WIBU to divorce due to DH quitting his job whilst I’m a SAHM?

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We have young children under the age of 5.

I’m a SAHM whilst DH works (which we are both in agreement with). He has a high earning role, but has been increasingly unhappy with the politics of the job.

He came home and announced that he is quitting tomorrow. Nothing lined up but says he will ‘make it work’. Worst case scenario we will have to sell our home and downsize.

Despite him having a well paid role, we have zero savings as our outgoings are high and due to some other factors. We have a minimum debt payment of £3,000 per month (DH brings home approx £10,000 per month).

I am considering telling him that it’s over between us if he does this. I am fed up of picking up everything family-wise for him to just throw our lives into turmoil like this.

It’s not necessarily a logical reaction but I think it would be extremely stressful to be the sole earner when 1/3 of your take home pay is eaten up by debt repayments! Sounds like a recipie for total disaster and burn out!
He’s unreasonable for quitting but you’re unreasonable for not working given the wider extension of the free house and the level of household debt.

Oh, my apologies. Yes, it's very foolish but even if it happens, surely you'd take immediate steps to minimise your outgoings to try and get back on track. Knowing you have so much debt must be very stressful.

SleepingStandingUp
and honestly if DH announced this I'd be thinking wtf, how has it got this bad, let's talk, let me support you, let's work this out together
not fuck you, I'm leaving.
so honestly sounds like the relationship is already done.
leave regardless of his employment status,

This. Dh had a heart attack due to the crap layered on him in his job. I said you ever want to walk out you do it and we’ll figure it out

I think people really underestimate how much mortgages repayments cost these days. Borrowed £400k, prepayments £2,800 a month. We live in a 3 bed semi in a city. Not a v flash house. Huge mortgages are standard these days.

Lot of it is predicated on ‘where’ they live, I have to admit, and whether they looked at having a FT or PT nanny. I did double check the school fees on a few well known but not elite local schools, as mine are now 18 an 21 and I am flabbergasted at how much those have gone up since mine started (not until y4 and 7). By the final year of having 2 sets of fees, we were paying around £55k in school fees and that was before the addition of VAT. Was soooo relieved when both asked to go to state 6th forms!!

In my town and a few others within 10-15miles, the average for a ‘naice’ four bed is 850-1.5m, so I used that as a reference. I only know the cost of a rail card because my DH comes home spitting nails about all the cancellations, delays and the fact that he feels robbed!

The exercise has made me pop on line and check our household monthly payments though - they all go out of DH’s account, but I have all the log on deets so can always see what we’re spending. They are actually more than I ‘quoted’ above as my DC are profligate energy wasters. No idea if that leaves DH masses left over for hookers and cocaine though. 🤣

Well if you were working too you could afford a nanny. But plenty of people in a marriage both work full time and manage to make it work without a nanny.

OP you are in such a precarious position - you've never worked and the longer you are out of the employment market, the harder it will be for you to get a job. You have no clue about the household finances, and apparently no desire to know. You have a high amount of debt and no way of knowing whether this will increase or decrease. You are signing up to school fees with all of this going on (there are free schools, you know). Who knows what your pension arrangements will be.

You need to take some responsibility for your own life and that of your children. A head in the sand, stomping your feet kind of existence won't solve these problems.

And fwiw, I do agree with the PP that said it's a lot of stress and pressure to be the sole breadwinner in a family - it in no way compares to being a SAHM. In a proper partnership you'd be talking through this and working out a way for you both to support the family. You both sound pretty immature tbh.

What makes you think "people" aren't also living and paying their way?

The median income for a full time employee in their 40s in the UK is between 42k and 45k per annum, and after tax and other compulsory deductions that's just under 3k per month.

Average earners also house their families.

Nobody is forced to buy a bigger house when earning 3 or 4 times the median income than they would if earning closer to the average. High earners do not have to have higher costs (with the sole exception, possibly under certain circumstances of childcare for a very short time period). Certainly there is no compulsory higher mortgage.

I don’t see how you or your children will be financially better of if you get divorced. You have no income and if he has no job then he can’t pay you any cms. Either way you’ll end up having to get a job. With such huge debt payments it doesn’t sound like you can afford for you not to work.

Not all the 4 bed houses where you live are a minimum of £850k though are they? You’re projecting some rich person life that doesn’t align with a household with one earner on £150-200k. It’s not the lifestyle of a million a year

The level of delusional people have to be to think that a high-earning spouse cannot do their job without another parent at home, is incredible. We really need to stop saying that line because it fools people - mostly women - into thinking they are indispensable in a SAH set-up and it just isn't true and they are screwed when they realise just how wrong they are.

And to say all he has to do is provide and earn? WTAF? Does the OP think he just sits at his desk twiddling his thumbs, laughing with colleagues and sending the occasional email and he gets paid 200k+ per annum? If it's so easy, all these SAHPs who think their jobs are more stressful than a high-level, demanding job should do it.

And to the people saying OP can't walk into a similar-paying job? Well, obviously! You need actual skills, qualifications, experience and competencies to be paid like that. OP's husband isn't just being paid because he's a man. It takes time and effort to be that qualified and highly paid. So many SAHPs say they gave up a career to facilitate their spouses but upon questioning you realise there was never a career - only a couple smaller jobs, nor are they well-qualified, so again it's delusional to say they gave up so much to allow them their spouse to do what they do. Your spouse earned their qualifications and experience and that's why they're paid as they are. Can you imagine if a man working in retail who gave up his job to see about his kids tried to take credit for his wife being a consultant or a surgeon? Madness!

Anyway, it's a moot point here. OP sees her husband as a pay cheque and the provider of their lifestyle only and thinks she does everything else, which is funny as doesn't seem to have a clue about their budget or finances, so I'd say seeing how resentful she is and how little he apparently does, it'd be best if she left, got a job and provided for herself. Especially since it's so much easier than what's she's currently doing.

OP, I know nothing about your marriage or DH. I can tell you about my DF, though. As soon as he had children he became incapable of coping with work pressure. Left job after job, for similar reasons as your DH - “being asked to do things he wasn’t happy with” (finance). Didn’t tell my DM, continued to run up debts, remortgaged the house. House was eventually repossessed, the first DM knew about it was when the bailiffs turned up to change the locks (this was back in 90s). Not saying this is what your DH would do, but if any of it sounds familiar… don’t bury your head. You’re already asking questions. Put yourself and your DCs first. It sounds like he won’t.

Have you seen the price of property in London and the south-east?! And the amount the train companies charge for monthly passes??

I really sympathise with OP and think some posters are being very harsh on her. My DH has done a similar thing. Slightly different as we both work. We need both our salaries to pay mortgage and bills. He has been unhappy in his job for a few years now. I come home from work and listen patiently whilst he vents. I asked if he needs to see the doctor and get signed off to give him a breather and some thinkng time. I've suggested that he finds something else and that we can tighten our belts and figure things out if he takes a salary cut. I've looked at websites and showed him alternative jobs that might suit him. I've said I'll support whatever he chooses to do but asked that he does not leave current job without something else to go to. He has made no effort to find something else. I got a message from him at work a couple of weeks ago to say that he had handed his notice in. Thankfully HR at his work gave him 24 hours to decide it was definitely what he wanted before they accepted and he changed his mind.

If OP and her husband have an agreement that he works and she is SAHM, he can't just give up his job one day anymore than she can just walk out of the house and say she no longer wants to look after the children. Of course their roles and responsibilities can change but they have to put a plan in place for this to happen.

But he's not going to be doing his job anyway so that's just an excuse.
Is just really stressed and needs some time off, maybe while looking for a new job? If he needs to be off sick then that's better than him just quitting? Have you discussed that?
I think you both need to go to work. If you are earning too he won't need such a high stress, high paying job. Obviously you will need childcare but if you're paying for private school presumably you can afford nursery.
It still reads like you are just with DH for his money. Regardless of what's going on you don't respond to your DH leaving his job by getting divorced. And you won't be able to live if you have no job. You can't just decide to be skint for a while and then go back to work when you're ready. You need a roof over your kids head and food on the table.
I know being a SAHM isn't always easy and it sounds like he's financially controlling but you can't just divorce with no money or job.

Being a SAHM doesn’t absolve you from being involved in the finances. It makes no difference who earns the income, both partners need to be involved seen as both are dependent on a single wage.

It’s not good enough to say your DH wanted you as a SAHM. You clearly wanted this too, otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it. It’s not good enough to say, that you didn’t understand what was going on financially when you are responsible for looking after two kids with this income.

I think for someone who is unable to take any accountability in this situation, you are going to struggle with the responsibility of having a job/responsibility of looking after the kids on their own. Threatening divorce is one thing, but it’s very clear you have little earning potential at this point in time, so won’t.

Im saying this as SAHM …..but you’ve really not done a very good job if you believe all it entails is running after little ones and keeping the dishwasher loaded. A SAHM has to be intimately involved in all financial decisions and has to take accountability for their role in the finances too. It’s a lifestyle choice that requires a lot of sacrifices and balancing, you cannot slack off from the hard decisions if this is the path you choose.

Every second, some of the posters on hair, pointing out that being a stay at home mum is not a skill, it makes maybe life easier, but it's not an irreplaceable set of things that you're doing. And to say that because you've kept the house, he's been able to be successful was insulting, so he's become a surgeon because you've cooked dinner. How does that make any sense? It's not even that there's anything wrong with being a stay at home. Mum, it is just disillusioned. Why on earth would you think that your husband wouldn't be able to do his job? Unless you didn't work, I want to add a cave. Actually, there are some careers like this, and it generally is reflected in the divorce where the couple is a partnership and the husband's career or the wife's career. As such, that socialisation, networking and hosting Events as well as the social things that need to be done is basically a full time job, but those women can show what they've been doing to further their husband's career, and in divorce, they're largely rewarded for it.But for what this poster has described, this is not that kind of situation.

I was projecting the lifestyle of someone sending her child to private school in September aspires to.

And yes, unless it’s a former local authority house or a 1970s semi detached, both of which are in short supply where I live because they keep knocking them down to build ‘executive estates’ with 4 beds starting at well over £1m, then you truly will not get much change from £1,2m. And if you want within a 20min walk of the station that price goes up. I am inferring, given the horror of downsizing to a 2 bed flat, that these types of property are not the type OP lives in? 2 bed flats start at 350k near me, and yes most 4 bed 2 bath houses are around £1.2m. Many are being marketed at £2.5, I’ve just noticed on a search that simply asked ‘4bed/2 bath’.

Lots of SEN kids/families at the school my DC went to (my DC also being ND/SEN) so obviously there are many people who don’t live in posh houses and have huge incomes, who work as plumbers and do things like set up an at home childminding business to pay school fees (which was what I did to cover DC2s fees), but I don’t get that vibe from OP, do you?

Unless this includes mortgage payments £3,000 monthly debt payments is crazy.

To all those posters saying OP is only with him for the money- he doesn’t have any money!
He earns maybe £200k a year, no safety net, not independant wealth, a slave to what sounds like a pretty crap job (a middle aged man travelling the America for weeks at a time for £150k?) and he struggles to commit to even that. And he’s got £150k credit card debt and a mortgage!

He has £150k on credit cards, that’s quite cheap tbf

So she could raise her children in peace without the stress of a dead beat “hands off” dad who can’t even provide to feed their kids.

Thank god you did not exaggerate 😂

completely destitute, what kind of loser would accept a measly crappy job for 200k a year, expecting you to travel as well.

Should be illegal for companies to treat people like that. Why is this still allowed in 2026

Do we really have to restate this over and over…what would 24 hr childcare cost, housekeeper, cook, driver, etc etc …OP financially sacrifices for her DH to have a family every day and night and not just weekdays.

Read the first post

LMAO! 😆😆 My employer is welcome to treat me as badly as that!

Ha! You’re delusional if you believe all SAHM have no careers. I guess my sister, a surgeon, is just a mum at home with no qualifications?! The reason she decided to stay at home for now if because they are both surgeons and due to hours they can’t both do it. I also have many clients who are women and are qualified Doctors, Lawyers, Police and due to their positions and husbands work can stay at home for now. Imagine being so small minded and not knowing many successful parents…