Any farmers wives out there?

[Farmerswifehelp]

If so AIBU to feel completely helpless about our situation.

I have been with my farmer for 17 years, married 9, with two DC.

Firstly I want to say I love DH deeply I really do, but I am really starting to resent everything. Firstly, we do not live on the farm (we live a good 4 miles drive off) despite my DH being the main worker/driving force, he works extremely long hours 7 days a week and all income that goes into the farm is thanks to him. I of course help when available as well as work my own part time role and raising our DC. HOWEVER my issue is that our little family unit gain nothing from this. DH is allowed (dictated by his parents) a small monthly wage (i wont say how little) and so all bills are left to me, i can only work part time due to childcare and I am really really struggling. Husband is of course working under the promise that he will one day inherit the farm, this does not sit comfortably with me as his parents have already proved that they cannot keep to their word as when we were married they had promised him that we could live on the farm, that never came to be and we were left scrambling desperately for a property when 1st DC came along with my fathers help. I am feeling desperately lonely and unsupported between DH not physically being here to help me and help with things in our home and with the children, we are financially struggling whilst DH gives his everything to a farm he may never inherit and everyone but us is benefiting from it.

Oh Jeepers. Look up a podcast called The Pasture Pod. Then listen to the one with Elaine Froese. Or Google her.

You and your DH need to be taking some serious action now.

So he's working his parents farm for pocket money, meanwhile neglecting his home and family? His parents might be in the wrong for setting this up, but this is a DH problem. He needs boundaries or a divorce!

I am a farmer's wife though we don't live on the farm he gets all our expenses paid such as bills which means he gets a below average wage it balances out. Seems he is being taken advantage of.

I am not a farmer's wife but one of my closest friends is. She is in much the same position as you but thirty years on, and she and her husband are approaching their sixties and trying to work out how they will afford to retire. His parents are in their eighties and have no intention of leaving the farm. It is an incredibly common dynamic in farming families and very very difficult to explain to anyone without experience of farming life.

You and your DH need to start planning on the basis that you could be trapped in this situation for the next thirty plus years.

Thank you, I would have nothing to say on the matter if this were our case as well, he did try to raise this once and his sister quite bluntly yold him “what, you want your bills to be paid for?!’ 🙈🙈🙈

Not a wife but wouldn’t be one for this reason. You haven’t got the benefit of the massive house or free board and lodging.

Free board and lodging?

Wheres the massive house? And how is it free board and lodgings when you work to generate an income. for it? 🥴

Put it this way. When employing a farm worker and giving them a house you still have to give them at least the minimum wage (you can minus off a very small deduction, £60 a week or something if every single bill associated with the house is also paid).

Please research Elaine Froese and listen to that podcast. She has very strong words to say about your situation.

For context I’m a farmer (and married to one). DH doesn’t get paid an hourly rate as such but he does get a third share of profits. All business assets have been gifted to him along with the house on the farm.

good luck

There’s been a few threads on this subject lately. Would you be better off separating? Sounds like you are already operating as a single parent family anyway. You have the choice to stay in this situation or leave it. It doesn’t like your DH values you and the children over his parents and their farm.

Your ILs need to start succession planning and transferring assets before the APR changes take 20% of the farm anyway. If they don’t do this, your DH needs to have a long think about what he does next. He could be left with a big IHT bill, if he’s left the farm at all.

Not a farmer's wife but a farmer's daughter. Get out while you can. It will never get any better.

I left for London to go to university at 18 and never looked back.

thank you, I know I have a choice, but we love each other very much, its so hard to explain, I know he puts the farm first, but in his mind he is doing it to secure a future for our DS in the only way he knows how. I guess I’m feeling it worse atm as its lambing time so he is working days and nights and doesnt come home at all, (he may quickly call back for super but has to go again) I help when I can but I cant be raising the kids and keeping the house and be in the lambing shed. I was in such a bad mood with him last night, but then he said he had lost 7 lambs that day so I couldn’t show him how much of a bad mood I was in 🙈 ( sorry I am quite literally blurting everything out)

Your in laws are being incredibly unreasonable.

Your DP could take them to an employment tribunal, showing the hours he works and the conditions he works in, and claiming a fair wage and contract. And then point out that a far better way would be for him to take on the business now, leaving them as silent partners and receiving an agreed income. They also need to get serious with inheritance planning, especially if they are likely to be subject to the new rules,

DP needs to be blunt with them: if things aren’t sorted out now, he will be looking for alternative work because he may not have a farm for the future anyway.

I used to be a farmer’s wife, bridgetreilly’s advice is spot on. My sympathies OP, it is such a difficult situation. In my case, the controlling parents kept him/us well under the thumb with the promise that they would move out of the farm house and it would all be his eventually. He worked his whole life on well below minimum wage. They never moved out and he is still living there with his parents and siblings, with nothing to his name in his mid fifties. If he ever discussed estate planning or working elsewhere, they would threaten to cut him out of the will and leave it all to his sister and brother. They all still live in the same house together, it is totally toxic.

I am sorry you have been through a similar situation. I take it you are separated for these reasons? If we were to separate I know my husband, like yours would move back to live with his parents and Sister, like you say a totally toxic mix. His sister, a middle aged woman still lives with the parents, has a very good job, but lives rent free there, does not pay a single bill and does not lift a single finger to do the farm work, this is of course their business but you can imagine how much it adds to the resentment DH feels. He did in fact threaten to not turn up one day if things did not change and like your husband his parents response was “what are you talking about this place will all be yours, but if you cant behave yourself we will have to re-think!” Completely mind-blowing and detrimental to DH’s mental health, like you say, a toxic toxic situation. Also my in-laws can be very spiteful, if we were to separate there would be no “amicable” breakup, they would stir and stir and make my life hell I just know it.

I don’t think you should separate from your DP, but I do think he should separate from his parents. I would be doing everything I could to help him find another job, one that is actually paid in money, not vague promises and threats.

I’m a farmer’s daughter and this rings very true. My grandad died when he was 70 so fortunately my dad got to take over then, but he never got to move into the farmhouse until much later in life as my grandma wouldn’t leave. It was a time where childcare was cheap/unregulated and my mum had a high paying job so it worked out. Nowadays the cost of childcare would wipe them out. Your husband really needs to sit his parents down and have a serious conversation

What stops them from leaving everything to their daughter?

They're going to leave it to his sister, at least half of it. Probably the house. You'll never love in that house as a family. How can he not see that? This needs to be treated as a crisis urgently OP. Sit him down for a really serious talk asap, he needs to sit his parents down asap and tell them unless they give him some income and security then he will find other work.

I am a farmers daughter and my 2 brothers are farmers (one full time and the other has another career but helps out any minute he can).
Fortunately my dad has become quite wealthy from farming and developed a “super farm”. He has always been open to what we will inherit, my brothers have both sections of the business they will inherit that interests them (they have different plans) but more
brother who works FT will receive more understandably. I will inherit financially as I am not interested in farming so it makes sense for me not to get any land or farming assets. As my dad has retired from the business I have received some profits
so they are true to their word.
This seems completely down to your in-laws. They know your DH is tied to the farm and can’t go anywhere else. Anyone who says for him to get another job on this thread doesn’t understand how farming works. His parents are splitting things unequally but unsure why.

Nothing, but it would mean generations and generations worth of family farming coming to a very abrupt end, and as lax and spiteful In laws can be, I know that father in-law will not see it happen, it would mean that all of his hard work was for nothing, and i do know he would not want this.

Thank you, it sounds like your father is very wise and you as siblings treat each other well and with respect.

Why will he leave everything to his daughter if it’s your DH that’s farming the place? I’m a farmer’s daughter and I want my brother to inherit all the land, because he can farm it and I can’t. You need legal advice on how to secure that your DH will inherit. Given the proposed tax changes it might be worth them putting the farm in your DH name before they die.

For everyone who’s saying that he should get out because of the financial situation as it were an easy thing to do, it’s not only that easy; firstly, farms often don’t generate enough income to pay a fair wage, farmers are asset rich but cash poor, and sometimes it’s worth the short term pain of poor salary in order to benefit longer term with the assetsand being able to continue our way of life. Secondly, farming is not just a job, it’s who we are, our idenity and our heritage; it’s difficult to turn your back on that.

Im replying to a previous person who asked whats stopping them giving his sister the farm, and I was just saying I know FIL would not do that because it would mean generations worth of hard work coming to an abrupt end. Thank you , it is very difficult to explain to those who don’t farm, I don’t mean to sound corny, but it really is in the blood, its just a shame that our current situation is causing so much distress for myself and DH.