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.

Just outline the cost of how things will change and what he will also have to sacrifice when you are not available. You can’t force him to be happy about you staying at home, although I do understand your desire to not go back to work and be there for the kids.

Housewife isn’t a job, it’s a set of tasks
She has no income she’s financially dependent upon her husband

Maybe he's thinking ahead, kids get more expensive as they get older. Or he's hoping to retire before 67?

How old are the DC ?
I manged to get a v part time job when my youngest was 7.

What do you plan to do once your children have grown?

Unless you expect your dh to fully fund you for the rest of your life ( which I personally feel would be quite unfair on him to put it mildly) you will need to return to work at sometime and the longer you put that off the harder it will be to find a job. Not many employers want someone with an 18+ year gap in their cv

You also unfortunately have to consider what will happen if dh passes away or if for some reason you split.

No it really isn’t

Could you not work three days a week and go from there?

Meow. I take it you have to work?

This is hilarious

A juggling act with 3 children, but you choose to have them,
if anything where to go wrong with
A the marriage
B your husband’s career or health
you will have an easier time if you are earning
the longer you don’t work, the harder to get back on the ladder
for me personally, I would need my own source of income, once the children are not
very young , I have never relied on anyone to
pay my way in life and couldn’t do so
it just doesn’t sit well

Don’t be anxious about returning to work. It gives you another purpose to your life and it will force your husband to be more involved in family life. Explain to him it works both ways. And you don’t need a cleaner. Sit down and talk it through.

Cost it out. Write a detailed plan for exactly what life will look like for both of you when you're at work full time. He needs to do the labour on this too.

You're a team and need to talk about this. Both of you have valid standpoints, however, it might be that your DH is feeling stressed from being the sole breadwinner.

Should you go back to paid employment, you are absolutely right in making sure household admin / chores / childcare etc are fairly distributed. If you're both working full time, I would definitely insist on a cleaner - this is a non-negotiable in our house

Why do you need a cleaner?

Why can't you work and clean?

If your DH is funding your lives then you really need to take on board what he's asking.

I made the mistake of entering a 50/50 marriage as well as being lumped with all the admin and cleaning/cooking. Got fleeced during the divorce.

I will happily stay single for the rest of my life than enter such an arrangement again with a greedy man who also wants me running around after him.

OP, honestly, get yourself a job, and hold your DH’s toes to the fire.

I was a SAHM for 13 years. I facilitated my DHs career by willingly following him round the world whilst he catapulted up the career ladder.

Then marriage got tough and we nearly divorced…twice.

On the second time I said screw this and went back to work. Except I didn’t. I had to volunteer for a year to get references to get my back to work job.

I’ve now 2 jobs, my state pension shored up, and 2 companies/ private pensions gaining momentum.

I will NEVER give up my independence again.

My DH complains about stepping up, school runs, taking time off when I am working and thinks that because he warns £££££££££ and I earn £ that I should do it all, but I refuse. You can’t put a £ on my time. It’s irrelevant to me. My time is as important as his.

Go back to work, but have boundaries the size of the wall in Game of Thrones.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to get a part time job with three school age children. After all they are out of the house for a chunk of the day which will give you time to factor in a job. It’s also good for you, physically and mentally, to expand your horizons beyond the household. Especially because circumstances change and if you ever divorced your husband, you’d be left in a very vulnerable situation. It’s wise to never leave yourself completely financially dependent on another person for this reason.

The cleaner got me! I’ve had two children, a sd and worked full time. Did all my own cleaning and ironing and went out every single weekend with the kids.
if that’s the blocker to your working it’s an excuse

Myself and dh have switched about and been the sahp and the wage earner each.

Until it was my turn to be only wage earner I never realised how much pressure it puts on you. I felt so much responsibility for bringing in the only wage, like it as all down to me even though dh was a fab sahp.

Perhaps your dh is feeling the same.

We compromised on one of us being pt and one being ft. Less pressure and pt working parent has more flexibility for the kids. We both clean at weekends

This - I don’t work for these reasons, it would make my DHs life more stressful as he would have to take on half of all this stuff as well as working full time. I know many parents both work full time but it must be incredibly stressful and tiring to do so plus all the child related things, appointments, housework (so many threads on here where the female parent works full time and yet does the lions share of everything else!) If you can afford one parent to stay home (and want to) or work part time it benefits both of you and also the children.

Doesn't have to be full time, get a part time job and then no need for a cleaner.

As long as he is willing to help out more.
It'll be good for your mental health too, what about a course to retrain for returning to work.
Going into social community care has a lot of opportunities for career progression, you can work as a support carer during school hours, weekends as you train on the job.

I think it would be best in the long term if you return to work at least part-time. The longer you’re out of the workforce the harder it is to get back in.

But it’s going to need a serious commitment from DH to step-up for childcare etc. Don’t forget holiday clubs too, which need to come out of his wages for 2.5 days per week.

Sit down together & plan how it will work.

I think he’s right. Think about your future, your pension!
Divvy up the childcare and chores, get his agreement to do his fair share and start looking to see what you can do.
He needs to be fully on board, otherwise you’ll be double shifting.
The longer you stay out of the job market, the harder it is. It’s good you are volunteering though!

@steff13 please really if you're going to interject into a comment that's not aimed at you at least read posts the person is addressing.