To think that I can’t work if DH won’t do any childcare?

[Crocuses]

DH is whinging about me being a SAHM, not working and not contributing my share. He keeps pointing out that SIL works so why can’t I? But he’s ignoring the fact that BIL does his share. He leaves work at his contracted finishing time 5pm and does half of the pickups. He works late on other days to give him enough flex time to be able to do half of the drop offs. He and his wife both took a week of unpaid parental leave when their youngest DC was ill. They take turns dealing with sick days. He does grocery shopping and ironing.

My DH thinks he’s so important and his company absolutely wouldn’t accept him asking for flex time or working from home or being off work, and it would affect his job security and progression. When I ask for any support he whinges that none of the other executives have to deal with childcare because they’re all so important. He finds it embarrassing to have to say “sorry I need to leave this meeting because my son needs picking up at 6pm”. He won’t even text me to say he’ll be late because it makes him look bad, and quite frankly he doesn’t want to. I’ve pointed out that if DS was with a childminder he couldn’t just be late without telling anyone, and he says but DS isn’t with a childminder, he’s with you and you’re his mother so you should just look after him, I shouldn’t have to give his mother a pickup time.

He’s never done a single night with DS because he’s so important, he has to be well slept. I broke my leg and he wouldn’t even take a day off when I went in for surgery, I had to beg an elderly neighbour to watch DC as a one off, and I had to request light anaesthesia because I couldn’t take time to rest afterwards. Even when I had food poisoning and was projective vomiting and begging him for help because I was too ill to look after the baby, he still went to work and left me.

I don’t see how I can work (especially not in the type of career job DH wants me to have) if I’m solely responsible for all pickups, drop offs, sick days, hospital appointments etc? No job is that flexible. And the bigger problem is that if I can’t work I’ll have no pension and no job for when DS grows up.

DH never takes his full holiday entitlement either, apparently they can’t spare him so they often just pay him for his missed holiday. They often phone and ask him to pop in to the office even when he’s officially on holiday. So I don’t see how I can work and cover school holiday childcare if he won’t take his holidays? And he does at least an hour of unpaid overtime every single day so I cook every meal because he isn’t home in time, I do all the grocery shopping and ironing. I don’t know how I can take on all of the family responsibilities and work too?

Question, OP - if he has such a big important job where the entire company will immediately collapse when he's not there, how do they cope when he himself is ill and can't go in?

I'm a single mum. I ditched the man child. I work full time with 2 boys. No family or support nearby. It's possible but freaking hard. I'm not going to lie!

” why am I bothering to stay married to him!”

Well. Quite. He clearly has absolutely ZERO respect for you or the contribution you make. He doesn’t care about your health or wellbeing. Why on earth are you staying married to him?? And why do you want your child to see this as the model of family life and the way a husband treats his wife?

He thinks childcare, cooking, shopping etc are not work because he doesn’t do them. He would soon go under if he had to look after himself.

If you want a paid job, it’s up to him to pay a cleaner, nanny etc. But really, OP, are you happy in this marriage? Do you want your children to grow up with him as a role model?

This man sounds just like my dad. Part of the reason I no longer speak to him as an adult.
I'm a single parent and have to say single parenting is much easier than parenting with a dickhead

My XH was like this (although would 'help out' on occasion). Work was the most important thing, followed closely by golf. Requests for help were met with flat out refusal, occasional shoutings, and always smug assertions that work couldn't do without him, that his job was So Important etc etc. He did very little around the house and garden either, and I could never trust that he would step up to any of these tasks if I were to get any kind of decent job.

We are now (nearly) divorced, and whilst he has done more with ds2 on his weekends, he has always flatly refused to do any midweek nights because Work, and even the Thursday nights he originally demanded were covered by his parents. He now has requested a contact change, and has ds2 for 9 nights a month.

It's all very well people saying "Oh he'll HAVE to step up blah blah blah"- quite often, they just don't.

So I am now, a woman of 51, looking for some kind of work that I can do, to earn my own living again after too many years out of the workforce. And it's still better than being with XH.

Regardless of whether the op should work or not, the bottom line here op is that your husband is awful, and that will never change.

You think you cant leave, but go and utilise the free half hour solicitors offer, you might be pleasantly surprised with what you will be entitled to from him.

Good plan re not having a second.

I don't think it's impossible for you to work in this situation (speaking as an lp who works ft, no family nearby). However, it won't fix the problem in your marriage, which is really that your DH isn't very kind to you and doesn't perceive you as equals.

I wouldn't trust this man to pay a single penny towards childcare or cleaning or anything else if the OP got a job. He would see it that she should pay for that because it's to allow her to work.
Anyone as selfish and self-important as this "man", who won't entertain taking time off to help his wife when she actually needs help because she's hurt/unwell, is not going to put himself out in any way to facilitate her rejoining the workforce, but will continue to berate her for not doing so.

The net result will be that her rejoining the workforce will ensure that all responsibility for facilitating that falls upon her as well, so in all honesty she might as well cut the deadwood out of her life and ditch him, since he'll be no fucking help to her.

A lot of people advising on here to get a job, save the money and then leave.....
If this lady returns to work, i can garuntee that the husband would want her to put her wages into their joint account (or equivalent). I bet she wouldn't have access to her own money. He wants her to work to add to the household income

Hey @Crocuses. Sorry it’s been like this. I’m in a kinda similar situation (zero help with house or child from DH, rely on friends/family when am ill, etc) but what’s different for us is that DH is happy for me not to work and recognises that he can only do what he does because I do all the things I do. And he’s nice to me, mostly.

I’d suggest that you park the issue of working / help with child, and address the most urgent issue: why does your DH not acknowledge the importance of what you’re doing? Why can’t he send a simple text message? Why is his ‘face’ in front of colleagues more important than his wife’s feelings? Why, in short, does he think it’s ok to treat you with zero respect? Where is this coming from? Would he speak to female colleagues/ his mother the way he speaks to you?

I would have a frank conversation with him (possibly started by email 🙄) stating that you both are unhappy with the status quo, it no longer feels like a true partnership, and you are concerned for the future of the marriage and want marriage counselling. Give facts not accusations.

I don’t know if you love each other deeply and are just going through a bad patch. I hope so. Or perhaps he is the kind of guy who only respects prestigious stuff and as our society doesn’t think much of sahms, he won’t respect you until you have a job he admires. (And for that it would need to be a posh long hours job for ie unlikely you’d even get it after a couple of years sahm, or retain it with all the sick days etc anyway.)

It is also possible that he hasn’t noticed how bad things are getting and wants to fix this. In which case he will need a new job (easy) and a new attitude (harder but quite achievable.)

Ask him where he wants to be in 5 years. Happily married or not?

Honestly, if I'd just had surgery DH would probably take the day off/WFH even if we had no kids. Because he would be worried about me, he would want to be there, to make sure I was OK and well looked after. He would not for a single second want me to be risking my recovery by doing stuff before I was ready.

It's genuinely shocking that he has so little care for you. That he simply walked out to work on you and his child is one of those flashpoint moments from which there is really no going back.

So what does your DH do regarding his kids?? and most importantly: why you’re with him ??
I was a single mum , my DD was being dropped off at 7:30 and picked up at 6:00 pm Mon-Friday, first at childminder then at the breakfast club. Oblivious you need to earn enough to be able to cover those costs

If this lady returns to work, i can garuntee that the husband would want her to put her wages into their joint account (or equivalent). I bet she wouldn't have access to her own money. He wants her to work to add to the household income

You can't guarantee anything let alone the fact that he would put all her wages into their joint account and then not allow her access to the money. Don't be ridiculous.

You need a divorce .... then he’d have to look after his kids sometimes.

If this lady returns to work, i can garuntee that the husband would want her to put her wages into their joint account (or equivalent). I bet she wouldn't have access to her own money. He wants her to work to add to the household income

I think that's a strong possibility too, however at the very least OP would have a job, and therefore some work experience under her belt, which is a far stronger position to be in as a lp than someone who has to start from scratch. It might be worth taking the hit just for that.

Crocuses

I had this conversation with my DP once , and once only. Spell it the options -

1. things stay as they are - clearly not what your DH wants
2. you return to full time work. will cost the family about £20k a year in nursery fees and £2k per year for a cleaner, plus unpaid leave for any sickness so unless you can clear £30 or thereabouts going back to work will cost the family money. That's not taking travel costs into account of course.
3. you find / develop your own part time career.

Having said that, your DP doesn't sound a nice man - leaving his wife to throw up, not caring about her or his child when his wife has surgery. You have other problems with your relationship other than your DH wanting you to work full time. I think therefore it would be a good idea to get back into the labour market as you will benefit considerably from the improved financial independence, when your DH wants to disengage completely from family life and leave you high and dry.

To return to my former career pre DD, would have been possible but the pressure on my health long term would have been intolerable. I turned a hobby into self employment (actually I turned 2 hobbies into self employment) I trained as a Tai Chi instructor and offer classes. I also teach a craft. I probably work about 20 hours per week on average. I don't make a fortune, but I do OK. Most importantly I am financially independent. There have been recent similar threads where mums have gone into cleaning, taking in ironing, trained as child minders. Low paid - yes, low status - yes, but income with flexibility. Would be interested to know how your DH would react if you told him you were setting up as a cleaner full time - he seems very concerned with his image .....

Can you do a job search for what you did before having DS?

Then go to DH and say right I'll apply for this job. If I get it, it's 24hours over three days and I'll earn 20k.

I can do drop off and nursery but you'll need to do pick up. Nursery is going to cost us 8k per annum

Etc etc. Literally spell it out. YOU WILL HAVE TO DO THIS and the net result is we will have an extra XXX in the bank a month. See if he thinks it's worth it? I bet when he is told he will have to do something it instantly won't be see as worth it by him!

Your husband sounds like an absolute arsehole.

You should get a job and put your LO into nursery. Work 5 days a week, if that's what he wants you to do, and let him to either drop off or pick up each day.

Or, divorce him. Which is what I would do on account of him being a lazy, selfish, moron.

What does he do on weekends? Does he help then? My dad ran his own company working around 60 or 70 hours a week but he always took my brothers to football on the weekend and Sunday afternoons he was always at home (although I think he used to work in the evening).
So if your husband does help at weekends I'd maybe make allowances but I'm suspecting he doesn't.
You could always do what I do. I start work at 5 in the morning and finish at 12. If you did similar your husband would have to step up in the morning but you'd be there for the afternoon. Thing is you wouldn't earn a huge amount so I suspect your husband would still moan.
Just leave him. Please don't make your son as unhappy as my niece.

I voted yabu. Because you could do it, in the same way every single parent has to if they have no family support. But you shouldn't have to do everything. Your husband is a full on cnut. I think you should go back to work, but part time and in a kind of job like shop work or something where the day ends at check off time and you don't need to think about it at home. I'm saying you should do this because you should not be relying financially 100% on someone like your husband. You need a safety net

If this lady returns to work, i can garuntee that the husband would want her to put her wages into their joint account (or equivalent)

And what would be the problem with that as long as she has access to it (which I presume is the case now, or it would have been mentioned)?

I think it would be unreasonable to expect DH to put all his salary into a joint account, while OP keeps hers for herself.

There is a saying here in Mexico, that you are better off alone than in bad company.

OP, it is so much easier to do everything yourself if you don't have someone there disrespecting you and not pulling their weight. As for having to live with someone who obviously doesn't love you and it sounds like you don't love him anymore, that sounds like hell.

You are young and it sounds like you are in a position to have a professional career, you will get your half of the family assets and maintenance for your child, lots of single mothers have started out with a lot less and still do not regret their divorce.

What a nasty, silly little man. Sorry, 'executive'.

When he bangs on about his sister working, I take you've pointed out the major difference that she has a supportive husband and you don't? What does he say about that?