my dh resents me for not working

[thestarryskiesabove]

we have 2 Dc's, 4 & 5, both in full time education, it was always agreed that one of us would stay at home and look after the kids until they were older, whilst the other worked - I am now looking to get a job but have so far been unsuccessful. The fall out is that dh is being really resentful towards me and pretty much treats me like a home help/employee, ie with disdain and contempt. I get that my role is perceived as the easier one, but in reality our hours are pretty much similar in that I am a house wife 7 days a week, I do everything to do with the house and kids from sunrise to sun down - whereas he does a 40 hour week mon to fri. How do i deal with his deep, brooding resentment?, obviously apart from getting a job - thats for the future, i am talking about right now.

Branching Out the best way not to be treated like a servant, is not to act like a servant.

Getting a job, sharing childcare and family responsibility (cooking, cleaning, homework, activities). Being on an equal footing.

In my experience, a great many people with 4 or 5 year olds are pissed off with how little time or money they have and I have many friends moaning their partners right now - whether about housework or money coming in to the household. A lot of people kind of get the baby years are tough but by school are asking themselves when it is going to get easier and when they are going to get some luxuries back. The economic climate hasn't helped.

What is fair can be really hard to judge in the inside of a relationship so I'd never try from the outside! All I do think is that you just have to communicate - if you can't even agree on what the other one is doing you have no hope!

I resigned from a ft job two weeks ago and I have still been running around line a bluecarsed fly. Have got a new job but I do think men should lower housework expectations or at least help out if mun is working. This thread is like 1950s.

Ah but do you see what you said there superstar. 'help out'? Women have to stop seeing a man doing household chores as 'helping'. He's not helping if he cooks/cleans etc, he's simply taking on his share of responsibilites. If OP's DH wants her to contribute financially fine but to me that would have to mean all chores are split 50/50 including shopping, cooking, childcare, cleaning and all the other jobs required to keep a household ticking over.
All this talk of making poor working dh's life easy makes me want to vom. He'd still have to work if he was a single man afterall.

Double standards are rife, the man is treating his wife as a servant should he dare expect she cooks and cleans having been home all day yet the women happily sends him off for a days work as its what he should do as a man. Yes he would have to work if he was single but so would the woman!

Bit like when women say bill him for the childcare and housework no mentiom of the fact that he has paid for her every need. All adults would have housework anyway and its not like it can come as a shock that you have to care for your own child. Its not childcare, its parenting.

If both working the household duties should be shared, if not then of course the bulk should fall to the person home all day not working. I cant imagine any women being happy to come home and start on the meal and housework as their partner had been home all day and didnt think he should have to do anything.

The problem the OP has is shown really clearly on here; we are having the same issues as we discuss this with one another.

When I had three kids aged four and under, everyone thought I was busy at home with them, which I was. And there are excellent reasons for doing your own care when they are preschool, both development and financial.

Now they are almost 22, 20 and 18 I don't think anyone would seriously argue that I would be busy at home, especially if they were NT kids. The "justification" for SAHM shifts from being clearly as much work as anything else, to being something the family wants to do for its comfort and convenience, and then later again, to being a luxury the mother can afford and deserves.

It sounds as if the OPs pArtner thinks things have shifted away from the "heavy work" years and hasn't yet bought into the "comfort and convenience" argument. It's a valid argument, if both partners want that and agree to it. The problem comes when they disagree, as here. The OP was ambiguous about whether she is actively looking for work right now and being prevented from finding any by the job market; or whether she feels it would be right to stay home longer. She suggests different things in different posts. Perhaps that's because it's still something they haven't quite resolved together.

Holding grudges and sulking is a toxic way to keep score. But there is a valid and fair way for a couple to agree if what they are doing is fair on both sides. For many couples, there comes the time when the family needs the extra money, either right now, or because pensions are crap and you both need one in due course, and the kids will need help with house deposits. There is nothing wrong with weighing up how much a drawer full of clean shirts is worth against that kind of thing.

The idea of a man who does no housework or childcare cover while his wife works FT seems a bit of a myth to me; I don't know any men like that. I do see it where the mother works part-time, with some hours at home to run things.

Double standards are rife, the man is treating his wife as a servant should he dare expect she cooks and cleans having been home all day yet the women happily sends him off for a days work as its what he should do as a man

What utter nonsense. No body has said any such thing. It is perfectly possible to be in a partnership where the division of labour is woman at home/ man earning the wages, and both feel equal and happy. It's about respect.

I know far more women who work pt or ft who still do the vast majority of housework and childcare. Quite frankly kidding themselves that because they earn they have the respect of their partner.

That's interesting, impty. I see that where ppl work part time, as I think there's a danger there that you are seen as having enough time to do the housework. Plus PT jobs are often less senior, so he gets to pull rank when it comes to working from home to cover illness.

I don't see it as much where both work FT and earn roughly the same. There are lots of women where I work and we all have childcare fails . Only yesterday my boss had one, and it was her DH who got on the Boris bike and came back home from central London to deal with a puking seven year old, because she had a big meeting.

Perhaps I see different women, as I see the ones who are in FT senior jobs, and it's different?

Perhaps, but I'm thinking of 2 couples with high earning mothers, who still feel the house/ childcare roles fall to them. I would say both people in those relationships earn about the same. Mostly, they have childcare and cleaners in place but Nanny on holiday = mum takes a week off work. Cleaner ill= mum leaves work early on Friday to give the house a quick clean.

It's purely anecdotal though. I hope it's less common than I have seen!

bee there are so many things wrong with your statement that I hardly know where to start.

How is being a SAHP acting like a servant?

If the DH wants her to change her role then they should discuss it as a couple, rather than him regarding it as a license to be a shit.

It's hard to drill down on some of the guff bing posted here buy amongst other nonsense is the suggestion that most rational people walk away from their jobs.

Do people really see being at home as the first choice most omen ould make? Really?
When dh and I had to chose - one of us had to give up work - I was clear it was the best choice for us but it was a killer. I loved my job. I loved my friends, the companionship that comes from working in a team. I lost most of my social life and friendships to be at home with two children and Thomas the tank engine.

I have a very lovely life thank you very much. But my career was destroyed and now I chose to be at home because I don't need to find a job.
My dh loves me. And he knows I chose an option he wanted no part of.

So amongst other clichés and myths can we stop talking about women as if they , none of them, want a career.

Agreed Pagwatch. But that might be easier if women didn't post here making it quite clear that they don't want a career and enjoy the time for hobbies and downtime that being a SAHM facilitates. There's either severe Stockholm Syndrome going on or gasp all women don't think the same.

I know women don't all think the same.
But on many threads loads of women post about how they love their job, or at least love the independence and other benefits they drive from being at work.
But suddenly on this thread it's all about poor beleaguered dh heading off and wifey swanning around.

People's lives are complicated and ever changing. We tend to do the best we can for ourselves and those we love. I wish we could just respect that.

impty I'm sure it does exist, of course. There are disrespectful Ohs out there married to both SAHM and WOHMs. I maybe have a biased sample too, as I'm going on my work colleagues who are all earning an OK wage. Among them, it's quite common for them to work PT and school hours contracts till the youngest hits secondary, then they go FT. When they go FT there seems to be a pattern that the OH steps up his share of domestic work, at the same time as the mother steps up her paid work.

pag sympathy. I think (hope) that the world has become a less inflexible place, so when you do feel the kids are old enough and you do want to be employed again, it won't be as impossible to do that as it would have been 20 years ago. Our lives are so long, even 20 years at home is only a quarter of the time we typically have.

Ps if I left work erly on a Friday I sure as hell wouldn't be wasting that time cleaning, ill cleaner or not .

About to go offline now until lunch break time, so not ignoring ppl.

so, do any of you working mothers have a job for me?

I need 0930-1430, term time with flexibility for kid's appointments. Or, I can work longer hours if you pay me enough to cover childcare for 3 kids.

I'll do anything. (am not qualified for everything, but, I'll give it a bash and I'm very jolly to have around)

Seriously, siiigh when you post things like that why do you make it sound so fanciful? Do you not have any friends in similar circumstances who are making it work? My office is full of people finding a way to budget for childcare (even for three kids!), take time off for sick days, nativity plays, unexpected museum trips etc.

That's kind beast.
Actually though it's fine. I'm in my 50s now. The harder times are over and I enjoy my life immensely.
But you are right. These things are changing.

Most threads I read on here re SAHMs imply that those going to work have it easy. Lots of 'DH is away for work this week, lucky him sleeping in a lovely hotel, eating out etc etc'.

I travel with work and it's shit. I would 100% rather be at home. It is tedious talking about business at 11pm with virtual strangers when you want to be cuddled up in your own bed, or eating alone after a day of planes, trains and automobiles.

Work is not just a 'fun break' from domestic life, just as staying at home isn't just about watching Jeremy Kyle and drinking lattes. That's why I believe, if possible, work and domestic/family life equally shared gives each parent/person a full understanding and empathy with both roles.

That's why FOR ME, I would rather not enable my DHs career to go interstellar, so that we can both have time with family and at work. I feel for both the SAHP and WOHP where the WOHP works ridiculous hours in order to facilitate one parent to SAH, and the SAHP copes virtually alone with family life.

siiiiigh if you are waiting for a perfect solution to fall in your lap, you'll be waiting a long time. You have to make things work for you - its about finding the best fit and making compromises.

Also, as usual this MN thread paints work as a relaxing break from housework and childcare. I don't recognise this at all. Work is DIFFERENT, but my job is incredibly stressful and challenging. Much more so than my home life. I'm not sure why MNers all seem to find work so stress free and easy. Is it because they find home life excessively stressful in comparison, or because they have relatively 'easy' jobs, or because they are trying to persuade themselves that their DHs who work 60 hr weeks, are living it up, chilling out all day long?

I don't get this either. It always makes me think that they must have incredibly easy jobs and/or incredibly difficult children! I guess doing housework and looking after small children is more physically draining than my job, but mentally and emotionally, there's no comparison for me.

**

Me too! No sick children, but I do have an essay to write. Should probably be getting on with it instead of procrastinating on here...

It is such a simple solution. Why argue. The DH is obviously y happy as is OP and it. Ant carry on.

In my example, we agreed i wanted to be at home, and DH wanted me to be around, so I am, but I am doing a part time degree and have 2 cleaning jobs. It must be so stressful for some breadwinners maybe he is crying out for support. Life can get so hard.

I still think some people shouldn't be so mean to Sahm's.

I have school age children and work part time so get to compare the two types of (MY sort of) day. When I'm at home, I do all the housework/bill playing/lawn mowing/shopping/cooking/lunchbox making beyween 9-3. Then it's eating/helping with homework/reading etc

When I am at work-I am gone at 7.30 and get back at 6. I collect the children, then start unloading lunchboxes/dishwasher/cooking dinner/helping with homework/sorting uniforms etc etc All those things still have to be done on the days I don't have 6 hours to do it in; they have to be squeezed into the evenings.

Having little children at home is different though.

If DH were to moan at me for having a couple of days to get the bulk of that done during the day-I would go back to work full time and his weekends would instantly become 70% housework! If DH didn't work such long hours in the week, things would be different though.

Yes they are pagwatch! I work 3 days a week simply because I can (husband earns six figures and we don't have kids to support so we don't need the money). I'm sure 20 years ago I wouldn't have had this flexibility. Ok, so I do a part time degree as well but it's less than 2 full days' worth of work.

I do more housework than the husband (definitely not all of it), but that's only because I have loads more time. I'll admit I still have loads of free time. It equates to a great quality of life. I'd only go back full time if finances demanded it.

OP, as others have said, talk to your husband. I can see why he's resentful, but if you don't sit on your arse all day, then make sure he knows that (some men are woefully ignorant about SAHP)! If you truly don't want to work at all, then be honest. I'm sure you two will work something out in the end.