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???

@Alliswells

"I know if I was a man and did this there would be outrage. I get that."

Yes if a high earning man did that to his dp who was a hardworking nurse there would be an absolute outcry

But if that nurse demanded the high earning DP bought a house or care home attached, and threatened to leave the relationship otherwise...?

Sorry I mean a HOSPITAL or care home attached!

He agreed hes offered no compromise i think you should go ahead and buy

you cant buy a farm just because he wants one

@Shybutnotretiring

Is farming ever really going to work out if you don't own a farm? 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. But OP doesn't own and can't afford a farm. The people saying that OP is pissing over her partner because he earns less than her are missing the point: it's bonkers not to own a house when you're a high earner with 3 children, just to accommodate the lower earner's occupation. Perhaps OP could afford a farm in a much cheaper (and probably remote) part of the world but then would she be able to continue to earn? Plus unfair to uproot children who are doing fine.

This.

OP you may love him and it's terribly sad after all of this time but this isn't working. No wonder you are resentful! You've exhausted and stressed yourself out to provide for the family, you've done everything for the children, and he is making totally unrealistic demands on you when he has no financial contribution to make to making those demands remotely realistic. Then ignoring you?!

You will barely notice the difference without him there as he is contributing nothing noticeable financially, emotionally or practically to your family life.

Painful as it is, I would end it. You will destroy your health if you keep being used like this. Supporting three kids is hard enough but then trying to also satisfy his financial demands when he contributes nothing in terms of emotional or practical support either is beyond the pale.

Many of the responses here are baffling to me and I think driven from people being jealous of your situation, that you absolutely deserve and have worked very hard for. I think many people struggle to respond to a situation that doesn't fit into their normal stereotypes and have tried to "reverse" it in their heads without considerint the differences - particularly the fact you've done all the usual "wife work" and earned the vast majority of the money. Ignore that bitterness from a number of PP and focus on yourself and your kids - as you always have. You cannot carry him anymore, it will destroy you to maintain this much longer.

I'm sorry it's ended up like this. It will hurt. But buy the house, and move on.

@bluebird3

YANBU - take the house.

If you look at it in terms of sacrifices each of you have made....

You:

• bulk of the childcare
• all household admin/ mental load
• stressful job/most of the financial contributions
• unable to buy a home to this point bc of his desires
• holidays alone to facilitate his job

Him:

• long hours (but by choice for little reward)

-not going on holidays or having time off

• not getting all he wants in a home

Your sacrifices have been to facilitate what he wants from life. His sacrifices have also been to facilitate what he wants from life. It's time he makes a sacrifice for what you want.

This is an such an insightful comment and sums it up perfectly.

I am amazed the OP has been given such a hard time here. 😒🤔

@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.

Wrong.

@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?

Lots of people I know do. Maybe we're all superheros or maybe we're all lying or maybe, you are just being nasty to the OP for no reason just because you don't know women like her personally.

@pinkyredrose

What does it matter?

Because it doesn't make sense.

😂😆🙄🙄🙄🙄

Seems a large number of posters are fixated about the OP's job and earnings.

Yes people who work in very stressful, demanding jobs tend to earn a lot of those jobs are very highly skilled and not many people can do them.

That also means that those skills are scarce and in demand and they can generally have more scope to negotiate flexible working.

Often that combination of high earnings and flexibility is the eventual payoff from having work crazy hours and studied for year and years in very high stress environments.

You may think that's implausible. You're wrong. You may think the OP is "lucky". Again, wrong. She is in a good situation now yes but because she has worked very hard.

This wasn't an AMA about her career. She has explained her situation. The facetious comments about her financial position are so transparently full of jealousy.

She is grieving the likely end of a 20 year relationship where she's run herself into the ground trying to please everyone and yes - made illogical financial choices to continue to facilitate her partner living the lifestyle he wants on a rented farm when they could have bought a nice, normal house ages ago.

He is determined they won't because it's not a farm, but has done nothing to make it possible for them to afford to buy a farm so expects her and her children to never have a secure home. And the OP to continue to work herself to death in a job which has caused significant mental health issues to try to realise his dream.

People who have developed well-paid careers also deserve some compassion and to be treated as something more than a cash machine.

Hold on, why do I have to buy the farm? Genuine question!!

He's been perfectly capable of a high paying career but chose a different path. Why does it fall to me? What's your reason?

Exactly.

If this was his dream he could have gone and got the well-payinf career and tried to earn money to buy a farm and make is feasible.

You said you'd be quite happy looking after animals all day and doing this with him, but you can't. Because he's relying on your to be the cash machine.

If he wanted a farm he should have done what you did, taken the unpalatable, high stress career so you both earn the money for it then do the farm dream together.

It's utterly selfish of him to have opted out of all financial responsibility and still make these demands on you when it must be obvious what this job is doing to your health, and tell you what you can offer (which would be many people's dream life!!) is not good enough. And simultaneously never be around for you or the kids, never organise anything, never do any practical parenting, never appreciate what you are doing for him and the family.

I think you'll be so much happier without him, in the long run. He will probably realise what he's chucked away but it'll be too late. You deserve to be treated better than this. There's no point being in a relationship with somebody who doesn't think that your wellbeing, and the security of their children, are their main priorities.

You want a nice house and private school for the children etc. and fair play to you you've worked hard to make that happen. But I do understand how gutted he must be to see you spending your money on a house when in his mind a farm is the dream.

The trouble is that he's had his dream for 20 years and hasn't been able to make it work. It probably isn't his fault, farming is an incredibly hard life - someone mentioned Clarkson's Farm upthread, and what came out of that series is the fact that it's really hard to make a profit from it; Clarkson acknowledged that he would not have survived but for his other income.

It's all very well to say that he's paying his way now, but the reality is that, without OP's work, the family would have no security for the future. And he simply won't compromise. The time has surely come to say that OP is fully entitled to go for the house, and that if her husband wants to carry on farming, either he takes full responsibility for the costs involved in his current set-up or he looks at something like running a smaller farming operation near the new house. But apparently he would rather throw the marriage away. His choice.

Can you please point in the direction of said job paying 200k a year that is somehow so stressful and demanding yet allow loads of time for childcare, activities housework etc?

@Alliswells

Can you please point in the direction of said job paying 200k a year that is somehow so stressful and demanding yet allow loads of time for childcare, activities housework etc?

There are a few around. And OP has pointed out that she has a cleaner.

Like?