To feel trapped in my middle aged mum life

[ElfinsMum]

I feel like I should be in the prime of my life with my DH and beautiful three kids, big job, nice house in lovely place, oldest DC starting at lovely private secondary...all the big jigsaw pieces in place.

But in reality, I feel like I have little to no choice left in my life:

I don't really enjoy my job, I kind of fell into my industry years ago as a grad. But I am our primary earner as DH has had employment issues due to mental health so I am stuck.

I don't really enjoy my weekends because they are full of chores. DH does some chores but I do all the cooking, laundry, cleaning and most of the shopping. I also do a massive proportion of weekend childcare because he typically chooses not to come out with us. He has yet to take all 3 DC anywhere, youngest is 2 and a half...he doesn't feel he would cope.

I don't really enjoy holidays because we live away from both our families so most of our hols are spent visiting grandparents and other relatives. Obviously if we were really close with these people, we wouldn't have moved away.

Basically, I feel like our life looks perfect as long as I keep on keeping on with a smile plastered on my face . But almost all the time, I'm basically faking it.

Is it normal to feel trapped like this in midlife?

If you’re the primary wage earner and your husband is unemployed then he should be doing a vast majority of the housework. Tell him if he doesn’t want to do the cleaning, laundry, dinners etc then he can pay for a cleaner or he can move out.
As for holidays being spent visiting family, I too live about 300 miles from my family. We (Dh and I) visit family over about 4-6 weekends throughout the year. Use your holidays to actually holiday and rest. Make use of a few long weekends to visit family. You have no obligation to visit them though.

No offence meant, but it doesn't look perfect at all.

If I had all the money in the world I wouldn't send my child to private school. You're creating an artificial bubble of competition and egotism for them, that's not a gift, however much it costs.

A big house? So what. We have a 3 bed semi which is perfect for us. Manageable to maintain with plenty of space to have our own time.

Big job? So that probably equals stress and hyper professionalism. Not for me. I'd like to move forwards in my career but I have no ambitions to be a high flyer, I've seen what it does to people.

Life is about balance. Choose a state school. Down size if you have to. Have a good think about what you want from life, you only live once and you're more than half way through it. Do you want to work with people? Charity? Education? Arts? Sport? Psychology? What would you find interesting?

Spend the next 5 years training part time and working. Tell your husband you need more help around the house.

You have lots of options, but unfortunately it will entail a reduction in expenditure (schools and housing). Whether you think it's worth that is your choice.

My friend a granny did the trip to Australia annually flew business class. Two year covid gap. This summer when she went out again. She struggled and was exhausted. Came back and went to bed for a few days. She's said never again. The usual flight money will be set aside and used for her family to help pay for their flights back in the UK

Fuck that my dear.

Get rid of the usleless dh or this is your life sentence forever.

Im not in a lucky position, as you, ... am single parent on low wage and benefits. yet.... I am so FUCKING HAPPY as I left my usless twunt of a hubby who did no chores and no childcare, and it is soo liberating.....Im 52 and living my best life.
See what i mean? All the cash in the world cant make you make him the person he isnt ever going to be.

For us, what @5128gap describes is our experience. No idea what he's spent on psychology in total but a lot over the years. (And yes, before anyone says it, we have tried several different psychs... although all CBTish tbf)

This would be perfect advice if he was not pulling his weight because he couldn't be arsed. It's not that he won't...it's much more that he can't. He doesn't like that fact any more than I do.

My DH's performance feedback is heading downhill at work. We have been here before. What happens if/when I am re-training for a lower paid but more satisfying career and he is managed out of his job again??

Oh and we also have a 3 bed house...seems big when you're hoovering but it's definitely not a mansion!

Nah, I left it open on my phone and we use each others' phones when we can't find our own (because a kid is gaming on it). Easy for him to see it.

If you weren't around OP he would have to be cooking/cleaning/kids whether he was depressed or not. You enable him to act this way. Even with work - if it was just him and he didn't have your wages to fall back on I doubt he would have so many performance issues.

It sounds tough OP. Parenting 3 with a job and parents far away and a husband who is fragile sometimes. It may be helpful - as others have suggested - to make some space for yourself so you can figure out what you want - for yourself. For me psychodynamic psychotherapy has been helpful with this. But journalling could help or reading the book ‘4000 weeks: time management for mortals’ which is pretty good at setting out the limits of our time and frames how to think about how we might want to spend it. From that process you may think about no more than three goals you have for yourself. Not necessarily jazzy goals - like for me, something I really missed was reading. I never had time to do it unless it was a journal related to my job or a parenting book so a goal was that I was going to read more novels. Small change - massive impact on my contentment. Then once you’ve figured that out, map your support system. Think about different kinds of support: moral support, expertise, practical support, people who you do fun things with - draw a little network of you and the people in your life and how you draw on them or could potentially draw on them for support. If there are gaps, particularly practical ones, buy it in. Think about how your support system can help you get to where you want to be in life. (It often isn’t a big ask - maybe an invitation to play tennis or go for a walk or a coffee). Most of my support system are women at my stage of life. Old friends mum friends or friends through work. Talking to them that’s their experience too. Anyway, lots of advice. Hope some of it helpful.

It would be nice to think so, wouldn't it? The problem is with some people the prop of their partner is the only thing enabling them to keep it together at all. So often the loss of that actually starts a downward spiral. Which is absolutely not a reason to stay for the partners sake. But when you have children, there's a desire to protect them from having to witness their other parent hit rock bottom. Everything can be a weighing up of how bad could it get compared to how tolerable is it now.

Bloomin heck, if he AS your name, he’ll be reading for the entire night how you are jealous of your daughter, angry about this, depressed about that- but seemingly never actually making any action to change the status quo whatsoever

Hi OP. What I'm taking from your post is (correct me if I'm wrong) -

You both work 4 days a week (the same days? Mon-Thu?)

Your lifestyle is built primarily on your salary, as it is hard for DH to hold down a job due to MH - so this causes you to feel trapped shouldering all responsibility for the mortgage and bills in a job you really don't enjoy.

You feel like your life is one long groundhog day of the same things day in, day out, chores, laundry, cleaning, cooking, shopping, etc. And your weekends get sucked up with a lot of this.

Then when you take any kind of annual leave, it's primarily used to visit family to please them.

Firstly, I think it's actually sensible to base your lifestyle on your salary given the situation. I have ADHD and have had mental health struggles also (kind of goes hand in hand), and I find it extremely difficult to hold down a job for more than a few years. So in our household, we base our lifestyle on DP's salary BUT I pick up the slack in other areas. I work fewer hours, and I work for myself - and we just treat my income as a bonus. Could this be a possibility in your house? Could DH reduce his hours, do something he can manage, and be the primary shopping / cooking / cleaning / whatever person? Is there any way you can change anything about your lifestyle to release the financial burden on yourself?

If that's not realistic or desirable, then are there any other solutions? Can you outsource and automate things? Hire a cleaner, order groceries online, have meal boxes like Hello Fresh / Gousto (if they have them in Aus) 3-4 days a week?

Can whatever chores need to be done get sorted during the week, or on one of your three days off, leaving the weekend free for pure fun stuff? This is what we do now. All chores get done during the week, shopping is done on Friday, Saturdays are for fun days out, Sundays are 100% for chill time, self-care, etc.

I feel like what's happening is that your life ticks all the material/surface boxes but none of the meaningful, joyful ones. The world is a playground! So much to see, explore, have fun with. And you're locked in a cycle of laundry and drudgery.

I think you really need to sit down with your DH and communicate the depth of what you feel. No accusations or blame, but tell him how sad you feel about life. Come up with a plan together. The situation has to change. Go through every aspect of life you are unhappy with and work on a solution to each. And start taking space to explore life and find what you enjoy - then take space to enjoy that daily, weekly, ongoing.

This. Your husband is dragging you down. I could only have so much sympathy with mental health before I started seeing it as an excuse to shoulder me with everything. Go out with your friends. Book a break away. Let him deal with it.

I would infinitely prefer to support my DH to parent my kids to the best of his abilities than to break up with him, take away basically all his support systems and then leave our kids with him for days at a time.

Independent of what that might feel like for him, I don't think it would be good for the kids. If things went badly for him, it wouldn't even be safe for the kids tbh.

(I recognise some people have said that this shock to the system caused their ex to parent better and that this could happen too.)

Well crack on then@ElfinsMum

Whens your next thread about it going to be?

We have tried him being primary carer but he struggled. Also he found working 3 days per week pretty bad (so do I tbh) and ultimately lost that job.

MH wise he actually seems happiest when he is FT and I am on mat leave. But that doesn't make any financial sense longer term.

MH wise he actually seems happiest when he is FT and I am on mat leave. But that doesn't make any financial sense longer term.

With this in mind would it be an option for him to increase his hours to full time, and you drop yours in accordance so you're in the same position financially?

It would be an absolute hard line for me that he took accountability for his mental health, remained in therapy as a minimum, and kept trying different options until he found one that worked if CBT based ones are not working. If operating the washing machine and the dishwasher daily, and taking the kids out on a Sunday morning for a few hours isn't in his remit then he needs real help. It's not acceptable to just opt out and drag the family down with him.

If I was to remain in this situation, there absolutley must be a "his part of the deal" accountability, rather than woe is me and shoulder shrugging. When you have children you're showing them how to live a life. Think about the message you want to send them, about the mum you want them to remember.

You sound brow beaten and defeated, and not able to see the wood for the trees in terms of how to improve your situation, but something is going to have to give for you to move on. You need to work out what is to change, or fully accept and make peace with the fact that things will stay the same.

Pregnant with 4th?

I think up to middle age you’re pretty much on a treadmill, university, get career, get married, get nice house, get kids, whether we like it or not these are the goals we’re told to head towards since birth. Then nothing, the next goal seems to be retirement or death.

all of a sudden all goals are met, so whats the point, you feel like you’re treading water. You’ve defined your life in terms of meeting society’s expectations. You nee.d to spend time discovering what you really want out of life.

you need to add meaning, it might be building a new career, it might be spirituality, it might be finding a different partner. The inertia needs to be broken. Otherwise welcome to ground hog day.

Yes and of course in days gone by many of us would be dead about now so the universe hasn’t given us a plan for what to do if we’re not.

Exactly- we should be grateful for the fact we have this opportunity, but embracing it is alien to many as we are never really taught how to find our own path

If you can afford private school, you can afford a cleaner, that would take loads of pressure off. Also if you dont like your job, do something else, downsize, take the pressure off. A big house and private school arent that important if having those things mean you arent happy.

I think this could be normal, you’ve got into a rut but it doesn’t mean you can’t make any changes (I saw your update, long may the re distribution of chores and increasing confidence with the children continue). You also have 3 kids with one at secondary and youngest still being under 3, so that’s also quite tough. You are driving yourself a bit too hard at weekends and during holidays. I would start to plan less trips overseas to family during your holidays and replace with a schedule of regular video calls to maintain the relationships. Also carve out more time to yourself, even if it’s to sit on a beach and do nothing for half an hour.

If DH wants to travel because he’s homesick, you don’t also need to travel. You are not trapped in reality, it’s by your own choices. Your resentment is covering up your own unwillingness to rock the boat with your DH and your family by doing things differently and putting yourself first sometimes.