I’m so angry at DH

[bottletop26]

A bit of backstory. Dh and I married and had children young. We have been together over 30 years and our children are now adults. Throughout the years we have struggled financially. Young children, mortgage and at the start of our careers. We just about managed but I didn’t find it fun. Dh on the other hand looks back on it through rose tinted glasses. He wasn’t the one adding things up as we went through the supermarket though!

We are now late 40s. Mortgage has 10 years left and we are comfortable. It’s been such a weight lifted off my shoulders to be able to afford a good life. I’m a simple soul so a holiday in the UK once a year and a city mini break is enough. DH doesn’t like travelling at all. We go for dinner once or twice a month and I’m not counting the pennies in the supermarket anymore. I’m even in the position to be able to help out our children sometimes.

DH quit his job. No warning or anything just quit. He didn’t like the way he was spoken to by another manager when they were stressed so he walked out. I am furious.

He said he has been thinking about leaving for a while and he had just had enough. Work has allowed him to take his holiday as his notice and 2 weeks unpaid. I am so so angry.

He has been off 3 weeks now. He finally got around to doing his CV today - it’s not finished though.

Today I got home and he had baked a cake, the housework was done and dinner prepared. He made a comment about being a house husband. I snapped. I told him that I didn’t want to go back to how it was where we had to watch every penny. I don’t want to work and have no money to play with. We can afford to live on my wage and it would leave us with £75 left over. That’s it, no money for saving, no fun. I don’t want to. He’s called me selfish for feeling this way!

just to add he’s not depressed, having an affair or anything he just doesn’t want to work at 49 anymore.

I'd be planning my escape route!

The lack of communication on your husband's part is crazy.
I have a friend in this situation, it wouldn't work for me but it seems to work for them. However I would be resentful and not prepared to fund my partner staying at home whilst I worked full time.

He was obviously unhappy at work and felt he couldn't tell you. I would want my partner to be in a job that they didn't hate. Life is too short to slave in a horrible place for money.

What he has done yoday is not comparable to your average day when.your children were small and you were penny- pinching. Was his job high pressure? Perhaps chasing something less high pressure, even if the pay is less could be an.option? . There should have been a discussion with you if he was unhappy and anticipated foing something so life- changing.

I think you should tell him tvat he has 2 months to get a job after which point you will hand in your notice too as you are fed up of working too and mightily pissed off tgat he makes mammoth decisions with no discussion.

Are you saying a full day's housework and cooking isn't comparable to work outside the home?

My ( ex) husband did this to me when we had two children, one aged 4 months.
He did get another job eventually but lost his long service with the council and started in a temporary position again.
It was the shape of things to come and he gave up work 'due to ill health' ( he had a bad back) a few years later.
We divorced when he was 43.

It's not though is it? On Saturday I did a full clean of the house, a food shop and cooked three meals. It was no way as hard as my full time job.

More importantly I don't get paid for it.

Most people manage to look after their house and have paid employment.

Are you saying you had no idea this was on the cards OP? He just came home one day, announced he'd quit and told you he'd been thinking about it for a while?

I'd be fuming if my other half did that too without first talking to me about it, but are you sure that's the whole story? Is it possible he's been sacked or made redundant and he's just trying to save face?

It could have been a shock to the system, hence taking some time.

Either way you say he's doing his CV so he's clearly planning on looking for work. Whether he's been let go or something has driven him to the point of walking out, maybe he just needed some downtime to figure things out.

There's clearly a bit of communication for you both to work on, but assuming he's at least somewhat sensible he'll know he can't retire at 49. Assuming this is a one off, out of the blue occurrence, ignore all the posters telling you to leave him.

We better tell those SAHM parents with school age children that they're doing a lot less than their working partners and should remember that.

I was specifically talking about the situation the OP is describing. Her DH doing a bit of house work and cooking is really not equivilent to a full time paid job in terms of effort and value to the household. Most people manage to do both.

Good lord I'm so sorry this is disgusting behaviour. I'm not surprised your marriage won't be the same. I'd love to not have to work and spend the time doing things purely for my own MH but it's not the reality of life is it?

How are things now?

When you talk to him is also hand him the bare bones food budget and say I did all the making it work when the kids were young, while also working. Now you’ve decided we don’t need your income this is the supermarket budget and you are in charge of shopping and cooking. I can’t tell you how much I don’t even want to be in the same room as you now you’ve dropped us straight back into counting pennies, I hated that then and I’ll hate it even more now, this is so selfish of you.

If you only have 6 months savings then you absolutely can not “afford” for him to do this. He needs a job and fast. Any job but he can’t sit at home baking fucking cakes ffs

I would want to know if there was something underlying this (burnout/breakdown) which may need some treatment/support and a plan to ease back into suitable employment

If not, and it is laziness, I’d let him have his holiday in lieu of notice period and then it’s time for job hunting. I would be making sure your pay goes into your own account, if you can, ring fence half the savings and tighten the weekly budget for the time he is expected to be unemployed so he can get a taste of the supermarket scrimping, if he’s chosen to make things financially tight, he needs to feel it rather than burning through savings.

if he doesn’t engage with either of the above, then I would be seriously considering my future with him, as he’s showing no consideration for the burden he’s putting on you.

That's nice, but it's also too short to spend slaving somewhere else in order to keep someone who's unilaterally decided not to work at all, and isn't raising young children.

In your shoes I would do the following -

Contact HR at your work, today, and get your pay redirected to a solo account. Monthly payroll usually runs around 20th or a bit later so you have time to do this.

Move your half of the savings, today, to an account he cannot access.

Cut off all subscription services, Netflix, sky sports, all of it.

Take any games consoles down to CEX and trade them in.

Tell him he has to pay his half of the bills and you don't care how he does it.

And stick to your guns, you don't want him getting comfortable at home.

As he's doing his CV he clearly intends to look for work. In the meantime he's doing a lot at home. Give him a while before getting impatient with him. Could be a lot worse. There was a recent thread where someone's DH had stopped work and was just sitting on couch all day.

The amount of people infantalising his behaviour is wild to me.

If he has mental health issues they are for him to raise and deal with be it professionally or what have you. It's not an excuse for him to opt out of working when suddenly homelife without children to care for is more appealing. In turn leaving OP to have to shoulder the burden of the household income without even a conversation about it? Nah absolutely not. Regardless of whether he is suffering burnout it's absolutely insane to make such a huge decision then shrug your shoulders and say "oh well deal with it" to your partner. This is one of the most selfish husbands I've ever come across on this site!

His health or issues are not yours to manage. They are his to deal with and communicate about. I'm not saying you're not to support him but my god it's not for you to second guess his mental state when he's behaving like this. What about your mental health? I'm sure that's taken a nosedive after this stunt....... I'm also sure you're not feeling burned out at the prospect of shouldering the financial burden of the marriage and keeping your head above water.

I agree with advice above. Split finances now. Take your half of savings etc and let him flounder. See how he likes being a house husband on the difficult income you had to manage with whilst working and raising the children might I add ........ See if he wants to muck about making cakes at home then. Also book yourself a fantastic holiday with friends or someone else you deserve it after all this nonsense.

Absolutely.
In that case, he would be better off single! 😉

You aren’t unreasonable. This is a big move and something like that isn’t just done on a whim.

You have to consider what your next step is if he refuses to go back to work. For me, it would be divorce.

That might sound extreme, but at 49 that is 18 more years of pensionable work he’s not doing and when you’re retired it’s going to be still just you holding the fort down.

That sounds awful.

Wow that’s a major decision and I agree he can’t take it unilaterally. I mean, id love to stop working at 49 too but there is reality

i would be very angry too

Prior to the disagreement with his colleague, did he have a good history with his company, and generally good relationships with the senior team? If so, would they take him back? That would be the option I'd explore first, in his shoes. Of course, that would require him to actually realise that, unless you're independently wealthy, you can't just retire in your 40s when you still have a mortgage to pay off and about another 40 years of life to pay for.

The OP doesn’t have school age children.
it is very hard with school age children but not that hard when it’s just 2 adults

Absolutely, but as one needs to you know, eat, then it would make sense to find an alternative source of income and only then quit. Your partner's salary is not that alternative source unless they actually agree.