Angry at parner for changing jobs

[faded07]

My partner and I have an almost 2-year-old daughter. It was a long road to get to her after 4 rounds of IVF and multiple miscarriages. I also had postpartum depression and it took a while for us to get into the swing of parenting. After a year of mat leave, I went back to work, reducing my house from full-time to 3 days. It is a tough juggling act but I am so glad I get to spent 2 weekdays with my daughter. After such a strenuous journey to get to parenthood (and settle in it), things finally felt good.

My partner managed to negotiate a deal with her employer when I returned to work which allowed her to drop her hours from full-time to 4 days. This meant that she could look after our daughter 1 day a week and they could spend valuable time together too.

Towarda the end of last year, my partner continued to express that she was unhappy at work. There were justified reasons for this (nothing too sinister - an unsupportive management and a dying sales market). What grinds me is that there were a variety of things my partner could have done to try to improve things but she didn’t act on any of them. She went bullish and decided to go for interviews. Before I had much time to process this, she had a job offer. She accepted it when I was very unwell with Covid and didn’t have the energy to properly debate whether it was the right choice.

Today she has gone away for the week to start her new role. She has given up her 1 day a week with our daughter and returned to full-time which has killed me. We have now had to increase our daughter’s nursery days from 2 to 3. Although she is doing well at present, we went through months of inconsolable screaming at each drop off. The thought of that happening again terrifies me. I am dreading taking my daughter in for the extra day and am worried she’ll feel let down or abandoned.

Further to this, my partner’s new job means earlier starts so I lose an extra half hour of my night/morning. She has also had to obviously give back her previous company car which I was insured on and loved driving, and has now got a new car which is a massive estate. As a nervous driver, I doubt I’ll ever get behind the wheel of it. And lastly, the new job is £2,000 less per annum than the previous one. So all of this for less income.

My partner knows I am upset, mostly about mt daughter having to increase her days at nursery. I have tried to be supportive and said we need to give it time but I am feeling so upset and bitter about it today. I put my body through a lot during IVF and pregnancy. I found maternity leave very hard but carried on and saw it through. I have dropped my salary by 40% to stay home and be with our daughter. I have put my career on hold. I guess I just wish my partner had also just grit her teeth, at least for another year or so, until our daughter was at preschool.

Just wondering if anyone has been through something similar. Am I being unreasonable and is there a way to feel less angry?

I can’t believe a lot of these responses especially the one saying losing £2K a year was nothing 😳 in this economic climate decreasing your earnings whilst increasing your outgoings is utter lunacy

Yeah some of us live in the real world. Working full-time whilst kids at nursery. You partner deserves to be happy at work. You don't sound like a supportive partner, although you seems to expect alot

Don’t delete, OP. People will come along that understand.

Sometimes the more detail you give the more ammunition you give for others to rebuke your feelings.

The bottom line is that your wife should never have accepted the new role without a discussion about the sacrifices it would require for the family. Not many of us would easily agree to:

reduction in pay
increase in days worked
increase in hours daily out of the home
loss of key benefit like a vehicle.

These all impact more than just her. I’m not sure what can be done now but you should absolutely let her know how you feel about this change without proper discussion. Your feelings and time matter!

It’s not a “real world” event for healthy couples that one partner makes unilateral decisions which causes extra work and stress for the other without discussion and agreement.

Someone is not being supportive here but it’s not the OP.

I don't think YABU - if someone has agreed to be the breadwinner for a defined period (for example until a child starts school), it's their responsibility to see it through, and not take a lower salary for example (barring illness or some other extreme circumstance). At the very least there should be a discussion imo.

There is also a trend for children to be doing more and more hours in childcare, from younger and younger. Whilst this works well for some families, and / or is what the carers choose, it doesn't mean it's the right choice for everyone. I wouldn't be thrilled about mine going another day either, from quite little.

YABU.
Do you consider yourself better (from the PND) . Things like not being able to drive a new car etc seem unusual things to be worried about .. wondering if the issue is that you want OH around more to support you as you’re still not feeling quite right? Perhaps check with doctor that you’re not still ill and get treatment?
ultimately your OH told you all the way through she was unhappy and insecure, then interviewing, then offered a job, then accepted… so sounds like she’s been taking you with her and sounds like she couldn’t have stayed where she was…
If you are still unwell perhaps treatment will help? Or if not, I think you need to speak with your partner about what else you need

Understandable
You are bringing up kid together and need to discuss, not charge ahead

YABU. Your partners welfare is far more important than you losing half an hour a day or your daughter spending another day in daycare (which is good for her, btw).

No one should ever ‘settle’ for anything; relationships, treatment, jobs, and having children is never a valid reason to martyr yourself and suffer something that makes you unhappy.

Your Daughter knows Mummy loves her and will learn that Mummy worked full time because it was the best thing for her mental wellbeing, and will learn positive things from the lesson that teaches.

I definitely don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect your partner to discuss changing jobs especially when you have a child and it affects childcare arrangements, household income going down and the planning of your hours and daily schedule. If someone isn’t happy then it’s ok to look for a new job but should be discussed and especially before a job is accepted and started.

I think she's moaning over everything that impacts her and not even concerned about her partner's well being. So yeah I do but that's my opinion and this is what this group is for is it not

YABU - it sounds like it’s all about what you want and what you have lost by your partner changing jobs. You partner was unhappy enough to see that the only option was to change jobs, be supportive and stop being a dick about it. Your daughter will adapt and be absolutely fine, stop using her as your excuse for being unsupportive.

Exactly. The double standards and hypocrisy on this site is laughable.

When you spoke to your partner, what reasons did she give you for taking the job? Given she is sacrificing time and money, what is she getting in return? Career opportunities? More autonomy? Better training? I'd love to know.

I think you've taken a bit of a bashing here OP, and I do wonder if people would have been quire so harsh had your partner been a man doing this without proper discussion (having read MANY threads along these lines).

Personally, I think you've both been a bit selfish here. You've both had a rough few years with one thing and another. I've done the pregnancy and the first few months of maternity while DH was back at work feeling totally lost and out of my depth. But I've also been so miserable in a job I'd have walked out without a backwards glance if I wasn't for the mortgage, and also ended up taking a pay drop and starting again.

I think the main things you're upset about are that there was minimal discussion around the impact to your finances and lives, and that DD has an extra day in nursery? There should have been discussion on the impact to your finances and your lives together, yes. It wasn't great of her to change those things without it.

My DD is in nursery 3 days a week and it's perfect. She has plenty of time socialising and learning and still 2 days with me and 2 with both parents. Many nurseries won't do less than 3 days as the children don't settle as easily and don't get as much out of it. Your DD will be fine and will likely benefit; you'll see her come on leaps and bounds I bet.

Be kind to yourself and your partner. Becoming parents and finding a routine and a set up that works for you all takes time. Just try and communicate better between yourselves to stop the resentment building up.

Not discussing changes to jobs that impact on childcare, household income or family time - not OK. You're a family - at this stage in life it's a delicate balancing act between everyone's needs and commitments.

You refer to DD as 'my' DD once in this post. Is this something you've ever said to your partner? Does she feel that DD isn't hers as much because of this?

I really think so many responses are completely bizarre. Your partner has taken a pay cut, increased work by an extra day (plus associated nursery fees) and is out of the house an additional hour a day. I think it is totally unreasonable of your partner to do this without discussion.

I think people are reacting harshly to the original poster. When we get angry we all vent and list all the bad things and rarely list the good things. I’m sure you are more than aware of the lovely things your partner does but in the moment of posting you’re obviously upset and frustrated, so it’s fine to vent about that.

Although your partners job is her choice, when you have children together these things should be a joint decision especially if there are effects on income and childcare and work hours. So completely fair to be annoyed if these things weren’t discussed in detail and you weren’t allowed much input. That being said, when you hate your job, you can just want to escape as fast as possible and not really think about the consequences (especially if you are not the main child care parent).

£2000 a year although not a huge drop, is still a drop, which no one wants in this economy. That coupled with the costs of raising an infant I can see why this upsets you.

That being said, it’s done now and you can choose to be bitter and fight about it or you can see it from your partners point of view and move forward positively. Hopefully once they are happier in their new job there may be flexible hours/days or a salary increase. Most importantly people who are happy at work tend to also be happier at home, so you can reap the benefits of that.

Most people aren’t intentionally selfish they just don’t think about how things effect others. However long you and your partner have been together a child and the responsibility that comes with it is such a big change and it’s okay for people to get things wrong sometimes, you have to be able to move on.

I would definitely be cross, feel hard done by etc. initially but relationships are all about compromise and moving forward you just need to focus on what each person is doing to help the family, even if some things seem selfish, everyone is usually doing their best.

When im angry I find exercise helps, or doing something nice for the person im angry at (sort of tricks your mind into thinking you’re friends again haha)

Hopefully that helps, sorry you’ve had quite a negative response from people I think sometimes people forget what it’s like to have an angry rant….
hope it all gets sorted out 😊

All I got from the OP was 'me, me, me'.

I think that's unfair of you to pick on, everyone refers to their children as "my daughter" or "my son" in general, everyday conversations. Regardless of their set up.

and the behaviour of my daughter going to nursery screaming for MONTHS (not days, months)

I don't know what the right answer is but you and your partner need to figure this out. Maybe couple's counselling?

Do you and your partner actually need the income that you do? Is there any way to cut back? No wonder your daughter is screaming like this. External, institutional child care has been normalised, but to her, it's abandonment and trauma. Small children need to be with one or both of their parents for most of the week, or their family, if possible.

Well, I hope you don’t guilt trip your partner as much as you’ve tried to in this post to the people who have disagreed with you. She went ‘bullish’? You mean she stood up for herself and what she wanted out of her workplace and career? ‘She did this when I had covid and was unable to argue’ you mean force her to continue where she was unhappy for reasons only you are concerned about? ‘Suffer in silence’ get a grip. You have to wake up 30 mins earlier and no longer have access to a car that was never yours to begin with, nor did you contribute to having (but it’s been changed for another so it’s not like you’re without a vehicle, just not the one you wanted!). You sound like a petulant teen. You chose to carry the pregnancy presumably and therefore take the maternity leave and put your career on hold. It sounds like you went through a lot, and I appreciate that you may not have expected it to be so hard, but you can’t use it as a reason to prevent your partner from progressing in her own career - yes, sometimes that means taking a pay cut, though it doesn’t sound like finances are your main concern rather an extra stick to beat your partner with. You don’t have to be deeply unhappy want a change! Not everyone wants to spend every spare moment with their kids, no matter how much they love them. It’s not just up to you and what you want RE her going to nursery. Jesus.

and you can’t delete the post. Only MN can. Perhaps they will…

This. Mumsnet is even more nuts than it was.

OP, as with any big change with knock-ons it's not ok for your DP to railroad you into it without real discussion.

On top of that, you're exhausted emotionally and probably physically. At best it's really inconsiderate, at worst it shows domineering tendencies.

Potentially however if it is something that's used often it could be causing friction. I didn't mean to pick at it but it jumped out at me. Hopefully I'm reading too much into it but just thought of it as food for thought for op if not as to why partner may have dropped her day with DD as that seems odd to me as someone who has had fertility treatment myself.

I think partner should have certainly looked for a job that's 4 days or at least the same pay but also if she was miserable in her job then I can completely understand her needing to get out asap. Hopefully she will look at progressing in her new job.

I think some of the posters are being a little harsh on you here. To me it sounds like you both need to work on your communication. You need to see things from her perspective but she needs to include you more in decision making! However, in terms of your anxiety about your child, please don't worry! My daughter started doing 2 days of childcare when I first went back to work but actually settled in better when we moved up to three as she got into more of a routine. You might find the same. Also, remember all big changes are really hard to begin with but things should settle down soon. Give the new situation a chance.