AIBU - help me with some perspective on this?

[floatsomeandjetsum]

Ok, here are the main points,

Unmarried to partner, 20 years. 3 children with him.
I've always earned well but in a career that's been hard and incredibly stressful. It's been a slog and come at a cost to my health.

He's a fairly low earner, more a lifestyle business than anything.

I've paid all childcare and school fees, all holiday clubs, music lessons etc. basically everything for the children I've paid for. All hobbies etc.

We've rented for 10 years whilst property prices have almost escaped us.

I've always saved hard, at great personal expense in that I've gone without in order to do that.

Here's the problem - I've bought a house, which was always our plan. It's almost bought with cash from my savings (no inheritance and no contributions from him) and I've secured a small mortgage.

He hates it and will not get on board, he's basically saying it's him or the house.

Can I have a reality check please? He's contributing absolutely nothing to a big, beautiful detached 4 bed house, with a small mortgage (that I'll pay off in a few years) but it's costing me our relationship!!

I feel so beaten. What's going on here???

You’re not married, and you have separate finances.

Why can’t you buy the family home in your name, and he buys or leases the farmland he needs via his business? It’s not fair of him to expect you to earn the majority of the income, buy the family home, do and pay for everything the children need, and then subsidise his business (which you and the children have no benefit from) on top.

Pick the house

After 22 years of slogging your guts out at something you really don’t like for the benefit of other people, no wonder you are a bit pissed off.

Something has to give, your health? Your sanity? Your relationship? Your plans? Something has to change otherwise you will all loose out.

His digging his heels in is not helping the pair of you work this out. You are a partnership, a team, yet you both are pulling what you have worked for together apart. Do you want this ? Does he?

The fall back position for you is to rip up the current plan - yes, you can let this house go, unless you have completed obvs, & as a third of all house purchase fall through before completion there is no loss of face or dented pride. You can pull back from this brink by a few phone calls. This buys you both some time.

Time? Because you are going to need this, both of you, to look at how you both brought your long relationship with a family to the brink. Look at this together. If cannot make progress together, then try Relate to help you develop your shared communication patterns.

There are undercurrents in your relationship that do not bode well. You ‘tiptoe round’ him, his obdurate passive resistance & that you are both slogging your guts out…for what?

OP, you are burying yourself to service other people’s wants (needs of children are a given) & you are not paying full attention to your self. You seem to have a checklist that allows & encourages you to charge ahead & pay as you go, so going for this house without having him entirely on board was business as usual?

Your OH seems to live as a ‘gentleman farmer’ with you as the financial engine. This is not sustainable. For what he says he wants, he has to pull up his fiscal socks & make the contribution real for what he says he wants. Pulling back & giving you the silent treatment is coercion.

First thing you do is read his accounts & tax returns. In effect, you are the silent partner in his business, providing the cash that underpins his business, why do you not know the ROI on your effort & goodwill?

As you have presented your dilemma, it’s either him or the house.
I think this house is not right for you, with or without him, so withdraw the offer to give yourself some space & save yourself from a massive investment that does not actually serve you well or meet your needs.

What do you need? Probably to get out of working at something you really do not like doing, irrespective of the pay. You have the incredible good fortune to have enough saved (well done, btw) to take a break to look at what you would really like to do & that meets your needs for an enjoyable life & productive work. Jump sectors, retrain, develop your creativity, travel, study, whatever?

If you choose to stay in post, can you cut your hours/days, to take up something you really enjoy for yourself?

Your fallback position is to get yourself a home where you can relax & live well, enjoy the fruits of your considerable labours. Your children will be OK with their basic home needs met & a happier mother who has a life she enjoys. An everyday nice house & garden is achievable

A rented farm can’t be handed on. He knows you can’t afford to buy what he wants. I’d only give up the house if he immediately changed career to plan to earn enough to provide you the security to buy what he wants. So I’d buy the house basically. I’d point out he’s made serious choices for a long time that benefit him, yes he works hard but you work hard too and haven’t been able to make those choices. Not buying a house because he’s both chosen not to earn enough to help and set his expectations higher than you can afford is not an option. Nor is spending above your budget, as you are already working to your maximum to afford it. Not being able to talk to you about it before the deal is done is absolutely ridiculous from a grown man. (I would pettily add at this point if even remotely true ‘and frankly I love the idea of neighbours but you’ve never cared what I think’) I’ve made a lot of compromises over our entire life together and now I’ve bought all of us a house. We are moving to it, and if having to make one compromise of your own is too much for you it’s not the relationship I thought it was anyway.

I think he's an ungrateful fucker to be honest with you OP. He sounds entitled to me. You're the one buying the house, you're the one paying for your children's private education, etc etc. He should be thrilled about the opportunity to live in the home that you've paid for! Has this man never heard of the saying 'count your blessings' ?!

Is it not possible to build a house on the land you already own?

That way you get something you like and its new, he gets to live on the land you already have with the ponies for the kids (who will certainly do more work and handling with them living on site, we have 4 so I have a fair idea about this).

And its a win win for all concerned..

Just touching on the farm rent bit, we lease land as well as have our own. It is so frustrating when things need to be done repair wise that improves the property but:

1. Its not your own to be improving.
2. When your tools are down the road at home and you need them at the rental property.
3. Dealing with the owners of the rural rental property. In our case they want full market lease but are not prepared to put in decent stock handling yards and loading ramp. They bought a run down property.
4. Not knowing if you should increase stock numbers as its always possible the land owners will cancel the agreement at short notice and then where do you stick your stock.
5. if you are into regenerative farming, that comes at an expense and is a long term proposition. Refer to item 4.
6. Farm theft. Stock, equipment, fuel, implements you name it. People seem to think its ok to walk across paddocks that are not their own and take what is there. Whereas if you live on farm, you can be out in a flash to deal with an issue.

Anyhow, perhaps its time you sat down together and went through the farming accounts. Perhaps he does earn enough (I doubt it with fert cost increases) to be able to support a joint mortgage.

Just my two cents worth and experience...

Don’t think he would be much of a loss tbh. How is HE planing to finance these ponies when he currently contributes fuck all?

I'd rent the house you have bought out for now whilst you decide what you want to do. For starters give notice on the job you hate. You said you've already got enough for the school fees so just need to pay the small mortgage which the rent you get will cover. You get the house, and you both get some time to do decide where you go from here.

He doesn't have a job he has a hobby which you have to subsidise.

I think that there is a bit of compromise to be made on your side, without giving up the house.

I think that you could hear him more, that he doesn’t want to be in the village and wants more land. So, for example here you could agree to look at any property within your budget that he suggests but explain that you won’t pull out without another option.

I think that you could do a better job of explaining to him why a bought house gives better security for your children- the difference between an owned and leased farm described above is a really good analogy. I think you could compromise here by thinking of the village house as a temporary move, until his farming is in a place that he’s saved the difference (by putting aside the rent he would have spent) to buy the house he wants jointly.

I think you could listen more and focus less on solutions- as you know there isn’t a solution to what he wants - so I think you could sit with that and just hear his worries more without trying to fix

I think that at the moment he is waiting for you to fix this, rather than fixing it himself. Once he tries to fix it himself I think he’ll come round to the idea of the house. But ultimately that’s for him to do not for you to do.

What on earth do you mean "he didn't explicitly say no".

How did that conversation go exactly.

Jealousy
Pride
Ego
Realisation of limitations

Choose the house but protect it from him.

I've read up to page 5. It's very much a drip feed. I thought it was a reverse at first. He works very hard in a low earning job. He has paid the majority of the rent for 10 years.i imagine this removed any opportunity to save. You already have ponies, that he cares about. He needs outside space for his "stuff". He doesn't sound like he has time or spare money for expensive hobbies - so is this "want" actually a need, for work stuff? I wish he had a thread, so we could hear his side of this OP. You don't get to call all the shots in a relationship, just because you earn more. He probably feels worthless and used to pay the rent and 1/2 the bills, to end up with nothing that is his, or that he has even had a choice in. I doubt he saw this as his future.

How can DP be everything to you? You've just bought a house which he doesn't explicity want.

Grow up

OP I'm afraid you've made a huge decision without first discussing it with your DP. Him just liking the house on first viewing is certainly not enough for you to go ahead and buy it without telling him! Surely you must see that? If it were me that had happened to, I would be furious and would also refuse to move.

I'm interested to know what your lives were like when you met.

When you started talking about the future, living together, children, did you say what your wanted and he agreed? Obviously he told you that he wanted to be a gentleman farmer, and you agreed, but was this right at the beginning?

Because, as far as I can tell, neither of your has checked in with each other over the years, to listen, and see if it's still working.

Did he know that you were aiming for private schools, holidays, ponies? Did you grow up with those things and assume this was a basic level of expectation?

Did he do something different when your meet, and you agreed to continue with the career, promotions etc without stopping to say "I can't keep doing this, at this level"? Not when the first child was born, or after the next?

He may take 3 days off a year, but you do know that it's possible to plan ahead even if it's a long way ahead, and have others hold a farm together for a week or 2 over the years? Has he got to a point where he can't imagine spending that much time with you or the children?
Has he maybe discovered that he finds "people" difficult, and actually finds a solitary life on the farm far easier to deal with.

If he could pay the rent 10 months out of 12, what made you feel that you had to keep working to the point of breaking all those years? Most people would be happy with that, if you're both working.

If we were talking about a mortgage, and he was able to cover 75% of it, and then your job could cover the other part, plus utilities, food, presents, etc...

If you all went away for one long weekend a year, and then you took the kids away a couple of times (to family, camping, something low key), how much would you have needed to earn?

Because if you've sold a business that covers land, school fees, you only need a small mortgage now... how easy would your life be right now if you had continued to rent the place you have now, and just had a small rental property, or put some in a pension etc etc.?

I think your husband has kept quiet in a desperate hope that things would just stay the same, despite the blindingly obvious that your bar has been raised and raised, or I should say changed.

Your expectations aren't necessarily better, but they take you away from where you both started. That's fine. But obviously he just wants to keep doing what he's doing, whatever the cost to you. And you wanted, and got, a f ton out of earning so much, but now it's too much and you're barrelling on in a different direction. Only this time he's really panicking.

It's a mess.

The only answer might be to leave, but you need to acknowledge that your did all these things that you thought were important, and now you're here.

Oh, and you should know, your children would probably still be a credit to you, even if they hadn't gone to private school, or had ponies.

If the answer is that you need to sit down and talk, otherwise you're splitting up, then I hope you would both make time and space to do that. In a way that SO finds possible. If he is scared or finds it difficult to articulate his thoughts, you may need to be creative. I def recognise a lot of this from my DH, loathes confrontation, but creates confrontation by not saying what he wanted up front.

I think you may need to reconsider some of your goals too.

You very excited to tell everyone about the house, of course, it's aspirational, it's fabulous, it represents so much.

But if you genuinely want it to work with your partner, maybe you need to practise saying "oh, we've decided to leave it for a while, we've got some new ideas, and just want a bit of space to mull over a different plan". That's not embarrassing.

Good luck OP, it's a good job you're capable of being tough, you've got a way to go before your can call this sorted.

How about you buy a house and rent it out? Could be a good investment/security, especially if the mortgage is small.

But seriously, there needs to be a big discussion about your future together or not together. It sounds like you want different things. It sounds like your current home, though rented, is his job as well as home, which puts a totally different spin on things and I can understand the ultimatum. Decide whether you actually want any financial ties, as you have none at the moment.

To me it reads like

Him
Pros
Hard working
Passionate
Great Dad

Cons
Low earner
Rigid ideas
Not noticing your sacrifices

You
Pros
Hard working
Provides a lot for your family
Driven

Cons
Your own High expectations (private school)
Resentful
Martyr?

Who wanted your children to go to private school and ride ponies?

You’ve made some expensive life choices here, 3 children, private school etc. Have you both made them or have you driven them more?

I was on your side until you revealed he's a farmer and called it a lifestyle business. It's bloody hard work and the country needs farmers more than they need bankers and stuff.

You've made your choices over the last 20 years to work yourself into the ground to pay for luxuries like private school and music lessons. You didnt have to do that. Nobody made you. Unless you're scared the kids are going to waste their potential by becoming a farmer like you evidently feel your partner did. It sounds very much like you look down on him for not earning as much as you feel he should have. Sounds like you're not a partnership at all to be honest.

Gosh for an AIBU this is fairly evenly split in replies, which I find surprising. I guess that's what makes AIBU really helpful sometimes.

My view is YANBU OP. Your DP wants you to purchase something that is way beyond your means and unrealistic, you involved him in choosing the house and he agreed and is now sulking as himself has changed his mind. You have taken on bulk of all childcare and life's work, as well as bulk of supporting family at cost to you and he has had a wonderful life with a low paying career he chose. So he doesn't get to throw "baby out with the bath water" and make unrealistic demands now. He's not even a SAHD that enabled you to pursue your career, it's the other way round! ! You do the bulk of childcare and housework!!

I would 100% continue with this house purchase as it was the best of all the available options, you love it, and you need to buy rather than face insecurity of continuing to rent. It is what is best for the family and DCs. You will only resent losing this house and never being able to please him and his unrealistic demands. The death knell of relationship will toll anyway, so let it toll from a position of you and DCs being in a lovely secure home.

Your OP and updates are all about DP his suddenly changing his mind and demanding his wants come first at expense of your and DCs needs. He may seem a great father but that is not what a good parent does- as everyone has to accept compromise sometimes- especially when it's not their money as you operate financially separately and are not married. He didn't want to get married.

He either gets on board with this house purchase and is grateful to have a wonderful home he can live in with his family, albeit it not his dream list (gosh wouldn't we all love land and a wish list but we accept when we can't afford it!!) or he carries out his manipulative threat to leave.

I suspect DP will back down when he realises how poor a quality of life and housing he will have living back on his own again, without being financially subsidised by you. ! And it will be of his own making. But I would take that risk and think, if he leaves me over this this he is showing how selfish a man and parent he is, who puts himself before our family and I couldn't live with that . I would resent his behaviour and sulking too. And it would be a deal breaker for me.

I think you are in a few breaker situation regardless. So let him leave and he can regret it at his leisure but don't be blackmailed. You'll get over it and may find someone who is more appreciative & respectful of the independent woman you are.

I'd love a farm and not have to go out to work. I'd love to look after animals all day BUT I CANT because we can't afford it, it's just not a realistic ambition

Yep. You definitely look down on him. Farming is work. Really, really hard work for very little financial reward. Surely you'd know that after being together 20 years. Perhaps that would have been a realistic ambition if you hadn't prioritised luxuries like school fees, ponies and music lessons. Nobody made you make any of those choices. It's a bit shit to punish him because you chose to lead an incredibly expensive lifestyle. Are you annoyed because he prioritised job satisfaction over earning pots of money to pay for luxuries and you didn't?

It sounds to me like you’ve sacrificed a lot for him to do what he likes all these years: yes farming is necessary, it’s not necessary for him though. Have you told him how stressed and unhappy your work makes you? It seems like you do all the housework and childcare as well- he really doesn’t contribute much. Buy the house op

@sadpapercourtesan

So you're resentful because you're flogging yourself to earn more and more and more money, and he's resentful because you treat him like another child instead of an equal partner.

You should take responsibility for your own exhaustion - your career is your choice, not his. Nobody needs a £700k house or ponies or private education. They're your priorities and your choices.

If you don't like or respect your partner, who clearly doesn't share your drive to amass as much cash as possible for he dies, then do the decent thing and split up with him.

100% this. You need to take responsibility for the impact of your choices. If you're lifestyle based choices are causing you so much stress then change them, and if you choose not to that's on you.

It sounds like you are doing way more than your fair share, that must be really frustrating. But how you can buy a house without explicit agreement from your partner and justify by saying you are not married is mad. I can fully understand his upset, he's your partner not your child. If you don't like the dynamic of your relationship, change that too.