Don't give up work to be a SAHM unless

[akaemmafrost]

You have a HEFTY private income or can work from home.

I gave up work, usual reasons, wages would barely cover childcare, WE wanted kids to be at home with a parent.

Fast forward. I now have two dc, the father of my dc cheated on me, physically, emotionally and financially abused me.

One of my dc has SN and cannot attend school for the moment.

I've been out of work for 10 years now, I have no profession. In 6 years time our child support will stop as will most of our benefits. I will near fifty having not worked at all for 18 years.

My future is shit. Utterly grey and bleak. All I have to look forward to is a state pension. While my ex earns a fortune, travels the world and has new relationships.

This is reality for me. So think long and hard about giving up work to stay at home because no matter how shit your job is it's preferable to my future don't you think?

And it was all decided for me by a man who decided he hated me and didn't want to be married anymore and a child being diagnosed with significant SN.

It's that simple.

Am so sorry to read this OP.
This thread has been very difficult reading for me.
I have been concerned for some time, but have not actually 'done' anything about it. I really must try.
Dh and I both have medical conditions and ds1 is SN. I have worked part time since having the children but have paid practically nothing into my pension.
Earlier on there was a post that scared me, re critical illness cover, that insurance co's try to get out of it. I know this. So, I don't know how to protect ourselves. And that if it's noto 'critical' but you still can't work, what do you do then? what sort of cover can you get to cover thta? by the sounds of it, very little. I don't know what the answer to these are. But i sure need to know.
Plus dh keeps being made redundant, so we looked into redundancy cover for the mortgage atleast. but it was so expensive and it didn't kick in for more than 3 months, sometimes 6 months, by which time we would already been in trouble. So, I don't know how to cover us against that.
We both have life insuranc to cover the mortgage if one of us dies. I get a lump sump payment, from dh's pension, if he dies, but that leaves me with no long term cover. Plus, that's one hting, god forbid he dies, but what if we split up?
Plus everytime i pay into our kids CTF, its now worth less than i have paid in. which makes me livid.
same with pensions generally, when you speak to people, they feel that theirs have been squandered away by non accountable firms, taking big %'s, and puttign their funds into all sort sof questionable areas, and then you get ripped off with new laws saying you can only take xx%.. everyone i speak to has found that their pension is worth a lot less than they thought.
Sorry I'm waffling, but all these financial things spin round and round in your head and its a totall minefield !!
I am going to give everything on this thread a great deal of thought. I really must push myself to do 'something'.

Don't worry about the kids Funds they come hood over a 20 year period and now when the units are cheaper is the time to plough money into them in the long term it will be worthwhile.
Mortgage insurance is worth having. The banks won't repossess after 3 or even 6 months.

Hear, hear, hear, hear hear Akaemmafrost.

I have been a SAHM for nearly 20 years and although I am flamed by MN for not leaving I stay in order to build up savings, a wider support network and get through training and hopefully a job next year.

And staying is suffering. It is very hurtful to live with someone who just wishes you would shut up, have no needs of any type and continue to fulfill your domestic functions. Even though I know that it is an exercise in futility to try to get a narcissist to be non-narcissistic it is lonely and hurtful when your needs to connect slip out and get squashed.

I would like to come on MN and talk about the frustrations and have my hand held, but just get told to leave. Easy to say for someone who has a job and another source of esteem.

When you are a SAHM and are ignored and undermined in lots of tiny, subtle little ways, finding the strength without any other source of support is that much harder.

Never, ever be financially dependent on another!

You can't live your life worrying about the future though. I am the main breadwinner and DH works part time. People have told me "oh don't do that, if he leaves he can take the children as he is the main carer" and people have told him "oh don't do that, you're putting your career on hold and she could leave you hight and dry." however it really is the best option financially for my family right now, and it means the kids have a parent taking them to and from school each day.

I have had a failed relationship, so I know how things can wrong but I think it's more important to be sure about the person you have kids with and work hard on your marriage. Sometimes things will still go wrong but in my experience living life looking at what could go wrong is no way to live.

OP I feel for you, I really do but I don't think people should not be a sahm because of one persons experience

No you can't elvis but you can still do everything right and be hit with a sucker punch - so it's always good to have a fall back plan.

I heard the phrase "prepare for the worst and hope for the best" somewhere - I thinks that's a pretty good approach to take.

elvis - I was 150% sure about my DH and worked very hard on my marriage. He like so many others on here after 20 plus years, had an affair. There was nothing I could have done to stop him.

Hey abitwobbly - couldn't let your moving post go by ...

Sorry things have been tough for so long for you.
I do sympathise as my DH also quite ego centric and selfish.
Hope things work out well with regards to work prospects for next year.
And from there perhaps you'll feel able to move on relationships wise too ?
All the best to you

Also elvis it's not just one persons experience - or this would have been a very short thread....

Well I can only share my own life view and that is to do what is right now and deal with what the future holds in the future. Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't protect yourself wher you can, but working if you really want to be and can afford to be a sahm in case your husband leaves seems OTT to me. You could invest in your career and be made redundant...who ever knows what's around the corner. We're all different though, each to their own.

I don't see this as a SAHM thread at all. Its more about protecting your interests, being realistic and taking a practical approach to protect yourself.

I am amazed at the posters here who state so confidently that their man will never leave or that they will get good settlements. I work in this area and I am sad to say that I see a lot of women who never thought this would happen to them. If your partner is self employed, i would say you are potentially even more at risk in the event of a break up -I see time and time again how little money they suddenly claim to make. The CSA have a diificult job proving otherwise.

The other thing is that apparently reasonable, decent people change, become strangers and do things. When men check out of relationships, they often cease caring about people they choose to leave behind. You are putting yourself at risk if you fail to even consider this as ever a possibility.

OP
I am sorry you are in such a bind. BUT as crap as it feels now, in five years time, life may be very different. The light at the end of the tunnel is NOT an oncoming train.

And interestingly, as somebody who actively decided not to have kids till I had a solid postgrad qualification under my belt, and never stopped working even though I never went back to work
it is so important that people now taxed as individuals, earn as individuals.

Come over to the freelance board and start to think laterally.

this is worth a read.

Most single parents are women.
Many single parents end up in poverty.
Isn't this just about how to prevent that happening to you?

Are you reading a different thread to me elvis?

Nowhere does anyone say you shouldn't be a sahm.

It's about protecting yourself, and by extension your children.

And, doing the right thing/making the right choices is no guarantee you will always be ok. Accident/illness/tragedy can happen to anyone. That's not to say you should live a life of anxiety, always worrying what if..just be aware and prepared.

Flipinda I am reading a thread entitled "don't give up work to be a sahm unless"

With the fist line being: You have a HEFTY private income or can work from home.

All I'm saying is that is rather a sweeping statement to make. I absolutely agree people should protect themselves and their children as much as possible, but not at the extent of making such a msaaive life choice based on a "what if" scenario.

I have had a failed relationship, I am well aware that it takes 2 people to make a relationship work and if one person isn't committed, then you can't fix that on your own. I have my eyes wide open to all the things that could go wrong and in fact my point is you can only do so much - you could stay at work but be made redundant or suffer ill health. So my outlook is do what you can but at the same time you still make choices based on the information you have right now, rather than on the ifs buts and maybes.

Noone gets it all right, often life is a leap of faith but I think come what may you have to have faith in your ability to pick yourself up and dust yourself down. I have done that myself, my life hasn't been perfect and like everyone I've made my share of mistakes.

But you know what I get that some people have a different outlook and that's fine

Ah well OP you've certainly heard quite a lot of different experiences here on your thread!

I would like to say congratulations on your latest OU assessment.

And I'd like to say to everyone else, steady on! We all have vastly different experiences - some direct, some indirect. Some of us (like me) were older and financially secure when we started a family. Some of us did it when we were still kids ourselves, unplanned. Some of us wanted to go back to work, some of us couldn't.

Some of us have families and sail through it, stay together through thick and thin. Others don't manage to do that. Money or no money, smart life or not, illness or disability or rude health notwithstanding.

If everyone put off having children until they were financially stable, and had a full financial advisor-approved life plan, I don't think there would be many children born at all!

Let's give each other a break eh?

Now come on everybody, have some of this very nice Shiraz on me . I just won it today at the Christmas Fayre tombola.

xx

So you're responding just to the OP. On a thread with nearly 700 responses I think it's clear that the thread has evolved.

I will explain again that I had just had a particularly brutal encounter with my ex and posted in the heat of the moment, the majority of posters seem to have got what I meant.

Thanks olgaga. I am kind of thinking about teaching children with autism could be an option for me in the future. I imagine it's a job where experience would very much take priority over age, so I feel a bit more hopeful than when I started the thread.

Why if someone has a different point of view does that mean they don't get what you meant?! Sorry but I don't have time to read 700 posts, so have responded based on the first few and last few that have read.

I am happy enough to accept that we have a different pov and will leave the thread to those who agree and therefore must be the only ones who understand the point being made

How can you understand if you don't read the thread ?

Yes. That's exactly what the thread is about. Said almost no one except the woman with the axe and the grinder.

You have made me chuckle Pag. Wilful misinterpretation of a blindingly obvious thing is hard to miss. I don't really care. But it does piss me off a bit when people rally round together with one shared viewpoint and if anyone else questions the wording, intention, doom/scaremongering, well that's not allowed! LOL! I disagree with some of what's been written here and so did others...they disappeared a while back when they got bored of the onesidedness, no doubt.

What utter tosh AL.

That's marvellous. We are amusing each other. Your use of 'wilful misinterpretation' is nearly causing me to die of irony .
Fortunately my appetite for the ridiculous is vast.