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???

How can you have so much in savings yet 'property prices escaped you'? Your kids have ponies ffs and are at private school. What do you do for a living?

@worriedaboutmytoddler

I call trolling

What do you mean? Genuine question!

@pinkyredrose

How can you have so much in savings yet 'property prices escaped you'? Your kids have ponies ffs and are at private school. What do you do for a living?

What does it matter? I have a high paying professional career.

I don't know why most posters on this thread can't see this !

@Subbaxeo

Sorry but I think this is a load of bullshit. If the children were coming first, they’d’ve made different decisions a long time ago. And no job pays 200k a year but allows you to do housework, school runs, house admin and childcare yet be so demanding and stressful you’re at the end of your tether.

We have a cleaner. Why can't I do school runs and earn well? I know lots of women that do these exact things!!

@Subbaxeo

Sorry but I think this is a load of bullshit. If the children were coming first, they’d’ve made different decisions a long time ago. And no job pays 200k a year but allows you to do housework, school runs, house admin and childcare yet be so demanding and stressful you’re at the end of your tether.

Children are at private school 8-6 btw, part time boarding

@Alliswells

I don't know why most posters on this thread can't see this !

Can't see what?

She means being economical with the truth. Demanding stressful job which pays a ton of money, yet still manage housework, childcare, school runs, dental visits and weekends with the kids. No one I know who earns that can do all the housework and childcare. What is the job?

I can't manage to read through all these posts. But OP, you do realise there's something else going on in your relationship other than this house / incident, right? There must be something emotional accumulated for a long time. He's not suddenly behaving irrationally. Please have a candid conversation with him. Ask him what he feels and what's going on in your relationship to make him think to ask you choose between a house and him?

If he hasn't already, I would get him to look at rightmove and speak to local estate agents with his very tight search area and see just what is or isn't available. Maybe there is something he would be happier with but it's much higher than your already huge budget. He needs to be realistic about what is actually available.

Completely different situation but we are about embark on some renovations to our house, but before we do so I looked on rightmove to see if there is anything in the area that is suitable without all the work. We decided on a budget of £400k (selling our house and inheritance) and we would have to double that just to get anything close to what would work. It's just clarified in our minds we are doing the best option.

I hope you find a solution as it sounds very difficult. Someone else said, bluebird I think, about all the sacrifices you've made in order for your partner to be able to do something he loves. You love this house and I think he should now sacrifice his dream of the nonexistent farm house for this one.

So you don’t do housework and childcare or school runs as your kids are at boarding school?

@ArmWrestlingWithChasNDave

This doesn't make any sense.

You say he earns a pittance and contributes nothing financially. Yet he pays 85% of your housing costs AND half the bills.

You claim to earn something like £200k+ in a hugely demanding and stressful job, yet you also have time to do all childcare, including two school runs a day, and all the housework.

And with this £200k+ job you can't afford to take out a mortgage to supplement your almost £700k deposit.

Yeah. Okay.

Of course I can get a mortgage, a massive one if I wanted it! I've already said I don't want a massive debt, to buy a property that I don't want or need. I want to take pressure OFF me, not add more!!

@Subbaxeo

She means being economical with the truth. Demanding stressful job which pays a ton of money, yet still manage housework, childcare, school runs, dental visits and weekends with the kids. No one I know who earns that can do all the housework and childcare. What is the job?

Goodness me!! How do you think families work? Who do you think does all this stuff? It doesn't suddenly disappear if you get a good job!

It's called juggling - many many many women do this!

What does it matter?

Because it doesn't make sense.

Yanbu
This isnt about the house really, its about a partnership (or lack thereof)

Personally I'd move into the house with he kids and tell him to make his own provisions
I'd also look at how coparenting could work and give him some options (presumably you'll need to do this for him as farming is basically his contribution to the relationship. I don't really consider "forming a relationship with your own child" contributing to a partnership)

Neither of you are "wrong" per se but its clear you have different priorities and values and it isn't working for either rof you. I also find it a bit rich he is demanding something he can't himself fund (champagne tastes but a lemonade budget etc etc) which isn't cricket really.

Well done on not marrying him it was all sensible choice. I also find it a but rich you have all these women piling on to tell you to further sacrifice yourself on the alter of motherhood and wifework 🙄 and how awful you are for wanting an easier life for yourself

Regardless of the inequality of the financial contribution as a total, currently, he is labelled as responsible for paying the rent 10 months out of 12 - in his mind, he is looking after his family keeping a roof over their heads the majority of the time. You are about to completely change that that everyone lives somewhere you have bought. There is ego at stake rightly or wrongly. You need to rebrand your definition of how you split the finances in order to get him on board . You said 'we have told family' about the purchase etc. Have you both? Or just you?

I don't think you are in the wrong. I do think he is being a pain in the bum. But... you are not seeing his side. Drop the purchase of the house, rebrand your distribution of the finances to make it seem more equal so he is still very much playing his part in all of your upkeep and have some honest conversations about what happens next with a purchase you choose together and move your lives forward together. At the moment you are pushing forward with your own agenda causing him to dig his heels in further. You have both done wrong - but nothing critical and unforgiveable. Sounds like the relationship is worth the work since he is a good father, (generally a good husband) and a hard worker.

No!! I've dealt with every aspect of the children, he probably does two school runs out of 10 per week.

Children are at private school 8-6 btw, part time boarding

So the kids are part-time boarding (do you mean weekly boarding or some other more flexible arrangement) yet apparently you pick them eight times a week from school and he picks them up twice...

I'd love to know what kind of work pays £200k based from home, with flexibility to do school pick-ups etc.

What a bloody awful situation. You’ve spent 20 years indulging and spoiling him, bankrolling his hobby business and he’s now behaving like a toddler.

What would I do? I’d continue with the house purchase, move into it and tell him he’s welcome to join me if he wishes. Although why you’d want him to is completely beyond me. I couldn’t love someone I had no respect for and I couldn’t respect someone who spent 20 years sponging off me and taking no financial responsibility for their family. In all honesty, I think you’d be well rid.

Look at Gabriel Oak. Owned a flock of sheep but they fell off a cliff. Being a farmer only worked out for him once he married Bathsheba who owned a farm.

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this contribution to the thread.

Loads of different perspectives here. I think what matters really for you at this stage is that this has been going on for so long that there is so much resentment, it's going to be the doom for your relationship.
If you give up on the property, there's no way you can recover from this because your partner will just carry on as he is. Whereas you will be stewing on the lost opportunity and your resentment will build up even more....

Because normally if people don’t outsource this type of thing, there is one side of the partnership which can do those things. I tell you, nobody, male or female can have a job which is demanding and stressful, long hours etc and still pick up the kids and and do childcare solo. They have paid help if no family help. And now you’re saying they’re boarding so you don’t actually do the childcare.

@Subbaxeo

Sorry but I think this is a load of bullshit. If the children were coming first, they’d’ve made different decisions a long time ago. And no job pays 200k a year but allows you to do housework, school runs, house admin and childcare yet be so demanding and stressful you’re at the end of your tether.

This.

It is a lifestyle business in that he's perfectly capable of having a high paying career but he wanted to farm instead.

Ooof, does that mean social work is a lifestyle business too? Plenty of massively skilled, valuable careers out there OP that don't pay massive (or anything close to it) salaries. People choose to do them for reasons that (sharp intake of breath) don't have anything to do with the money! Am being a bit facetious but hope you can see what I mean.

I sympathise deeply with both of you as you sound like you've both worked like packhorses - in entirely different ways, for entirely different reasons - for a long time, but you're perhaps being forced to confront your quite divergent values now since things have come to a head with the house. I hear your resentment (though echo PP comments that working to afford school fees and ponies was your choice), but can't move past the fact that you bought a property for your whole family to live in without your DP's express agreement. If I were him I'd feel hurt, angry and disrespected beyond measure.

I hope you can talk this through somehow and find a way to resolve it.

OP: Goodness me!! How do you think families work? Who do you think does all this stuff? It doesn't suddenly disappear if you get a good job!

It's called juggling - many many many women do this!

I have friends in this earning bracket who do precisely what OP does. They are burnt out but yes, women can be high earners in the 200K bracket and still do the bulk of the housework, wifework and headspace, whilst organising cleaners and child care and school runs.

This is real life, not lalaland.

@Pluvia

No!! I've dealt with every aspect of the children, he probably does two school runs out of 10 per week.

Children are at private school 8-6 btw, part time boarding

So the kids are part-time boarding (do you mean weekly boarding or some other more flexible arrangement) yet apparently you pick them eight times a week from school and he picks them up twice...

I'd love to know what kind of work pays £200k based from home, with flexibility to do school pick-ups etc.

And spend all of your morning posting on mumsnet..

This whole arrangement seems bizarre and a lot of contradictions. Gone from he doesn't provide financially to he does. He doesn't help out, but he is a wonderful father?

I was on her side at the beginning, now I can't believe someone with this much apparent intelligence cannot form an argument on a simple subject. Or know what to do if its as unequal as she claims.