To stay in my marriage for money

[nothingcancompare]

I’m aware that that’s an inflammatory thread title bur u guess that is what it boils down to. So to give a bit more detail.

DH and I have two children ; DD is 5 and in reception and our ds is nearly three. I work two and a half days a week, and it’s in a school so off for school holidays.

Before we had children I thought we’d roughly be equal parents. This has not been thr case at all. DH definitely sees anything he does do with the children as a sort of optional extra rather than what has to be done, and everything is left to me. I can count the times he’s had them both together on one hand: that isn’t an exaggeration. Even if he does do something I have to prep everything, so for example he takes DD to school on Friday and collects her as I’m at work, but I have to dress her, give her breakfast, clean teeth, pack bag etc.

As a result the children just gravitate more and more to me. Even if he does do something he just creates more work for me, so if I go out for a couple of hours the house is trashed when I get back, he doesn’t cook for them

Obviously I’ve tried to address it with him, he just goes on the defensive and hones in on a particular occasion (yeah well they started fighting so …) or just whines generally which I hate and is difficult to answer. So now five and a half years down the line I do have to accept this is how things are.

I don’t get a break at all. I get up when the children do, tend to then through the day and night in one case and am responsible for their diet, activities and getting them to said activities and everything. Seven days a week, it’s relentless and I’m already dreading the long school holidays.

So here is where the title is relevant. Truthfully I’ve lost a lot of respect for DH and I’ve come to realise that while he’s basically a kind man he’s also selfish and lazy.

Ending the marriage is one possibility but I’m not sure when I think about it that it would help anything. Yes, I wouldn’t have resentment but the children would be upset and their lives overturned (new schools and nurseries, new home, etc.)

Or if I stay as I am. I have one more year to get through and then when both children are in school I will have a couple of days a week for me. Otherwise, I’d have to be full time and I’m not sure I can take working full time in term time and then switching to full time childcare in holidays.

I know it’s awful and I don’t consider myself a mercenary person but I have to also think about what’s realistic in terms of my mental health and family stability

I know, it’s just what people here can be like. It’s not that I resent them. Just very tired and it does sting on Saturdays and Sundays when DH is lying in bed while I’m fighting for my life. I don’t believe anyone wouldn’t feel the same.

He's only out for himself and if he can find a woman prepared to do all the parenting EOW and be the new dogsbody (and as we see every day on here, there are plenty of those women), he might do. Remember that his primary motivation is what suits him and he has no thought for anyone else's needs or wishes.

ETA: Or all the parenting on 50:50 so he doesn't have to pay CM. Lots of women get suckered into something like that even for someone else's kids. Point is, he is only out for himself and he'll make choices accordingly.

If he leaves he leaves; he won’t, but if we could stop this it would help.

Of course most people would feel the same.

I think if he's willing to let 2 young kids trash a house & leave it for Op to sort out there's no respect there is there?

I wouldn't bank on him sticking around if something else turned up!

You wouldn't be alone in staying due to financial reasons.

My friend has a dreadful DH, and I mean truly awful. Think shouty, online cheating and coercive control. The only reason she can just about put up with him is because he works away all week, so she only has to see him over the weekend.

They have 3 children and live in nice house. She makes £45k pa, he is on £70k. If they were to split she wouldn't afford to keep the house on her own, there isn't much equity in it so she couldn't afford to buy another, she wouldn't be able to get a mortgage anyway and she would really struggle to rent on her own with 3 kids in our area. The reality is she would have to move back in with her parents.

She has told me that she would be much more miserable having live with her parents like the woman in the shoe, than she is now having to look at him for two nights a week.

I totally understand where she is coming from. Whether I could put up with him myself is another matter.

Couple of points on this -

Your experience I'm sure is not uncommon (my own uncle is a classic example - still bitter even as his own retirement approaches), but in a lot of cases, the atmosphere with unhappy, resentful together parents is a much worse one for children than a perhaps one where the parents have less, but are not as resentful or unhappy.

My own DW is the product of 2 miserable parents who stayed together "for her" (read, too scared to split), and have consequently endured each others' abuse for half a century, with the added bonus of a daughter (my DW) carrying huge guilt for being the reason why...

Surely you would just point out they’re also his children? If he still doesn’t help then you’d be a fool to stay and put up with his lack of help just so you can work part time

So get your bedtime routine in order and get them both down by 7.30

you work 2 and half days, term time. Its the ultimate in part time. You just sound like you are always ready with and excuse. Do you need to do prep 7 days a week? So organise to do the gym twice at week at 8pm. There you go, you just clawed back your needed me time.

If the 3 year old wakes up in the night and their dad happens to be there, great. He has to parent then, not your problem if you are out doing your thing.

We are all tired. Thats parenting. I have a two year old, I accept that they are work but lets not make out that its impossible.

Your shit husband is shit, stop fascilitating it or walk away. But that wouldn't suit you because you'd miss the money and part time job

What would happen if you sent them in to him?

You need to keep at him. This was DH and yes I did lose respect for him that I never recovered. But I do still love and like him and I know life would be way harder without him around. I am not with him for the money. I genuinely like and love him. But financial security plays a large part in our happiness and sanity and shouldn't be underestimated.

Try to discuss it without criticising, so he doesn't go on the defensive. Make yourself less available. I would happily white lie and say I had to be at work for an early meeting for three Fridays in a row, so show him where packed lunch food is kept, tell him how long it takes to wrangle the kids and make the food, and add some contingency time for it being his first try. Then go off and have coffee somewhere for an hour before work. Three weeks in a row, he'll have got the hang of things.

One thing that really improved our marriage was divvying up the weekends into chunks of four hours. We agreed we'd each get four hours to ourselves, while the other had both DC. In that time you can go out, see friends, go to a class or stay in bed and the other one has to remove Dc from house so you get a proper lie in, for example. Then each take one Dc for four hours, as caring for one child is way easier than two. Either do something fun with them or do necessary chores like shopping and cleaning, but getting them involved. Then one chunk you spend together as a family doing something fun, and another chunk just together as a family milling around doing bits around the house and garden or mooching and watch ing TV. One chunk is date night for you. Get a sitter. Every weekend. When we started, I was just like you - fixing packed lunches and nappy bags and spare changes of clothes for DC, but when it was my turn to take them out, DH did nothing. I stopped enabling.

Gradually I stopped all sorts of enabling. He became far more involved. He still felt he deserved a halo for it - still does - which I also find makes me lose respect for him. But no one is perfect. He really has become an active dad. You have to allow him to do things his way, not yours. But it's not fair for him to leave a mess for you to clear up. If there's a mess, everyone chips in.

Yup - just because you work part time doesn’t mean all parenting falls to you. You & your DH should be aiming for an equal amount of free time when not working or doing childcare. His working FT is not a get out of jail free card for leaving evenings and weekends to you. I appreciate some lone mothers have to cope with it all by necessity but that is not your situation op.

If you’re going to stay (is it the least bad option?) you need to claw back some time for yourself. Could you book a regular, competent weekly babysitter one evening a week so you get time to yourself? Otherwise you’ll have to hang in there until DC2 starts school.

Except that he’ll probably try to make you go up to full time then. And still do all the childcare.

It’s not unreasonable to have one partner earning and the other looking after the household and family life.

It’s how my parent’s marriage worked.

ideally he would want to spend time with his children but once they are both at school you will have some time to yourself.

the things to get right are to ensure that you have access to all the finances and ask yourself why you are working outside the home at all? If you enjoy it fair enough but if he want that level of support he should be earning enough to support you all and have some support in the home, too.

That's such a horrible thing to say. There's nothing to say OP begrudges looking after her DC. But she IS exhausted, and simply sharing how she feels. What happened to empathy? It's perfectly reasonable for her to expect her partner to pull his weight as husband and father.

If this post was written by a man who worked part time and his wife worked full time but didn’t help with the children, I’m sure the replies would be in favour of the woman!!

Not from me.

When my niece was 3 my now exBIL had never taken her to the toilet. Her and my sister weren't allowed in the house between 8am and 7pm on Saturday and Sunday and he did zero child care when in the evenings either. He had given her one bath in her life and that was when my sister had to a week of late shifts as overtime. Both of them worked full time.

Once they split up he didn't see her for 4 months and never asked to see her until the discussions about child maintenance started and all of a sudden he was able to have her for one day every weekend and two evenings in the week. I say "he" she was taken to his mother's house and she stayed there so he still didn't have to do child care. By the time she was 7 it was a 50:50 custody and arrangement. He was living with a girlfriend by this point.

It sounds like an awful situation to be in and I think that both stay as you are and leaving both sound like poor ideas. The dream would be for him to start showing up as a parent and partner. At the moment he is keeping you "in your place" with his bare bones parenting. When they make it harder for you to ask than you to do it yourself it is purely to get you to stop asking. It means you keep raising your bar for when you ask him to do things. You need to do the opposite, slowly increase what you expect of him when he is being default parent. I would start with the Friday he does the drop off. Engineer a reason to be out of the house earlier than planned so that he has to do more of the getting her ready either breakfast or getting her dressed. Leave which ever you chose out so it's minimal effort on his part. The comment on how much better that morning routine went and suggest you now so it every Friday. As the weeks go on get him to start the getting out. Then start looking for other small tasks that you can pass on to him.

The danger of waiting until your youngest to start school is that the resentment will build and there is nothing like deep seeded resentment to make you miserable and your days off have a big climb to provide you with balance. I think you need to start slowly nudging him into being a more present and supportive parent.

If he's like this, what makes you think he won't expect you to go back full time once your youngest is school age anyway?

This is really poor - what is the possible justification for not taking it in turns for a lie in at the weekends.

I think I’d insist on it, that might be a deal breaker for me.

Oh sweet summer child. He sounds like the kind of man who will then tell you that you can work full time now with all this extra time.

A kind man isn't selfish. Those two things are at odds with each other. In terms of behaviour to another person, being kind does not include consistently putting oneself first.

I've seen your scenario multiple times on Mumsnet and I'm sorry you found out the hard way that your husband probably wanted a traditional set-up which includes a wife at home to do most domestic and childcare tasks. Some men find this out once they're in the position of being the main breadwinner, and not wanting to let go of that, but I think a lot of men are also simply dishonest. He sees childcare as women's work, and he is showing you that by his actions, by not being proactive in helping you have a break or making issues for you when you do try to do that.

He does what he does because he thinks he can get away with it. I'm guessing that he's waited until you've had children and are economically vulnerable before he showed his true colours. It's so damaging to a marriage.

Are people still doing this shit??

OP, I could have written something similar 20 years ago. Now, we basically live separate lives, but live in the same house and sleep in the same bed. He works all the hours, and I've taken early retirement. I've got money to do what I want, and he supports that. It suits us. No drama. Nothing horrible. Just bobbing along.

He works long hours but doesn’t seem to earn enough for a nanny or, at the very least, a cleaner? Are you sure he’s not having an affair?