DH resentful about being the sole earner

[TheresARatinMyKitchenWhatAmIGo]

In arguments, DH brings up the fact that I gave up work and that he is the sole earner. He works very hard, feels quite stressed, and if he in any way thinks I am judging him, he brings out this bitterness that I am not earning.

As far as I am concerned this is ancient history. I gave up work 7 years ago, and we agreed it at the time. However, he now remembers it as my unilateral decision. In any case it is usually fairly irrelevant to the argument we are having, but because he feels stressed with work, he always brings it up as a way to score points. Look how hard I work, you're not working etc. And I can’t argue with that because it’s true. So it’s a sure fire winner for him.

He thinks I resent him for working hard and never being around, and that I am unsupportive. Whereas I think I am very supportive, I am very grateful for all his hard work, and I don't give him a hard time about his working hours, or the hours that he spends on hobbies. I merely sometimes express concern about his hours of work, and wish he could manage his job without always working the 12 hour days every day, plus looking at work on his laptop evenings and weekends. I listen to him talking about work and try to help him suggesting he delegates more, sets boundaries around his working hours, stuff like that. But this is unsupportive apparently, and I don't understand.

We are very comfortably off, and although we have huge overheads, private school fees, mortgage, expensive lifestyle, we also have plenty of assets, and his very good salary. When I gave up my job, I had a bit of time as a SAHM and I have been retraining for the last 3 years in a new career. This involves working for no pay a couple of days a week, and studying for a doctorate. At the same time, I look after our 3 children, manage the house and do the cooking and laundry.

He is now giving me a hard time about when my training will be finished, because then I can get a job. I find this pressure unhelpful because it is quite hard to study and do everything else that I do. And we are not hard up. We recently bought a holiday house, because he fancied. it. So it's not like we are struggling because I am not working. If that were the case, I would try and get a job. I think that him bringing this up is a way for him to beat me in arguments and make me feel bad. And diverting the discussion to something he knows he can win. Because I can't really argue, that yes, he earns all the money.

He earns more than I ever did in my previous career. Is it so wrong that one of us works and the other doesn’t? Will he ever get over it or stop using it as a weapon?

The point is both people need to be happy with the situation in a relationship. Say it was a different scenario. DH with highly paid job which he loves and is very well paid. He is happy with the status quo. SAHM does everything. SAHM would like to work and take up her career. DH says not possible. The SAHM has a right to have her voice heard.
The same as the OP's DH has the right to be listened to. I know couples who have supported each other when one is studying and not earning. But it has to be with mutual consent.

MrBuster at 22.04 responded perfectly I think. I hope s/he gave you something to think about.

This is a curious situation. Your family is extremely wealthy isn't it, with an exceptionally high standard of living. Your H made the unilateral decision to take on a second mortgage to buy a holiday home though he is basically working around the clock in a high powered job and has very little holiday time. Now he's complaining you don't work and you should be earning, in part to contribute towards this extra mortgage you didn't even agree to finance. If your H was sincerely worried about money and being the sole earner he wouldn't have taken on a second mortgage, would he?

You have full responsibility for 3 children and your household and have been working PT unpaid and studying for a while now. In the foreseeable future you will qualify for reasonably reliable public sector work that will put you back on a career track but will not pay anything like the high salary your H receives now. It's not going to go anywhere near paying for 3 sets of public school fees and 2 mortgages etc. So he will always carry the lions share of responsibility for your financial obligations. That won't change when you work if you continue this standard of living.

At the moment I am guessing that your H doesn't make any contribution to childcare or chores and this will not change when you go back to work. I have understood that you plan to go back to work (as he demands) but you want to know if it is reasonable to be a SAHM when you can afford to be so. I think it is reasonable if you are both in agreement about this.

When you do go back to work you will also be continuing with all of the shopping, cooking, childcare and household chores etc that you are doing now. I think your H doesn't see any of this as his responsibility. Which means you do everything or organise to pay someone to help, which will bring new expenditure.

What contribution does your H make to your family when you take money out of the equation? Are you valued and respected as a person and a wife? Does he see bringing up and caring for your children as an important job? Does he appreciate that having his 3 children means you have not been able to keep up with the latest developments in your first career and have gone to exceptional lengths (PhD and unpaid work experience) to enter the work place again in another role and at a reasonably high level?

I have a sneaking suspicion that your H likes to portray a very successful image of himself and his family to the world. Do you, as a SAHM fit in to this image? Or might a career woman wife reflect better on him? Just a thought, maybe I am wrong here.

So many people who have posted here are clearly very jealous of your money and lifestyle. How many of them would go back to work if they just didn't need the money?

It is really sad that such an affluent man feels that he cannot afford to have a SAHP for his children.

I was a teacher in a small private primary school and a lot of the children expressed their sadness at not having a parent at home when they got back from school. Don't get me wrong, I was not a SAHM, but if the economy can afford it and the SAHP finds enough satisfaction in this role, it can make for a happier, safer childhood for the children.

I very much doubt, based on her grammar, that scottishmummy has a doctorate or any form of post-school qualification MrBuster

In fact,let me correct that incorrect assertion. i do indeed

I feel for you, op. In my experience of living with a workaholic, these people are inherently selfish, self-absorbed and controlling. Only one opinion matters: theirs. Any other opinion or outlook is seen by them as hostile.

If he is giving you a hard time for not "working", why did he agree to fund you in the first place? If he's stressed out why does he have to work quite so hard, if money is not an issue?

Workaholics take a great deal of esteem from their work; it provides them with a sense of identity and achievement. It causes them stress, both good and bad, but they thrive on it.

They are not compromisers, and I don't think your dh is going to change.

Good luck with your plans.

I suspect this may be partly about style. Perhaps the DH is what they call in the trade a "completer-finisher" meaning he is very focussed on getting stuff done and ticking it off. The very quick purchase of the holiday house does suggest that. His frustration may be about the lack of clarity on when OP will finish.

OP, in your shoes, I would be clear with him when you will finish and when you will go back to work. Rather than say "I don't know, this thing is a lot of work, I am busy" when he gets at you, sit down with him, show him a schedule with x hours a week resulting- probably- in a given deadline for submission and getting a job.

When he gets out the laptop and such, I think it is not helping for you to tell him to stop working. Why not fire up your own laptop, do some of your doctoral work, and ask him to make you both a cup of tea.

The thing is, a doctorate is a hell of a lot of work and when ppl do one, its usually the busiest they have ever been - that far in life. But looking back at a doctorate 25 years on from a senior job, DH would tell you that he is busier now.

Actually I do have a doctorate is I am in a position to think there is something strange in the OPs plan. First of all, doctorates in popular areas are funded. This means she should be receiving a tax free stipend. The RCUK says the current minimum stipend is just under £14k. (What is the equivalent before tax salary of this)?

www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/news/rcuk-doctoral-stipend-levels-and-indicative-fees-for-2014/

The fee is also paid for. The OP should bring out the fact she is actually paid to do research.

Not sure what the OP plan is after the doctorate. Academic jobs are very hard to get and you will need a spouse who is willing to support your long unsociable hours and travel. And the potential you might need to relocate. Of course you could already have a industry job lined up instead of trying for postdoc and lecturer ship.

It would be ideal if your DH could own his own feelings and just say "DW can I just talk to you about my job and how stressful I find it and how hard I feel I work. I really need you to show to understand what it's like for me". If he said that you would no doubt put the kettle on and sit down to listen sympathetically. No doubt your DH would feel much better and appreciated at the end of it and the resentment would disappear.

Unfortunately many people esp men find it difficult to link up to their own feelings and then to discuss them. Instead they project it all onto someone else. So for your DH it's easier to externalise the issues -"oh if DW worked it would all be better" -rather than "I will make myself vulnerable by admitting to DW I struggle to cope sometimes and by asking for appreciation and empathy".

Entirely depends what the doctorate is in, the OP says her likely employment will be the NHS or public sector, so it's not a typical academic post. It could be, for example, clinical psychology, which is why she also doing a couple of days unpaid work per week.

One of my friends worked while her husband did his PhD, he now has a very good post at a London uni, where they are based, and he is supporting my friend while she retrains.

Another of my best friend's husband funded her while she retrained as a doctor, she is now working as an anaesthetist while he doing a second degree.

Who's to say the OP's husband will never be made redundant or want to retrain? She could then return the favour.

Personally, I think the OP's husband is choosing to blame his stress on her rather than taking responsibility for his workaholism, and financial choices, such as the second home.

If she were working FT I think it's highly likely that he would be resentful she was not a SAHM, as her workload would put more stress on him. When he imagines her working, he clearly does not factor in his taking on of his share of chores and childcare. The fantasy in his head does not reflect reality.

Life is rarely less stressful with 2 people working full time, childcare and household chores have to be fitted in somehow.

There are obvious options to reduce his stress such as setting boundaries around his hours and taking proper weekends; cutting back on the lifestyle; offloading the second house; downsizing to reduce the mortgage.

His strategy for reducing his stress does not involve him changing anything; it's the OP who has to make the changes, and I question whether that will ever be effective.

OneLittleToddleTerror - For your info, my doctorate is not funded. I am not paid a stipend and the fees are not funded either. I did not really want to go into the minutiae because I did not want to identify myself, but it is in a specialist area of applied psychology, as some people have guessed. It is not funded. There are jobs in this field. I cannot imagine why this is important. I was posting for relationship advice. Thanks to those who have given it.

In fairness, I think that poster brought up the fees/funding because other posters had raised the issue of financial contribution and because the relationship issue could be perceived to be about money.

I have been in a fairly similar situation myself OP and will add a comment in a minute.

NoFrump - I kind of agreed to the holiday home, but only to appease him I guess, because he wanted it so much, and wouldn't drop the idea. I think he felt entitled to it, as a reward for all his hard work.

You are correct about the money, even when I get a job, it will make a bit of a difference to the total but not a huge one. But from his point of view, I think it's about the feeling that someone else shares the responsibility and he doesn't have to worry by himself about how the bills will be paid.

It's not quite as bad as it is maybe portrayed on here. I think he does value and respect me, and he does help out with childcare. So he will occupy the kids over the weekend if I have a big deadline or something. It's just those moments when there is a bit of an argument that this problem really comes into focus.

But that poster is making wrong assumptions and basically accusing me of giving inaccurate information.

"The fee is also paid for. The OP should bring out the fact she is actually paid to do research."

Er No it isn't, and no she shouldn't.

The minutiae of your studies is not really anyone's concern, OP. So just ignore them.

I think it's time to sit down and talk calmly, not when something else causes it to be brought up.

I suspect something else is bothering him, and he might not even know exactly what it is.

It might be that you see the DC more, that you get to control what is happening with them (which is exactly what happens when one person is organising everything), or just that you manage to catch up with friends for coffees etc more than he does.

It's also not always the level of contribution, but that SOMETHING is being contributed. If all of the basic bills are already being paid, then any additional earnings within the family unit will go on extras which can actually make a huge difference.

Sorry if you are taking it the wrong way. I don't think your husband is taking your studies and retraining seriously. I thought you had a stipend and he thought it was peanuts and not worthwhile money. Now that you explained it, it sounds like a very promising area and it will lead to useful employment. He really should not be this dismissive.

It sounds like he is really stressed. But like others I'm not sure he is thinking about slowing down when you finished your retraining. I don't know if he understands what it means to be in a household where both parents are working. He would need to step up massively on childcare and housework.

It is not wrong one of you is working and one of you is at home. It is not wrong if no one in the household is working even if you aren't relying on tax payer money to support your lifestyle. And by the sounds of it you aren't having money problems. But for one reason or another your DH has become resentful and want to blame his stress on him having to support the entire family.

I think that you have to make up your mind whether this is simply a metaphorical stick to beat you with or whether there is something else going on.

Put it this way, if you do get a job will another 'problem' emerge?

In my own case I had a lot of negative pressure from my DH when I was not working for one year (it had not been possible for me to return to work after mat leave), with a young toddler at home and almost no available childcare. He gave little support or encouragement to enable me to job hunt and scant, grudging acknowledgement when I did eventually get a job after an intensive and very hard period of applying and interviewing. We had a relationship crisis during that period and I still find it very hard to forgive his hostility towards me. Oh, and Dh earned a six-figure salary during that time, with an equivalent amount sitting in the bank.

Nearly three years on, what does rile me is that, every so often, DH has changed the tune to 'you're not paid enough'/'you need to get a better job'. I bring in 20k after tax for a responsible, interesting and highly flexible part-time job which enables me to pick up almost all of the childcare responsbilities - what 'better job' is he expecting?! I have had enough and, although things are a lot better between us these days, I am not prepared to have this bullshit come up again.

My advice to you OP is:

Decide upon a conservative and realistic date for when you anticipate that your doctoral work will be finished and you will be free to get a job eg. September 2015.

Any criticism comes up: 'I will be looking for a job in September 2015'.

Repeat ad infinitum.

Work towards that deadline.

Best wishes.

I am in the reverse position - am the high earner. From my point of view it is a lot of pressure -my family's life style depends on what I do. I would love to have the position of having the lifestyle without the pressure like my SAHP. I do at times resent the fact that I don't- and its not an option- my SAHP is never going to earn enough that I can be a SAHP! I also think when you are confortably off a lot of the hardwork of being a SAHP - the housework etc - is outsourced (eg we have a cleaner/gardener). It is difficult because having a SAHP is better for me than if both of us worked- but not as much better as it is for the SAHP.

My DP is quite good at not advising me how to manage my work load - being on blackberry /calls at weekends/nights/holidays is effectively part of my job and tbh I would resent helpful advice elt alone complaints. The thing I do resent is non-appreciation of the other indirect impacts- I get moaned at for being tired and going to bed earlier than my DP - i do sometimes think that if DP was working the same ours or doing teh same commute then maybe we would appreciate each other more?

If your DH doesn't like what he does or wants to work less, then he should. You don't NEED such a well off lifestyle. Your kids don't NEED to go to private school. You don't need a big house with gardens and cleaner and all the rest. You don't NEED a £150k holiday home (for goodness sake!)

Sounds to me like your DH uses his resentment of you to avoid confronting and taking real responsibility for the question of how does he want to spend his time on this earth and what is of fundamental importance to him. He is clearly conflicted - he wants the lifestyle but unfortunately that is only achievable with a lot of hard work and stress. But rather than address the conflict (or heaven forbid experience some personal growth and realise there is more to life than £££) he simply puts all those serious issues on hold and makes you, rather than his own life choices, the container for his negative emotions.

Well said, Bumpsadaisie.

Good post, Bumpsadaisie.

Yes, many a time during that period I said to DH - well, let's move, downsize, use our savings to invest in a business or something that will give us a different lifestyle... But he did not want to do it, funnily enough.

These jobs often carry a lot of power, prestige, perks and status. Some people don't want to give that up, as it may also be that the high salary, perks and accompanying stress are wrapped up in a role that they love and have trained many years in order to do.

It's interesting but I think people's relationship with money has little to do with how much they actually have, beyond a basic standard.

You would think the more you have the more secure and "satisfied" you feel but it doesn't work that way.

The friends I know who are most anxious about money are those with 2 huge mortgage free houses and school fees paid etc. still they are constantly stressed about job performance and status.

It all points to there being something much deeper and more symbolic going on.

The OPs DH is essentially complaining about not getting enough, having to put out all the time and not "getting" himself. I think even if he worked a mere 10 hrs a week and earned £1 million for it he would still have those feelings about something or other.

It really doesn't matter what anyone here thinks. OP and her hubbie made a joint decision 7 years ago which suited them both back then. It no longer suits her hubbie who is resentful.

They need to renegotiate arrangements to suit both.
MAYBE the 2 days unpaid work needs to be sacrificed for some paid work?
You are paying childcare to attend a non paid role, that must rankle with H?

Yes and adults can and do revisit decision made,its not irreversible
It may have been right 7yr ago.its not mutually agreeable now
So they need to revisit the decision and she needs to crack on with the career plan