Bear with me, there’s a lot to explain with this story.
I’m currently 18 weeks pregnant with my second child. Am happy, excited etc but have one really niggling anxiety that is there all of the time. You see, my husband doesn’t work - when we had our first, we both went back to work stupidly early (him straight away and me at three months). It wasn’t enough for either of us and personally it mentally messed me up a lot. My husband ended up quitting work to be a stay at home dad and has only really worked sporadically in the past four years. This wasn’t necessarily a collaborative decision, he just decided to quit work and did.
So now I’m looking to plan for my maternity leave and want at least 9 months this time - to do this, my husband needs to get a job, which he has agreed to. But the thing is, I have a feeling he just won’t. In the past four years, he has been making some money by buying and selling boats when he feels like it. I get the feeling he likes just being able to sit around on his laptop when he wants and not have to answer to anyone. Plus, he has never had any financial responsibility throughout our whole relationship - the house, bills, car have always been fully my responsibility, even since way before we had our daughter. It’s like he just doesn’t want to put his name to any responsibility.
He’s supposed to be looking for a job from now for when baby is due in June however has just started going out to work with his brother who is a plumber - I have now idea if he’s being paid for this, if it’s long term, if it’s a formal arrangement, anything about it really - he gets irritated and shuts down if I ask him if this is what his job is going to be, or if he’s still going to look for something more permanent. He’s not a qualified plumber, BTW.
Now there’s a further layer to this story - I’m an alcoholic in recovery, and was actually in my penultimate week of rehab when I discovered I was pregnant. Honestly, I look back at my elder daughter’s early years with a lot of shame and regret for how much I’ve missed and ruined because I was frankly a huge pisshead. I’ve managed to hold on to my job despite the alcoholism although I’ve been pretty heavily demoted because of it - at the start of 2022 I was in the highest position within the company and am now entry level. Honestly, the fact I still have a job and a nursing PIN at all is an absolute miracle because of my alcoholism, however I get the feeling my husband really resents my demotion. Before Christmas, I broached the subject of perhaps having a year off with the new baby, seeing as he had four with our eldest - he got really angry, said ‘no’ in no uncertain terms and shouted about how it was my fault I had ‘pissed away’ my previous good career. I know it is, conversation over.
Because of my alcoholism, I feel like I’m going to be forever indebted to him and will never be able to expect anything from him - like for him to get a job. It’s like I need to be miserable in the job I hate and miss out on time with my kids because that’s my punishment for being a pisshead.
So basically I’m left feeling in limbo - I don’t know how long I can tell my work I can take off for maternity leave because frankly I don’t feel like I can rely on my husband to pick up the responsibility for the bills. His mum lives in quite a big house just up the road so I think he would just move up there with the kids rather than actually take responsibility. And I don’t know where that would leave me.
I have savings, however I have a (perhaps unrealistic?) dream that me and my husband will buy a house TOGETHER one day when we’re both in work, using the savings for a deposit - but I think he wants me to use that for the bills to cover maternity leave rather than him pay. But why should I? He lives in this house too, uses all the electricity etc, he uses the car more than I do (in fact, I feel I have to ask his permission if I ever want to drive to work rather than cycle). Why can’t he pick this up even just for a few months?
I really don’t know what to do, as I mentioned he gets really irritated when I try to talk to him about it. He still says he’s going to get a job but he is absolute king of saying things and never following through.
Reading back I feel I've been rather unkind about my husband, I really do love him and our little growing family so much. He’s picked up the slack when I’ve been drinking (honestly, the thought of ever drinking that fucking horrible stuff again makes me feel physically ill) and our daughter has never suffered or gone without because of him. Plus he’s stayed with me and supported me, which is way more than I deserve. I just want us to be more of a partnership and SHARE the responsibility for things like normal couples, I want to know that our house and everything I’ve worked for won’t come to an end if I need to take an appropriate amount of time off for maternity leave. I want our communication to improve and for us to be able to TALK without him becoming irritated and shouting at me about what a useless drunk I’ve been. Please help 💚