To insist dh declines his work jolly starts this weekend and he can fly out on Monday instead

[rantingmother]

Omg I think I’m just having a rant but anyway I need to vent before I implode or something.

Dh travels a lot. It’s pretty annoying and I’m always saying can he try get a job that doesn’t require travelling but he half pretends to job search and then tells me there’s no jobs out there.
His travelling has annoyed me endlessly. When he took this job on, there was no travelling. Now he is abroad at least once a month and normally more than that.

The toll it’s taken on our family has been massive. Even though we had a nanny when I worked, once dc started school the pressure on me and my job got so great as I was the only parent available most of the month I ended up stopping work because I found it so stressful managing the home and dc and my job. He’s always saying he’s tired and just wants to rest.

It’s only when I stopped work I realised what a fool I was. Now I realise that it’s actually allowed dh to travel whenever he wants without even having to check because there’s no paid childcare only me. I now work one half day a week on Sunday (wfh), he normally looks after dc for the 5 hours I work, he said dc can just watch tv instead this Sunday and obviously I’ll be there Saturday. My dc still wakes in the night is very full on and I don’t enjoy being a sahm!

Anyway he just phoned me from work to say all his colleagues are going to USA on a Saturday he’ll probably fly out on Saturday as well. I said that’s nice for his colleagues but there’s really no need for you to go away Saturday is there. He said all the rest of them are going and I said oh well perhaps they don’t have families. He then said they do so I carried on with that’s nicceee...

Aibu to insist he flies out on the Monday knowing full well it won’t affect his job at all. I’m so pissed off. I am here 7 days a week and he’s jollying about whenever he feels like it.

I want to go back to work but feel utterly trapped. The nanny is long gone and i don’t think after a gap (wfh is not related to career) I’m going to get a job that affords the nanny now and even if it did dc is at school so don’t need full time care. I phoned all the Childminder’s in our area to see if anyone can collect dc from school and none do. I have no family or friends to help me. After school care is dire and finishes at 4:30. I’ve applied for any part time work career related but had no luck.

Im on the verge of sending his CV off myself to prove he can get work without travelling. We work in same industry. No way does he have to be in a company that travels this frequently.

Sorry I must have missed the post where she mentioned that she asked him to do the above and sat down with him and had a conversation, he said “ni it’s your responsibility”....

She asked him if he would work more flexible hours and he has said no as it would effect his career. She also asked him not to travel so much and he hasn't done that either. That means that she has to do it does it not?

What 'personal' stuff was he printing out? Did you not say 'what personal stuff?' ... Was it a driver's license application form? Surely you would know because he would come home and say 'I printed out that tax form' or whatever? An application for a loan you know nothing about? Have you not got a printer at home?

Your joint account isn't actually joint if only his name is on it. I'm absolutely shocked you have zero access to your finances.

Ask him for the login and password for your "joint" account and tell him you'll get to the bottom of the black hole. If he refuses that will tell you a lot.

The only other plausible explanations for missing money every month besides an affair are drug abuse and gambling. None of these are good scenarios obviously.

The other explanation is that money isn't missing at all and he is just using that as an excuse to control OP's spending while he does what he wants. Bizarre that everything is in his name only and that OP has just asked him to investigate instead of looking into it herself.

Where the hell is an extra £2000 going every month? That needs sorting ASAP. It’s worth setting up a spreadsheet to see outgoings monthly/direct debits etc.

Definitely ask for the login details for all bank accounts and credit cards. You need to be able to see for yourself. There is no good reason why he would not share them.

I am always staggered to read threads like this on MN where it shows that so many women either knowingly sign up to, or unwittingly sleepwalk into partnerships where they are effectively a chattel of their husband.
I'm not specifically talking about the OP here, but we have tales of grown women who don't work, or maybe work part-time for peanuts, and who end up being SAHMs or on maternity leave, starved of cash for basic outgoings, whilst their husbands swan around splashing "their" hard-earned money (facilitated by their wives providing all the home back-up), with no visible sign of hardship.
How? Why?

Hadenoughofallthis I can't get my head round it at all.

Like a PP, I think your DH printing out “personal” things for work sounds dodgy - not that he’s printing out personal things but that he didn’t voluntarily tell you what they are and that he’s doing so now, when he’s aware you’re not happy and have just started questioning him.

He’s up to something.

People like Madeline telling you his travel is normal are missing the point and possibly even justifying things to themselves. It’s not that your DH travels a lot or at short notice - is that he shows no attempt to minimise his travel at times when he can and, more crucially, even at home he makes little effort to prioritise or even spend time with you and your child. No problem with a partner who travels a lot provided they do actually want to spend time with you and contribute properly to family life when they can.

Many years ago my DH had a man in the team he ran whose wife, who both DH and I had met several times at company functions, rang DH up one day. She said that she thought her husband was having an affair and she wanted to check whether he had actually been away for two weeks on business on X dates. My DH was sympathetic and was non-commiysl I think, saying as it was some time ago he’d need to check records. On checking he saw the man’s trip had only been for one week. Turned out the man was having an affair overseas, and had said on that occasion he’d been in NY for business for 2 weeks when in fact he’d been in NY on business for one and with his mistress in an entirely different continent for the other week.

So, did he tell the wife that, Ringbinder?

IIRC, she’d found evidence he’d been in Asia with this other woman ( from her own home town and I think a cousin of hers ...) at a time he’d said he was in NY god two weeks on business. So she was trying to ascertain from my DH whether her husband had been in NY for work st ALL for the dates he said he was away. Which he had been- but only for one week. He’d taken annual leave for the 2nd week so for that time his wife thought he was away on business while his boss (my DH) thought he was on holiday.

I believe he left his wife and children for the other women shortly after.

Dick.

1 of my friends was encouraged by her dh to relocate. They lived in a large flat in London bought before prices leapt. They were moving to the country. They viewed loads of houses but he didn’t feel that any were quite right. They both got new jobs- think doctors.

Found a lovely house to rent, down the road from me which is how I met them.

Or rather how I met her. In tears 2 days after moving.

House sale went through. Removal vans came. She set off with 3 children in the car. He was working last day and catching her up.

He never arrived. Hadn’t handed in his notice, no new job.

He knew that if they divorced he wouldn’t have been able to easily force a sale. They each got 50% of equity. No one else involved

She did meet and marry a lovely man a few years later.

So never sell if relationship is dodgy!

My dh pays for all his travel and hotels and sins them back. Up to £20k a month. You get the hotel , air and credit card miles doing it that way. No unusual I think

I agree. Women need to work. Whether their h is rich or not. Too many threads on women left after being treated as housekeepers by men who fall for an exciting interesting woman at work

You’ve enabled this fucker for far too long. Get a nanny and a cleaner and get yourself back out there. Waiting around for him to give a toss is a strategy that has brought you to this point.

When Ex announced he was going back to a Estonia a day earlier because he didn’t want to miss a regular film excursion with colleagues, I knew for us that that level of entitled selfishness was one of the many straws that obliterated any respect I had for him. Yes I had enabled him but by God, did he take that inch and run with it.

You need to stop asking and start telling him. He checks out of family life when it suits because he knows you’ll suck it up. Never expect the person who benefits from the status quo to change it, start prioritising yourself because he clearly won’t.

“Never expect the person who benefits from the status quo to change it, start prioritising yourself because he clearly won’t.”

Wise words indeed!

I’ve been accused of “showing off” on this thread when I described my lifestyle OP. It really wasn’t meant to come across like that because, in actual fact, the truth is I’ve been in therapy these last 6 months and it’s taken me that long to have the revelation that my entire life cannot be based on facilitating my DH. It’s true, I’ve never suspected him if having an affair or hiding money from me. None of this has ever been an issue, but still, I realise that there has to be more to me than this and I’m thinking about the future. So I’ve signed on to a postgrad and I’m retraining in something connected to, but slightly different to what I did in my twenties. If I can do it, after 15 years, so can you! Some men will never change because they dint know how else to be, but all you can do is take steps to prioritise yourself as the PP said above.

DH travels longhaul at least once a month. He sometimes flies out on Sun, especially if it's to the west coast of the States. He often arrives home early on a Sat morning (due to overnight flight) which is annoying but he's senior enough to just take a day in lieu occasionally. The only times that he has flown out on a Sat is when he flies to the Middle East where Sunday is a working day.

We have complete financial transparency and he sends me his travel details/prints them out of his flight/hotel details out of courtesy. I receive alerts/texts when his flights depart/land - I just take it for granted that in this day and age, technology has made it easy for us to share such information. Maybe, tmi is lulling me into a sense of complacency but I do trust him implicitly.

That does sound a bit over kill - the alerts and shit. I’d be too busy to be so interested
I apologise to Mandarine. Good luck!

He has you where he wants you and has total control over everything. He is enjoying the luxury of marriage whilst leading the single life. Sounds just like my ex and you like myself have been far too trusting of everything. That said I agree if you have only one child at home you should still be able to have a lot of me time, especially since you are a sahm and your child is at school. The problem is you gave up a good career and do not like what you have become. I was you and my ex started travelling more and more with work and controlled the finances, giving me a set amount for house keeping. He was a high earner also and was more interested in building up his social life through work and as I later discovered funding it through our business. It was only after he left that I decided to go through the paper work he had yet to remove from the house. I was so naive I did not really know what I was looking for to be honest even at that stage. What I found horrified me, I found receipts for hotels. Rooms booked for 2 in boutique hotels costing £650 a night. Added up there was some £25,000 of these from all over the country. When I confronted him he denied everything and even asked for them back as he needed them for the tax man. Looking back I cannot quite believe I was that person who allowed him so much control and was so trusting.

Well, DH set it up so that I get all the email/text notifications that he gets with regard to his flights....so that I no longer have to ask him. I also have no excuses that I don't know where he is. (He does fly around the States internally within the week). At least, I know where he's supposed to be if there was an accident...(practical if a little morbid)

If you genuinely have no money left at the end of the month then he's obviously not planning on having a shopping and partying weekend this weekend is he?

Trappedin wrote

He knew that if they divorced he wouldn’t have been able to easily force a sale. They each got 50% of equity. No one else involved

I've seen this happen twice in my life, it's horrendous and the fall out is huge.

If you genuinely have no money left at the end of the month...

She doesn't know whether or not this is true. It's what her DH tells her.

I realise that. I meant it's a point to challenge him on

www.womenshealth.gov/relationships-and-safety/domestic-violence/leaving-abusive-relationship

On this page you’ll find “what to include in your safety packing list”. It will give you an idea of things that it would be helpful for you to get hold of whilst this thundercunt is away.