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 don't see how saying that my DC isn't an eejit is muddying the waters. Surely anyone could work out that if both parents are to WOH then they either both have to muck in or outsource. The fact that DH accepts this and does a bit of both doesn't make him special. It just makes him an ordinary bloke, surely?

Yes pag.
SAHM are just lazy once their dcs are at school full time (forgetting all personal circumstances, incl the cost of childcare) and WOHM are just heartless bitch who don't care about their dcs (forgetting they might need the income, might enjoy it etc...)...
:(:(

mindosa ime, you always need plan B. You never have any idea of what the future holds for you.

word ime, the fact that your DH is 'mucking in' is actually unusual.

What I have around me are women who work full time or 4 days a week and fully expected to do all the HW/childcare etc... Or rather they have all the responsibility and have to 'ask' their DH to do X and Y, which they might grumpily do.
When I say that DH IS helping, taking the dcs to activities etc... they all seem to think he is a saint and they will never have that 'as they can't be taught' (or so I have been told...)

I agree that some women are married to eejits, but I don't think the answer is for women to SAH so that they can do all the chores so their menfolk can cheerfully continue being eejits. Men should expect to take a part in family life whether their partners work or not.

Oh god, of course. that should never stop women from working!!

'Wifework' is still sitting unread by the bedside...

domerset unless ive misread (likely) wherever you are your children have half the yeat off school (16 weeks summer plus 5 each easter and christmas ). I think we'd all agree that childcare for half the year full time would bea huge chuck of cash and surely must be impossible tomost.

13 weeks off per year Stealth, not 25! 6 + 2 + 2 plus 3 half terms.

She mentions sixteen in summer plus 5 at easter and christmas

There aren't sixteen weeks in the whole of the summer . Sixteen weeks is four months.

Pagwatch - re: threads where working mums are 'bashed', in my experience the majority of posts on those sorts of threads that are interpreted as 'working mum bashing' are actually raising sincere concerns about childcare. This is quite different from what has happened on this thread - the portrayal of SAH mums as lazy and parasitical.

mini - do you think there is a possibility you are projecting in some way? just sayin'

Thing is....I am quite lazy :) nothing to do with being a sahm!
Have realised that my day so far today would pretty much confirm the attitude of those posters who think sahms are lazy good for nothing's :)
I packed the dc (1 off due to school strike and 1 off due to being crusty and contagious) off to pils for a few hours and;
Went out for coffee with my mum
Went to pick up some meds for said crusty ds2
Went to the cemetery to sort out my dads flowers
Went to see my cousin who is having a hard time
Am now on MN and watching Frasier waiting for dc to return
:) :)

Minifingers

No, I can't agree with that.
There is bashing from sections on both sides.
It's at best myopic and at worst disingenuous to suggest this nonsense is one way traffic.

People should be more accountable. Sahms should criticise those bashing WOHMs and WOHMs should I the same for some of the ridiculous stuff aimed at sahms.

It's embaressing to me that people pick sides. Many of us have been both.

stealth and beast, yes, in Spain there are 16 weeks for summer... the first week of June is half days only then the rest of June, all of July and all of August and the first week of Septemner, and 5 for Christmas and Easter combined. It is crazy.

Sorry, maybe it is 15 weeks for summer. It is basically all of June July and August and bit of September.

It will change to nearer 13 when DD is 13.

... and we don't get half terms...

If I ever get round to getting a job (plan B and all that) I'm gonna be a teacher in Spain.

Cor. No wonder Spansih grannies get the kids a lot .

We don't even have 16 weeks of summer

Yes, if you are without family here, you are buggered if you want to work. I am without family, plus, I can't imagine my mother helping out the way they do here, she would resent one day I should think.

The summer is relentless, such heat and having small children to entertain is quite hard, I would rather be at work in an air conditioned office! But ONLY if I was happy with my childcare and that scenario impossible here in my particular circumstances therefore I am happy looking after DD and run free English language summer schools for her and her friends etc to keep me occupied. (I cannot charge, nobody has any money, really)

I believe it is the same in most of Europe, Italy and France etc...

My husband started down the route of the OP's, he saw some of my friends, some of them VERY hard up and having to pick oranges or be cleaners for 6 euros an hour etc, he thinks I should do this 'for something to do' as he resents totally me 'not doing anything'.

I must add he has his own private wealth which I don't touch and sits on his arse all day or plays tennis. It got to the point where I was cooking his big lunches... he would tell me what he wanted in the morning, washing, ironing, doing all childcare while he quietly resented me 'for doing nothing'. I have chucked him out. I was here because of him and in this situation because of him.

I think that is why I feel so strongly for OP. Her husband wants her to work, but I think for the wrong reasons, in a difficult and certainly not thought out situation (out of work while children were little, now has to be a job to fit in round school runs and the school holidays)

I can feel that quiet seething resentment and it is horrible.
It escalates too.

Sorry, that was a rant.

Yes, I can see that sounds completely toxic. Being treated like yuor EXDH's domestic staff is horrible. As you say, that's not a WOHM/SAHM point- he was being a tosser and would not have been any better if you had gone out to pick oranges.

I have friends in Spain where he is a University prof and she is a judge- so both have high level jobs; their DC are I think 3 and 7 (I lose track). They have had a lot of grief from grannies who want to do all the childcare; but our friend would rather have her not very good Bulgarian nanny. The grannies are fierce!

Until the DC hit secondary school it varies a lot, I think, whether you can work at all. But in Spain I am guessing that it's hard enough to find any kind of work, without also being (a) not Spanish and (b) a lone parent.

Pagwatch, the criticism you see of working mums generally revolves around the view that young children are happier and better off being cared for by their parents, and that parental working patterns which result in children spending long hours in group child are not good for toddlers and babies. I can't think of any other criticism that has been made of working mothers on these boards, except those about older children being latch key kids. What other working mum bashing have you identified? And how much of it is as personal as that directed at SAHM on this thread, a lot of which is pretty nasty.

Oh give over Minifingers.
I've been a sahm for 17 years and I've been on here and you are making me embaressed for you.

Saying that the criticisms are only about the care of the child are like saying the criticisms of the sahms are only about women needing independence.

Are you seriously doing a 'but some are them are meaner than us'. You sound ridiculous.

The 'care of the child ' can be conveyed in a hundred different ways including those that imply indifference and a disregard for the well being of the child.
Everyone should just stop it.

Minifingers FWIW the only thing I would personally criticize SAHP for is being disingenuous about what hard work it is. I maintain it is a lot easier than working and doing half (or more than half) of the household running.

I think where the mudslinging goes both ways is because:

-the nastiest that can be said of a SAHP is they are lazy (not what I am saying as it is a value judgement that cannot be applied blanket to SAHP any more than it can be applied to students)
Vs

• the nastiest that can be said of a WOHP is that they are potentially neglecting their DC

Just in terms of the scale of criticism it feels as though neglecting your kids is so much worse.

Just like the honest truth for SAHP of school age kids is that it is an easy life and very nice to be supported by someone else financially the honest truth for me as a WOHP who could afford to stay at home (and has a pre-school DD) is that I am making a selfish choice not to give up my financial independence and career to care for my daughter because I don't want to. I love her as much as any parent but I'm not prepared to give up my career for her.

As a friend of mine said 'they are only small for such a short time but then, they are only small for such a short time'