings. Things will be a bit tight for next few months now my stat mat pay has come to an end but we’ll manage. The key word being ‘we’. You need to have a chat with your husband.

How old is OP? You sound very young. Are you 20? Are you from a damaged background, abused, high anxiety? Do you have a lot of relationship experience? Do you know what a controlling man is like?
I’m struggling to get to grips with what OP has posted so far.