How to leave DP when I’m a SAHM.

[Optionsneeded]

SAHM. Two children under the age of 5.

My partner does nothing other than work and pay for everything.

I do 100% of the childcare and housework, even at weekends. Anytime I ask for help with anything around the house, it’s met with huffing and puffing and although it’s never been said out loud, I know he expects that this is my job as he goes to work. I genuinely mean that I do 100% of everything house and child related.

I am completely fed up of this.

I had our first DC right after finishing university (there is an 19 year age gap between us). Unfortunately I am no longer qualified to go back into what I trained as, and would need to start back from the beginning with a new career. However I have no time to train in anything as I do 100% of the childcare. DP will not pay for any childcare nor would he reduce his house to help with this.

I would like to make a plan to leave but I’m stuck. We are not married. Looking for ideas and advice on my next steps.

She can't become a pharmacist now without starting the degree again. She couldn't be a technician either. The degree is useful for other things though.

Some highly constructive advice finally in amidst all the lemon lips.

Many women in this situation prefer to leave, still do everything by themselves and have to struggle financially rather than stay in this type of dynamic which just shows how awful many women find it in the first place.

The victim narrative is STRONG!!! She isn’t some handmaiden.

No money and no assets? But we dont know the background. Does OP live in an expensive house, buy designer clothes, have beauty treatments go out for nice meals, go on nice holidays, drive a nice car. All of which require money that she doesnt earn but he does. Or is she a poor servant in rags living on dry bread. (Exaggeration)

There is no job that just provides board and lodging. People need money too for independence.

Would you also deny your partner any money, access to it, refuse to do ANY childcare, refuse to pay for nursery so your partner can work?

Being the SAHM yep day to day childcare is your responsibility, NOT being the household skivvy without a seconds help or support from your partner.

Exactly, she isn't, hence why she's making a plan to leave, because he is treating her like she is one.

You're the one on here trying to make her feel like she should be one and be happy about it, even though she plans to leave.

No it is not slavery.

It could be reasonably argued that she IS receiving payment by having ALL her bills paid in return for her labour.

More than that, though - and this is where it gets really absurd and frankly fucking insulting to the people all over the world who genuinely have no choice in their slavery- she can walk out whenever she wants.

And she will be assisted in this by all kinds of agencies including the welfare state

My guess that if he earns 14k a month he's working some very long hours, anyway.
But of course, the OP has omitted this very significant detail.

I can’t imagine she does or she funnel that money elsewhere or use it for nursery for her youngest.

@Optionsneeded sorry if you’ve answered this but why is your eldest in school only part time? Once your youngest gets their funded hours could that give you some freedom?

Agree. He’s treating her like an indentured servant.

I don't think whether the house is expensive is relevant. It isn't hers and if she isn't being given money she won't be choosing the clothes if money either. You must be a man if you think being a slave so you can be given board, designer clothes and beauty treatments is a good deal.

Pharmacy is a very useful degree OP. Can you get a student loan and do a part time masters while you have the youngest at home? It won’t be easy but people do it. You can work in R&D and plenty of roles in the NHS, you’d have to start lower to get some experience going but you can quickly progress. You may be stuck there a while but the time is passing anyway

How can she walk out when she has mo money and two small children? Should she just leave them in the house to fend for themselves?

Get a cleaner he can afford one. Or get 20% of his salary.

What an awful comment. She’s doing non stop unpaid labour and her reward is to be completely trapped.

I haven't read any drip feeding, just the original post. So I may have missed further info, not sure where it said she doesn't have access to money, just that he won't pay for her to retrain. That's his choice because it's his money. Nothing stopping her from getting a job when children go to school and saving up her own money.

It can also be argued that she's treating him like a workhorse to pay her bills.

All is currently fair.

And it's nobody else's fault but her own that she didn't sort out the financial side of this before having children.

She should just leave if she's unhappy but I suspect she won't because she's never had to work and underneath all her complaining has a very comfortable lifestyle.
I doubt she's wearing stuff from Primark or eating Tesci's essential range baked beans.

Presumably she chose to have children when she had no money and no assets too at 21ish?

Shes never had any money then...

But he's provided for her and massively raised her standard of life. People with no money, who have never had a full time job, rarely live in nice houses with all bills paid for...

She knew 'the deal' at 21.

She liked it.

She signed up for it.

"no need to save tens of thousands for deposit on a house??? Yesss please!!! no monthly mortgage payments or worries about interest rates! Yes please... . No council tax? Yesss! No bills, hundreds on water, gas, elec, yesssss! No worries about CV applications, job interviews or professional development? Yesss!!!"

Basically, in her early 20s, by getting pregnant with him, she signed off all of the above... UTTERLY AMAZING!!!

Now, she has changed her mind but has enjoyed not having to worry about paying for her life...

Er, you reap what you sow. But don't pretend to be so innocent and paint this chap as taking advantage of a naive 21 year old... It could easily be perceived as the other way round.

He's probably telling his mates that she 'saw me coming'... (she did!)

... If he was as poor as her at that time she wouldn't have looked twice at him.

I guarantee that :)

Why do you keep banging on about how "young" she was when she got with him?

She was 22.

There are "young men" or "boys" younger than that fighting for our country and patrolling our streets.

For every "young naive woman" like her, theres the other 95% of "young women" who think to themselves: "hmmm, i guess i could just shack up with this older man im shagging, but actually I think i want to get a job now im done with uni, maybe see a bit of the world, get my own place".

Posts like yours are deeply misogynistic and infantilising. You treat grown ass women with freedom of choice like silly little girls who need chaperoning through life like they are lambs. OP made an active decision to date a man 20 years older than her (WTAF - suggests she was actively looking to be "shepherded" at the time). She actively decided to not work, despite the tax payer funding her through university (unpaid student loan presumably), and she decided to have two children with this man.

Now that shes had the two children she wanted, shes decided that actually shes not happy with the agreement she signed. Probably hes also not the fun hot 40 year old he was once, and she can probably see further down the line to when he will be an old man before shes even hit the menopause.

The reason this is infuriating is because it undermines women as a whole. You read posts on here that could have been written in the 50s, and theres no excuse for it. Not in this day and age. To willfully abandon any sense of self duty like that.

The other infuriating part is that after all this, after a decade or so of a man footing the bill, it'll be time to switch tracks, and this time it'll be the taxpayers turn to pick up the tab.

Pharmacy is a 4 year course, so presume she was at least 22? Not that young to have kids.

Get your name on the housing list with the council.

Read about child maintenance and he will have to pay. Unless he's self employed (he may get out of it and fiddle his earnings).

UC will help you with childcare costs upto 80%. Look into. Start job looking today you claim as a single person if you are not together in the same house.

You’re absolutely not wrong to be at your wit’s end OP, and I have every sympathy for you. Nobody deserves 7 days a week of drudgery, no matter how much their partner earns. My partner is the higher earner and I work part time, but there’s been no question of him not taking part in housework or childcare - I don’t know why women are arguing that you signed up for this so you have to put up with it. Feeling your partner has your financial interests at heart is important.

It depends how much longer you can bear to be there, but have you looked at a counter job with one of the big pharmacists as a foot in the door and a means to getting your confidence back and hopefully getting supported to carry on on your career on the path you were always meant to have? Places like Boots have training routes for newly qualified pharmacists.

If you are thinking of leaving, I know of women who have proposed themselves for future hardship by stocking up on things you will need for children. Eg clothes in bigger sides, nappies, but also adding a £25 supermarket gift card every week. It’s not nice that people have to do this, but if you think he’ll let his children go without in the future it’s wise.

This is patently untrue. OP is supporting DP ..if her contribution was costed she would be owed all the things I mentioned and more

This is rather an ethnic abusive relationship or a gold-digger went wrong scenario. Either way, I don't get the vibe 'I want to go to work and stand on my own two feet'. I think the OP wants advise on how to rinse her partner, not our suggestions on employment. So, all this talk about 'naive' young girl getting together with the wrong person is odd, frankly. She did not get together with a poor old man, she went for a rich old man. Again, if there is a strong ethnic element here, I apologise.