Albu to expect my husband to earn more?

[gymboe]

met dh nearly 20 years ago. He’s self employed in creative industry.

im employed full time. When we met I was on £18k. I’m now on £60k.

we have 3 kids. And life is vvvv expensive.

we’ve stayed in same small house we purchased since we were in our 20s.

he has never earned reliably. Sometimes it’s been great and other times it’s terrible. People don’t pay on time. He works weird hours and long Hours and struggles to consistently contribute to house. He puts in £600 and then a few weeks later £300 and at end of month maybe another few hundred etc etc. it’s teeny amounts and on random days. on the flip side I typically contribute £2500 on the first of each month. And then Pay for kids stuff out my own money (days out, school shoes etc)

we are always in our overdraft. He’s lied about having credit cards. He lied and hid 10k of debt. He lies about how much work he has. He’s constantly in overdraft. He says he doesn’t know when money is coming in. He has no work booked in September for example but “remains hopeful something will come up”. He’s constantly plugging one hole by taking from another pot and creating Another.

as we are now in our 40s I’m finding it all very draining. He’s recently taken on a 2 day a week job minimum wage (admin) which I found and insisted he applied for. It provides a third of what we need from him really. This means even longer hours and less help with kids. I’m on my own a lot these days.

I know it’s crap out there and Covid and AI have affected businesses but I never thought I’d be trapped in a job I don’t love, struggling to survive. In a house that is tiny, not able to afford own car, not been on holiday in 15 years (beyond camping)

I want him to stop. Get a full time job/retrain etc.

but he says “I’m good at it” “I want to be happy” “it does earn money” “no one else will
employ me”

if I try to discuss he goes into a dramatic depression pity rant and makes no changes.

leaving him is not an option. But what I saw in him at 20 was not how I thought we would be all
these years later.

Are you mad? Of course it’s fair, he is choosing to stay practically unemployed. Why on earth should she share the money that she has left and pay for the majority of the household

YANBU. DD1 earned more than him in her gap year before university.

He’s a freeloader.

unfortunately you often don’t discover this until you are already tied emotionally & practically.

he’s behaving like a child. So maybe he needs treated like a child?

if you really want to stay rather than leave then take over the finances 100%. Everything both you earn goes into your solo account. You pay the bills etc and if what he has contributed isn’t 50% then he gets no non essential expenditure for himself. If he wants more the onus is then on him to earn more.

I’m really sorry you’re in this situation and completely understand your disappointment.
absolutely no question, he has to get a fulltime job, even if it’s minimum wage. At least it’s regular money coming in and you can plan.
I’d rather know I had a regular income of £1500.00 every month than not knowing when the next couple of hundred is coming my way.
He can do his creative stuff at the weekends.

But does he do all the home work, picking up kids when they are sick, meeting them at clubs and bringing home (i appreciate you don't have a car) Washing and cleaning and remembering world book day?

If he does, that gives you more time and space to work. If he doesn't, that's super unfair.

Why is he a freeholder but lots of women who dont work are not?

No way does he do all the work. He works so many hours and it’s completely random. Including the weekend. He used to pick up once a week but can’t commit to that anymore as he works his other job. He is so random that he can’t promise he will always be around every Monday for example. He could be miles away, at a meeting, working weird hours.

I had a partner like this and got rid of him.

Best thing I ever did.

It is hard to carry another adult and I'll never do it again.

The bottom line really is that you can’t force an adult to change, all you can do is control how much of an impact their decisions have on you and for how long.

You could try one last chat, set out clear expectations that he must pay £X each month into the family pot, how he earns that and does that is up to him but it needs to be a non-negotiable payment every single month to the household, and if he can’t do that as it is then he needs to finds another job, full time, salaried, now. If he’s not prepared to do either then you either walk away, or you stay and accept that you’re choosing this life for yourself.

That’s really all you can do. He will make his own decisions, you get to control how much impact they have on you.

He chose to have DC, he chose to take that responsibility. If, after 20 years he still can’t make a regular living in his preferred job then as a father he needs to grow up and find regular work in another field. His current choice of job isn’t only failing to support his DC financially, its the excuse to opt out of regular commitments of any kind toward them. A regular job, even if not highly paid would allow him to make more home commitments.

However its the lying which would kill me, rather than the income disparity. A couple can cope with a great deal if both are putting in the hours across the work/home spread but a liar who centres his own wishes over the wellbeing of his DC and family would not last long with me.

Out of interest - what is this job? Is it content creation by any chance?

I know you said you won't leave him but I'd divorce him, otherwise you'll be keeping him in retirement.

He’s not contributing to the finances and he’s not contributing to family life and he’s a liar in debt.. you know what you need to do

Why should he change, you pick up the slack, he can pretty much do as he pleases. And he clearly thinks he can continue to live off you, which is what he’s doing, and not support his kids. Again what he’s doing, he prob doesn’t even pay just his share. He thinks you will just keep paying to be with him. So I’d consider if he’s right or not.

Sounds like you would be better off without him, as a man he should at least contribute 50% towards his family, he seems happy to let you do it and he’s a liar that would be it for me

On the whole I think that we need to accept that the people we love don’t generally change all that much (abuse, adultery and addiction aside). The seeds of who he is now were probably there for you to see when he was a young man. You might be able to persuade him to make small changes to his work life, but fundamentally he is who he is.

It all hinges on whether you want to stay in the marriage…

I have been on MN a very long time and have read dozens of threads about artistic, musical and ‘creative’ husbands. They all have common threads of long hours, irregular earnings and lack of domestic responsibilities. My favourite was the man who wanted to make it in Nashville, leaving his poor DW to look after their small DC and earn a living…

Alongside anything that could be done work-wise - could some form of business mentoring help? - if you want to remain in the relationship I think it could be useful to reflect on his positive characteristics.

Remember that there would also be disadvantages to having a highly driven, successful and money-oriented spouse. You have clearly done well but there are a lot of men around who earn far more than you. How would it feel to be the lower earner and have someone turn a critical lens on your work, earning power and overall success in life? No one should do that of course, but reflecting on how that might feel could be helpful.

My own DH is highly driven and successful (I am too but in a much lower paying sector!) and it took me a long time to realise that some of his characteristics that I found tricky to live with also made him who he was - a highly competent and attractive man - and that I wouldn’t have been attracted to someone of the opposite personality type.

Can he get a basic but essential qualification - pool life guarding for example. Most pools offers shifts to a group of regular lifeguards, but not regular hours. That would mean he could take shifts around his creative work and increase his income that way He won't be rich but at least he'll be working more hours.

Or a zero hours contract driving job, delivering cars (I assume he can drive).

He's a grown up with children who need feeding and clothing - saying he's creative and wants to be happy won't cut it any more. He has responsibilities.

@gymboe Why isn’t leaving him an option ? Your husband is a non starter , this is how he will be for the next 20 years. What message are you giving to your children about workshy men and what you are prepared to endure ?!

YADNBU
i had a similar husband, and the lying about money/bills and not having a proper job (if he did it wouldn't be for very long) nearly broke me. I ended up in a right old mess with burnout from the stress of keeping the show on the road. He did finally get a job (after over a year unemployed) and surprisingly he stuck at it for over 12 years until he got ill with a rare cancer and died 3 months later, a hell of a shock. I miss him terribly. We did get our relationship back on track but TBH it was a close run thing. When things were really grim I had told him I couldn't live like this any more and wanted him to leave. He was so shocked. the difference between him and yours was that he was always good at being there and doing things with/for the DC so he wasn't a complete waste of space. Does yours always have money to do what he wants to do even when he's pleading poverty to you? I do know now from things I've been told after he died that after he finally did get his act together, he was very ashamed of how he'd behaved in earlier years.

No. I'm not mad.

He has zero reason to change. There is no financial partnership. He makes his own pocket money. Sometimes pays. And OP picks up the tab. But more than that, he is doing something he enjoys and loves and has a choice. OP has zero choice- she couldn't down tools and drop to 2 days per week because of the impact on the kids financially.

I asked if they shared... Seems not. He keeps debt etc from her, lies about it maybe because he doesn't feel like he is actually in a financial partnership.

I think it only works to have separate finances if there is an agreement about how and what is being paid by whom.

The mere act of OP working it all out and presenting it to him just reinforces her role here of organising him financially. Iif she wasn't married, id actually let him fail.

OP- he isn't going to change. I'm only sorry that you are married as financially it's galling. Work out what you can accept and stick to it. If he crosses the threshold, you'll need to trigger a plan b.

pS I would suggest you put CB in his name if you decide to stick with him. That way he can get NI etc otherwise, in old age he won't have enough years worked and will be on a reduced pension- another burden on you.

My ex husband was like this. I was not / am not earning as much as you op but my wage was reliable and I knew how much I was getting each month. My ex on the other hand, well I’d lie awake at night worrying how much he’d contribute month to month. He didn’t seem to care. He became like another child, on payday he would say “is it ok if I just put £500 in the joint account” FFS. The whole time we were together, I can count ONE month that he put more into the joint account than me and that was when I was on SMP. Like you, I became sick of earning the most but also doing the most with the children and around the house!! We are divorced now and he currently owes me 2k in maintenance. Men like this don’t change and more importantly the situation you are in won’t change. I used to hope every month it would be different. Maybe when he gets X job, or does Y. You need to be a special breed of person to make a success of being self employed and make enough to support a family. My mum did - she was the breadwinner and made enough to send me to private school. But she is a driven individual. Throughout my whole childhood I barely remember her taking a day off sick. She’d work 10 hours a day 5 days a week plus Saturday mornings. Even now, at 80, she is working. I am not saying we should all strive for this. But many people aren’t cut out for it. I’m not, which is why I have a PAYE job.

My dad was the same as my ex until he got Alzheimer’s. It’s up to you to decide if you can live with it or not. My mum could. I couldn’t.

Explain why leaving is not an option? The lying, the not contributing enough, the not giving a shit about what you're doing to support the family.

I'm also a self-employed creative and it's just me providing for me and my son, I don't have the luxury of a 'second mummy' looking after me like your DH does, so if my business wasn't making enough money to support us, I'd need to get a job.

Yes, but this would cause me to lose any remaining respect towards him.

Leaving is an option though. You may be plunged into poverty and lose money in the settlement, but don’t you think mental health is more important? You're suffering the same consequences of poverty now AND babysitting a grown child.

You can just suffer the consequences of poverty, that’s all I am saying.

it's kind of like that slogan I saw outside a gym. ‘tired of being fat and ugly? Just be ugly’

This would be financial abuse. I don't believe she should suffer the consequences of someone else's ill management, but that's what happens in marriage (and when you partner with men most of the time), but at the same time being forced into work which would ruin your mental health is also not fair and would seem extremely controlling.