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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to work?

89 replies

Florabritannica · 21/12/2018 23:15

I have a relatively high-earning husband. I don’t work because we don’t actively need the money and the satisfaction of working outside the home would be cancelled out by the stress of coming home every day to all the household admin. The alternative would be to use my salary to pay someone to do the cleaning, laundry, household errands etc, which rather defeats the object. At the same time we are trying as a family to reduce our outgoings in preparation for my hisband’s retirement. We have a ten-year-old child together.
Now I discover that he is paying for his daughter’s au pair so that she can work.
Am I being unreasonable to feel aggrieved?

OP posts:
swingofthings · 22/12/2018 09:52

Sorry but you are unbelievable. You've stopped working to have a nice stressless life fully supported by your OH and you resent him paying to help his DD working because you feel that all the money he makes should go to you not working?

Looking after a home with only one 10 yo being like a FT job? Really? What job did you do before that equates to this? You have it good, really good and instead of being grateful for the life you have you are resentful of others who are making a life for themselves. Can't you see that most working mum would give everything to have your life.

How about you go back to work and employ a cleaner for a few hours and say someone to iron your clothes so you are not drowning under the house duties then share some of the admin duties with your OH. Surely your earning will be above this.

DrCoconut · 22/12/2018 10:14

The feckless ex wife responsible for his problems is as old as the hills too, they all say that. How many perfectly normal and reasonable women are portrayed as crazy, greedy, wasteful etc by these types of men?

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 22/12/2018 10:36

The heating and eating are really about practising for a retirement when we will have to live on very little.

The simple answer here is that he cannot afford to retire, and he's not trying to cut down if he's gifting £100k a year and refusing leftovers.

I would go back to work to build a life separate from this nightmare, if I was you.

JamAtkins · 22/12/2018 10:37

You have a ‘viciously angry’ dh, who is likely to pre-decease you by several years. You have no financial independence. You have one child on the brink of secondary school. Your husbands estate will be split between several children and two wives. Your husband is beyond retirement age and has little pension and is financially unable to retire. If you are considering not working in these circumstances because of the weight of ‘household admin’ then you are a bloody idiot. You cannot ride out the entire second half of your life on such threadbare coattails.

VioletCharlotte · 22/12/2018 10:40

Good lord. I'm a single Mum and have been for 14 years. I've always worked full time (with an hours commute each way). I have a dog (I do pay a dog walker), do all the cleaning and ironing and everything else. Wanna swop lives??

yuletidiness · 22/12/2018 10:45

As you have a 10 year old I'm guessing you're quite a long way from retirement yourself?

gamerwidow · 22/12/2018 10:55

I don’t work because we don’t actively need the money and the satisfaction of working outside the home would be cancelled out by the stress of coming home every day to all the household admin. The alternative would be to use my salary to pay someone to do the cleaning, laundry, household errands etc, which rather defeats the object

Why are the household tasks your exclusively problem? Does your Dh not live with you? These are not your options.
Your options are:

  • You both work and your husband picks up some of the household chores.
  • You both work and outsource the household chores the cost for which comes out of the household income.
gamerwidow · 22/12/2018 10:58

Hum. This is a man who becomes viciously angry if I suggest he might avoid putting food waste in the recycling box.

I have no money of my own, nor access to his accounts, but he pays me an amount each month

Why are you with this man. You're nothing but a glorified housekeeper and nanny. He doesn't respect you as a partner.
Does he have any redeeming features?

Chopchopbusybusy · 22/12/2018 11:03

You say you don’t need to work as you don’t actively need the money. But you do. You need to prepare for retirement if nothing else. And you have a 10 year old child. He/she will need support for at least 10 years. Maybe longer depending on university choices. Ignore a lot of the ‘admin’. Do what is necessary and your H will have to help.

Hubanmao · 22/12/2018 11:07

Today 10:37 JamAtkins

You have a ‘viciously angry’ dh, who is likely to pre-decease you by several years. You have no financial independence. You have one child on the brink of secondary school. Your husbands estate will be split between several children and two wives. Your husband is beyond retirement age and has little pension and is financially unable to retire. If you are considering not working in these circumstances because of the weight of ‘household admin’ then you are a bloody idiot. You cannot ride out the entire second half of your life on such threadbare coattails.

The above post says it all.

Oh and the normal day to day tasks of laundry, bill-paying, cooking dinner are not a full time job. They are a normal part of life for any functioning adult, and many of us combine them with working full time. The only people you will ever find who try to claim it’s a full time job are the very small minority who don’t want to work and seek to justify it. You do want to work. You’re right, a lot of the daily tasks of running a house are pretty mind numbing. You need to sort your situation out. Sounds like you thought giving up work would be a ticket to an easy, happy life, but the reality is you’re bored out of your skull, you feel you aren’t doing something of value and you have no long term security

Kpo58 · 22/12/2018 11:09

Is your "DH" putting money aside for the 10 year old too or will it be a case of the older children will be given a large amount of money and the youngest nothing because he gave it all away. Is he expecting one to take him in once he has made himself penny less? What then happens to you?

It should be a joint decision giving so much of this money away. Why do they need so much? Are they just sitting of their backsides sponging off daddy?

didireallysaythat · 22/12/2018 11:15

Are you joint on the mortgage? Do you have an independent pension? If your husband were to disappear tomorrow how would you support yourself?

I love my DH. I love my job. But all of that could change and I know I could.support myself and two DS (albeit it in different circumstances) if things changed.

SilverBirchTree · 22/12/2018 11:17

@Florabritannica you need to get yourself back into the workforce pronto. You and your child are in an incredibly financially precarious situation and it will only get worse.

Your ability to earn an income, and your time in which to do it is decreasing every month you stay home. You need to outsource more housework, to your DH, to your 10 year old and possibly also paid help- and see that paid help as totally worth it because it will safeguard your ability to earn an income and support yourself.

You are looking for every excuse under the sun to avoid facing how scary your financial situation is. Honestly- you cant work because you have a dog? Nonsense.

I don't think there is enough information here to say whether you are being financially abused but please do some reading and consider whether this is the case.

Don't get angry- get smart. If your husband is failing to provide for you and your child then don't whine on the internet. Take serious deliberate and informed steps to avoid Poverty. Because that's what's waiting for you.

alansleftfoot · 22/12/2018 11:37

Do you really want to work or are you making excuses ? The dog reason is ridiculous. You're in a financially abusive relationship and need a way out.

MaintainTheMolehill · 22/12/2018 11:39

Have some pride in yourself op. I take it with a 10 year old at the most you are still quite young, yet the prospect of working full time and splitting the admin and housework between you both will be exhausting for you both.. that's really not normal. Could you be depressed? I know I would be in your situation.

You have a husband who clearly doesn't respect you (nothing wrong with giving money to his kids but to not even discuss it first is disrespectful). You are baring the brunt of his decisions. This isn't a marriage, this is a fecked up relationship were you are the PA, nanny, cleaner, councilor and prostitute.

Get out and get a get job, get a life outside the house and realise that you must be worth more than this.

JoyceTempleSavage · 22/12/2018 12:15

through a combination of a feckless ex-wife and an employer suddenly binning his pension (again, unbelievable but legal

Unbelievable is right

Please explain how a UK employer can bin a pension OP

Yabbers · 22/12/2018 13:00

If you are miserable, then take a job, even if that means the money goes towards paying for a cleaner.

Two adults and a 9 year old create quite a lot of mess and admin here too. We have a cleaner but that only takes a small part of my wages. I don't care about the opinions of those who have a problem with people having cleaners. We prefer not to have to spend time doing it and earn enough to pay for it.

Even if every penny I earned was used to pay for someone to do household stuff, I think I'd still prefer to do that if I was miserable as a SAHM.

Original poster
Florabritannica · 22/12/2018 13:24

The pension binning is legal because technically he is not an employee but a partner.
The ex-wife has been living mortgage free with no dependents for the past eight years (when the youngest child started university) on in excess of £100k per annum and has spent it all. I think that’s pretty feckless by most people’s standards.
Housework and admin - I hate it and do it slowly, I accept. But I have just spent two hours doing the routine domestic maintenance - washing on, beds made, rooms tidied. We are in the middle of a renovation project so the admin and interruptions are considerable. The school run takes two hours each day.
I worked at a full-time demanding job until I had a breakdown seven years ago. Giving up my career was very hard for me as I had always prided myself on using my skill set to make a difference as well as on my economic independence, but it had becomes unsustainable. I embarked on a second career but it has proved very hard to reconcile with domestic commitments. Equally my self-confidence is very low and I feel I would just screw up anything I did take on.
That said, DH is absolutely completely fucking useless around the house. I do not see any way of changing this.
If he disappeared I would be financially OK given the property we own jointly.

OP posts:
Hubanmao · 22/12/2018 13:42

Get a job. Seriously. You’re going to be less screwed up with a job than you are right now frankly

veggiepigsinpastryblankets · 22/12/2018 13:50

If you hate doing the household admin then why are you the only one doing it out of the two adults who comprise that household?

I mean, I know the answer to this but I'm hoping you will give it some thought.

To answer your original question in the light of your updates, yes yes please do get a job and get your career back on track. If the cleaning slips then so be it - no one ever died because the skirting boards weren't dusted.

Once you have your own income you will be in a better position to decide how you want to live your life, and whether or not you want to spend it with someone who gets viciously angry about the recycling.

swingofthings · 22/12/2018 13:50

If he disappeared I would be financially OK given the property we own jointly
So you've considered what you could get if he left you but how dare the ex to have done the same!

It sounds like you lack resilience and just wants to do nothing that is a chore. What is stopping you taking on a PT job? Admin related to renovations doesn't take hours each day. I expect your OH is frustrated with you and would love it if you went back to work and contributed something.

JamAtkins · 22/12/2018 13:58

DH is absolutely completely fucking useless around the house

But so are you...

Why can’t you share this stuff out? How did he manage in the time after his first wife left up until 7 years ago when you became a sahp? Why do you get lumbered? Why are you ok with a grown man being “fucking useless” at basic tasks.

What his ex wife spends is irrelevant. Maybe you thinks she isn’t entitled to financial recompense from the man whose career she supported but the settlement at the time thought differently. You seem to think you should be entitled to half the property of your marriage but I’d bet my house he contributed more money than you.

You seem to be determined to make your life as difficult as possible. Marry an unreliable, unkind, angry, tosser and have children with him, lose all financial independence and spend all day doing tasks you hate, renovate a house and live an hour from a primary school. Claim to be stuck due to ex wife and dog. Accept it or change it but by accepting it you are very financially vulnerable and essentially at the mercy of a man who doesn’t seem to like you very much.

JoyceTempleSavage · 22/12/2018 13:58

The pension binning is legal because technically he is not an employee but a partner
The pension binning is legal because technically he is not an employee but a partner

I can’t see any scenario where this would be the case other than an unfunded promise ... from a company (in which case he’d be an employee)

Mynydd · 22/12/2018 14:04

Truly it's not hard to work and manage household 'admin', you have to see that?? The majority of the people you see around you work, clean, cook, pay bills and walk the dog. It is literally the definition of living as an adult. Stop making excuses and get on with it. Get a job!

firstbrightday · 22/12/2018 14:06

I think a part time job would be good for you. Something very flexible to fit around life. I'm not sure what that would be, but I'm sure you have a few ideas?