Husband pressuring me while I'm jobsearching

[Ifancyabiscuit]

Urgh, please let me know if I'm being unreasonable, ladies. I'm just so frustrated and tired.
The last year and a half I've been self employed as an illustrator, designer and artworker. This year has been spent dividing up my time between raising our daughter, building up my business and working contracts, networking like mad and working weekends at a lovely local business. I also work on smaller freelance projects that have helped support us. DD started school in September and due to some dry periods, I told DH that once she's in school I'll start drumming up more work and apply for more agencies.

DH has been the breadwinner during this time and I am more than aware of the pressure he's been under. He came to me in October and told me how stressed he was, so I basically ramped up my search. I take extra shifts wherever I possibly can, I'm applying for work every day (sometimes up to 10 a day) and I've been making my network aware that I'm looking for work. We live in a not so kind area for the creative industries so I've been applying for places I'd need to commute to, hybrid work, outside of immediate creative industry work but still relevant to my skills, etc.

I'm finally getting some call backs but not all are completely suitable (1 day a week jobs like tutoring, fine if I can stack them but not ideal etc). But it doesn't feel good enough for DH. He's stressed about money and said he wants to take DD on holidays, feel more relief. His job has been stressing him out a lot. I get the vibe from him that I'm not delivering quick enough.

He's told me that I need to earn more money, and he's walking on eggshells because when he brings it up, I get upset. I asked him "what more can I possibly do? When I'm not jobsearching or actively parenting or working on my portfolio or applying for funding or updating my busineses social media, I'm cleaning the house. I pay for our daughter's extracurriculars, I try my best, every spare pound I earn is put directly into savings. I don't know what else I can do,"

He's not been well the last couple of days so he's been in bed with a fever. In the meantime I took over everything in the house while taking care of him. Yesterday I was so tired, I actually felt faint while at the supermarket. Now he's feeling better, he brought up money and I ended up shouting at him and crying my eyes out because bloody hell.

I hate this because i want him to be proud of me and tell me that he is. Despite everything, I'm proud of myself and my achievements. It's not perfect but I have faith in this. I worry about money a lot, but I'm taking steps to change that. He is on the spectrum and finds it hard to express himself and getting feelings out of him is like winkling them out. I adore him, I really do. I think he's just in a panic and feeling stressed to the hilt but I still feel so hurt regardless. I also feel so guilty, like I'm putting him through this.

Am I unreasonable?

I work FT. I'm also the higher earner but DH also works FT and that's what I'd expect.

@Roundandback yep I agree - I think it's not all about earnings here it's about outgoings too - or maybe he's lied about his income etc - who knows!!

I agree 👍

MN is always shitty about the creative industry and at the same time treats jobs like retail as things that can just be walked straight into as they are apparently so unskilled.
I'm also a freelance designer, it's a professional job with real qualifications and everything🙄 not just a cutesy hobby.

When my OH was made redundant, I didn't tell him to go out and get a cleaning job, I gave him time to gain extra skills and network. You don't make a career in 8wks.
I'd be sure that the OP's husband was quite happy to have her home during the baby years, whilst he was feathering his professional nest.

Just to say the comments about your job being "arty" and not a proper job are so ill informed.
A proper artworker a highly skilled job setting design/adverts for press/print/posters/magazines etc. don't be so patronising.

OP hopefully you can freelance with some agencies or target some marketing people - we always need an artworker!

Yup.

A roof over the head, electricity for the fridge and food to put into it once it's been paid for and delivered is more important.

Everybody eats, whether they have a salary or not. Everybody has to put shopping away, whether they have an salary or not. You need enough money to be able to buy the shopping in the first place, though.

So how much do part-time jobs in school hours pay?

Answers on a postcard...

You need to find a job, anything, to take the weight off husband. Don't be fussy.

What the hell do you think single parents do?
And they do evenings and nights as well

A PGCE is a full on year, costs money too. The OP's husband doesn't seem supportive enough for that.

I worked evenings as did some friends because there weren't the nurseries back then.

But he isn't a single parent.

Cafe, tea room, restaurants open for lunches, would leave you time for school.

@SouthLondonMum22 indeed - but if OP is working weekends and getting bits of freelance too she may well earn as much as all these FT minimum wage jobs people are suggesting-

Yep if she can get a 35k a year job in graphics or something else etc then it makes sense- other than that it makes less sense as by the time she's paid for after school etc she may well only earn the same-

Now if she genuinely only has the weekend job she should be picking up a couple of extra casual shifts too in the week unless she has a freelance assignment on the go

But automatically going to the 'work full time at Tesco' and ditch the weekend job and any freelance work I doubt makes financial sense either

Don't forget the mortgage, rent, council tax, electric, gas, insurance, travel, food, grocery and everything else-paying fae who just magically provide somewhere for the SAH parents and children to live and eat.

Agreed. This is what should have been the first response on this thread. As so many people inevitably parrot that one, clearly not having read the full OP.

Honestly, mums come here to rant and hopefully get a bit of support. What's with all the blaming and shaming?!

If your self employment is not generating sufficient income (or on a steadily rising trajectory) after 18 months hard slog trying to grow it then you need to keep it as a side hustle and take on something more lucrative outwith your chosen field.

It's great to love what you do for a living everyone dreams of achieving this but your family still has to get by meantime. The art/design and whole creative field is really crowded with talent but is a luxury optional extra when businesses are under pressure.

If your husband's full time income coupled with your part time weekend job is not enough to maintain the family then you have to earn more - doesn't matter how many hours you put into your self employment if it's not productive, it's simply not a good use of resource.

No he isn't

I was responding to pp saying that as he works all week how can he cope with his child at the weekend so the OP can work?

Funny how very few ever suggest men made redundant from something they went to college for should get down on their hands and knees and start scrubbing or take in ironing if their wife starts constantly shouting at them while job searching, looking after house and kid and working weekends.

Must never forget women should be grateful for minimum wage crumbs stacking shelves and scrubbing floors. If you can get a job for even less wiping shitty arses for a living, all the better.

And to the PPs saying, "but..but..but the child is in school 6 hours a day", there are 24 hours in a day not 6 and the teacher doesn't pick them up and drop them off before cooking your dinner, doing your washing, cleaning your house for you and bathing and putting the child to bed.

The responses on this thread are mental, misogynistic and condescending to women who work in creative fields.

How would many of the same people posting this stuff like their office job denigrated by people saying they waft into "work" in their nice little outfit and faff about chatting all day, while drinking coffee and pissing about sending a few emails. If you're going to make negative stereotypical assumptions, why stop at arty job types.

My husband valued what I did at home, we needed the extra income though. A SAHM is I suspect more unusual these days .

She also may not. From what OP says, work in that area is scarce where she lives so it's unlikely something like a 35k in graphics is going to happen and OP can't hold out on that forever with bills to pay and a child to feed.

Hang in there OP with the 'arty' stuff. You only live once and sounds like you're extremely proactive. It will pay off eventually.

@Abootface id be the first to say that a man should be cleaning, delivering, doing warehouse work etc if his family was struggling for money, even if he has a PHD from Oxford

btw I work out of the house full time, bathe feed and put my kids to bed, do my share of cleaning and all the laundry, and more. It’s not that hard 🤷‍♀️

Also, genuinely puzzled by the horror of husband working FT AND THEN having to look after his OWN child on the weekends!!!

Yes, and if you work weekends then no time together either.

What about temping, personal assistant or Ea work? There are agencies where you can wfh. Or any admin role tbh.

9-5 weekdays. Not weekends.

Your other dream can be a sometime hobby, because it sounds your priority and not what is best for family right now and for the future. Your dh sounds a saint.