To think if my husband ever left me I’d leave him with the kids

[DieAntword]

I’ve told him this, if he ever leaves, he isn’t going to swan off into the sunset and have a whale of a time. He keeps the kids. I can’t cope with looking after them after being abandoned like that and I need the space to pull myself together emotionally.

I’m currently a SAHM and absolutely the primary caregiver and I don’t think he actually would ever leave, but he isn’t saddling me with the life of a single mum if he does. He can be the single mum and I can be the fun part time dad thanks.

I’ve paid my dues. If he wants to do with out me he’ll have to pay someone for childcare.

Not complaining wtf. I have a great life and both of us are on board with our setup.

And don’t know where you got wouldn’t care if he left from, I would be devastated.

I love and adore my husband. I don’t have a bad word to say about him. But the imaginary husband who decides to leave me after we built so much trust and love without so much as telling me he was feeling unhappy of course I’m angry with that husband.

Honestly OP, I don’t really believe that. If that’s true, and you honestly think it’s okay to say those horrible things to your DH just because you’ve imagined him doing it, I really think you need to see a GP about your mental health.

You might be saying now that you’re happy with the set up, but you’ve told him you’re not and that you are ‘paying your dues’ and would ditch the kids to fuck around and party.

I really cannot understand why you would say those things to someone you love. And to make your kids sound like they are so worthless to you that you’d hurt them just to punish him?

I don’t think I trust your volte face for one moment. I think you’re a manipulative person, you manipulate your DH and you’re trying to manipulate us. It hasn’t escaped my notice that you blame your husband when you feel dissatisfied and aren’t happy with how your life turned out. And now you’re saying that you treat your husband badly and it’s all our fault for posting on Mumsnet.

Grow up, take some responsibility for yourself and get some counselling. Because if you carry on like this, particularly if your children are isolated by home schooling, you’ll do the same to them too. Actually I would very, very strongly suggest you don’t home school because I’m 18 years you’ll be doing the same to them: ‘I gave up a career for you and I’ve never been anything, it’s all your fault’ every time they make a choice you disapprove of. Hell, even if you imagine them making a choice they disapprove of.

You need to apologise to DH for saying those awful things and get some help, before you damage your children.

I’m not blaming mumsnet I’m just saying this is where I got the idea that wonderful husbands who never show any indication of it suddenly run off out of the blue. I can assure you my husband is no wilting violet and is completely capable of advocating for himself. I’m not at ALL dissatisfied with how my life has turned out. Being sad about an opportunity turning out not to be one is not a sign of wider dissatisfaction with life. I don’t need to blame anyone because I have nothing to blame about.

I can’t even think of choices my kids could make I’d disapprove of except taking drugs and looking at images of child abuse, maybe murder or genocide. Honestly if they commit genocide I’ll be within my rights to express disappointment.

I didn’t even give up a career for my husband so I don’t know where that’s coming from. I never had a career in the first place and there was never any indication I ever would. When my husband met me my plan was to just take lots of drugs and live in squats and stuff and he came along and made me think I could have a family and a life and not just bum around taking drugs forever and I gave it a go and so far it’s worked out great and I have him to thank for basically everything.

Perhaps this is where your sense of helplessness stems fro mtgen OP. You might have to thank him for giving you an out into a better life but you have kept yourself there. This whole if he left I'd have to go to X, if they'd died I'd have to go to Y. You have to learn how to depend on yourself and trust yourself to not go back to taking drugs etc. I really think counselling might help with your self of self worth

DieAntword when you first posted I was fairly horrified by what you posted because it sounded callous and like a slightly braggy, empty threat that utterly failed to understand how important your relationship with your DC is.

As the thread has progressed and you've tried to express what has given you these thoughts, basically utterly unfounded in your real life, I'm wondering if all is well and you are mentally in the right place at the moment.

You don't have to post on here, but if you've ever suffered from depression or mental health issues, it might be worth considering a chat with your GP again because what you are saying on here, neither makes much sense, nor sounds very happy.

Why is it “punishing” my kids to let their father be their resident parent??

It isn’t if necessarily. If it’s done as part of considered evaluation of their needs and what is best for them then there is no reason why a father couldn’t be the best fit for resident parent.

But if it’s a retaliation for your husbands behaviour with no consideration of their wants and needs then it is a punishment.

I don’t think mumsnet is to blame for your feelings

They come from helplessness, resentment and lack of identity. I don’t think you have much purpose in life and are at risk of taking for granted the opportunities your husband has been able to afford to you.

But if it’s a retaliation for your husbands behaviour with no consideration of their wants and needs then it is a punishment

Agree this is how it comes across. It doesn't come across you would evaluate the situation at the time and try to come to a solution that would be the best for you children.

More you are threatening if he doesn't stay with you, you will punish him by making him resident parent. I assume as he works, uou think this will cause him some difficulty. So you want him to be aware of just how difficult you will make it for everyone concerned. As such, it's manipulative.

As you also say you would resent being resident parent, I assume you think he will too, so you're using it as a weapon to make sure he stays.

The reality is if you wish to have a long term happy marriage then saying you'd want to work on the best solution possible would get more respect from him. Not " I'm going to make your life as hard as I possibly can if you ever dare leave me, and worse than that, I'm going to make it hard for the kids too, you'd have that on your conscionse"

What's even worse, is as you have no viable means to actually financially support yourself, you wouldn't even be paying child maintenance for your children as is the norm for the non resident parent.

So yeah, it's a threat, it's a punishment, and it's not how you keep someone with you.

They come from helplessness, resentment and lack of identity. I don’t think you have much purpose in life and are at risk of taking for granted the opportunities your husband has been able to afford to you.

This. This completely. You seem to have a victim mentality that life is something that happens to you instead of something you can control. If you’re not happy then identify what you could do to be happy and then actively pursue it. If you had the idea you were going to be a SAHM and do HE but it isn’t making you happy then find some childcare or send them to school and find something you’re good at in work or retrain.

But don’t just lay this vague feeling of dissatisfaction at your DH’s door when all he’s done is help you do what you said you wanted.

It does sound like you have blessings in your life like a DH who is committed to you and supported and presumably healthy children, a roof over your head and food to eat. And you seem to be actively looking for things to be unhappy about, like imaginary scenarios. It’s very eeyorish. I have an awful lot of sympathy for your DH trying to give you what you want and make you happy when you don’t seem to take any pleasure in what you’ve got or seen how lucky you are in a lot of ways. If you carry on taking him for granted like this, berating him over imaginary scenarios then he will leave. I wonder if there is some level of testing going on from you. You’re convinced you’ll be abandoned so you keep on pushing it and testing and in the end you can say ‘See, well I was right, I said you’d leave all along.’

It sounds like very self destructive behaviour and again, my advice is to apologise to DH and discuss these feelings with your GP

DieAntword - your thinking sounds disordered and confused. Stop trying to imagine your dh behaving out of character by leaving you for another woman but simultaneously imagining he remains in character and hangs around to look after the kids. It's just weird and unhealthy! If your dh does something unexpected, he may well do loads of other unexpected things. You can't plan in advance exactly how you will react to the unexpected and how he will react in return. For all you know, you could come home one day and he's vanished. Or you could come home one day and the whole family has vanished. Or life could continue as it is now. Or WW3 could start. Or you could fall in love with someone else. Or just about bloody anything.

People - the OP is a SAHM to young children who are below school age. She’s probably just tired. Resentment is really common among SAHMs to children this age. All this stuff about ‘if you aren’t happy change it’ or ‘go off on a holiday’ is fine long term advice but it may be that all the OP needs to be happy is 1) a full nights sleep 2) to get to the end of the day without someone else’s bodily fluids decorating your outfit somewhere.

If this is the case it may be actively unwise to change things now if her situation will become lovely and happy in a couple of years just through the children getting older.

Batteriesallgone - the OP has explicitly stated she is very happy with her current situation. It is because she is so happy with it that she thinks she will be unable to cope if her dh has a personality transplant...

Once again, Gingerrogered's last post has nailed it

Resentment is really common among SAHMs to children this age
And yet most don't threaten their partner seriously that they'd walk out on the kids if he ever tried to leave

So if this right? You are a SAHM by choice and will home school your DC. But if you DH doesn't come home from work one day, and texts to say its over you will just put your children into care? I just find that so hard to believe/wrap my head around. How could anyone plan to do that to their own children?

I completely see where the OP is coming from I this hypothetical situation.

As women we are guilt tripped into 'how could you'. Whilst completely accepting the man can leave and parent entirely on his own terms..
OP is simply saying that she wouldn't make it that easy if he did leave. That is is an equal parent with equal responsibility and that doesn't change regardless of his feelings for her.

An acquaintance at work did EXACTLY this. He met OW and needed 'time out' . She was devastated and angry. Told the children daddy had to go and stay with a friend .
The next day she delivered them to her ex at his gf house. (4 under 8) explaining to them that granny was unwell and needed her to look after them.
Then preceded to stay with granny - popping home at random unannounced points over the next 4 weeks.
He moved back home. GF dumped him as 'not ready to be a step mother' after 3 weeks.

She still divorced the bastard. But made sure she screwed the relationship first...

Nothing takes the shine off your new sex life than 4 under 8s wanting their tea.

Genius. Kids none the wiser as Granny played along.

Typo- needed HIM to look after them.

@user1471517900

OP I’ll tell you what.
In some ways, I have been where you are. On paper, everything to be happy. A husband that was working and being a good enough wage. Two dcs that were healthy. And thanks to different people in my life, I was actually able to do something I really wanted (in that case, I retrained).
But there was this feeling of things been not quite right.

I learnt that it’s because a lot if the things I did, I did them because that’s what I was supposed to do rather than what I actually wanted. Being a SAHM. Always putting my dcs first, which meant scrificing myself all the time. Same for H, because, look at how much he was doing ‘for’ me. So it meant I stopped working because my wage didn’t cover all the childcare cost but also because it means travelling and H was already travelling for work too so clearly I could t do that too for example
It took me a long time to realise I needed to reclaim myself, the real me and to stop doing for others all the time.

In all your posts, it’s all about you and how you are feeling etc... there is very little about your DH bar the fact you trust him etc etc.
(Which them makes me wonder how posters can just ‘guess’ that he is an amazing man...)
So my advice to you is the one i wish someone had given me all this years ago.
Go and see and counsellor or a life coach. Look at your life and what you really want from it. Form the few posts on here, it seems that it’s much more than been a SAHM and HE. You seem to be craving/dreaming about building a business, being involved in a product development whilst putting yourself down saying. You couldn’t do it anyway.
So have a look. Do some soul searching to see ant you want in life.
And then have a look at what you think you want or what you are telling people (like the HE). Is it you? Is it someone else? Is it what you think you ought to do?

I thought this was quite a fun idea, and is only a hypopothetical course of action - the OP has no belief that her dh is likely to put her in this position. Why are people getting snippy about it?

I think you have a point, OP. Let the menz deal with the consequences of theirr actions for a change, rather than swanning off thinking that wifey-dear will pick up all the pieces and he can just do the Disney thing when he feels like it.

When a whole situation is in flux, your children will have to adapt to all sorts of bloody awful strangenesses, including possibly living with a mum who's always been happy and together and is now isn't, now is unreliable, miserable, maybe just keeps dropping the ball, forgetting to wash the uniforms or sports kit, not coping and all sorts of other even worse possibilities. Why not change everything so they's still living with a very familiar figure who remains the cheerful chap he always was because the whole thing was his choice in the first place? And if he knows your plans in advance, he might think twice about dumping you in the first place.

And yes, you get to empty the bank account, bugger off to Mustique or maybe Maui, have rampant sex the like of which you'd never thought existed, get pissed for, oh, maybe a week or so, and then you realise you miss the children quite a lot, take the money you haven't yet spent, buy a small bungalow in, oh, Guadaloupe, and bring the children to live with you there. Happily. Ever. After.

(Luckily, dd is 19 so I'll never have to follow through.)

Jux

Absolutely see what the OP is saying.
Men dealing with consequences of their actions.
Women acting equally to the way men already act - can be a good mum Every other weekend.
Not just accepting men can act as they please while the woman picks up the slack.

Not just accepting men can act as they please while the woman picks up the slack
I wouldn't give up time with my DS just to make a point. I wouldn't want EOW and one school night a week just so their Dad can see what it's like and to make some feminist remark on expectations by sex.

Making a decision that its in the best interest of the kid is one thing. That's what we should do as parents. Making a decision that is purely about you making a point and that significantly adversely affects the kids is not OK

Whilst completely accepting the man can leave and parent entirely on his own terms.. OP is simply saying that she wouldn't make it that easy if he did leave. That is is an equal parent with equal responsibility and that doesn't change regardless of his feelings for her

That's clearly not what she's saying at all. Because there is nothing equal about leaving your kids.

Parents should parent in the event of a split in terms of what's best for the kids. Not what's best for them,, with both of them rushing to fuck off out of it.

Also am I being crazy in that if DH wanted to leave I'd rather he left?? I don't want to trap him into a marriage where we both end up miserable or he ends up having an affair and then I feel trapped in it because I've already comprised so much just to keep him.
There are worse things for both the adults and children than a marriage split, especially one not based on an affair / months of screaming arguments etc.
Why would I want to blackmail him into being with me?