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.

Agree. I would look at my DH in a different light if he decided he couldn't be fucked with going to work anymore at just 49 years old, with NO plan of how he was going to fund it!!!

Hugely unnattractive trait in a man, especially if you come from a family of hard-working industrious men. CBA with slackers and cocklodgers.

Wow, this is totally selfish, self centred behaviour.
To quit without prior discussion with you about finances & how you'd cope is unbelievable.

I would cut him off from every penny I earned immediately and expect him to sort something so he could continue to oay his shate of the bills. I'd also ring fence 50% of all savings for me.
I woukd be rethinking the relationship because I'd feel used & like you be furious at his thoughtlessness.

Good luck, I suspect you'll need it!

I think not. Otherwise he would have got a new job lined up and resigned properly.

We have talked everything through. He told me how unhappy he was at work and he made a snap decision without thinking of the long term plan.
he didn’t want to tell me how unhappy he was at work due to me being so content with our life. The reality of him not working has set in.

He is actively looking for work and has spoken to a few people today. He doesn’t feel ready to go for a high responsibility job like he was doing and that is fine.

That does at least sound better for you as a couple than when you started this thread. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame you/your contentment for not sharing how unhappy he was, though. The only reason he could snap and walk away was because you are earning a salary and you both have joint savings. However, if you are able to look forward and he is able to find a job which suits him better, then I think that’s okay.

Imagine he'd come to you and said - "I really want to quit right now for these reasons, we'll have to cut back X amount of spending which I thought we could do here, here and here." Would you have said, "We can't possibly stop those expenditures or change the lifestyle we have," or would you have said "ok let's look at how we do life on a lower income". I think your husband is really wrong for making this decision without you. However something in my post makes me think that maybe you wouldn't have contemplated a different lifestyle to enable your husband to quit if you'd known, and, if that's true, you are as bad as him.

Total green Happyjo, no wonder marriages don't last. First disagreement divorce e and chuck him out is the first thing some say..

Defsit and talk it through thoroughly should be the first step.

That sounds more positive. I can understand him not wanting the responsibility of a job, especially one he's not happy in.

Fingers ant toes crossed something crops up very soon to get back sharing finances again.

I am surprised by the level of condemnation and blame on this thread.

Has no-one been in a really toxic work environment with a bullying boss? Or tried to get a job aged late 40s/early 50s recently? It is an incredibly tough job market at the moment - especially if you want to stay in your field. Even a student retail gig often requires an assessment afternoon scrutp00inizing your personality for "cultural fit".

This story is about mental health which men are notoriously bad at.

OP - your partner does sound in total denial about his responsibilities.

Can he get a job in Christmas retail to keep the money coming in? For example a food delivery driver? This will take the pressure off. Or even fo Uber?

Could you put a room in your house on Airbnb?

Do you have some friends you can confide in to help?

The aftermath of a horrible work environment and bullying managers shouldn't have to trigger total marital breakdown. I'm not an expert on relationships but there must be a way of standing firm on your household requiring income without stripping out all empathy. Your main anger seems to be that he made this decision to quit unilaterally which isn't great but everyone has a tipping point.

He's a man so he should just swallow his feelings and crack on with providing. That seems to be the theme here.

"he just doesn’t want to work at 49 anymore."

The last line of op's post.

Nothing op has said then or since has suggested hes being bullied, or its toxic, just that he dislikes his job and working. Boohoo.

Maybe because she hadn't spoken to him yet to discover that actually, not surprisingly, there was a very good reason he did what he did. He was terminally unhappy and hadn't shared that with OP, likely because they just don't have that type of mutually intimate and trusting relationship.

I'd be horrified my partner couldn't turn to me before he left. I'd feel i had really let him down.

Has no-one been in a really toxic work environment with a bullying boss? Or tried to get a job aged late 40s/early 50s recently?

Sure I have, went home crying almost every day. But bills had to be paid and kids fed, so I had to stay until I found something else (or got rid of the bully, as I did in that case). You can't just walk out one fine day when you have responsibilities and expect your partner to somehow manage those without any discussion. If he was so miserable, he should have talked to OP first.

If you want people to be able to turn to you, you have to foster an environment where that seems like a good idea and a source of comfort and understanding. If he knew he would be ridiculed and bollocked by her, too, why would he bother?

Use the mortgage charter to move the term to as long as possible or go interest only for now to give you some breathing space while he isn’t contributing

He would and should have bothered to tell her because the alternative is relying on his wife. He has no right to impose this on her without discussion when it’s having a direct impact on her.

If he was single he would probably have thought twice about this and not done it until he had another job lined up.

He can’t have it both ways - say she doesn’t support him with his problems but then force her to support him when he walks out his job.

I remember when I quit a job when I was younger (no kids or partner) and some family members and friends made some digs at me. I told them well they weren’t paying for my rent or bills or food so they could butt out. Plus I had my postgraduate student loan as backup. However this is an entirely different situation.

He is asking, no forcing actualy, his wife to pick up the slack. And it’s not as if he’s saying “sorry I did this @bottletop26 i can understand this puts you in a bad position but something in me just snapped and my mental health is at an all time low. I’ll try my best to get another job asap even if it’s casual Christmas work until I find another permanent job /work in my field ”. (And that’s a generous interpretation of what happened btw, Op hasn’t said he’s depressed or anything).

He is hinting at the idea of not working again and being a “house husband” (with no young kids in the house). I’m sure Op is worried that weeks might turns to months and then so on. You see it on here all the time.

The assumptions being made on this thread based on pure imagination are absolutely wild.

He likely knows that if he tried to explain how he feels at work, it would be dismissed.

We have it confirmed that husband revealed he has been very unhappy for some time. No imagination needed. Only compassion if you have any.

My points still stand.

If you demand your partner picks up financial slack when you make a decision , you need to discuss said decision with partner before taking action.

Or at the very least do some damage control if you’ve already left without discussion and be looking seriously for a new job not hinting you don’t want to go back into the workforce.

That depends if youve tried to swallow what is going on for too long and you just crack. That's why we have to make sure that we foster that type of relationship all the time so we don't get to cracking point and drop a bombshell.

It’s like “hey wifey I don’t trust or respect you enough to tell you I’m wanting to quit my job, and I don’t care about burdening you by making you the sole provider by force. So I won’t bother to line up a new job to ensure there’s no break in income … but I’m going to depend on you financially until I get round to finding a new job and for now I’ll be a ‘house husband’ despite us having no young kids in the house”

In what world is any of that reasonable?

If he was genuinely mistreated in work (and I have been in previous jobs) he could at least have went to HR and tried to get an ACAS negotiated settlement agreement so he left with a lump sum. There’s options to take in these situations, but forcibly making your partner become the sole provider with no discussion isn’t the way.

He should also have had compassion for the burden she may feel and her mental health. Or at least be reassuring her now that he will get a new job asap, and making haste to find work even if it’s a Christmas temp while he applies for permanent roles.

Thank you for spectacularly, but I assume unintendedly, proving my point.

Wont be engaging with you again. You're quite strange tbh. Im not great with strange.

Its more like "you've never shown compassion or understanding when I have struggled before, so I kept on going until I couldn't any more. I couldn't face your derision and belittlement of my perceived weakness like Ive become accustomed to when I have shared with you, so I bottled it up until I had to spill".

Yes strange because I recognise men as people with feelings and flaws and things. Not just donkeys who bring back a wage packet.