To work full time to fund DHs preferred lifestyle?

[Smoothsailing9]

Bit of background first. My DH has a professional job which he trained for at university and has done ever since (20 years). He earns approx £50,000 a year. I went to university but did an arts degree, then trained as a teacher but didn’t enjoy it. Worked in various fairly low paid arts related jobs until I had DCs and took several years out. Returned to work part time when youngest was 3. My mum has always willingly provided free childcare/ after school supervision. I now have a 20 hours per week job I really enjoy but is very low paid compared to DH, I bring home around £8,000 a year.

A few days ago eldest DS was talking about a new phone he wants for Xmas. We discussed it and told him it was way too expensive. Obviously he moaned and sulked - he is 14. But DH used the opportunity to go on a massive rant about how little money he has, how he can’t afford a new car and foreign holiday every year etc and eventually, as I knew it would, it ended up being my fault for not bringing enough money in. This was in front of DCs. I was upset but left it.

Then about 3am that night DH wakes me up to say he’s really stressed about money. I said, I’m not discussing this in the middle of the night and went downstairs to make a cup of tea (I don’t sleep very well). He followed me and started a huge row about how “someone of your intelligence should be earning more” and “ if I’d married someone in my industry, I’d be fine”. Went on about how much more his friends earn, how I’ve got no savings or pension (although I actually have), how he wants me to get a full time job.

He brings all this up regularly but it’s really upset me this time. Although he’s a good dad, I do all the housework, paperwork, shopping and cooking and the ‘mental load’ stuff. I spend all my time not at work doing stuff for the house and family, whereas he just works, comes home and relaxes. If I worked full time his life would change massively. He might be able to buy a nicer car, but he’d need to take on half of the running of the house and I know he wouldn’t. I would certainly go back full time when the DCs can look after themselves more, but I just can’t see how I’d manage it now. Also, I am really low maintenance and really don’t cost him a lot. Don’t drink, no expensive hobbies, buy all my clothes off eBay. So AIBU not to look for a full time job?

I think you are being unreasonable. He’s the main breadwinner by a longshot. What about your pension? Sending kids to uni? You won’t get a job in your degree area, but you can do administrative work, surely.

OK, I’ve obviously explained this badly. We are not badly off! The kids and DH have all the gadgets they could possibly need. We do have holidays, just not abroad every year. We have two cars, a four bed house and DH has a hobby that he spends a fortune on including several weekends away a year. He is useless with money and completely disorganised about it. He buys lunch every day, rarely looks at the bank account before he buys anything. He implied he wished he hadn’t married me FFS, as if my only value is my money.

I think your title is slightly unfair. You wouldn’t be working or earning more to fund his preferred lifestyle. He’s been working ft and earning well even though he may not love his job to fund yours. If that’s by mutual agreement then no problems for anyone but he’s reaching out stressing about it and you need to talk through possibilities for things changing.

Free childcare is an amazing gift and would enable you to work more hours.

How many years off is you thinking the DC will need you less? Loads of people say teens need as much support as primary DC though in different ways and it might take you a while to work up to ft hours so you might be better starting sooner rather than later.

He certainly didn’t introduce the subject in the correct manner but I think you both have to agree and be happy about how you arrrange your work hours - he is not and you can’t ignore his feelings. He will have to do more of the tasks you were doing and he probably work like that very much just like you won’t like working outside the home more. I hope the increase in household income is enough to compensate.

IT sounds like one of it is really about you earning more money. It's the fact he's u happy and not coping. Could you get some time together to try and work out a way forward. It's wrong of him to belittle you and your degree, when he married you he knew who you were.

Ask him also would he like to drop hours so you can work more, or explain that your Mum is providing childcare he would otherwise be paying for.

At the end of the day though he sounds to be suffering from stress and the money is a symptom

I am in the position of your husband. I earn the same as him and I support my partner earning minimum wage. It has been this way for 15 years and I totally resent him for it and have lost respect for him because of it. I was very open to him pursuing various courses for many years to try and find a career that suits him. But after him trying out countless different options and giving up and trying something else I am well and truly fed up. I do look at my colleagues who share joint financial responsibilities with their partners and don’t struggle for money and wish to God I had made a different choice of partner. This may be horrible of me and horrible to hear but I want you to know the truth so that you might take your husband’s concerns seriously. I genuinely don’t see what gives you the right to have the luxury of working part time for a pittance whilst he works full time but has to worry constantly about money. I think you should show him some respect but pulling your weight and bringing in more money to help support your family. It sounds completely unfair to me.

Sorry but he's clearly worried about money. Why should he have to carry the financial burden? I think you should also go back to work full time to help with family finances, however do not let yourself do all the work at home; as you would both be working full time, you need do share the mental load 50/50.

You need to get a better paid job. Lots of us work full time in well paid jobs and manage to look after our families. Get a cleaner if need be.

If I earned 50k, and could afford to buy my lunch everyday and have a holiday I would be majorly pissed off. Especially if my partner insisted on working part time in a below minimum wage job, because he liked it. Unlesswe had young kids that is.

That said he has to step up at home. But honestly you can't believe it's ok to not share the financial burden when he is telling you it's a lot of pressure.

If I were you OP, I'd do some budgeting to demonstrate how much money you actually have. Look to save. Go all out. Meal planning, bills factored in etc. He is possibly being short sighted. If he is that bad with money (as you have detailed) any extra would just get frittered away too.

If my husband woke me up at 3am freaking out I don’t think I’d be angry, I’d be worried something was very wrong and try to listen to him. I’m fucking shattered at the moment but he’s a reasonable man and he wouldn’t wake me up unless it was serious.

I expected to be very unpopular on this thread, but having read the other replies, I am emboldened to say this: I am the main breadwinner in our family, and I have often told DH quite bluntly that it is a source of resentment and unhappiness that I have been pretty much shackled to a job I don't particularly love, while he keeps on doing the job that is comfortable for him and doesn't look to step out of his comfort zone in order to be a bigger contributor.
For many years, if he didn't have enough money to contribute his agreed payments for the month to the household standing orders, he didn't think about what else he could do to bring in some money: he just said he didn't have the money and left it to me to make up the shortfall.
I cannot tell you how unhappy it's made me to know that I am always the financial backstop and that he made little or no effort to try something different in order to alleviate that.
Just as a footnote, however, the last couple of years have been a great deal better because he got better at doing what he does. Hours are not an issue - in fact, now I work fewer hours than he does, but that's certainly not always been the case. I'm also aware that I've got lazy about my "share" of the housework, so I have some redress to make there, but that's a separate thread - it just seemed a bit more honest to cop to it.
I hope you don't take this as me being critical, OP. I'm just trying to give you honest information.

How old is your youngest ?

£58k really isn't a huge annual income for a family of five. It can be done, of course, many families do it on significantly less (though your free childcare is a massive advantage), but I can definitely see how things could be tight on it and he would feel stressed.

He didn't handle it well but he does have a point. It would be wrong for a woman to be pressured or somehow manipulated into being SAHM if she didn't want to be, and the same goes for being the (pretty much) sole earner. £8k really is phenomenally low for 20 hours a week.

Of course, he would indeed have to step up more at home if you worked more; I know you say he wouldn't but how do you know if you haven't tried?

And on the surface, we seem comfortably off - ie have gadgets and go on holiday but it is a massive responsibility to have almost all the weight on your shoulders to maintain this kind of lifestyle. I feel it all the time. This is a topic close to my heart but I feel so sorry for your husband.

Your title says a lot about how much you respect your husband.

He’s struggling and he’s clearly starting to crack under the strain. He works hard and has for years, but can’t even have a holiday while you work very little but get to enjoy your job.

You say he’s brought this up a lot so it is clearly important to him. How have you responded? Have you talked about the mental load split and what you’d need help with at home if you worked more hours? Have you suggested anything to ease the financial burden? Have you even bothered to look into the job market available to you?

He’s talked about it a lot, you’ve done nothing to help your husband who is clearly scared for the future and then you make a flip remark about being forced to work to support his lifestyle. Grow up.

I'd do some budgeting to demonstrate how much money you actually have. Look to save.

It's not just about that. It's very difficult being the main earner. Sharing the burden might be what he needs, rather it being about figures.

Why should he look at scrimping when the OP could work more hours. They are meant to be partners.

Bluntly, if I were making 50K a year and my spouse 8K on the basis that I can pack my lunch rather than buy it, I'd tell him to fuck off.

You're freeloading and you know it. Get a full-time job already.

If the youngest is at school why can't you work a bit more, or look for something better. If not I think it's reasonable to wait but not for ever

Id be fucked off if i was your dp too tbh. Working on my career to get in the beat position and having a partner who doesn't think a 14 year old is of an age to look after himself a bit more. And 20
Hours a week for £8k a year???? No. Just no.

He said he wants you to
Work full time
But he actually just wants more money coming in. Get a better paid job on twenty hours a week.

I think a lot depends on how sure you are he wouldn't do his share, if you went back FT. What's the basis for that? Have you tried spelling out to him exactly what you do and what he'd need to do? At the moment you bring in probably 20%ish of the household income and seem to do not far shy of 100% of everything else. If one of these proportions changes, the other will need to. How old are your kids btw and how many?

Your salary is pretty low, you must be about NMW? I think tbh you should be researching other ways to earn a bit more, even if the hours were still fairly similar.

I know, loving the choice of language 'working full-time to fund his lifestyle'. Good grief.

I suppose you also rail against the gender pay gap?

Yes, your title is about you working full time to fund his preferred lifestyle, but is this not what he's doing for you?

When I say I do everything in the house I mean everything, gardens, car washing, the lot.He doesn’t even open his own letters. He’s been like this for 20 years, even when I did work full time before DCs. And those posters saying I need to use my degree, again, I worked in jobs requiring a degree before DCs. I did actually do some retraining courses and would have loved to start my own business but DH is not prepared to support me if it takes time to make money.

Incidentally, he lost us £30,000 on a stupid buy to let investment a few years ago. When I inherited roughly the same amount I paid off all that debt with it.

OK, I get it, this is a reverse?