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.

I am a SAHM and would never dream of suggesting that I had a hard life.

It's rather pleasant and it works for all of us.

And everything Pagwatch said too.

I think OP it might be useful to get to the root of what's bothering your DH.

As for how would i manage if DH died, well I'd be rich beyond my wildest dreams. . How's that for an answer? Is that OK?

So is Teen Mom quite good then? May try that and do my nails at the same time. See, that's called multi-tasking.

Deux, don't murder your husband.

I wasn't sure that poster was being entirely serious

I think if reading closer magazine genuinely is the thing that brings you joy that's a bit sad.
Things don't have to be big but they should be positive.

Pag I'm pleased you said that about your DH.

I think far too many men duck out of family life, with the full consent of their wives. Oh I do everything you here them cry.

Why? Why the fuck would anyone do that? Why the fuck would any man want to duck out like that? Why would any women want a man that was like that?

Truffleoil. I don't get this bit:

"I'm a quasi-SAHM of school-aged children and sure there are some easy parts but equally there's a lot of work that [...] 2. displaces working partner's work within the home, thereby reducing inequality"

How does this reduce inequality? What sort of inequality? Do you mean that everyone in the household has some work to do which is an equal scenario?

Because looking at a broader sense of "inequality", I would suggest that the fact that traditional women's work is traditionally unpaid, is a huge factor in social and material inequality for women. And if you are in a couple with a man, one way of symbolically asserting your equality with him is sharing the unpaid work, and sharing your direct access to money

Of course to not do this, is not necessaily to say good bye to equality

But to take on the unpaid stuff and give him the paid - that's not a blow for equality in any interesting or political sense... is it?

Bones: The inequality I was speaking of was one person supporting the family financially. For example, I do a lot of stuff during the week that frees up our weekends so that we all have more free time than we would if I were working full-time.

I wonder if SAHM who are happy in their lot are more likely those who had a career and opportunities before having children?

I won't be a SAHM forever but for now it works. But. I've had a very good education and a successful, high paying career, accumulated assets and good pension. That was all before i had kids and i had mine 'later'.

So as for the developing myself stuff, i don't feel driven to do that right now as I feel i've already done a whole heap of that.

Also, where i live there are loads of women like me and we are a bit identikit. Graduates with good careers before kids, husbands in professions or high level corporate (and that's where we met them). Then make the decision that the woman will stay at home while the man would be sole earner. And yes we do tend to drive 4 x 4s too.

I don't consider it a huge step forward for feminism, no. It's just a logistical arrangement.

Oh, I won't murder DH just yet. But the minute he stops valuing my contribution, well that’d be different.....

Hello all, tis lunch time .

siiiigh and enlighten are both right to point out the cost of childcare for very dependent children. For many ppl, that only applies when they are little; but for those of us with disabled or chronically ill kids, it goes on longer. DS2 is 18 in May and the state will - finally- pay for his care out of school. Thats £13k a year I won't have to find. It costs me £26k in salary just to earn that.

How does it work, then? I think that in my case it worked initially by making almost no profit. My reasons for working were partly to do with knowing that with disabled kids you can quickly become invisible- I wanted and needed to keep some of my own space. As disabled kids grow up incredibly slowly, what most ppl do for two or thre years, I have been doing for 20. So you can't let it evolve naturally- you have to make it happen if it's going to. Also, I wanted and needed my own pension fund. In later years I have had promotions, and for the next 15 years before I retire I ought to be able to save.

siiiigh if you lived near me I could point you towards a school hours contract as we do have them and they are very popular. But otherwise, the best advice I could give is to have a skill that other ppl don't have, so you earn a higher hourly amount. That's why there's a lot to be said for retraining and unskilling in those transitional years, where you can't commit to a job, but the kids are fairly reliably out of the house 30 hours a week.

DH has a senior role in the city too. In his last job there was an expectation of long hours but also an understanding that people also had families and wanted to be home occasionally. However, he now works for an American bank and it is very different. You are expected to always put work first and men if dh's level are expected to have wives and nannies at home so they never need to rush home to pick up a vomiting 6yr old from school. I hope I'm not outing him/us here but they also have a 'wives' social calendar. I've never been to anything and was quite pleased when DH said his American boss was disappointed at the uptake. DH pointed out that on his team, 2 of the blokes had wives working at similar levels just up the road and one was a 'wife' herself!
So I really think although there's been a slight change in attitude, it really depends on the company.

unskilling=upskilling, perhaps I should upskill my typing....

What are good skills to retrain in?

I think it is interesting to go thru this thread and note how many times posters say things like "many WOHM hire cleaners" or " Don't forget if you go back to work you will have to pay for childcare" as if the cleaning/childcare is automatically the woman's responsibility, to either do herself, or pay (out of her statistically lower wages) another woman to do.
OP, when you do find another job, I hope your H realises that the childcare costs will be borne by both of you, as will the cost of any domestic help.
Essentially, while I can appreciate that your H might feel overburdened financially, treating anyone you are supposed to love with contempt is horrifying.
It has been well studied that, out of all emotions, contempt is the very thing that damages relationships the most.

I am a sahm and the vast majority of sahm's I know did'nt have a high flying career pre motherhood. They worked in offices,banks,as nurses,in supermarkets etc.

It would not be good financial sense for me to return to work while I still have a toddler as I did'nt and won't earn enough. And yes I did go to university but my degree is pretty much worthless now.

My dh also resents me for not "working" but I know for a fact that he could not cope if I walked out and left him with dcs so he would'nt dare rock the boat.

Nancy: Our home discussions often end with DH saying, "We are getting more like the US."

His (British - but trained in the states) boss has handed out a very kind invite recently but with no notice. HQ was miffed when people and partners couldn't make it due to no childcare / spouses working. Mindset issues.

Among people I know employers seem to be getting less keen on part-time / job share; unless it's in the form of zero hours for low paid roles.

Urgh, the model of high flying men with stay at home wifey with a 'social calender' is straight out of a 50s movie to me. So glad that things are changing NancyJones. I'm a bit angry that so many women with high flying careers have had theirs kiboshed with the advent of children. I can understand it's really hard to juggle, but we need to change the culture where the man's career is oh so important, and the woman's is clearly second fiddle. This change is sooooo slow.

bones I may be out of date as it's a while since I was job hunting.

I am an accountant and that has always been excellent for flexible, part-time work. Everyone needs their books done; there is work in town and country, and across a huge range of organisations. I chose it right at the start of my working life, as a workingclass person who needed to pay her own way straight away. I didn't have anyone else who could subsidise me.

Other ppl train in teaching- I think that is more risky as there is less work in some fields, but if you teach science it seems to be a strong offering- and a better (not perfect) fit with school term dates.

But wouldn't it depend on your starting point and where the work is where you live?

Thanks, Beast - I'll PM you.

The thing that this thread shows is that not all relationships follow the MN rules all the time.

Oddly enough, reporting "but, MN says that you should..." to my DH has not changed his behaviour.

siiiiiigh, I don't think your dh has to support your working if he is supporting the family financially right now, and has no spare capacity. I think that is a very nice idea where there is any give at all. But it sounds as if he is completely stretched hanging onto his job, and you are fairly busy looking after the children. The space that is left for your job is the time left after the children - not a huge space.

I think when a family has more capacity it is really unfair for one partner, long term, to appoint themselves to be the one that gets all the good stuff. That sounds different though. Unless.... it isn't? Only you know.

enlighten if your DP says "He knows [me going back to work] will give us more money to afford new things, better lifestyle." but "He also knows that this is quite impossible just now as my whole wage would be wiped out on childcare." how does he manage to believe both those things at once? if all your money goes on childcare, how would it help him afford a better lifestyle?

Does he think you ought to find a better paid job than is realistic where you live? You're right, he isn't making any sense.

@Apatite. The only person who kiboshed my career was me. I wasn't forced into it by my DH. It was a choice i made happily.

So don't feel angry on my account.

If I'd continued working then we would have had to have had a nanny fulltime. I wanted to look after my children myself and did not want to outsource it. It was really that simple. And it is a simple decision when there is no financial imperative to do otherwise.

That was the greater driver, not my desire to continue my career.

I have a degree and a post 16 PGCE. (College Lecturer)

I wouldn't say my career was high flying though! And I hated it and nearly had a breakdown. (Panic attacks, palpitations, Anxiety)

I would never go back, unless we were about to lose everything, children hungry type scenario.

I'm planning on re-training when primary school begins.
And I would want to work for myself/flexible.

I wouldn't put myself through full/time work knowing it would be me who would have the children's care and housework to do on top of working, not least because he works away at short notice at least 40% of the time.

I also have a high school student dc who is at 60% attendance due to medical problems diagnosed at 2 years old. (better than last year at 50%)

I think if some people manage to do stuff, they fail to see how others can't sometimes, but circumstances are different and unforeseen sometimes.

Forget the SAHM-WOHM martyr battle for the moment. It's great if SAHMs say what they do works for them and their families, but what seems to be forgotten about in the melee is the burden of responsibility of being a sole earner in a household. That stays with you all the time.

You don't have the luxury of choice or being able to pack it in. You know you have to keep working till you're 65, even 70. The workplace can be stressful and full of conflicts; it's not always a wonderful respite from the kids, as some of the previous posters seem to be suggesting. Workplace stress is on the rise and for some working parents it can feel like there's no escape route. It's hardly surprising that some sole earners (male or female) feel like they've got a raw deal if they don't absolutely love their job.

OP, I'm sure you feel you deserve some time given your history of raising a child as single working mother, but my point is that seems to be little understanding on this thread of the pressure on the earner. In fact, on the evidence of this thread I genuinely think that some SAHMs think that their partners troll off to work and have a gloriously fun time.

Sorry beast don't always make myself understood!

He WANTS me to go back to work, as in, it would be desirable for him/us, but he knows that until the children are all in primary school it isn't cost effective.