Hi Wiwi
Everything fell into place when I read your post at 15:08 today, Monday 27th.
You talk in terms of wanting to be financially secure and see yourself as needing a career and hours that are suitable for your health condition. But you do not see that this is completely the case because you have a husband who does not support you as a mother. You said if you won the lottery you would stay at home with your DD all the time. She sounds lovely btw and I'm sure you are trying not to sound like a boastful mother. I also suspect your decision to stop at one child is because her father gave you no financial support while you were at home with her and that is nonviable. Indeed I see it as you looking after two children at the moment, since your DH is by no means an adult. He does not take on his adult responsibilities. He did not give you enough to raise your daughter - his own daughter - and keep the house and yourself while you were a FTM. Then out of the blue he just wants to breeze off for 5 days and nights a week and stay with his mummy for free while she pampers him (and that's why he hasn't grown up) and come back at weekends. It's not as if you married a man in the Navy. Anyway, a Navy man would have given you plenty of house-keeping. This man is just selfish. Mean, self-centred and doesn't care about you or his daughter.
Why am I so unkind in my bluntness? Because I supported one such man for 23 years. Never given a penny. Never given any help in the house. He would pop off and do as he pleased and I wouldn't even know where he was. I had to work to just buy sanitary towels. My children would not have had clothes, birthday presents or gifts to take to birthday parties if I did not work. But he didn't approve of child-minders and when I had to have them I of course paid for them. I was his wife but he never paid for anything or gave me any money towards the household budget or for the children's needs or for holidays which he came on but I paid for.
Don't do it Wiwi. This incident has led you to reach out to us strangers. See it as the time things became clear to you. You aren't a career-driven, not made to stay at home with children, prefers to be earning person! You are a normal woman who has raised a lovely daughter and who was put through the hell of raising her in her younger years with no money even though the child had a dad at home earning his own money! It was this cruel, unbearable situation that made you determined never to be penniless again. But it was not your fault you were kept with no money and a baby to bring up! Your husband was cruel and abusive. To expect you to live without money is abuse.
You'd have been better off as a single mum on benefits! You are a very intelligent and resourceful woman who saw that the no-money situation was untenable. So you did what you thought best - found a way you could earn money and care for your lovely child. But it is very difficult to do this, and your DH (I don't think 'dear' is right), didn't bother to do his bit. He saw you earning as a great bonus to not need to give you anything. He's an irresponsible selfish little boy.
Of course he wants the job that pays the most when he keeps it for himself and doesn't give his family the support other married men with a child do! Of course he wants the cushy number in London, nice and near mum's where he stays for free and is waited on hand and foot while you look after the home and his child on your own despite your health. He is a totally irresponsible, selfish oaf!
You have been unable to see it and have made excuses for him, blaming yourself, because, well, it's what we do. I thought nobody would believe me for a start. Then there were the people who worked with my husband who thought he was great. He made jokes. I was too embarrassed to say I hadn't any money. I pretended I wanted to follow my career. But I was in pain.
I think you are in pain Wiwi. And you don't deserve to be.
That oaf who's just been out on his bike for a ride should be taking the job that enables you and his DD, to have the best lives you possibly can with his help and his blessing, supported by money willingly paid from his wages so that your daily lives are as perfect as possible. The needs of his wife and child should come before anything else in his life.
Right now he should thank you for the wonderful way you have worked so hard to support the family and ask you if you'd prefer to carry on in the job with the same hours and he'll take the local work on the lower pay, or you give up work or change it a bit or a lot and he be away in the week earning more and sending home money to keep the home and you ticking over. He should be offering this and wanting to discuss it with you. The final decision must be what is best for your health. But he must support his family financially straight away.
My youngest took a year out before University. She was living at home for a couple of months. She paid me the difference in the Council Charge because when she was a Student I got a reduction for being the only adult. (My husband died). I did not ask her. What a difference between a teenager just left school and a married man with a well-paid job who does not give his wife money to raise their child!
God bless you Wiwi and your lovely daughter. If he does not behave like an adult and a loving husband and father, ditch him. You have proved that you are better off without him. Let the Court decide what he pays for child-care.
Let him read this.....