DH pressuring me to find a job

[Macadamiamama]

Need some context otherwise I’ll definitely be unreasonable.
DH is a well paid lawyer in London, whatever that means nowadays.
I’m not from the UK, I went to uni and started working in my country but since moving here I only ever did a few jobs here and there and stopped since having babies.
I have been supported by my DH for about 9 years now and he’s probably had enough of that. I need to add: he works long hours, is often very stressed. He doesn’t have much time for the kids, he helps with bath when he’s home otherwise it’s only me. I understand.
Now our youngest is about to go to reception in September and my time is ticking as he wants me to start contributing financially. I don’t feel able to find a good job in the hours I have or skills. I worked from home last year and it was a disaster I had to quit as I had no time to do anything around the house and the kids.
We have no luxuries apart from not checking prices at the supermarket. We never go on holiday. We own a flat and would like to buy a house soon.
The idea of work is nice but I feel stressed as I think I already do so much, I also wouldn’t get much money so it’s not very appealing. I have my ambitions, just don’t feel it’s worth at the moment when we have no debt and live a reasonably comfortable life.
He won’t change anything in his life when I start double shifting (work+kids) apparently I’ll have so much free time I won’t know what to with myself!
He mentions jobs in retail, waitress, receptionist. No disrespect for people doing that but he’ll go out the house in his suit and tie and I’d be going out in a uniform.
I’m not saying he needs to support me forever but I don’t feel confident enough to get a job atm. He won’t pay for further education either as that’d be taking money from the kids. Am I being too superior?

You can't not work just in case the kids are sick.

You have to juggle it. So you take it in turns

Try a hybrid or wfh job. Harder to come by these days though.

Or see what office support jobs you could do for businesses like estate agents, accountants, solicitors etc locally. Ensure you can do 9-3 say. Even shop work, cafe work you could do that, supermarket work if it’s part time and fits in with school pick up.

As I'm scrolling on my phone putting off about to start putting together work outfits for the week ahead I'd quite welcome wearing a uniform. Why on earth you think there's something wrong with jobs requiring one is beyond me. Would you look down on him if you wore a suit to work and your husband was leaving in say, plumber clothes for work?

Get a job OP, even if in the beginning it's p/t and your joint household income has to pay for a cleaner etc it will be start of invaluable independence - why would you want to be wholly dependent on a man and while your family can't even afford a few treats?

Also, join any workplace pension on offer.

There are a few issues here OP- if your husband is a well paid London lawyer, I can't glean why you have no luxuries. Do you have a full understanding of the household finances and budget? If not, it us time to find this out

Your husband isn't unreasonable to expect you to enter the workforce once all of your children start school, however he sounds unreasonable in not understanding that you working will leave less time at home. Has he explained how he thinks school pick ups etc will work, as you are correct that he needs to be realistic about the types of jobs and hours open to you if you need to work around the children? Does he have a realistic idea about how much childcare will cost (depending on how much of it you plan to use)?

He may also be BU depending on what he means about his lifestyle not changing with you back at work- this needs delving in to

Also, please don't be trap yourself in to seeing all the childcare/pick ups/ housework as your responsibility- you need to be clear with him that you working e.g 20 hours per week means 20 hours less house stuff done e g shopping, cooking etc and that he will need to pick up x hours worth of slack

If you haven't already, you need to allow plenty of time to sit down for a calm discussion and tall thus through as a team. His responses will help you navigate what to do next

Edited to add- please clarify your comment about the uniform (from a uniform wearer)

This.

He can't have it both ways!

The 'double shift' is her working and doing all household/child related stuff with no help while he 'just works'

Plus, honestly, once they're school age a sick day is a lot easier to manage anyway. Tuck them up on the sofa or in bed with something to watch and leave them to it, with occasional checks. DH and I are both FT but if one of the kids is sick one or both of us can WFH and still put in a full day, as opposed to when they were little and clingy and needed constBt supervision.

That isn’t possibly in many jobs though.

Great post.

Quite reasonable for you to work and contribute but it's also reasonable to develop yourself and for him to contribute as a team player to the home.

🙄

You're not honestly suggesting that waitresses/retail are low stress are you?

Your dh wears a tie because presumably he studied and worked his way up to the job he now has. Your choice was to not work, but stay at home. This is why you will have to wear a uniform and not your choice of nice clothing when you work.

If you are lucky enough to get one of those jobs that is. They might not want you, because you do come across as being work shy, entitled and a bit slow with managing even ordinary life.

But surely you understand this already.

@nimski and if she worked full time and then did all the house and kids stuff then 'double shift' would be a fair description.

If she works part time while the kids are at school then it's not 'double shift' and she's not doing more than him.

It’s not sustainable or fair for a household to be indefinitely supported by one person. “Running a household” is hard work but plenty of families with both parents working FT manage it. I’m a single parent working FT and manage it.

Long term it isn’t great to be wholly dependent on your husband for money either. Clearly you are not going to earn at parity with him so it will seem pointless but you have to start somewhere. If you really can’t bear the idea of minimum wage work then maybe do a degree or vocational training. It sounds like you are not desperate for money so this might br an investment worth making. But no one in this day and age can expect to be supported in perpetuity.

That said, he is going to have to make some adjustments to his own working life if he is serious about this. It sounds as if both of you have slightly unrealistic expectations about this and it’s time you starting to find out what is actually involved.

They’re some of the less stressful jobs I’ve done.

I think they're pretty low stress tbh. Have done both when I was younger.

Of course, they can be busy and any customer service role can be challenging at times, but they aren't the type of jobs that you typically go home and worry about. You don't have the burden of significant responsibilities or difficult decisions to make.

Different people find different things stressful, though, and I guess it all depends on what you're comparing it to.

Ah another woman who is happy to criticise this dynamic when any man would happily switch positions.

So many women on here make out like child-rearing is some sort of burden, and that they're giving up so much, and that the man should be grateful. No! Men would kill to spend all that time with their child instead.

He's in a high stress job where the only reward is covering the family's basic costs.
If he gets made redundant, or has a stroke or heart attack from the stress, do you have a cushion at all?

Who are these men? I don't know any men who would want to spend all day, every day with their children.

😂 @C1N1C you and I haven't met the same men! There are millions of men who do absolutely anything to get out of any childcare whatsoever. That's fairly well known I would have thought.

Simply op, the amount of hours you can do, will depend entirely upon how much he is prepared to take on in the home/kids. And also how much effort you both want to put in to your dc.

Walking to school, cooking food from scratch, driving to and organising daily extra curricular, helping home work, decent stint of reading every day, tidy house can easily be 8 hours work.

Of course it can also be very few hours too, with only screens and chicken nuggets.

So it depends how you want to/can afford to bring up your children.

For my own life, I found that working 10 hours a week only during school hours,with me doing the vast majority of house and dc, was about the right balance between me and my dh putting the same amount of effort in.

Any more hours for me working in the week and he would have had to do more in terms of home/dc which he didn't want, and neither did I.

So yes, a discussion is to br had but he needs to know what the tipping point is of hours which would require him to up his game at home. This will be entirely your own family dependent.

I always wonder why women bother marrying and having kids with these shitty men that aren't interested in spending time with their children? Are they just really bad judges of character, or what?

DH and I both wanted to maximise time with our dc when she was little, so we worked our hours around each other as much as possible.

DH would

You'll find school holidays are a big problem.

I started as a TA after a long break.

Wrap round childcare (breakfast and after school club) took most of my earnings. And there were lots of little things for dh / the family that I could no longer do. (Though I quite liked that tbh.) And the state of the house slid.

So long as your dh understands what he is asking / will get for this embrace it. I LOVED getting a regular lunch break and morning break. And it was nice to talk to have conversations with other adults that didn't involve our dc.

Would he compromise if you went into training to utilise your degree? A part -time masters, a PGCE, law/accountancy exams so that he could see you would be working in a year or two, but would ease you into mixing ‘work’ with the changing needs of the children, but give you a job at the end that might pay more and be more in line with your educational background? (I did an open uni degree when my kids were young, and an MA recently so eased back into non-mummy life/work that way).

Just being cynical here, but could he have an agenda - ie is the marriage itself solid or do you think he might be considering a divorce in the near future … and if you are working he’d had to pay you less in a settlement? Sorry, I am just bemused, given you say that you are comfortably off, he works long hours so you have nearly all the responsibility and graft of the parenting, why he would encourage you to do any old job that a) won’t really fit around the kids (shift work requires flexibility and you’d struggle when kids are sick) and b) don’t actually pay very much?

I think there is more to this, if I’m honest.

I think you are both being a bit unreasonable. He to expect that you go to work without it impacting on his life in any way and you for being snobby about what jobs you are prepared to do.

I'd say just try to get a job - any job to get you back into the market. You might find you enjoy interacting with people outside the home. But time taken for meals, cleaning etc needs to be cut back in order to allow this to happen without impacting the DCs. If your DH is unhappy about this, he either needs to do these chores or question the economic viability of a cleaner versus your salary.

Apropos I don't understand why finances are so tight if he is a well paid London lawyer ? I'd be slightly worried he is squirrelling money away and encouraging you to work to reduce any divorce settlement.