How do I tell him I don't want to go back to work?

[DontGiveAwayTheHomeworld]

DS starts school in two weeks. He's going straight into full-time, which frees up a large chunk of the day for me. Because of this, DH has started on about me going back to work. The thing is, I don't really want to.

We don't desperately need the money, things are tight but we manage. I never had anything resembling a career, and the only work I could realistically do is shop/cleaning work - I was more than happy to give that up, and I really don't want to go back to that, particularly if there's no financial gain (which there wouldn't be after childcare.) Besides that, I've been working on a novel for the last year and a bit, and the dream is to write full- time. The extra time I gain from DS being at school would be the perfect transition to that, but DH sees it as just a hobby. Which it is, I guess, but I'd love to make it my career, even if I don't make much money from it.

I just don't know how to talk to DH about all this, he's all but decided I'll be going back to full-time work outside the home, to the point where he's getting annoyed at the fact I'm not really looking. It's really eating at my confidence - like I'm not worth anything without a job.

It's drudgery, but not in the sense that a regular job is - I really hope it's coming across properly there!

I can tell you exactly how it's coming across and the word "princess" comes to mind.

Stop looking down on people. It's not very attractive.

Some really good points here OP.

24 is nothing. To be writing that you've spent all your life living up to other peoples expectations is sad but frankly many people could write that. You do have to steer your own life but that does need agreement which you have not got. You can't expect him to fund it. So steer in other ways.

I agree that at your age you are shutting yourself off by planning to return to your house at 9am after sending child to school...until 3pm when you'll collect? That would be the nature of working at writing.

Planning a career would be really useful to you and give you something that was yours and fulfilling. It could involve writing but it does need structure Make a plan not a loose....think I'll give up work and write.

You and your husband sound disconnected and resentful of each other. Relationships should be good but need work to get there. That sounds as if you need to work out a solution that means neither of you feels as resentful.

"It's drudgery, but not in the sense that a regular job is - I really hope it's coming across properly there!

I can tell you exactly how it's coming across and the word "princess" comes to mind"

It's a good job the DH is not so precious about working isn't it

If only 24 and not worked for five years, then even if you worked from 16 then it's two or three years max you have ever done and now you feel that you shouldn't have to ever do it again?

What happens if you DH says help with the finances or leaves? You can't force somebody to support you and he's asking for help. It sounds like he gets no say in things but is expected to continue to support your every financial need.

OP, I've been writing for about five years now. I'm doing it while working a full time job and raising two children. That's the nature of the beast. I put in about 15-20 hours of writing work in the evenings after the children go to bed, and at the weekends. I'd like to do more, but it's all that I can carve out for now.

I don't go out, I don't watch an awful lot of TV (maybe 2 or 3 hours a week), because I've made writing the priority.

This isn't unusual. Loads and loads of writers are in this position. It's not that we don't care about writing; it's that our belief in it forces us to work around the other necessities of life. We don't give up because there's a mortgage to pay.

The other thing to remember is that when you're in the world of work, the drudgery as you put it, that fills you with so much more potential than you'll have on your own. You'll learn to hear voices, you'll gather experiences, you'll write in your head giving back stories to the people you come across. I write constantly. Well, not constantly, but in those moments before meetings, while I'm typing numbers into boxes, all of that time is spent plotting and planning and filling in conversations in my head. Then when the kids go to bed, I'll mind-dump it all into the computer, 2,000 words at a session.

Your writing method might be quite different to this, but I'd counsel against assuming that it has to be either/or. Work/writing. It's perfectly possible to do both if you want it badly enough.

Even if you get your book published, that will still not make you enough money. A lot of authors still have to work and write to support themselves.

You either get a job or go back in to education to retrain. Why should it all be on your husband? don't you want some spare money so you and your family are more comfortable?

I am your age and am going back to college this September because I do not want to end up in a shop job all my life. You need to be realistic.

The way I see it OP is that being a SHE is a luxury. I was one for 6 years and we afforded it be sacrificing other extras and luxuries in our lives. The important thing was the SAHP luxury was one that we agreed benefited the whole family. Now what you want is a good chunk k of the family income to be dedicated to a luxury that only benefits you . The rest of your family will have to sacrifice a better life style for you to follow your dream. Is that fair? Especially when you have made no attempt to find even a part time or school hours jobs that you could fit writing around. Your House should help you by shouldering some of the childcare and housework in evenings and weekends so you can write but continuing to financially support you indefinitely when there is no benefit to the family - no that's not right.
By the way I don't buy the argument that he's done a job he enjoys the past 5 years and now it's your turn. By your own account you were happy to give up your job and stay at home and fit on a bit of writing as well. So you've been doing a job you enjoy too.

SAHP not SHE

H not House

Ah OP I feel bad now, 24 is so young and I know it will seem patronising when a bunch of people say that but it means that actually you have the luxury of time to find things you really want to do - alongside your writing, but also that you have plenty of time to succeed with writing.

Training/uni is definitely an option.

As for your husband looking down on your writing, that's not great. Mine is supportive of what I do but not genuinely interested - ie he'd never ask to read it (which makes me a bit sad in an ego-centric way!) but he does know it's important and we regularly spent our free time with me on a computer (and him playing games!).

I think he should support the fact it's important to you, but it's also okay if he expects you to be working towards contributing to the house in some way.

" I need the creative outlet and can't stand drudgery"

Hands up everyone who loves drudgery

without wanting to out myself the 20 year relationship I had with the father of my children broke down because he had the same attitude as you towards his particular unpaid dream/hobby.

The sole responsibility for financially supporting us all lay on my shoulders. It was intolerable and I put up with it until my youngest started SECONDARY school ( more fool me) .

I told him it was over about a year ago. The children are with him half the time now and he HAS to go out to work .

He still pursues his hobby and good luck to him, I really hope he succeeds.

You haven't answered the question about what you're going to do for your dh or have done for your dh outside of the voluntary sah years to reimburse him for supporting you now. Does he get to take the time you allot to writing now while it's unpaid as early retirement? It's convenient that his dreams involve him earning enough to support you whereas yours don't seem to involve reciprocity. I'd worry about him resenting you and for good cause without a proper quid pro quo agreement.

I need the creative outlet and can't stand drudgery

This made me laugh so much!

OP - You don't have some inalienable "right" not to work. Your partner is just that - your PARTNER - not a parent, or a financer of your hobbies.

Your attitude is incredibly selfish. You don't want to work because such low level jobs are somehow "beneath" you? That is extremely arrogant. If you can't bear to work for minimum wage, then re-train in a field which will give you access to higher wages. It doesn't matter if it isn't your dream job of writing - it's to put money on the table, and give you a career that you could at least take some pride in.

Your husband is right - you need to go back to work. Even if at the beginning you are making minimum wage and it's basically only covering childcare - that doesn't matter, because that's just the starting point. Especially if you re-train, but even if you don't, there will be opportunities for promotion, pay rises, other jobs freeing up, etc. But if you delay going back, or never go back, then it pushes those opportunities further and further away.

Your husband has been supporting the family for years - and it's clear that he wants you to start to contribute to finances as well. That way, it takes some of the pressure off him.

You can continue to write in your spare time, and perhaps as a compromise, if you go back to work, then every sunday your husband can take the children and give you a day/half day to focus on writing.

I am sorry that you aren't a princess in her tower that gets to do whatever she feels like, but this is the real world.

OP, unless you become the next E.L James or J.K Rowling you're unlikely to be able to make enough money from writing alone.

So you need to figure out how you're going to contribute to the household finances in the longer term. You've still got enough time to train for a career. Even if you could teach creative writing or something, that would be a skill you could 'fall back on'.

I'm afraid you do sound a bit princess-y. 'I only want to spend my life doing things I like and want to do.'

Sorry, life doesn't work like that. Especially not if you're part of a family.

You are behaving like a petulant teenager: I either have to write full time or you've ruined my life forever...stamps feet.

You've had 5 years at home already. Presumably your child went to nursery from 3. Did you write then?

You've said you didn't have a career anyway-hardly surprising if you had a baby at 19, there aren't many careers where you'd be qualified by then-but surely now is the time to get trained up.

You are in serious danger of destroying your relationship. If I were in your DH's shoes, I would find your attitude and behaviour wearing and unattractive.

Hands up everyone who loves drudgery

Oooh, me me-I do, I do, I do! Oh no, hang on a minute...

I think usually when someone gets a novel published the process is to send the first 1-3 chapters to an agent or publisher and if they like what they see they ask for the rest. This might be old fashioned though?

If you are 3/4 of the way through yours you could give this a go? If you get some interest it would be a huge spur to finish the novel, which should be quite quick once you have 5 or 6 hours extra a day to spend on it.

If you get rejections - which I think is most people's experience for a first novel - you have your answer and can move on to plan B - whether that is copy writing, university or some other retraining to get a career. Or just a normal, if boring, job that fits round school hours.

Most people work to live. Even those of us who have an enjoyable and interesting career would stop in a heartbeat if we won the lottery. The trick is to find the most interesting work you can that provides a reasonable income.

TBH, if you are only 24, 'writing full time' is not for you because you have nothing to say. Your writing, at the moment, is going to be pretty much unpublishable, because you haven't put the hours in. Every good writer has a pile of unpublished and unpublishable crap that s/he wrote in younger days, which is derivative, boring, self-indulgent and often unfinished. That's how writers learn. If you've been working on Your Great Novel for five years and haven't finished it yet, it's probably got every beginner's mistake going.
This doesn't mean you won't ever be a decent writer, just that you aren't experienced enough or mature enough to shut yourself away with your own thoughts.

RTFT

Looks like gender equality might actually be winning.

Ha, lots of writers coming out of the woodwork, I'm another one! Yes I've earned money from mine but it's a trickle and if I was relying on it to live on I would now be scouring bins for tonight's dinner.
I work flexi hours in care (plenty of work around in that field) school hours and weekends when the kids are away etc, as I still need to be around for school runs and am a lone parent so it's all down to me.

OP, there is nothing like that little leap of the heart when your work gets chosen, writing is an escape, it's letting out something inside you that needs to come out, life is hard and we all need our dreams....you don't have to give anything up to pursue that, you don't have to be 'pissing about on the laptop' even to come up with ideas, many of my ideas come to me when doing the washing up or in the supermarket queue, i.e. writing fits in with the drugery, it's all the same thing and being at home full time won't guarantee you'll produce better work than you would if you're tooing and froing and all over the shop as it were.

The great thing about writing is that you can do it at almost any point in your life and, as other posters have pointed out, it is enriched by life experience.

Whereas what you should be doing now is getting out there and building your qualifications and work experience. Otherwise, you will find your options very, very limited. Why not go to university, train and get a job that you enjoy for a few years and which would give you many more options? You would still not be 30 at that point.

I say this kindly, as someone with a complete draft of a novel lying unpublished on my shelf. But also as someone with a degree, a professional qualification, plus ten years of work experience in that profession - even then, I found it hard to get back into work after an extended maternity leave. However, I was able to use that knowledge and experience to get myself published in magazines and trade journals - but I needed that behind me in order to have enough to say and to make my work meaningful.

I found a new job and have been doing a postgrad course alongside it, so I am not writing for now. I may pick it up again soon, but I recognise that it is only one of the arrows in my quiver, something that I do alongside other work, not as all and everything in itself.

many of my ideas come to me when doing the washing up or in the supermarket queue, i.e. writing fits in with the drugery, it's all the same thing and being at home full time won't guarantee you'll produce better work than you would if you're tooing and froing and all over the shop as it were.

Good point. I rather suspect that if you're sitting at home from 9-3 and have never really gone out in to the world and worked, your writing might be like the aforementioned beginners self-indulgent piffle.

You very clearly just want to not work and put all the strain on your dh just because he enjoys his job and you won't enjoy a "mediocre" job in a cafe or supermarket .

you are being selfish and very entitled