Having to leave dream job & so bitter

[Domesticgodlessyemerrygents]

I was stupid enough to take my dream job. It is at a university way up North and my (formerly d)h is a lawyer in London. We have lived here ever since university and I have been desperate to get out for years.

I thought I could manage it, as academic hours are flexible. But I did not bank on the reality of travel chaos and being apart from my sons (the youngest is only 9 months) even for 1 night.

I could move the family up there with me but I don't think I could handle being a working 'married lone parent' all week.

Now they have put all my teaching into 1 day and I have gone on 3/4 time. But the only day they could give me was Thursday (non negotiable) and our nanny has to go to a prayer group at 5 pm that day (also non negotiable...)
My husband is simply never home by 5 or even 6pm.

The agency cannot get us a regular babysitter for Thursday nights. And anyway I don't want someone else to put my babies to bed while we're both working.

I started drafting my resignation letter & have been feeling like crap ever since. I can't talk to my husband or even look at him. He is too ambitious to ever leave London. The only solution is for me to leave and go up North alone and I don't want that for the children or me.

Anyone else going through similar? the irony is I'm a FEMINIST academic, now giving up work for husband...how did that happen?? (bitter irony emoticon)

But Anna it seems to me that both of them need childcare support to do their jobs. You seem to think he gets to work, and she gets to work if she can sort out childcare. Well that's not how it is in my house. We both work, we use a nursery; we both pick up the slack if necessary. This man seems to be opting out of that shared responsbility and you seem to think that's fine.

Likewise, if their jobs are far apart, they could live somewhere else and share the commuting. This life is more stressful for the op than it needs to be and her DH is giving zero support to make it easier. Why shouldn't he share the stress?

Also bear in mind that your DS1 will be starting school soon and 9pm bedtimes are generally not very compatible with reception year. Unless your child needs very little sleep indeed.

Has the OP discussed this with her husband at all, recently? She said at the beginning that she couldn't talk to him or even look at him but she needs to keep talking if they are ever going to sort this out.

If they moved to Birmingham, for example, they could probably afford as good a house as they have now and still be able to rent/buy a pied a terre in London for DH to stay overnight when he needs to. That would definitely be the case in Stoke as the property prices are really quite low there.

You're probably right Zazette but- did all those academics have kids the age of mine (4 and 9 months) and a partner who is almost never there? That is what is really making it not work for me.

If not for that, I would have time and flexibility to move away from Dulwich and to commute up and down all the time.

I haven't found one person who has been doing it successfully at my university I have to say- one woman did it for a year , got totally exhausted, then moved her husband up to a house on the campus when she got pregnant (he gave up work and started a PhD and is now a semi- SAHD). A lot commute from B'ham/ Leamington but not London.

If anyone knows of good schools in Bedford and wants to buy this house at some inflated price or other do let me know!!!

Agree with Zazette that lots of academic families commute. I know of one male academic who commutes from Stockholm to Aberdeen. We would have a commute going the other way if DH gets the job. We haven't decided yet where we would live and who would be doing the commuting.

Agree that moving within London a good idea.

bozza he's in reception! And he goes to bed at 7.30, just pretends to be asleep a lot of the time until dh comes home (so it seems!)

eeeek Stockholm to Aberdeen!!

I obviously don't have the energy some people have.

Probably doesnt' help that I am still breastfeeding et al (that will be stopping next semester probably, when I stop taking ds2 with me)

but I presume he does not have primary childcare responsibility??

snowleopard - no, I am not making that assumption at all.

There are plenty of jobs, however (including the OP's DH's job) that require 100% domestic support, be that in the form of a wife/husband or an/some employees. You cannot share the responsibility other than financially and in very superficial other ways if that is the case.

All this sharing 50:50 ideal is the source of much aggro. It just isn't the reality for lots of jobs - and you just have to deal with that fact.

Maybe I just don't travel well enough....

Also have always wanted to get out of London so perhaps Bedford is the solution.

And I need to stop feeling guilty about having nannies.

So (poss a topic for another thread) should I leap in and try and move now or wait for this so called property crash???

Domesticgodless - you cannot have a dual career couple and feel guilty about having nannies. You need to work on that, definitely - and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

justabout- I do want another one- though I'm not going to do it!!! (especially as don't exactly feel like cuddling up to dh right now )

anna- that he is in the type of job that requires 100% domestic support is totally right. I just didn't know that when I married the man the buck would end up stopping with me. I don't think you can understand or plan for things like that when you're 23.

It makes me sad cos my dad (an academic actually, in the days when they could afford to buy houses, etc) was always around a lot for us & that was one of the best things about my childhood. So it was one of the things I really wanted for my sons. Easy to say with hindsight that I shouldn't have married a successful lawyer.

absolutely Anna
I think I was dealing OK with one but things seemed to be getting a bit silly last week. We will see how ds1 handles things this semester & hopefully it will be fine.

If we kept the house I don't think rent would cover the mortgage so it would have to go.

Stuff doesn't seem to be shifting around here atm.

DG - OK the Stockholm to Aberdeen example is a bit extreme and the prospect of facing it keeps me awake most nights.

But I do agree with Justabout that you are at the hardest part with such little ones at the moment. I have a five year-old and a thirteen year-old. If I had sacrificed my career for DS1's sake in order to be there for him after school I would be quietly seething now because of the band practices and hanging out with mates and going on Bebo. He hardly notices whether I am in the house or not apart from meal production. I've worked all his life, we have had childcare all his life, and he is well-balanced and cool. You can't start feeling guilty about childcare now.

Domesticgodless - sure, you don't know what will happen down the line and big careers require huge time commitments these days - more so than a generation ago.

FWIW my partner met his first wife when they were both 20. Things started going badly wrong when their children were 6 and 4 and both their careers were going well - there was so much strain. They ended up divorcing but I suspect that if they had realised they needed much more domestic support rather than each getting at the other for not pulling his/her weight at home, things might not have degenerated past the point of no return.

Anna am I right in thinking (from previous threads) that you were in a pretty intensive job yourself and gave up to be an SAHM?

Do you intend going back or not? And if so will you be able to? (sorry to pry just interested)

domesticgodless, I work in a City law firm (that hires the top barristers) and I understand the jobs that require 100% domestic support.

I do feel sorry that the goalposts changed (or become clearer) from when you married dh at 23. Loads of spouses of the law firm partners do not see them for a large part of the week and even weekends are not sacred. I thought their lives would be comfortable from all the money but when I jokingly asked one spouse with 2 young children about how she copes with her husband's long hours, she equally jokingly replied that sometimes she feels like tearing off her clothes and running around town screaming and naked! Maybe a bit dramatic. I was surprised at the pressure she was under.

I think it is even more important you do not lose your identity and hang on to all sense of self. Reliable and supportive domestic help is the way to go - your dh can pay for it.

BTW, my mother was there for me throughout my childhood. She told me my father forced her to give up work because we could afford it. She was so unhappy and martyr-like about her life and it came out in the marriage and in our lives. I never thought she fought hard enough for her corner. My siblings and I would have been happier if she has a life of her own. Anyway, as children get older, they have their own friends and interests anyway. This period when your dcs are young is only for a short time.

Yes, in the past I was a consultant in a big American strategy house.

Then I gave that up and worked in business academia, and gave that up when I had my daughter. However, I have recently (two months ago) started working in a very part-time way for an executive education firm - case-writing and writing teaching materials.

I don't want to go back to academia as if you don't want to go the full hog it is pretty frustrating getting better and better at what you do but never being able to take a promotion. Better to work in a small private firm where you can make your own niche (at least, that's how it seems so far).

DG - I do know of academics with young children who manage long commutes successfully, yes. But it's true that I don't know any with young children plus partners who take no responsibility for family life.

I do, though, have a colleague in my own dept whose husband has a demanding job in London, and who made the choice to be a single parent up here (northern city - not Stoke!) during term-time, while he lives in their little pre-kids flat in London. Because commutes here are short, the cost of living is low, and good childcare is much easier to find than in London, that has worked out reasonably well I think. Given what you say about your husband's minimal contribution to family life during the week, that might actually be a workable solution for you. It would allow you to be around a lot for your kids, just as your dad was for you - that is one of the joys of being an academic, for me (even if it does mean marking essays/writing lectures/reviewing stuff for journals every night after the kids are in bed).

Really, it seems unlikely that he will change - because why would he? So the changes in this set-up are going to have to come from elsewhere.

Think I was 'spoilt' to have a father who picked me up from school regularly & fully shared all the chores (but then mum was mentally ill so he kind of had to!!)

If I'd grown up in a more conventional nuclear family the situation with dh would no doubt seem more manageable to me.

As it is all my fancy feminist ideals about shared parenting and equal roles are out of the window now, & I am still not comfortable with the idea of paying other women to cover for us (cos I do see it as covering for dh as well as me- but he doesn't care/worry about it the way I do).