How to leave DP when I’m a SAHM.

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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.

Yeah, thats the thing men dont get when they're all wanging on about how "women love older men".

Uhhh women love older men for the wealth, power and sense of control they bring, the lifestyle they can provide and a general aura.

They aren't shacking up with 52 year old Billy who stacks shelves in Aldi.

It doesn't sound like you're in a bad relationship. It sounds like you were naive about what you happily signed up for. Get yourself out there earning money. It may well be that your partner steps up to the household responsibilities then. If not, you will still be in a better position should you chose to leave the relationship.

She CANT work. She is doing several jobs already. Full time child care. House keeper. Cook. Cleaner. Laundromat operator. Gardener.

He won’t find child care so that she can study or work. She is trapped. And he is abusing her labour.

Women all over the world work and run households and care for children, in the same day. Pull the other one.

So you know one woman who has married an older man and think that means lots of young women want to marry old men so they do don't have to work. We're not in the 1950s. Even rich film stars are generally marrying women their own age.

She has ‘paid’ for her life with her labour …and has gathered no financial security…so she has worked as a slave not an equal. OP has subsidised her DP in being a parent and family man at exceptionally low cost ..and none to his own efforts.

The idea of saving for a deposit is spurious as OP has no stake in the home you mention and was not properly paid for her contribution..which is extensive

And that's why the birth rate is dropping. Women around the world have realised it is not a good deal.

Because someone in their very early 20s is YOUNG, and a partner 20 years older is a predator.

Hope that helps 😃

Deeply misogynistic.........ok 😂 Well I'd certainly rather my form of 'misogyny' than yours which is absolutely vile and deeply harmful to young women.

She is NOT trapped, a slave or a servant!!’

I would strongly advise you to contact women's aid for advise as you're in a very vulnerable position.
I was in a very similar situation, compleyely trapped.
I was the sahm with 2 young children, no job, no access to money, not married, house in his name only. He'd promised we'd get married and buy a house together but once I was pregnant refused.
He earned the money and paid bills so refused to help at all with home or kids. He was also extremely abusive.
With support from womens aid I'm now in my own home and with a job and not at all financially dependent on him.
I couldn't have done it without women's aid support.

You found nothing to argue with in my post, did you?
Your views are outdated. You are championing a self-victimisation narrative that keeps women chained to the house and cloistered away. Do better.

Absolutely not. Maybe in the 1950s but this is 2026.

I am a stay at home parent and you can bet that I expect my husband to be contributing 50/50 to both housework and parenting when we are both at home. I also do not get the choice to have a "lazy day" when I am caring for our 4 children aged 6 and under when he isn't home. I do not get any opportunity at all to do big housework tasks when I am solely responsible for young children and those are left until evenings or weekends when they are shared between us. I will do the basics throughout the day and our house is generally very clean and tidy due to doing these things as we go but there's absolutely no chance whatsoever I'm taking on ALL the housework and parenting 24/7 or indeed all the "mental load" type tasks just because he works. He is also the first person who will admit that what I do during the day is just as hard work, if not more, than what he does at his paid job.

Yes, from when he returns home after work and at weekends he should be doing just as much as I am. This includes tidying up, preparing meals, doing dishes, cleaning, hoovering, bath time, bed time, night feeds, doing washings, getting kids stuff ready for the next day, dressing kids in the mornings, changing nappies etc.

I am most certainly not lazy and I already do work from dawn til dusk. I am almost constantly on the go (yes I am on mumsnet right now but please do get over it as pointing this out proves nothing) or thinking about the next task that needs done. No woman should be expected to work 24 hours a day 7 days a week while their so called partner leaves it all to her and comes home to put his feet up then excuses it by saying well he earns money and pays the bills. That's disgusting.

What would the consequences be of not being married or in a civil partnership is the law said she has to have a fair share of the couples assets of they split up?

It's way overdue that we recognised that committed partnerships with children to support, and committed partnerships with financially naive partners should be treated the same on breaking up as other partnerships.

I am glad somebody saw through it. I have a dear old friend, a committed gold-digger - she did exactly the same after university. He was very rich, she got pregnant, as she said, not to work but SAHM. She thought he would marry her immediately after a child, but he did not. His family got wind of her being very money-oriented and started interfering by pointing it out to him that he was being 'played'. I don't think he was being played - he bought her youth and beauty (she was a stunner) and she got what she wanted, a house in Chiswick at 20, amazing life-style, and all day to herself, he worked crazy hours. Then her best friend started whispering in her ear, i.e. you are not realising your full potential, he is not putting you on the deeds, etc. So she decided to split up, his family put the child in a very good boarding school, she got nothing. Her child now has a wonderful relationship with the dad, his new wife and their children. She was out on her arse, but not for long. She is extremely beautiful and pleasant and a pleasure to be around, so she found a new man and lives (happily unmarried) with him.

Four children under 6 is not a representative situation. Two children, one in school is perfectly feasible and it's what she signed up for when she started this relationship with a much older and very wealthy man.

Your views are vile.
I'd tell you to do better yourself but I'm sure you'll just stay toxic.

This woman is not intending on staying chained to the house, it's posts like yours which are trying to tell her she signed up for this, you reap what you sow and all that so she should run along like a good little woman and get scrubbing those floors and get on her hands and knees and polish her husbands shoes for him when he gets in from work.

She's raising 2 of her own children in a lovely home with no bills and no pressure to go to work and contribute.

Her day with her children is her own.

Compared to the lives of 99% of women she's got it made.

She does 100% of the childcare but 0% of the non child related life contributions.

100 + 0 = 100

Other families do 50:50

50 + 50 = 100

Either way, she's hardly being exploited.

Her problems are OF HER OWN MAKING.

I feel sorry for the man, sorry, cashpoint machine....

Yes she has!
For an intelligent woman OP has been daft.
A lot of earlier posts including mine have made sensible suggestions - she now has do something about it!

Hoovering your house and making food is not "work". Its called life maintenance and literally every single fully functioning adult on this planet does it.
You realise that, right?

Yes she is. Shes asking for advice on how she can get him to do more around the house?

How is he a cash machine when we have no idea what level of financial access to she even has, but can assume from the OPs post that she has no financial freedom? No access to bank account, given that she can’t pay for childcare to go to work

She has contributed, she's given him two children and cared for them, him and their home.

Why would he pay twice? He's paying his partner to do it. What's she going to do if he starts paying someone to do the chores she's agreed to do as a SAHM?

There is no power imbalance. He didn't hold a gun to her head. She chose to be a SAHM. Now she doesn't want to so she can get a job and/or leave. She doesn't belong to him nor does she have a contract. She can do whatever she wants whenever she wants. (Obviously within the boundaries she has personally created when she threw away her degree and wasted career development time by being a SAHM).

No way, is it? Hadn't realised. Thanks for pointing that out. However, it seems you may want to read my post again as nowhere did I claim that running the hoover round and making food were the only tasks that exist to keep my household functioning.

Also, if these tasks are so easy then why can't he do them after his awfully difficult day at his oh so important paid job?