DH and career, salary

[hjliu8999]

To preface this with, this issue is not new and has been a source of tension between DH and I ever since we got together decades ago. But just had yet another fight with DH regarding his job and whether he should look for something else.

He's been in his current position for three years now, no salary increase and no promotion - and realistically it just wont happen, they said so. I've been trying to encourage him to move on. He admits he doesnt like his job or sector so it's not like he loves it or anything but just doesn't know how to look for anything else.

And frankly am fed up. We used to live abroad where he was in the same position for ten years - no promotion and just inflationary salary increases. We came back due to my job so he found the first thing he could and basically it's the same thing. But by now we have DC and London is really expensive (his current job is also half the money he earned abroad). By now he's 42 so time is not exactly on his side. And I appreciate that 55k is not nothing, but he has three degrees and is working in a professional job.

From my side I do work full time - in the sector that he used to work in and by now earn more than he does. But it's a public sector ish job and I wont be able to find anything in the private sector (those jobs just dont exist). Realistically my pay progression is rubbish (max I will ever earn is probably 70kish) but I do have a lot more flexibility and annual leave so do more of the childcare.

Am just really fed up. With the cost of living going up along with interest rates - we have a big mortgage - and I dont know how to convince DH that he needs to find something else. He accuses me of wanting him to earn more money - like thats a bad thing or something. Am I being unreasonable or is he? Any tips on how to change things.

This is the real problem. He is a spender and you are a saver. I would find it hard to live with a spender because I am very frugal. YANBU.

Those women are usually doing a job that allows them to take on the majority of the childcare however, often facilitating their husbands to earn more as a consequence, whereas the DH here is the opposite. They're also not usually overspending because they don't want to cut their cloth according to their means. Granted OP didn't include this information in the original post so could understand if you'd missed it.

Second Monzo for budget planning. I find it really helps.

Hi OP, there has been a similar situation with my DP and I, in that the main wage earning falls to me as he is just not very driven to progress. Despite being immensely capable and having a lot of support at work to enable this. I think it was just complacence and a lack of forward planning that stopped him pushing himself when we first met.

I have accepted that the onus is on me to maintain our lifestyle as mine is the higher paying career and i am driven i.e I have taken a higher paying job/more stress that I don't particularly enjoy so he can carry on at the progression pace he's at. Yet he still enjoys the lifestyle my sacrifices enable, and I'm not sure he would now be happy to see a drastic change in that.

So what helped us is me doing the maths for him. How much things cost, the savings/pension we need to worry about, how it limits how many children we can have, potential caring responsibilities for parents, not to mention a buffer in case i get sick and can't work. When it's an abstract - "you need to push for promotion/progression at work", that feels like an attack on his choices, he gets defensive. When you say "in order to sustain our lifestyle we need to earn at minimum this amount as if we don't, it means selling up, moving out, having 1 child instead of 2, less savings etc - how can we get to this amount". That certainly put a fire under the bum of my DP - and he's realised he sort of takes for granted that we'll always live like he's used to.

We too live in London and costs are absolutely ridiculous here - yet we can't move too far out as the commuting costs/time for my DP would be ridiculous. So whilst I would normally support his reticence to advance as a personal choice, I'm aware that we don't live in a world that allows us this luxury. Even without the money element, if we don't constantly learn, grow, progress we're likely to get phased out of work for younger, more dynamic people. When I explained to DP that he was likely to be managed by a 20 something he had once trained, who considered him a dinosaur (because i was that 20 something doing exactly that once!) he would very much wish he'd taken opportunities more seriously. That definitely woke him up!

You certainly have some issues between you and your DH. The difficulty is that you are not debating the problems as a team, instead you are deciding solutions by yourself and dictating to your DH things that simply are not your business. It's baffling to me that you are expecting him to earn more by changing job, when you refuse to do the same. Be the change you want to see, don't go ordering him to do it instead.

Discuss with him the problems;

1. Money. As a family you've dipped into savings and that isn't sustainable. Write all the income and expenditure down, plus childcare costs as per point 2, and review options with him from there. It isn't up to you to dictate any of it, it's a discussion.
2. You want to expand your career so there needs to be more childcare that isn't you; either you two pay for childcare or he adapts his hours (very few jobs have no flex, you're right on that). If it's being paid for then agree together how to fund childminder, au pair, after school club, whatever it is.
3. His job dissatisfaction. The ridiculous capitalist rantings would irritate me, but he's your DH and presumably you have shared values. If he isn't sure how to go about making changes but isn't happy, then it may be worth investing in a life coach. If he just wants to jump ship then he can do a CV and send it to niche recruiters, who are incentivised to help him. Whatever he does though, you should stay out of the decisions because sounds like you're on the fast track to wrecking your marriage if you keep fighting about things that are firmly his remit and not yours.

1. I know it's just a thread, we don't have all of your life on display so you've left stuff out. I hope you've left out a whole lot of fun and happiness in your lives generally. If you haven't, then you need to take a massive step back and reevaluate your life priorities, because it reads very bleakly. I can't imagine even bitching anonymously about my DH without including how sweet and funny he is, how he picks up all the shitty tasks etc.

this issue is not new and has been a source of tension between DH and I ever since we got together decades ago

he is 42
have you honestly been having this discussion and tension since he was 22? Presumably in the middle of doing one of his degrees?

I think my original point, about the two of you being engaged in a familiar but crappy dance that you both hate but continue to do because you both know the steps, still stands.

I don't think anyone here can solve this issue, because it's decades old and you've both internalised it. It strikes me that your frustration and anger has welled up from a set of circumstances or a version of him from some years ago, and the situation now is simply triggering it again. I feel like you (both) need external help really. Couples therapy or something.

It sounds like budgeting is what you both need to do rather than looking for new jobs. Well, budgeting and couples counselling, probably.

On a combined income of £110k+, you should actually be able to afford those luxuries your husband wants.

But it sounds like the two of you are struggling to actually come together as a team and resolve any of this. It takes both of you at the end of the day, you have a communication issue.

I was all ready to say YABU based on your OP, but your updates indicate he is a childish dick tbh. Relying on savings for day to day spending is a fool's game, unless there is a very good, short-term reason. He either needs to get a better paying job or agree where your outgoings can be cut.

@AppleandRhubarbTart Yes, I did miss it, apologies. OP is right to be frustrated by the other issues she raises.

TBF if they have a large London mortgage and wraparound childcare costs, I can see how dropping £200 a week on food, nearly a grand a month, might be unaffordable even on that income. 10k into savings definitely suggests a deep problem though, I agree on that point.

@hjliu8999 I don't think you are being unreasonable at all. He can't expect to maintain a lifestyle that costs more than he is prepared to go out and earn, and also not pull his weight around the house.

If he hates his job and all you want is for him to be happy you'd presumably be happy if he got a minimum wage job, as long as he was happy. Or, he can go part time in his current role and reduce his misery.

But no, you really just want more money.

He doesn't.

The only solution is to tell him that his job is his business and as long as he pays his share of costs and does his share of household chores and childcare, it's fine with you.

lets say this discussion started when we first got together and six months after that - his phd funding ran out but he need an extra year to finish off and he just sort of assumed that he could live on my funding so I supported him for a year as a student. the 10k per year that i got at the time was less than what we would have got on benefits - yes it has been a while and yes it's been a bone of contention. we hten got lucky and got well paid jobs for ten years so didn't have to care too much about finances, earned more than we could spend etc etc. This has since come back into the picture since we moved back to the uk and got a couple of kids.

@Ecclesfreckles

if you are having to sit down and explain to your husband the link between earnings and life choices, then you have to ask yourself - is promotion even possible for him?

OK OP - understood.

Then you need to reframe it.
Instead of pushing him to change jobs, sit him down with the understanding that you are going to have a long talk.

Explain that you are not prepared to live off savings due to his overspending, & if he wants YOU to work harder to increase your salary, he needs to step up more on childcare & household management.

Given that - as PP rightly noted - you have been trapped in this unsatisfactory 'dance' for decades, he's unlikely to surprise you by offering solutions instead of moaning.
But at least your cards will be on the table.
So when you eventually reach your limit, & tell him you will not allow him to fritter the family's savings away, & are prepared to divorce him to protect your & DC's financial wellbeing, he can't act shocked.

He'd also have to parent his own DC at least occasionally if you divorced him. Just a thought ...

I would never use savings to pay those exorbitant food bills. Has he not realised a recession is coming?

£100k salary in London does not touch the sides.

You need to either move some where cheaper or get an additional income.

So you’re not pissed with him being i unambitious. You’re pissed because he has, from day 1, taken the piss out of fact you are financially comfortable?

This is one of those threads where post 1 makes me think YABU and posts 2-13 make me think - the hell haven’t you divorced this arse yet?!!!

He’s taken you £10K into your savings this year because - as an example - he wants his “special diet” (as you mentioned expensive gyms, I’ll guess there’s a lot of protein going on there…)

This isn’t just him being a bit whiny (which is still fucking annoying) but actually still spending 10-fucking-grand from savings?!

How much do you want to become a professor? Forget the money, forget the practicalities, forget him stepping up. Do you want it?

If so - I’d say go for it! Force him into childcare for conferences (so if you’re away overnight) and let your kids get used to wraparound /switch to a childminder if they really don’t like it. You must surely have a fuckton of savings with a £190K joint income no kids (wherever we’re living) So invest. Get a nanny for a year maybe - don’t see that as an outgoing from your salary, but an investment, like paying for a course. Don’t let him hold you back!

At the very least, I’d read him the divorce level riot act about not touching savings and living only from (perfectly good) income.

I do have some vague sympathy with you not having the right to force him into a career, and maybe the wee snowflake lacks confidence to apply elsewhere… but bottom line, those forgivable things are entirely wiped out by his entitled crap in pissing away your savings 🤷🏻‍♀️

6 months after first getting together he was sponging off you OP. It’s now two decades later and no change

no one could say he concealed this side to him!

There is a difference between ‘£70k is a pathetic salary’ and ‘my pay progression is a bit pathetic - the most I’ll likely earn is about £70k‘.

That seems to have been lost on people determined to tell the OP that she should be grateful they aren’t ‘on the breadline’.

She’s in a senior lecturer/Associate Prof role. Earning c. £60k ish. Promotion opportunities are shit in academia, especially for women who have to do all the family stuff. Progression to about £70k max is quite shit as pay progression goes.

In other industries, someone with comparable experience and qualifications may well be looking at much better pay progression possibilities.

Help him find a new job. Not for the money but that he is happy with. And part of that discussion will probably need to be about living within your joint finances.

I've supported my DH in finding a new job. He was miserable before and it impacted on every aspect of our lives. Two new jobs were on the table and I actually initially was more in favour of the lesser laid option as I thought it would be less stressful. But he went for the other one and is enjoying it and life is measurably better too.

Your DH may well be more amenable to discussing how much you spend once he is happier in other aspects of life.

Bloody hell, that’s a good household income! I’d move somewhere cheaper if I was you, you’ll feel absolutely loaded.