I've got a terrible cold and I refused to look after the kids

[EezyOozy]

I am a SAHM. At least I am Until Aug this year when my 2yo takes her place in the preschool nursery. Husband earns £70k pa from main job and £10-15k from additional self employed work he chooses to take on. He puts this extra income in his self investment pension. He also has an employment pension. ( I have set up a modest LISA that I pay into from family pot to cover gap in pension from being a SAHM for 3y. I also keep my state pension contributions up. )

Anyway, I've had a dreadful cold all week and so have my 2 and 4 year old. It's been a real struggle. I am shattered. This morning he announced he needed to work all day on self employed stuff and that for doing just a small amount of work he will get £7k so he couldn't turn it down.

I asked what he will do with the money (there are loads of things that need fixing in our house, it's a doer upper, as well as the needing a new garden fence to make the garden sage for the kids).

He said he was going to put it all in his self investment pension. He told me this while I was trying to put a grocery delivery away, snot dripping down my face and I had just told him how shattered I was (and that my cold had made me go deaf in one ear). The children were already being challenging.

I said "if I have to look after the kids alone at the weekend when I am unwell, after the week I've had, then the money should at least go into the family pot or be spent on the fence or the house .... otherwise why should i agree to struggle on alone. What's in it for me?!!".

He thought this was outrageous and starting having a rant about how he earns all the money, so I told him to look after the kids and went for a lie down. I didn't want to argue in front of the kids but I sent him a lengthy message saying he needs to appreciate me more and the value of looking after the kids when they are ill and off school, throughout the pandemic when all the childcare closed and I couldn't go out with them and nearly went mad, and during relocating for his new job. I'm still livid. He hasn't apologised yet as he genuinely thinks it's outrageous that I've refused to look after the kids alone all day today.

AIBU??

@BoredZelda

Where is your pension OP

Presuming they are married for life, she will benefit from his pension.

Not that it makes this situation reasonable but it is worth thinking about.

Over 40% of marriages break down. While courts can share pensions, this will be the value at the time of divorce. I don’t know the OP and her DH ages but let’s presume they are 40. The DH has his best earning years still ahead of him (no way will he pull his weight post-divorce and let something like childcare get in the way of his precious career) and splitting his currently pension value won’t actually give the OP that much. On top of that, research shows that men very often manage to hold onto their pension on divorce, often in return for offering more of the house, which doesn’t impact them hugely anyway as they can get a large mortgage. Meanwhile as a single mum, you may be looking at p/t and then you have the time out of the workplace, cost of childcare etc. I used to work as a divorce lawyer and trust me I’ve seen so many women utterly fucked by becoming reliant on a man. None of them thought it would happen to them, all of them with high earning guy who advances their career while the DW is a SAHM or p/t in low paid job. One poor mum having to go to council to ask for housing after their £1m house was sold when her gambling addict DH couldn’t pay the mortgage after getting fired. I wish I was kidding. Hopefully the OP will quickly get back to work but as you have a small mortgage, absolutely put your foot down - your career advancement must come first for the next few years to allow you to recover what you have lost. Either he looks after the DC or he pays for childcare.