To be shocked that in the 21st century there's still a staggering amount of women who rely entirely on their husbands?

[EllieRosesMammy]

I see it far too often on MN, women saying their husbands have been cheating on them for years or treating them absolutely terribly, but saying they can't leave because they are entirely financially dependent on their husbands.

Is it just me who finds this mad in 2022? Or is it still normal for men to be 100% the provider of the household?

I just couldn't imagine being stuck in a rubbish situation simply because of money

I am absolutely in no way slating stay at home mums, or house wives here either. I just believe all women should be self sufficient enough that if they're in a bad situation they can walk away

I agree but it's not always that easy because women give up their careers to look after kids and then go back to work on a lesser salary.

Imagine getting to do all those things and not have to worry about upsetting some man's ego and it all disappearing.

I believe it's called winning the lottery.

Of course, I'm sure someone like you has made sure there's no pre nup and you'll get a nice cut of his money, but you'll never feel the satisfaction of buying things with money you've earned. Unless you count shagging someone who funds your lifestyle as earning.

Lol, it's almost certain that I've worked more hours than you this week. Today, we had one driver off sick and a subby unable to come in due to wagon breaking down. So I jumped in our hire truck and did the round myself, which took me 12 hours rather than the usual 10 as I don't know the route and haven't driven much in the past couple years.

I then came back and had to do another two hours to catch up on the stuff I'd already got scheduled for today, which included washing another truck with hydrochloric acid to remove the mortar before it goes back on Monday. So 14 hours work thank you very much.

But I don't define myself by my job or pretend it's some higher calling. Like most blokes, I do it for the money. Where a lot of women go wrong is making a big deal of competing with men, which is ultimately going to be disatisfying in most cases as men don't tend to work to fulfil some ideological conviction.

pixie5121 · Today 00:16
MrsSkylerWhite
pixie5121 · Today 00:00
MrsSkylerWhite
Has worked for us for 34 years. I depend on him financially, he depends on me for so much more 🤷‍♀️

(oh and we love each other very much, if that makes any difference.)

What does he depend on you for? Sorry if this sounds cold, but you can't survive without money. I highly doubt there's anything you do for him that he couldn't outsource to someone else. Do you not see what a power imbalance this is?”

too many things to list, in sometimes difficult circumstances. Works very well for us. Every asset and pension is 50/50 so finances are really not a concern. If you suggested a power imbalance in our relationship to anyone who knows us, they’d laugh you out of the room. As would I 😁
I'm speaking more generally.

Imagine a woman of working age, for example. Say, 35. She stays at home while her partner works and has given up her career to look after the kids. She says it works great, because they each have their role and contribute equally but in different ways.

He suddenly has his head turned by a woman at work and leaves. Suddenly he's got someone else to do all the stuff she used to do - housework, washing his clothes, ironing, making his packed lunch for work. She's now struggling to manage three kids alone, hasn't worked in ten years so is basically unemployable and has an absolutely shit quality of life, while her former partner is taking the new girlfriend to the Bahamas and shopping in Harrods.

You don't think this is a power imbalance? That one person's contribution is money, necessary for survival and comfort, and the other person's contribution is essentially services that can be bought?“

I can only speak for myself. Our partnership works.

You think the only way a woman can have a luxurious lifestyle with plenty of free time is to win the lottery? Proper little misogynist, aren't you?

LOL, you've also just gone from bragging about your easy lady of luxury lifestyle to talking about driving around in a truck for 14 hours. 😂You know how many hours I worked today? Zero!

I don't define myself by my job or pretend it's a higher calling, either. Only misogynists and sexists think women do that. We literally work for the money just like men do. To, you know, pay the bills.

It's not hard to see how the green eyes monster surfaces when they see these trim, well groomed ladies turn up in their Range Rover Sports and know they probs haven't done a day's work in quite a few years. Obviously I'm generalising but the above matches up with my experience of the matter.

If we are stereotyping those types tend to have an overweight, stressed, unfit DH. No green eyed monster for that!

I believe it's called winning the lottery.

If I won the lotto I would start my own business, I certainly wouldn't care about going to the gym everyday.

Why bother having children in the first place if as soon as possible after birth they are palmed off to a stranger to bring up? I'm surprised M'snet doesn't have posts advising on the best wet nurses or boarding schools from birth.

As a woman in her 60's, I can quite happily say, I loved being a SAHM for my step children (DH had full custody) and our own children. Our home was incredibly well run and organised. The children had healthy cooked meals. I took care of all the housework, decorating, life laundry, chauffeuring of DCs to friends and hobbies. All children had nightly baths, endless stories and days if not hours were spent crafting, lego building, making dens and just playing. We had fun filled school holidays with picnics, bike rides, days out and nights camping under the stars. We visited castles, museums, stately homes, went on long hikes, paddled in the local river. I taught them needlework, to canoe, swim, build bonfires. We had our own fruit and veg garden which the children were as much involved in as I. The also had the responsibility of pets ponies, hens and a few sheep. Their friends often stayed over and it was normal to have 10 children seated around the dinner table on an evening. Our home was full of antics, laughter and fun. Rarely did the tv go on, never did a child complain of boredom or feel that they were not the biggest priority in life. It was an absolute privilege and pleasure to bring 5 children up to be well balanced, happy and responsible individuals without being torn between a career ( for myself) and filling a pension pot. My my children were my career. They in turn have children of their own and parent in an equally enthusiastic way. My children look back on their childhood as idyllic.

I returned to work when the youngest started school. Although it wasn't a career more a job I enjoyed which fitted in round parental responsibilities, I was happy.

I would have hated, the pressure that modern mothers are under, to be not only the perfect parent but a career driven individual. Sorry but something has to give and imho it is usually the children that get the short straw, expected to occupy themselves on their tablets, tv or phones whilst parents rush round trying to find time to shop, cook, do housework etc etc at the end of a long school day, particularly as we are a nation of nuclear families where extended family cannot take up the slack or grandma isn't available to help out as she's too busy working to top up her pension pot before retirement!

Yes, I depended financially on my OH, as he did me for my role (isn't that what marriage is all about, a partnership?) and yes, I might not be the most well off pensioner out there but I can certainly look back and feel it was a life well spent!

Quite frankly reading some of the earlier comments on this thread I truly worry for future generations.

I loved being a SAHM and did not find it difficult to find a job I love when the children grew up.

I work in a caring profession and being a SAHM really did prepare me for that.

I will never be wealthy but I don't regret the choices I have made. I am very happy.

The problem is not that SAHMs put themselves in a precarious situation; the problem is that we don't create robust support routes for women fleeing financial abuse, whether they work or not.

I was talking about myself, I'm not in an unhappy, abusive relationship. Of course I think its shit that I can't be financially independent but its not actually my fault.

Are you suggesting I leave my healthy happy relationship and go live somewhere much less nice, with much less money to live on just in case at some point in the future we might split up?

@Marmitemother are your dc stay at home parents?

@EllieRosesMammy
"I'm not saying women shouldn't be able to have that choice, I'm saying they should always have a back up plan so they don't find themselves stuck in a situation where they're sacrificing their own emotional wellbeing for the sake of finances."

As a SAHM, I would have been sacrificing my emotional wellbeing far more by dumping my offspring with a childminder/nursery when I wanted to parent them myself!

It's not just in financial terms. I worry about so many of my friends who are completely dependent on their blokes for other stuff:

• two women I work with are picked up by their husbands in the car every day and spend so much time waiting for them. I'd get a push bike rather than hanging around for hours a day.
• women who have no knowledge of who their house insurance is with, how much electricity is costing, MOT etc. My DM just told me that her DH is paying £509 for something which I pay £80 a year for, he never shops around and just renews regardless. She knows it's cheaper but he will not relent control of the finances, even to a woman who ran her own house for 20 years!
• women who say, almost proudly 'oh I don't know anything about that, DH does all that stuff'

Also why do we find it acceptable for women not to know anything about house and car maintenance? We should be educating ourselves if it truly is a partnership. I would be disappointed if my DD became a stay at home mum as I too have struggled with being trapped in abuse and unable to get out due to finances. Very often the added pressure of being a father makes some men show their true colours.

@Intheflicker Its ridiculous isn't it, some really assume every woman who doesn't work has an abusive partner, some of us have good marriages with husbands who are able and happy to support us and make good provison for us for various reasons. Everyones situation is personal and its not possible to make a blanket judgement. Perhaps a lot of posters have bad experiences around marriage or men?

Also I can take my DC's away in the UK for a weeks holiday and buy every ice cream, every zoo ticket, every frozen bloody pizza with money that I've earned and honestly it is a lovely feeling. Obviously there are situations where working outside the home isn't possible (disability, DC's disability and MH) but smugness at feeling that you're a better parent for staying at home isn't a valid reason.
I'm on a lot of groups with SAHM and the amount of time they spend arguing with people online makes me wonder if they really are spending anymore 'precious time' with their DC's than I am, working 37.5 hours?

@yourclone get back to me when you see how many 'I'm up shit creek without a paddle' threads there are on MN from SAHM's after the 'incredible, perfect man' has left.

As a SAHM, I would have been sacrificing my emotional wellbeing far more by dumping my offspring with a childminder/nursery when I wanted to parent them myself!

The rich people in my area don't work but still dump their kids in childcare!

There is nothing wrong with having a true partnership where both people trust and rely on one another.

There is nothing wrong with having different roles in a family according to different abilities.

Where the parents are one and consider money and resources to be shared equally there is not a problem.

There's a problem when they consider themselves as separate entities, resources are not shared and the unpaid labour of raising a family is not valued.

Most people don't dump their children in childcare, they place them there.

LOL, you've also just gone from bragging about your easy lady of luxury lifestyle to talking about driving around in a truck for 14 hours. 😂

My easy lady of luxury life? 😂 I think you must be confusing me with another poster.

But it's interesting that you don't get 'men of luxury'. 'Lads of luxury'? One could almost mistakenly get the impression that some women are rather privileged in spite of all this talk of the patriarchy. But of course those women don't count do they?

We can lump all men into a homogenous group but we have to pretend that these women don't exist when talking about male privilege etc, and we have to ignore the fact that very few men get to live luxurious lives bankrolled by somebody else. Fact is, the pride element only matters if you care about it. If a woman is happy to chill out all day on her husband's dollar then she gets to enjoy all the things you work hard for but without any of the hard work.

That's what really gets your goat.

@Triptop but we live in a capitalist society? I could be the best parent ever but if I went to the bank no one would give me a mortgage based on that.

And you can laugh at the thought of me driving around in a truck (which I actually used to love) but the fact is that I could quit my managerial job after several years of not driving and have a £200-a-day driving job in literally 2-3 days. Not a senior management wage but over £50k, which is plenty as an emergency backup.

Even drivers who haven't driven in years can walk into a decently paid job within days, which is why I've kept my licenses up to date. Granted, the current shortage has inflated wages/demand a little but it's never been the kind of job where a CV or your history matter. Grab the keys, quick driving assessment and you're good.

Many trade jobs are similar. People don't ask for a tradesman's CV. They might read online reviews but even somebody who's been off for a few years can get a few jobs/references under the belt pretty quickly by accepting a few of the less appealing jobs (tradesmen tend to cherry pick the jobs they want).

It's hard not to roll your eyes a bit at women who plan to have kids yet knowingly choose jobs in which progression will be seriously affected by extended time off. Totally unforced error IMO.

If my partner gets a sizeable promotion and is happy for me not to work I'd be on it like a rat up a drainpipe if I thought he genuinely didn't mind. Fuck what the feminists think, most of them are bonkers nowadays anyway lol.

@winemedown That's what I mean about a partnership. Yes, families need to earn money. That's the reality of our society. But the unpaid work of raising a family is as important as the paid work and should be valued within the family unit, and by society.

I think it’s quite closely (not 100%) related to the fact that in the 21st century a truly staggering 100% of the babies are born from women.

Most of your post is ok…but… “Why bother having children in the first place if as soon as possible after birth they are palmed off to a stranger to bring up?”

smug @Marmitemother my mum successfully ran her own law firm as I was growing up, I knew nothing different, yes there were days where I wondered why she wasnt at sports day, but these were vastly outnumbered by the comments from friends saying my mum was their idol.

The rest of your post is quite nice. Just started off narky. My mother raised me to be very independent…and still i have all those fond childhood memories. I hope i can do half the job my mother did, my daughter will be going into nursery at one year old. Does that mean I shouldn’t have had her?

Shes going to be awesome….a proper ninja.

Women bail because childcare is messed up. Where i live its £1700 per month for a nursery, im not sure a few shifts at tesco is worth that….so yes, they depend on the man.