To not want to be resented by my husband?

[Brokenhearted30]

I will try and keep this brief whilst giving as much background info as I possibly can.

I'm 30, DH is 39. Four kids (12, 6, 3 and 6 months). When I was pregnant with DC 4 I developed a blood clot, which turned into a pulmonary embolism, which turned into heart failure and pulmonary hypertension .

I was able to look after the children during the day until November but then my health rapidly declined and we decided that DH would have to take a career break. I have made arrangements to be assessed for care for myself and the children because DH is keen to go back to work full time.

DH has been very obviously unhappy about being a stay at home dad right from the start, so I've felt pressure to put in other arrangements. Anyway, last night I said I was worried that we weren't going to get the care help we needed and I was worried that he'd resent me if he could go back to work until DC 4 was at school (he's allowed up to a five year career break).

After I said about being worried DH said absolutely nothing to which I got upset asking him if he was even going to deny it to which he said "Would you rather I lied to you?" Then he kind of put it that we both had our crosses to be and being resented by my husband was mine

Am I being unreasonable to not want to be resented for being poorly?

@Teddybear45 Now you've mentioned it, DH has always said that he didn't want to do school drop offs/pick ups either! It might "interfere with work". It was expected that when I went back into work that it was another thing that I would be responsible for.

@blackcat86 I'm already in contact with them 😊. I started the ball rolling ages ago. I've also put in an application for an electric wheelchair so that would enable me to do the school run/pick up. Anything I can think to do to help I'm doing.

He resents you because he's lost some of his power and control over you

I don’t see it that way at all! I don’t like the idea of someone else looking after my children. DH doesn’t like the idea of someone else looking after his children. But of the two of us, I’m more temperamentally suited to it. So he works and I stay home. It’s nothing to do with power and control - everything to do with division of labour depending on who is best suited to it.

If I were unwell and DH had to stay home, he would, be he wouldn’t be happy about it, even if he thought it was the best thing for his children. We do lots of things that we’re not necessarily happy about, because we feel it’s in someone else’s best interests.

It’s a bit of a leap to suggest that OP’s DH is a controlling person - you’re spinning the situation and information to fit an agenda.

OP’s partner only believed it wasn’t a good idea for others to raise his kids, when he wasn’t the one staying at home. Now he has been asked he wants to consider childcare — that is the hallmarks of a controlling DH. Who even says shit like this when their wife has been diagnosed with heart failure?

I get the feeling he has one foot out the door already. Many men, especially controlling men, don’t like the idea of a disabled partner and tend to leave or have an affair the minute that happens.

He might agree with it soon when he realises how gard being at home is. He sounds a massive hypocrite and it's bit him on the arse. I'm sorry you've been so ill and he has shown his true colours, you deserve better

Well if he wants things to change, then HE can deal with it all. Right now your concern is staying as well as you can, and that means not having a shitload of stress thrown you at you on a daily basis.

Let him sort out care, childcare and everything that goes with it to enable him to do what he wants which is going back to work.

Neither of you asked for this situation

I think the most constructive thing here would be for the two of you to sit down and agree to accept that nothing is as you would like it to be and then decide how best to deal with that going forward.

In an ideal world you would be 100% healthy and he would be free to work FT. However, that's not where you are right now. So if he goes back to work FT can you afford a nanny or some kind of childcare? That might not be what he wants in an ideal world, but the ideal world no longer exists, so how best to deal with that?Flexibility and doing the most constructive and least damaging thing all round is what is important now.

Your DC will not suffer if you choose decent childcare for them. Millions of DC go to nursery or a childminder and they grow up just fine. It's all very well your DH sitting on his high horse and saying 'Not for my children!', but if that means him being stuck at home for the next 4 years and resenting you and the DC for forcing him into that position, then it's untenable. His rigidity is the problem here, more so that the awful situation you find yourselves in

I'm surprised how many people are saying he's not being unreasonable. I think he's being massively unreasonable. You've had a very close call and an extended period of unpredictable ill health. That, if anything, is 'your cross to bear'. His attitude shouldn't be a second one. He is lucky not to be a widower. He is lucky not to be a single dad to 4 motherless children. He is lucky to have an employer who will allow a five-year (!) career break. A decent man would consider it a privilege to be in a position to salvage this situation for you all.

But I actually think your illness is a red herring. I think you would have had trouble with this man down the line whatever had happened. He was happy to have four children, but doesn't seem to have expected to take on any responsibility for them. He doesn't want to look after them himself but won't hear of any normal childcare arrangements, assuming instead that you'd be happy for your career to go down the toilet. He didn't even want the 'career killer' of school runs ffs. I can see that your extreme incapacity has thrown his plans a curveball but in great measure that's because his plans were so crap and selfish.

Unless, for instance, DC4 is a baby he never wanted and you tricked him into a pregnancy that went pear-shaped, I think he's being just awful. I think you should be reaching out for everything that can support your independence going forward, not just for your own benefit but so that you will be in a position to leave him once you're well enough. I am so sick of hearing about these men who want to get their wives repeatedly pregnant but don't expect to be troubled with family life ever again afterwards.

What a massive fucking hypocritical toad. It’s ok for him to resentthe situation. It’s not ok for him to resent you. The whole situation is his own bloody choice - you’d happily put them in childcare, he won’t.

Personally, I would say if I am well enough to work the kids are going in childcare. Your hypocritical bloodymindedness is why you are on a career break and you dare blame me. What If I had died- would it still be my fault that YOU don’t like childcare? I am going to work part time as soon as I can, youcan either cover the time I’m working or agree to childcare. your choice, not one iota of it is on me.

You probably need counselling help to go anywhere with this. I’m sorry, it’s a very difficult situation to be in.

I really really loathed being a SAHP (although circumstances forced my hand there, it had never been my plan to do it for more than 4 months) so i totally get how your DH isn't enjoying it.

He is being totally and completely and utterly unreasonable resenting you for the position you all find yourselves in. Presumably you had a discussion about him taking a career break - so you're used to discussing these things.

So you need really to have another discussion about how you're going to carry on. And that may involve both of you making compromises and maybe accepting things that up to now haven't been on the table.

His insistance that you do all the child-related stuff would be a complete deal-breaker for me. The situation you find yourselves in is something my parents discussed, way back in the 70s, when they had an insurance broker in and my dad was incredulous that he told them my mum should have a far higher insurance amount. Based on if she wasn't available we, as a family, would need Nannys, childminders, housekeepers to replace her. This is that situation come real. Now what you need to discuss is how you're going to handle it.

Because life has given you a bit of a kicking.

Yanbu. Obviously. But Jesus i don't envy him. My worst nightmare.

I am not sure I follow, your DH is not becoming simply a SAHD, he is becoming your carer too and will no longer have an income?

if I get that right, that is a huge step and is massively scary not to be able to provide for your family!

I don't like his attitude at all. He didn't want the children being brought up by others so YOU had to stay at home with them.
This is a horrible situation for all of you but yes, he is lucky that he can take a career break. He also lucky that you survived - he could have ended up alone with the 4 children. What would he have done then? He would have had to pay for childcare but also been there for them every evening and all weekend - there is no 24 hour childcare.

I wouldn't trust him not to start deliberately building up his own resentment (I've known a couple of men like this, deliberately winding themselves up instead of trying to make the best of a bad situation, the result being that they then at some point work themselves up to the point of justifying leaving their ill partner).

What do YOU want to happen? What sort of childcare do you want to have in place? What care would YOU need and help with the children should he be out of the picture? I'm not saying he will be out of the picture - he might really shape up. BUT think about the worst case scenario and how that could be managed. This might then lead you to a way forward which would mean he could go back to work.

I get the feeling he has one foot out the door already. Many men, especially controlling men, don’t like the idea of a disabled partner and tend to leave or have an affair the minute that happens

You really think that’s helpful? Extrapolating wildly from information given?

At the very least he's massively tactless, damaging family morale, and causing you stress.

Is there anyone who could give him a stiff talking to?

It's not at all unfair for him to resent the situation or the illness but it's very unfair of him to resent you. You need to tackle the situation as a team - does he have an alternative plan that he thinks would make things better with the limitations you're faced with?

Of course he's being unreasonable. His wife had heart failure around the same time she gave birth to his 4th child, and he resents her because he has to be there for her and their children?! He sounds very selfish. What you should not do is validate his shitty feelings. He has to get on with things just as you do. If he wants to sulk at the same time, let him get on with it. Ugh, another day, another self centred manchild.

I don't quite understand the situation.

Is he still being paid by his employer?
Where is your income coming from if he isn't?

If he is being paid then surely the situation can carry on for a while with him going back to work pt then ft when children go to school/ you are more able to cope.

If you have no income then surely he must work and the children need to go in to childcare, even or nursery would be better if you could manage it. He needs to swallow his principles about childcare, there is NO other option if you aren't well enough and no family members are in a position to help.

Him being unhappy with the situation is completely understandable, it must be very tough on you both. But him resenting you is not. Especially with the update about him insisting you be a SAHM. In this life no one should be making someone do something they would refuse to do themselves. Thinking of you

The problem isn't the situation with your health, the problem is that your DH is a selfish misogynistic dick who wants everything to be exactly as HE would choose in life. All about him and you, the subordinate, just get to fit in.

The wider issue of whether you want to stay with someone who has been revealed to be such a person, and a massive hypocrite on top, is something to think about (hint: this is a wake-up call, facing life and all it throws at you with a twat like this isn't generally fun or fulfilling).

In the meantime, rest assured that the problem here is HIM.

You could have childcare and he could be back in work at least part-time, or 70% ish. But he doesn't want that.

He could reflect on the fact that he's lucky he's not facing life as a single parent, too.

I suggest you tell him these two things, follow it up with a reminder that you aren't his property and you might decide in the future that you'll be working anyway, so not to assume that all the decisions re childcare are his to make, whether you are well or not.

And definitely do not get stressed and push yourself in order to stroke this man's massive nasty ego.

It's not all about him.

His way of thinking was that I would get well enough to manage things minimally with the kids and then he would return to work full time.

Oh no no no.

Tell him now that that won't be happening, and when/if he goes back to work FULL time, then childcare WILL be involved.

Four young children are a full time exhausting job for someone in good health.

You will not risk your health to indulge his fantasy of little woman staying at home doing everything.

It is up to him to decide whether he can manage the childcare as it is or whether he needs to go back to work.

When he has made that decision and passed the childcare on to you, it will be YOUR decision on how that is managed in order to look after your own health too.

You exhausted in a wheelchair with four kids going stir crazy, no clubs or groups or even playing in the park because Victorian Misogynist decrees that they must be cared for by you and you alone at all times?

Pfft. Not a good decision, not a fair decision for either the kids welfare or yours... and crucially, not his decision.

Agree with everything that PennyStocks said.

The more you post about your dh, the more unreasonable and selfish he sounds. DH has always said that he didn't want to do school drop offs/pick ups either! It might "interfere with work". It was expected that when I went back into work that it was another thing that I would be responsible for.

So he's happy for you to take a career break but not him? He's not happy with the situation but has done nothing to work out a way of making it better, he's left it all to you and he's just moaning and bitching at you? Selfish dick.

What was he like before you got ill? Did he do his fair share of parenting?

I don’t think it’s at all normal or reasonable to resent you for your illness or to say so out loud.

To resent you for events beyond your control is childish and mean-spirited, particularly when the hand that life has dealt is far harder for you than for him. It indicates someone who is not particularly nice or emotionally mature or intellectually sophisticated.

If you hadn’t survived he’d be doing all on his own with no one to kick, so he should count himself lucky. I think he needs to pull himself together.

I too was hoping to go back into work when our youngest DC was one but DH was adament that I should be staying at home to look after our two youngest as he didn't like the idea of someone else looking after our kids but it seems like now he's the one facing looking after them he doesn't want to. But it was OK for me to put my career on hold?

But presumably you were aware of his views on how the children should be brought up before you decided to have them? You must have discussed whether one or both of you would be taking a career break or you'd be using childcare as part of your decision to have four children surely? So I think 'he thought it was ok for me to put my career on hold' is a red herring, you agreed to it, and also having one SAHP is an entirely different financial kettle of fish than neither of you working.

On a totally side note- are you under a proper CTEPH service at the hospital. Some patients can massively benefit from surgery, but it’s only done in Cambridge- you have to be referred in by your specialist.

I also have pulmonary hypertension (mine is primary no known cause) i got diagnosed at 18 got told i had 6 months to a year to live i was very very ill and couldn't walk because i was constantly out of breath. I'm now 31 and have just got home from a 12 mile work out at the gym i live a completely normal life now. I can't be of much help with your husband situation but if he loves you which I'm sure he does he will no resent you. Life sometimes throws all sorts of obstacles and hurdles our way so stay positive and keep going.

If u need any help or support with the pulmonary hypertension please don't hesitate to message me