I'm just too tired for my DH and I know it's going to blow up again soon

[gogaah]

I've recently returned to work from maternity leave. ( new job ).

I've got child care covered for my 1 and 3 year old.

My H is self employed, extremely busy and out of the house or on business trips, most of the time.

He's never there for getting the kids up in the morning or dinner / bed time at night. I work from home only, which does help.

H is here for 1 day at the weekend with us and occasionally 2 days. He's on business trips a lot, that take him away for 1 week at a time.

Anyhow, even when he is here- he doesn't get in until after the kids have gone to bed. Ever.

This would all be fine, but the kids have been torturing me recently at night time. The one year old wakes a couple of times a night and the 3 year old sometimes wakes up and is just awake for a few hours and keeps wanting me to soothe her back to sleep. To say I am shattered is an understatement.

I often fall asleep with them at 8-8:30. My husband gets annoyed if I do this too often, because he wants to be entertained / see me too. I'm finding it so difficult. I dread him coming home and just wish I didn't need to worry about him too.

I've been unwell recently a lot too and it's just a lot for me to keep going. At the weekends I also have no energy, especially when I'm alone with them. I don't take them out nearly enough, because it's so exhausting for me. Anyway, it's been a tough couple of weeks. Early bed times for me, no intimacy for my husband and just generally pulling through somehow.

I can accept life is like this at the moment. The only thing dragging me down is my H complaining about how he never sees me/ I'm never intimate with him and how he's just eating dinner alone a lot.

But his schedule can't change right now and neither can mine. So why can't he just accept that this is the sacrifice that has to be made for now ? Unless he closes his business ? We haven't argued a lot lately and I'm feeling like soon he's going to blow up about it again. I just don't feel at peace.

Are you saying OP should reduce her hours by 20%, therefore reduce her salary and pension by 20%, so she has the energy to have sex with her husband twice a week? The husband who stays in bed til 10am when she’s up at 7am and does the night wakings? Who has never acknowledged Mother’s Day? Who critiques her cooking and sock provision? Just so we’re clear.

You have to learn to not care. So when he complains you'll be quicker to give a comeback. Like somebody said, you're home he's not. If he got home to do some parenting that would free up time for the relationship. He's being daft anyway, a 3yr and 1yr old means no time for anything else. Everyone has to work hard and make sacrifices to build a family. That involves going without sex. You might want to save up a divorce fund should you need it because one day you will realise he left you holding the kids whilst he carried on with his life

But this is not the real calculation. If you want to know how much her job is really worth, you also have to calculate how much future income she would lose by quitting or by cutting back to part-time. Research shows that after even a single year out of the job market, women's lifetime earnings are significantly reduced. It can be difficult even to get back into the same field they were in before they quit. You also have to calculate what income she'd have to live on if she divorced her husband as a non-earning SAHM or a low-earning part-timer, and he did his best to ensure his maintenance and CMS was as little as possible. You also have to calculate the loss of her pension.

If you are in a great marriage with someone who treats you like gold, then quitting work might be a good bet, because the whole family would have more free time and especially you'd be able to get the expected gruntwork done with less exhaustion from having to do it all after the paid workday. And you could count on seeing an equal share of the income he brought in via your unpaid help. Maybe. It does happen that some husbands only let their most selfish personality out after their wife is well and truly financially dependent on them. When they know it's much more difficult, logistically, for her to leave. How many of those threads have we read here, of men who are taking solo vacations, or buying themselves nice cars, going out with his friends multiple nights or Saturdays, and his wife is trying to pay for her own haircuts based on her savings from back when she was working, because her husband resents her asking for any part of "his" salary, and essentially considers himself generous for giving her room and board in return for her being his housemaid and 24/7 nanny.

In this case, OP's husband doesn't treat her like gold. He already treats her rather poorly, and she's not even financially dependent on him, yet.

This is not a good situation to take the risk of giving up her own income.

Absolutely this. @ThroughGraceAlone's post actually made me feel slightly sick. Have we really not progressed a bit from women making all the sacrifices just to keep a bad marriage going? And it is a bad marriage if the woman is doing all the heavy lifting and making all the sacrifices while the man swans around complaining that he hasn't got everything he wants because his wife is on her knees with exhaustion.

The earlier post about certain men intimidating and grinding down women who are already exhausted from trying to be a decent mother, wife and employee rings very true here. He doesn't care about his wife. No one who cares could let her become so weary that she has to regularly go to bed at 8.30 just to barely function. It's also true that the last thing OP should do is risk her career as this would give him even more power while making it hard for her to eventually leave. She could do so much better than this, even just being on her own.

Are your needs being met? Could you frame it with him that neither of your needs are being fully met in your marriage just now because you are parents of young children. This narrative that you aren't meeting his needs is unfair and needs to change.

Brilliantly put!

I have mostly read just the OPs posts so sorry if I am repeating what others have said.

Keep your job and your own savings because you will want to divorce him in 10 years.

Every time he acts like this a tiny bit of the love you feel will seep away until there is nothing left.

The doubts you feel now regarding what if you are wrong - The doubts will go and you will know you are right.

Aging/peri is a great eye opener for many women who finally see their husband for who he really is.

Get yourself in a good financial position for when you eventually leave him.

OP are you paying for all of the childcare out of your salary? As if so that makes it even worse. If you don’t have joint access to money this takes it up another level.

He pays nursey, I pay the nanny and all food and household stuff. He pays for the rest. Mortgage / bills etc.

My salary goes into my account, his salary goes into his account. We have a joint account for bills and mortgage ( but I don't anymore since maternity leave ). Now I have a salary back, I pay nanny and all food/ household.

I do make less than him at the moment. Around half.

Has anyone on here suggested that you get your husband to get up for 3hrs in the night?? I get he can't help with bedtime, but he can through the night!!

And also, LTB and who cares whether he thinks it's your fault, and who cares if you don't go on to meet anyone just yet because you have put some weight on or feel a bit shit....be on your own for a bit and enjoy the freedom, then enjoy the peace when the kids go to him for a night or 2!!

I can’t believe the posts suggesting that OP should quit/reduce work.

Being a SAHM or working part-time works in loving, loyal, mutually respectful relationships. This is an abusive relationship. It’s not an abusive relationship because OP works. It’s an abusive relationship because her husband’s a nasty arsehole who regards her as a sexual and domestic service human.

Let’s say she quits work - do you think he’ll suddenly become loving and respectful when he’s getting enough sex? What do you think will happen in a few years if her sex drive diminishes on account of the menopause, or if she develops any medical conditions that inhibit her ability to perform her womanly duties? Do you think he’ll be loving and understanding? Plus in my experience this type get even nastier and more entitled when they see themselves as ‘financing’ the household.

Yes we could pay even more, but we are trying to save as much as possible, to make it worth all the sacrifice.

So as well as you working full time, doing most of the stuff at home and being on hand to meet all his needs you both want to save lots of money? Honestly, you just can't have it all at this precise stage of life.

Just tell him if he wants any intimacy he has to contribute more than just salary to the family. Sit down and write it all out in black and white until he actually understands.

Agreed, although there are only a couple of people suggesting she gives up work, most seem to be on the same page as you.

To be clear I wasn’t suggesting this when I asked about whether she pays childcare out of her own salary. That is a separate issue.

It doesn’t get better, the more you reveal about him…no Mother’s Day, complaining about cooking and cleaning as well, what the actual f….

And absolutely no to you giving up work. If anyone should be seriously limiting hours, it’s him! Or at least the business trips. Is it just him in the company, can’t he delegate, hire someone, does he have to travel so much? Even if he earns less, surely his family and marriage is worth it?

Without knowing figures I’m not sure what this means in practice - are you each left with around the same amount at the end, or does he have more?

@lucylantern I'm not sure tbh. I think he probably does. I need to ask.

He earns double??

Then why hasn't he insisted on paying the nanny for longer?

Is it because he's saving? Are they joint savings?

More than double at the moment actually.

The savings are not going into a joint account.

But the'll be used to jointly invest, if that makes sense.

The issue is that he can't change his hours at the moment. I can't change mine. We are suffering, if we don't even have savings to show for this tough period, what's the point ?

If he just had a normal job and we had a normal family life, then it wouldn't be as important to save right now. But all these massive sacrifices need to be worth it long term, which is why we don't just want to throw masses of money at everything. Our child care bills are already upwards of 3 k per month at the moment.

In any case, yes of course I have suggested working less and taking less- absolutely. I would love that. But the way things are at the moment, it's not an option. But we are working towards it.

if we don't even have savings to show for this tough period, what's the point ?

Your health, happiness and it might save your marriage.

I know you're absolutely right. If I could change it, I would take half of the money for a normal life where my husband is home and able to help me with bed time every night. But believe me, at the moment, it won't work. So if it has to be like this for a little while longer, then at least we will have built something for our future.

So you, your mental health, your general health are to be sacrificed for savings that are not held in a joint account?

You are not seeing the bigger picture here.

Should this continue for another two years, you will be a shadow of your former self and all for what?

A huge account in your husbands name while he lives the single life, sleeps well, but when he "visits" he berates his wife and is a sex pest?

What a life you are agreeing to.

Wtaf what a bizarre post.

20 minutes or so ago you told Lucy Lantern that you didn't know whether you or your husband had more money at the end of the month. You suspected he did but you would have to ask.
That doesn't sound like a financially abusive relationship to me. Most women in such relationships would have asked already, be terrified of asking or not waste their time asking as they know they wouldn't be told the truth.

It seems to me that one of the things you and your husband agree about is you want to save as much as you can as a couple. You have sensibly returned to work and he is working very long hours to maximise earnings which you both want.

If it isn't a financially abusive relationship would you please say so.

Anyway, at least today looks like being a happier day for you. Your DH is away and the day has got off to a relaxed start. I hope you slept better and you and your children have an enjoyable day.

@Lifescary I don't think it's financially abusive.

I just called him to ask him how much savings there are and also how much he's left with at the end of the month and unless he's paying for other big house stuff, he usually has a lot more left over than me. So it's something we need to work out.

Also, the savings ( even the ones I make ) will at some point this year go into a joint place from which they'll be invested etc. so whilst any savings are in personal accounts now, the plan is to pool it. I

Thank you Gogaah. I do hope you sort your problems out. Enjoy the day - it might have to have a lazy day if the weather is as bad as it threatens to be, but sometime lazy days are the best.