Why are men like this? Working or not to work

[Teenangels]

I am very lucky as I know the COL is effecting everyone at the moment.

I work fulltime, 4 day working week, and have 4 kids although they are now nearly adults/adults. My husband runs his own successful business.

Now here is the issue he can not understand why I would work, in a stressful job that I love. I stayed at home when the children were younger but once they went to school. I went back to work, the kids to private school, so had clubs and wraparound care, so it was easy for me to be at work. He does not do anything around the house and never has

My husband is wants me to be at home, go out for lunch, the gym, and meet out with friends.

Why are men so bloody old fashioned and dare I say proud that they can "keep" a woman.

Why are people assuming that he is sexist?

Well, let's see what the OP has said?

Their kids are adults/almost adults, so it's clear that they have no need of a SAHP.

The DH does nothing around the house and never has done.

The OP implies that he is "old fashioned", which suggests that his reasons for suggesting that the OP doesn't need to work are based on traditional views on gender.

The OP implies that he is proud to be able to "keep" a woman. I am assuming that this statement has come from somewhere as it would be odd to say it otherwise.

I might not be ego, it may be poor theory of mind.
Like others said, you could turn it back on him but then he might actually be thinking how nice it would be not to have to work. The same way that lots of people imagine giving up work if they won the lottery. In reality lots of lottery winners continue working even if they change jobs OR they find something else to occupy themselves besides lunching out. Even the women I know who don't work (trailing spouses) and whose children are older and are therefore the stereotypical kept women are all busy through choice helping out at school/volunteering etc. Very few people would genuinely be happy with nothing to do apart from relax.

What a fuss over not a lot.

Ngl I’m jealous

Can we swap? Lol. You are lucky in that you have a job that you love, may don't - including me so would love to be "kept" like this and do the things suggested for that matter (lunch, gym etc)! It's just your circumstances. You aren't that compatible in that respect but presumably you are compatible in lots of other ways.

I don’t know any man like this

This post is so tone-deaf. There are tens of thousands of mothers on here who work full time and can’t cope with the pressure of working crazy hours as well as caring for a family, and would do anything to be able to stop working and not be constantly stressed.
I don’t like the implication that women who want to do this are old fashioned. As women we have to make enormous sacrifices to have a career and a family, and it sounds like your husband acknowledges this and wants you to have a more stress free life now you have the option to not work. He just sounds like a good man who cares for his family. YABU, in my view.

No, we don't have to make enormous sacrifices to have a career and a family if our male partners step up properly to do their fair share.

It's fine if couples choose to organise their lives in such a way that one partner does more at home and the other does more at work etc, but that is not the only option.

I still work because my DH could die, get sick, or be kidnapped by aliens and replaced by an evil duplicate :) I still work to future proof my life. I don’t want to end up working some random job to make ends meet if something bad happens. I quite prefer earning at my interesting, highly paid, though not as stratospheric as him, career instead.

my DH and I both have moments where we think about how life would be easier if I didn’t work. It’s a nice fantasy, but it’s far too risky, which he fully understands.

Exactly.

I haven't made any enormous sacrifices to have a career and a family and I don't feel particularly stressed generally as a working parent. That's because my husband is my equal in all areas and doesn't consider housework, childcare etc to be woman's work.

Another person who appears to be defining a "good man who cares for his family" as one who is the sole provider.
What does this make men who don't/can't I wonder?

And you answered it with a racist sterotype

Keep saying "I was answering a direct question" doesn't make your answer any less appalling

Why is it 'old fashioned'?

Even people with high-powered jobs can feel that there is more to life than work

Is it a cackhanded way of him saying he'd like to do more with you?

They can indeed, but those people don't typically feel proud of being able to "keep" a woman unless they have very old fashioned, sexist views.

If this was really about the DH feeling that there was more to life than work, surely he would be thinking about how both of them could work less and enjoy a better work life balance. Rather than thinking his wife should just quit?

@Teenangels you could have answered that direct question with a simple 'no I don't' rather than go the extra mile and make a comment about the 'type' of people that would/do live in caravans and what they or their children are capable of doing and achieving.

Your privilege is showing.

People find themselves in all sorts of living circumstances through no fault of their own, including (as in my case) needing to find something cheap and available at short notice. It's not indicative of any sort of shortcomings. Also just fyi, I lived in a caravan, have decent career and my son is doing well at school and about to go to uni. I'm not a traveller but still found your comment offensive.

I dont think op wants answers but is just here to boast about her situation. "Beautiful People".

Why are men like this? The fact is most men are not like this. My DH wouldn't be impressed if he was working full time to pay the bills whilst I was out at the gym and having lunches with my friends every day.

I would be pretty devastated if my husband said this to me.

It would suggest to me that he didn't take my career or my ambitions seriously. That, on some fundamental level, he didn't take me seriously.

I suppose I could imagine a situation in which this wouldn't be the case (if, for instance, I was miserable in my job and was mulling leaving it, or if I had been talking about how stressed and stretched thin I was). But nothing you've described suggests that you've been articulating a desire to quit or of being overwhelmed.

For me, it would feel like he didn't think of me as a full person, with equal agency and ambition and aspiration as he had.

Devastated - crikey

I can't get past 'He does not do anything around the house and never has'.

I believe that is "ego" related. It shows everyone how successful they are, and if you are in a social circle where most women don't work your husband might feel he is not successful ( or his peers might perceive it this way) if you do work.
It is sad... and worrying when people who can't really afford it go for it. I have seen some struggling (cutting all expenses, using credit cards, interest only mortgages...) so the women can stay at home so they are "successful".
However, if you are really so well off that you don't need to work at all and everything in your life is sorted (pensions, mortgages, childrens' future, etc.)
I would be sharing your husband's view, who let give him the benefit of the doubt, might not be sexist, only pragmatic.
Why to bother? Life is too short. Just enjoy it.

I agree with @Nancydrawn that it suggests that your DH doesn't take you or your career seriously. I would be pretty insulted if my dh decided to let me know that my job - which is a big part of my contribution to society - was unimportant. It smacks of seeing it as a little pin money job, rather than something substantial that actually matters.

Yes. Someone used the term ‘handbag money’ in my presence recently.

Ugh. Could anyone be more patronising?