DH wants me to get a job

[Missedp]

My husband has been pressuring me to go back to work, however I am happy with our current arrangement: I am a SAHM for our 3 children, a caregiver to my family and a local volunteer.
DH earns as good wage and we have money left over each month. I do the school runs and the children have a wonderful routine; I can also help friends and family with any ad hoc support.
DH wants to “accelerate” our savings and wants me to contribute financially but once you factor in a cleaner, the additional stress to of working and arranging care, it hardly seems worth it. I’ll be making slightly above minimum wage.

Neither of them get to make all the decisions. Marriage is meant to be a partnership. DH can't unilaterally tell her to go and get a job. But OP equally can't unilaterally refuse. There's a conversation to be had here. Why does DH want OP to go back to work?

what does "accelerate our savings" mean? Does it mean they don't really have many and DH is worried that this is precarious. Is he worried about his job? Does he see the cost of living increasing and realise OP working will be better for the family? Or has the family already got lots saved, but DH wants to retire in 5 years time and doesn't see it as enough?

OP has focussed on the current arrangement suiting her and hasn't really explained DH's point of view.

No it has to be a joint decision which clearly at the moment it isn't.

The impact on retirement would worry me greatly. It’s one thing to say when you are 30 “oh we will be frugal in old age” but it’s another to run the numbers at 45.

Not to mention uni for all those kids and personal dreams like travel. All of that for five people is an incredible burden for one earner to bear. Just because someone wants to stretch out housework and be a volunteer.

plus if they divorce & split the home equity, OP could find herself living the rest of her life inna tiny flat, or houseshare, sans much earning power. Spousal support is generally very limited.

So if he does divorce her and she “gets half”

she’s still screwed. What’s she going to live on? How will she pay her bills?

will “half” be enough to buy a house with no income? Cos it’ll soon get eaten up in rent. She says he pulls his weight, if he goes for 50:50 she won’t get CMS.

she’s not maintained her employability so if she does find work it will be a junior role. Unlikely to have much flexibility for the first few years at least. Will she need wraparound care?

even if she manages on benefits until the kids are adults what then? Still no income, no pension, no state pension contributions.

meanwhile he is earning well, gets a mortgage, starts building up his pension again, can afford childcare on “his” days, and lives comfortably.

relying on someone else to support you indefinitely is not a great idea. The days of spousal maintenance are long gone and women are expected to stand on their own two feet after divorce.

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

What if he too decides not to work? They’d have to sell the house and burn the equity renting, till it ran out. Would she like that?

relying on someone else to support you indefinitely is not a great idea. The days of spousal maintenance are long gone and women are expected to stand on their own two feet after divorce.

.....and lets not forget that divorce isn't the only reason the money might stop coming in. I have known people who have had to stop work for all sorts of reasons

• someone had a stroke at 39
• In the last 7 months I know of 2 people who had an aneurysm and dropped dead (I'm presuming life ins will pay off the mortgage, but what then?)
• More than one person who has had a mental breakdown
• People who have had cancer
• 2 separate people seriously injured in RTCs
• people just exhausted by their job, needing to retire before getting to 67 / 68

I'm sure there are others, including people being made redundant.

When two of you are working and have up to date skills, loosing one income is bad, but you can often still make things work. When that is the only income, you are up the creek without a paddle.

She'll get child maintenance for starters. Benefits. I'm not saying it's amazing but it would work.

And when the kids are adults and she’s in her 40’s facing nearly 30 years living on benefits until retirement- and then not qualifying for state pension because she hasn’t made enough contributions?

she’ll have to work at some point to keep getting the benefits.

like I said as well in my post she has said her dh pulls his weight in the home. So if he goes for 50:50 she won’t get child maintenance.

She won’t necessarily get child maintenance.

And is scrimping along on benefits the sum of her ambition in life? Imagine choosing a beggar’s existence rather than hauling one’s arse out of bed and going to work like an actual adult.

@sandyhappypeopleI'm giving up neither!

Why on earth do people resort to the tiresome argument that all women who work outside the home are jealous of SAHMs? It's such a silly and unsupportable view. Personally, I would rather claw my own eyes out than give up my career. I'm fortunate that my job is flexible, as is my DH's. We can work from home much of the time and tag-team as required.

Because it’s a tired trope. Easy to say, cannot be disproved. So sits there as a baseless accusation

But it can’t be proved either, so you don’t know it’s baseless. Tropes become tropes for a reason. It would be highly unlikely that no working mums were jealous of SAHMS, wouldn’t you say? Yet another post in which you posit your own personal opinions as ‘fact’.

Did you mean to imply you consider benefit claimants beggars?

Well tbf if I could give up work but retain the same income I’d do so like a shot 😂

yes the work is interesting and I do enjoy it, but the driving factor is the money and the security it brings. More so now I’m in my 50’s and shoring up for retirement as early as I can.

I think what a lot of people don’t see is if two people work around children, that’s half the impact on careers and employment.

for example if I took a job but still retained responsibility for the drop offs, child sickness etc then that’s a fairly big impact on my employer. So I’m not going to get more responsibility and better roles offered.

however if dh and I share, we can both still put the hours in- one does 7-3, the other 9-6. Take it in turns for sickness or work around who has the important meeting or project on the go. So neither career is impacted, or not significantly.

it’s easier to maintain two careers being a little bit flexible in both than finding a completely flexible job where your progression is limited.

interestingly when we had kids 20 years ago my employer was fine with me flexing around childcare. Leaving early, working flexi hours barely raised an eyebrow. Dh had a lot tougher time, was met a lot with “why can’t your wife do it” because most of the male employees didn’t flex for their children, the wives were expected to. He stuck with it though and eventually they changed their attitude.

In a discursive forum as mn,we all postulate an argument in expectation it’ll be disputed
We both present our opinion as factual and reputable, and we robustly defend our pov
It’s a baseless trope,because I tell you it is. Because I tell you that’s my experience and my opinion. So right there, it’s no longer baseless because I say I have never experienced jealousy .
Obvious challenge is prove it. I can’t prove the majority working mum are not jealous of housewife . Equally you cannot prove working mum are jealous of housewives

You batch cook for the whole week in one hour? Show me your ways!

Oooh a life on benefits, instead of just getting a job, how exemplary to her children.

Benefits are for people who need them. Not those who just can’t be arsed.

Think you're getting yourself tied in a few knots here. You said it was a baseless trope that working women are jealous of 'housewives' as you've suddenly decided to call them.

Now you're asserting it's 'no longer baseless' because you've never experienced jealousy of a SAHM? scratches head 🤔

I think I can see what you were trying to get at, but as for 'proving' it, I can tell you right off the bat that two of my closest friends with kids have spent most of their working lives saying how much they envied women who could stay at home. So that's two right off the bat. I don't have to 'prove' some working women do envy SAHMs because even without my two examples above, sheer weight of numbers as well as basic common sense clearly demonstrates otherwise.

I’m not that pp but I could easily make a large vat of bolognese or a lasagne, a dozen baked or grilled chicken breasts, a quiche etc in an hour on a Sunday afternoon. Plus prep veggies etc in another 20 min.

Zone I think you miss-quoted me. I agree with you.

Yes! Apologies Tried to fix it in the edit

Why would you need a cleaner ?. I work FT and clean myself, yes its hard work. You soumd very lazy op

To borrow a line from Fawlty Towers, 'Do I detect the smell of burning martyr?'

If you go back to work will he be happy to do childcare?
So if for example you did a few evenings a week, would he bathe, feed and put 3 kids to bed? Or if you got a weekend job would he step up and look after them all day at weekends?
if he’s expecting you to get a job Monday - Friday is he happy to take time off when the kids are sick and can’t go to school? What about the 13 weeks a year they have in school holidays? Is he willing to take time off to have the kids so you can save? Or would you be expected to always be the one calling in sick and booking holidays??
who would pay for after school and school holiday clubs?

I don’t however think you can not work so that you can help friends and family out… not unless they are paying you out of their PIP/attendance allowance to help them…

I took on some cleaning jobs just to give me extra money as I was struggling having to ask my DH for money all the time, that lead onto a few more cleaning jobs and then also walking their dogs for them.