I can't really go back to work with H attitude

[icantfuckingwin]

Two kids- 4 and 2.

H trying to build an empire and make it big. Self employed business. Requires A LOT of hours out of the house. I do not wish to disclose the type of business it is. But it's not work from home.

He leaves at 6 and comes back at 8:30-9 pm. The commute is around 1:15-1:30 minutes.

He's been putting a lot into it for many years and is on the brink of a possible investment, let's say. To enlarge business.

I've also had quite a successful career. I went back to work after both babies. I also manage everything home related, as I've always worked from home, there was just more time for me to do it.

For the last year I held a senior position, on a pretty big salary. Not humble bragging. But I suffered from absolute burn out. I could no longer maintain everything. I was doing all night wakings, all mornings, all drop offs and all pick ups, plus dinner time and bed time alone. My kids school is also an hour round trip because of traffic. I did have the help of a cleaner and spent money on convenience foods and take aways too often, but was really trying to just get through the days somehow. We had a nanny for a while before my youngest went to nursery and she'd fill in if I had work trips abroad etc. anyway my H all the while always complaining how much money we spent on outsourcing and making me feel guilty about it.

So we recently started discussing my return to work and what was going to change. To which he said, well we can't spend that much money on outsourcing stuff- otherwise it won't be worth you working. We will be paying more to outsource than you'll be earning. This is because I suggested we have a housekeeper a few times a week, rather than a cleaner once a week, to make things easier on me. He said I never think about the finances and only about getting more and more help in.

This was part of the reason I left my job too, as I was made to feel guilty for needing help.

He essentially wants a wife who works full time on a big salary and takes care of all the home and childcare stuff with no help ( aside from nursery ) while he goes off to build his empire.

And I know what he'll say, he'll say I never supported him and he did it all alone. He already thinks that. Because I couldn't handle ' my lot '. When I was working and caused him a headache by complaining about it all.

I am sad but I don't think I can go back to work under these circumstances. He still does not get it and he'll begrudge the money we will need to speak to pick up his side of the equation.

You want private school for them?
With a man like that I wouldn't be so spectacularly naive as to believe a word he says.
Bottom line is you could split, be dependent on CMS and YOUR life would be vastly different.

I am very very suspicious of men who force women to be a SAHM....it smacks of deliberate and total usurpment, removing your ability to be financially independent and therefore putting you on the backfoot when it comes to insisting on your needs being taken into consideration.

It takes your power and deliberately leaves you very vulnerable to further coercive control.
Do NOT accept this. HE needs to be coughing up for these supports so you can BOTH work.
If he refuses you know he wants you disadvantaged.

He’s really done a number on you, hasn’t he. He wants to make you seem small so he feels he is bigger, what a bellend.

Do you want to stay home and just be the cook/cleaner/organiser of everyone else’s life? Will this give you satisfaction? From the outside it looks like he wants you to subsume everyone else’s needs and have none of your own.

If he is going to work these long hours how is he going to fulfil his half of household duties? That’s half the meals, half the cleaning, half the pickups, drop offs, appointments, half the life admin, etc. If his little hussle doesn’t bring in enough to fund his half of your family’s lifestyle, plus growing his business as he wants the he has to have a rethink of how he is going to contribute to the family because he isn’t cutting it right now.

You need to decide what you want to do. If it is to return to work the he needs to contribute 50/50 of costs to support that and not complain about it (or pick up the tasks himself) If you want to stay home then you need to be drawing a decent salary from his company with pension contributions so you aren’t losing out. The only way he works those hours is by you doing everything else, you shouldn’t lose out on salary and pension too.

You clearly just picked out the bit you wanted to, instead of the rest of the post where I said that would only work if she was happy to be a SAHM, it wouldn't work for me, and his career doesn't get to trump yours.

When you are married and pooled finances, it's not relevant who earns it. What's relevant if earnings are going to go up by £2k and so are costs, as a family that's a decision to be made. If she's happy to be a SAHM then great. If she's not then he has to accept that his career doesn't trump hers so what now.

OP I'm sorry you married this selfish man. I have seen this play out many times. I personally would not be putting the kids into private school as this will tie you into an unnecessary long-term financial strain that could mean you are stuck in a shite marriage to service your life style. Instead save that money and use it for when you inevitably split up. If you don't do it, no doubt will be around menopause, he will then re-marry a 30 year old, have 2 more kids where he will be the doting father that he never got to be the first time as he goes into early retirement spending all the money he made using you. You kids will be resentful to you both for having been brought up in a stressful unloving environment.

He can have a say on how much help you need when he does his 50% share of everything. Until then, you pay for what you need. Don’t let him guilt you.

Pp’s are right. This is a control thing.

He doesn't want me to be a stay at home mum though. He wants me to work.

🤣

This. I used to be in your situation @icantfuckingwin and I was foolish enough to give up my own job to help him build his business. Apparently we could only afford to pay me peanuts “ for tax reasons “ and nothing into my pension.

Then he sold the business and ran off with his affair partner, leaving me with no job, no source of income, a very out of date CV ( as I’d worked for him for years ) and no employers reference.

In the divorce he claimed he earned everything and I’d sat in my fat backside doing nothing . As proved by my tiny salary .

He moved the proceeds of the business sale and his large pension overseas and claimed he had no income or savings . I had to buy him out of half the house so my kids had somewhere to live and he kept everything else.

He started a new company and claims to earn under £25,000 ( yet employs his new partner who by coincidence earns £60,000 ) and he pays £120,000 into his pension each year . He pays nothing in child maintenance and sees the kids for a couple of hours about 4 times a year.

Please PLEASE learn from my mistakes . Don’t give up your own job, don’t even go part time. Go back Ft and use family money to pay for every single but of support - housekeeper etc .

Yes AND do everything at home!
You married a selfish prick.

You are 1 person. You can't work full-time and do everything else. He wants a 1950s housewife and a 1950s husband in one person while also being a 1950 husband. He's settlng you up to fail. He either needs to do his share of housework and parenting or needs to outsource. You are not a donkey there to carry his weight up a mountain.

He sounds like an arse op. You need to have a serious talk and he needs to get it, or it may come to the point where you decide your life would be better without an unsupportive, selfish twat…

JESUS. I'm sorry.

If he thinks it's fair that one person does all the house and child stuff on top of working, why not him?

He essentially wants a wife who works full time on a big salary and takes care of all the home and childcare stuff with no help ( aside from nursery ) while he goes off to build his empire.

so you're not only being prevented from developing your career, but you are being left alone to finance everything related to running the home and supporting your (joint) children's care.

has he always acted alone, not being a true partner to you, not uplifting your needs and only caring about amassing wealth for himself? Presumably this isn't new behaviour?

We want to send our kids to private schools, we have a really nice house, nice cars etc. we also want to invest money on the side etc.

You just call him H, but are you legally married. If so, on the assumption you have marital assets that he can't hide such as your house (he'll be one of those people to will plead poverty and conceal his business assets, so you can't rely on that), I'd get out of the marriage, you and your children are better off without him. At least you won't have him guilt tripping you and you'll be able to pursue your career and finance the care and household stuff without him getting in your way,

only you can decide if you want to stay in a marriage that undoubtedly has tell tale signs of financial and emotional abuse, but the fact you've posted on here, says you know it, but you aren't yet ready to admit and face it. Please see today as the day the scales fell from your eyes.

Go back to work.

Don't let yourself become vulnerable - he doesn't have your best interests, his main concern is money.

But yes I can't see a way back, you should get out before it's too late. Divorce is tough but give it a couple of years and you will be immeasurably happier.

I think your first step in deciding what to do is to realise that your husband is a complete horror.

Accept that, then work out what works best for you.

Your posts of the last hour suggest you haven't realised that and are still pussy footing around what things you can change to give him what he wants.

You can't work full time with a husband like him and not outsource anything. It's impossible without burnout.

I like the suggestion of going away for a good few days. He can have absolutely no worries about that can he? After all, it's easy to have a full time job and take care of kids and house isn't it? That's what he said.

Yes we are married and own everything 50-50 with equal contributions made to houses etc.

He's not paying into a pension for me at the moment but I don't expect to be out of work long term. Just a few months. If I was actually not planning to go back at all, I would demand it.

I think I would be writing down a list of the jobs I do in a week with timings, including taking kids to school, getting them ready for bed etc. I would use this to explain that it is not possible to do everything on you own. It would also highlight the inequality in the home.

I have a great husband, but when I had kids I went back to work part time. I'm now nearly 50 and starting to look at pensions. Mine is shocking, but his is amazing. Which is fine as long as he doesn't die first.

Haha he says even though I look after house / laundry etc I do it badly anyway.

I just feel so stuck right now.

It's such a shame he can't be more reasonable.

And yes, it's always about the bottom line for him.

The most cost effective way to do it is to not outsource everything, so that's what we should try to do. By we, he means me..

Yes - he wants you to work full-time and then also do all the school runs, all the wrap around childcare, all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the admin. And to not “waste” any money outsourcing all those jobs.

You need to clearly tell him that you would like to go back to work full-time. Therefore all household and childcare jobs need to be split 50/50. Split all the jobs in half, with clear delegation for each job.

Eg

Him: All family laundry, meal plan, food shop and cooking.

You: School runs, house cleaning, all admin.

Is he able to work full-time whilst also doing all those jobs? Up to him to work out. He can either do them all himself outside of working hours since he doesn’t want to “waste” money outsourcing……or he pays for them to be done.

You do the same.

It's such a shame he can't be more reasonable.

he can be, he just doesn’t want to be

why are you staying with him? He doesn’t appear to love you or care for you very much at all & he obviously doesn’t see much of the DC as he’s always faaar too busy with his Big Important Job

I told him last night. Out of our circle of friends, we know no one who has the set up we had.

It's either the husband doing the drop offs or pick ups and the wife does another thing or the grandma helps or they have a nanny and grandma.

It's too much for one person. I wasn't able to do my job properly which massively hurt my self esteem and my professional reputation.

I can't go back into that situation. Something will need to change big time and I'm not going to be made to feel guilty about it.

The best thing would be if I had an office based job, because then I just would not be here to pick up all the slack.

It's too much for one person. I wasn't able to do my job properly which massively hurt my self esteem and my professional reputation.

Your husband shouldn't need to pay into a pension for you. Why would he when he even begrudges childcare costs. You shouldn't shackle yourself to him any more than you are already anyway. If you're in a career which it sounds like you have been, your employer is legally obliged to provide a pension, into which you have to pay a certain proportion %. You should already have a pension from them

I wish you the very best in extricating yourself and living your best life without him dragging you down.

He's horrible op. Sounding worse and worse with each post. He is grinding you down until you're trapped. Today is your best chance of getting out of this, tomorrow it will get harder.