To leave DH and kids to do this

[Youcannotbeseriou]

13 years ago I got married and I gave up my dream career to raise two DCs. DH was desperate for kids, I wasn’t hugely bothered. Fast fwd to now, everyone is happy apart from me.
However, I have been offered a place on a masters conversion course that would see me into a new career.
Trouble is all the universities that offer these courses are at least a 3 hour drive away. They are full time training courses 4/ 5 days a week. I already work part time in the field and love it and know I’ll love it as a qualified professional, but for 2 years it could mean living away from everyone mid week. I’m late 40s so time isn’t on my side to wait.

DH made clear he/ they are staying put. I don’t want to leave them, but I’m so unhappy at the moment as have no career and hate where we live. This would mean I can at least have a career I love again.

yabu- don’t be ridiculous, you have commitments and children. You can’t do this conversion course for 2 years away from them.
yanbu- they’ll be fine and adapt for 2 years. Go for it!

My point is that the OP's DH just needs to act like a responsible and thoughtful parent. Which a lot of women just get on with doing.

The impact on children is likely to be a positive one in terms of finances, and also to model for them career fulfilment and ambition, hard work, and how to sustain healthy family contact when family members are separated.

Kids will be fine if parents are openly supportive and encouraging of each other. If a parent or others around imply mummy/ daddy mustn’t care or love them enough to not be able to stay at home until they are grown then the kids will of course be unhappy.

But op will be home every weekend, so the kids won't be going for months without seeing their parent.

What is the long term plan with the fact you hate where you live and your husband refuses to move himself or the children? Is the marriage solid, or should you be reading anything into his determination that he and the children stay put, despite what you think or want?

I would worry the 3 hour commute each way would really eat into your weekends. It's all very well saying you can come home but 6 hours of travelling to be at home only really Sat and some of Sun is a lot as a "normal way of working". The impact on the children depends a lot on what your and your husband's relationships are with them.

It is difficult without knowing your field but I wonder if there is an allied field that you could train in closer to home? Eg if optometry could you do audiology instead, that kind of thing? It really as "all or nothing" as all that?

The fact that your husband worked away a lot makes it "fairer" that you do too, but whether the children complain or not, it's still double the impact on them over only having had one parent work away.

There is a lot of hidden power in setting the agenda. I am just a bit worried that there is an unequal power dynamic here, and where there should be collaboration, compromise and listening to each other your husband is controlling the boundaries of the debate so the only options that appear open to you are the ones that are easiest for him. This may be unfair, you can judge better than me.

You seem to blame everyone and take no responsibility for your choices. And now it’s not working out you’re off but feeling “guilty”

I think how my kids would react at those ages. They needed me at home. I don’t care if someone thinks it’s no different mum or dad, for me it was. And to an extent it still is.

Yeah but that doesn’t really matter. Of the kids don’t like it, it’s on DH to do better.

@Youcannotbeseriou I have a friend who did similar when her kids were a wee bit older than yours.

She basically told her husband, this is what’s happening, this is what you need to do. He didn’t like it but he did do it. She got her masters and a new career.

He absolutely can’t refuse to move and also refuse to do anything to help. You tell him it’s your turn now and he just needs to get on board. If you really want it, go for it.

Or he's thinking about what's best for the children. Uprooting a 10 and 12 year old, making them move away from their friends and schools is a big thing. It would also mean he'd have to leave his job potentially and he's the breadwinner. Someone has to think about the practicalities.

I don’t believe a man doing something that will improve his career but short term means less time with his family, is him behaving poorly. If the correct support network is there for the children, that’s what matters. There are all sorts of careers when men and women see their family less for a variety of reasons, we don’t suggest only childless people should do them. This isn’t about whether the OP should do it alone, it’s about whether as a family it is do-able. And with children that age, it should be.

If the kids are in a position where they need their mum and not their dad, then it’s about time they all learned that dad is there for them too.

You are welcome to make that point however I don't see how my post is in opposition to that as I have been both the child and adult in this situation and support the endeavour.

I disagree, I think having their mum gone at their young ages would be worse. Kids move houses and go to new schools all the time, and it would be before the exam periods of their education.

You are welcome to make that point
Oh wow thank you 🙄

I was. And my own DH is away more.

It didn’t bother me as a kid but I was obviously closer to the parent at home, and had very little respect for the opinion of the other. One knew the family routine and dynamic and the other didn’t.

One change that we do differently is that DH also does what I say so he doesn’t upset the balance, it was much more tricky when he tried to enforce his opinion having not been there.

I'm sure you'll get lots of posters cheering you on and telling you to "chase your dream", OP but I'm just trying to imagine how I would feel if my DH announced that he was giving up his job to be a FT student (not just that he was thinking about it, but that he had already applied and "been offered a place"!) and my choices were:

1. Uproot my life and that of our two DC to move with him somewhere a 3 hour drive away.
2. Solo parent during the week whilst continuing to work FT as the breadwinner, which now also involves funding accommodation for him in his new university town.

I would be gutted to be honest. Especially if he tried to use the fact that 13 years ago I wanted to have children and he "wasn't hugely bothered" about them as justification for issuing this ultimatum. I would take this to mean that either he had been quietly resenting me and our children all those years OR that he was being manipulative in order to get his way.

There are plenty of men who spend mon-Fri working away from their families and nobody bats an eyelid. If your DH can hold the fort and he and the kids are happy for you to do it I’d crack on. Would you actually have to be away all the time or is some of it doable from home?

So when will it be time for the mother?

The OP has already given up one career to be the SAHP whilst her DH progressed his own career including lengthy periods away from the home.

She lives in an area which makes her unhappy because DH likes it and doesn’t want to leave.
She has found alternative work as the children are secondary/close to secondary age and the employer wants her to progress that career with them.
She has found a way to do this via professional qualifications which have a good chance of bursary funding. This requires not being away from home for “weeks on end” as her DH has done but mid week for approx half the weeks of the year.

And yet still she is told to wait until the DC are older (by which time it probably will be too late) or to prioritise DH again.

So lets say she does that, stays where DH prefers and avoids expecting him to do some parenting mid week for half the year. Then her DC appear on MN dismissing her as “DM never worked” as happens here on threads daily because fundamentally women don’t value family care and home care any more than men do unless its them doing it.

DH has had 13 years of the OP bearing the DC, raising them, looking after his home, leaving him free to pursue his career unhampered including lengthy travel periods, living in his preferred location. Its time he did his share and let the OP centre her own career and recover some of the prospects she has given up.

So basically its up to the DH to give her permission? I wonder if they had a family conference and the DH sought the OP’s permission before pursuing his own career by lengthy periods away from home.

The children are not tiny - if their WFH DH cannot step up and parent mid week for the term times then he isn’t much of a father.

I don't know any men with kids who work away Monday to Friday. Obviously I accept that it happens, but I don't think it's quite as typical as some posters on this thread are making out.
I also think there are plenty of women who absolutely would "bat an eyelid" at their DH announcing he was going to start working away all week if that hadn't been the case previously and they didn't know it was on the cards. I wouldn't want to be in a situation where I only lived with my Husband and the DC only lived with their Dad for 20% of the week. Just because it works for some families that doesn't mean that it's not a big decision or that OP's DH and children aren't entitled to be upset by such a big change to their status quo.

I'm not telling her to wait until the DC are older or to prioritise her DH. I'm simply saying how I would feel if my DP did what she is proposing to do. She can either take that into consideration, or not. Just offering another perspective.

I wouldn’t think twice about the hardship to your DH. I would think long and hard about the hardship to the DC (and it would be a hardship) and actually to yourself. Choosing to see them only at weekends and holidays for two school years is going to have consequences for them. Perhaps your kids are your home life and wider support system would mean minimal impact. I know that in my case, the impact would be enormous. There’d be no getting away from my DC concluding I want that thing more than I want them.

And actually reading your OP I’m not convinced that this is the solution to your problems, real and legitimate as they are. There are other ways of skinning this cat and I think the should be explored. Leaving the family unit to put an individual member first is a nuclear option (bearing in mind this is about you and only you, not about earning for the family/putting a roof over your family’s head and food on the table).

Unbelievable thread. Honestly not sure where we went wrong or how we lost our maternal instincts.

Ten and twelve are still young! They are children and most children want their mothers.

Why not their fathers?

I wouldn't do it. Even aside from the negative impact on the kids and the marriage, it sounds like a lonely life - schlepping back to a student flat in a strange town, cooking for one, revision, telly, single bed, rinse and repeat four nights a week.

My dad worked in Edinburgh during the work week when I was in my early to late teens (after some time doing contract work all over England) and it worked for us. My dad would come home most Friday evenings but sometimes we'd go up to Edinburgh for a weekend. He made some great friends,doing a job he loved and we stayed around our support network. My parents are both in their early 70s now and as strong as ever.

As someone whose dad worked away at that age, I hated it and I think you’re being very unfair on your children! I also suspect your marriage won’t survive, but maybe that’s what you want. It will be easy for you to blame your DH!