Oh pet. HOw awful.
Well for what little it's worth, we know you're not ''a gold digger''. He wants you to have nothing. To work hard at work, come home, work hard at home and to have no spare income and no security.
You are working hard too and you deserve to have the security that he has.
As horrible as it is to FACE this, I hope you can understand that this isn't love. His biggest fear isn't losing you. His biggest fear is losing half his salary.
He doesn't acknowledge you're contribution even though everybody reading this thread can see it. You're not a charity. You work, you raise children, no doubt you do more than 50% of the "wife work".
I am going to to ask you to trust me here. Leaving my x was the hardest thing I ever did. He had ground my confidence down to zero. He had made me feel that I needed to prove to him that all women weren't gold diggers (clever huh?!) and he made me feel I owed it to him to see the tiny tiny tiny bit of good of him when it was far outweighed by misogyny, meanness and entitlement.
I just want to be the voice of your future and remind you that you are a competent employee with a job, your children are going to get older, you will be entitled to tax credits, please, please VALUE yourself. I'm much much older than you! I only recently felt brave enough to go out on internet dates and it's been ok so far! no horror stories. I'm not suggesting you do that now but I'm telling you not to fear being single and to know that there's plenty of time. Please remember that you're not a charity.
I'm glad you feel some anger. How dare he plunder you like a resource? How dare he expect you to sacrifice all of your potential and all of your opportunities for his convenience! How dare he expect you to be the one who bears all of the financial sacrifice of parenthood. That is not love. It's entitlement, selfishness, greed, disregard..................
xx