Husband resents me

[alisonis48]

Here's the situation. Hubby earns good money in city and resents me earning small money for working 2 days a week locally. But he earns double what we need to live on, we have no mortgage and my job means we have no childcare issues, and I can look after house, do all housework cooking etc and be there 100% for our son. Is he being unreasonable to resent me? He says I don't earn enough.

Add to that he needs to buy birthday cards for his family, organise PE kits for the correct days, do packed lunches, host playdates etc.

No-one can be arsed to do that. It's so much easier to go to work.

This really does depend on what both parties are actually doing and what they both want.

If the OP is really making a beautiful house, cooking lovely home prepared meals and doing all the cleaning as well, that is s lot of work! If the house is a bit grubby, pizzas are regular fare and shirts are sent to the dry cleaners and the iPad is the babysitter, it really isn't.

Equally if the OP's partners job allows for long relaxed lunches with clients/colleagues, plenty of office chat about the weekend sport and regular lunchtime gym sessions, he has more free time than he is admitting to.

The principle of equal free time is a good one, as is a fair valuation of what outsourcing housework/childcare would cost relative to what you are living on.

"but it sounds like the DH is more than capable of doing the maths. Why should she present to him the facts."

Actually I disagree, he probably hasn't factored in all the things the op does that then need to be done because his inferior brain doesn't recognise that they get done because it happens by magic! He expects op to earn more without it impacting on his currently lifestyle.

I don't agree with those saying if both parents work full time children suffer and you don't have a happy homelife however. By all means a man don't work full time or a woman but don't expect your children to thank you or for it to be better for the children.

I find this odd, but maybe my relationship is the unusual one. Marriage and bringing up children is s joint venture in my opinion. I work full time during term time and have the school holidays off (unpaid, I work in a school office so our wages are pro rata). My wages are poor in comparison to my husband. But it means we don't have to worry about childcare during the school holidays.
When I'm off work during the holidays, I do all of the housework and the cooking as I'm at home. During term time, I do the laundry and cooking, my husband does the housework.
I used to work 3 days a week, my husband never complained because I was at home with our children.
If I had to work full time while our children we pre school age, I would have had to pay more in childcare than I earned.
It seems to be like your husband is being unreasonable and is possibly using this as an excuse for something else.

What would he say if you presented back a very logical argument?

Yes darling, I can go back to the work I used to do along with the hours that needs. It means that:

• You will need to do half the housework (with a list of the chores that entails weekly) or pay half a cleaner for £X

• We'll need before and after school care or a Nanny which will cost £X

• You'll need to do half of the following household admin (list of which birthdays he'll cover shopping for, holidays to be arranged, etc)

• If DS is sick you'll need to cover every other day that he has to be taken care of (approx X days per year)

There are financial and quality of life issues here. Many families have both parents working anf iy isnt detrimental to the kidd. You may eant to soend tine with your child but it wont damage him to have 2 working parents. Also if youve lived abrod you may need to put more into pensions than other people would. It sounds like hes making a purely financial decision and youre making an emotional one. You need to look at how much money you working would cost and what daily quality of life would be like. But himsaying hes been carrying you when you have been the trailing spouse abroad is really not OK. It has cost you your job to be married to him and however much you were happy with that he should acknowledge the impact it has had on you.

Look into divorcing him OP - your income might rise to his standard then!

And I'm only half-joking. You do all the housework, cooking, cleaning and childcare - and he wants you to add a fulltime career to that, presumably without making any kind of adjustment in how he lives?

If you really want to stick with this know, ask him to employ a cleaner, cook and a nanny to make up for your absence from the home - then you'll make arrangements to go back into full-time work. It'll only cost £400-600 a week.

*KNOB, not know

Find a local job that is full time that would be possible for you to get
Then present that advertised wage and hours to your husband along with childcare costs, rota to split school runs and housework and food shopping and weekend ferry g around of child etc.
Split it all in half.
Ask him if he is happy with that and then if he is apply and only ever do your half

He says he's sick of carrying me and I need to step up.

Imho, I think he still sees you as his girlfriend. I know you are married, but the little piece of paper did not psychologically alter his perspective. I know you have a child together, but that also did not alter his psychological perspective.

He does not see the three of you as a family unit, all on the same team. His money is his money, when it should ideally be family money, iyswim.

"carrying you" This would seriously piss me off. As pointed up thread, he would not have the capabity to pursue his high paying job if it weren't for you behind the scenes saving great sums of money for the household, raising his child, keeping his (hopefully yours too!) house.

I agree with pps that, unless he can evolve into a family man, you'd be better off as a single parent. Sorry to say, but I doubt he would miss you-he'd only miss his maintenance money. I think this may be a function of great expanses of time as a long distance relationship, kind of a delayed consequence,

It sounds like ye didn't agree on this way of doing things. You decided. Ye need to be on the one page. Also maybe he was attracted to you because you were a high flying executive and ye had a lot in common. He never envisaged you being at home. In order to be a Sahm both people meet to be happy with it and he needs to give it his full support. You cannot demand this of him, he gets a say too. If he agreed to it initially and is now changing his mind that's a different story.

It sounds like you just decided that because he earns well you didn't need to work and just do a few hours.

One working part time or not at all has to be a joint decision. One party just deciding is selfish as it's supposed to be a partnership.

Millions of families manage both working full time and the housework.

While I agree that both parents working FT is absolutely not a problem, and that the decisions about working/childcare should be joint - don't overlook that the family spent 4 years abroad because of the DH's work.

Yes, OP could get a FT job, but her contribution to supporting the family has enabled his career. If he wanted the lifestyle he appears to, then he should never have had a child.

Living as a family requires compromise from all of the adults, and he needs to be willing to discuss this.

OP - certainly not implying you were living WAG lifestyle at all. I was just seeing if that was the case, as I would understand why a man would get fed up of that. So please don't think I was instantly assuming you were.

Seems like he is so focussed on the actual figure that you earn and I think that is unfair. My man earns A LOT, freakish amount, it isn't possible for me to even earn a quarter of what he earns. I just do the best I can and contribute as much as I comfortably can and he is more than happy with that.

Sounds as though you contributing financially the best that you can whilst also being housewife/SAHM. I think he is being unrealistic and unreasonable whilst your son is still young.

How does he find his job his working lifestyle. How happy and stressed is he. I was all set to agree with everyone else (and I may still) but through all your posts there is a sense of what works for you the balance you want, does he have the balance he wants.

For example I work 3 days and a lot from home, this means my husband who works 5 days can work a job that means he is home by 6 every day and work from home occasionally

I think the problem is that you just haven't talked it all through and collectively agreed on what you want your lives to be like. It sounds like both of you can be a bit selfish/inflexible - I suspect that your DH just expected you to go along with his job abroad and, similarly, you expect him just to be ok with you working very part-time. I also wonder if he misses being married to someone ambitious.

You need to discuss it and come to a compromise and, yeah, both of you need to compromise - it feels like a sensible place to end up would be you working part-time but in a better paid more "serious" career or at least working towards that and him picking up a lot more at home.

DH and I had a similar talk. I was always set to go back to work when she was at school. I asked that if he didn't have DD and I, would he work less (he's committed to his job with unpredictable and long antisocial hours). He realised he loves his job and if he had nothing to come home to he'd work more, not less.

Then we talked about what me going back to work to focus on my career in the way he'd been free to do for years would mean to DH.

He wouldn't be able to work so flexibly or go away or stay away at short notice. He'd have to keep regular hours to do the school run and get a job close to home so he could be consistent. He'd have to do half the school runs and half the after school clubs and birthday parties (we both loathed those) and he'd need to do half the chores. All these things would mean he'd have considerably less leisure time than he does and that his career would also take a hit as his job was unsustainable.

Neither of us will have a cleaner in the house and both of us didn't want DD in paid childcare...and note, the discussion was still only about him doing his half share, not that I would drop mine to ficus on furthering my career as he had done. We aren't anywhere close to gender equality as a society although rare pockets exit.

Notinagreatplace fair point although for the record the part time job I'm doing is what I'm qualified in just on a much lower salary than I'd get in london. I'm accepting it for now and will make an effort to find other part time work for the other days and or better paid money then present hubby with comparison so we can jointly decide. In the meantime what I earn although not enough to pay all the bills will cover 1/3 of what we spend each month.
It made me laugh when someone on this thread commented on my non working days as days off, yeah right if you count days off as spent cleaning ironing food shopping clearing admin etc etc! (I'm not counting childcare). I'm sure we'd all love to have proper days off!

Also in terms of leisure time hubby only comes home for child's bedtime on Wednesdays when I have a gym class, the other nights he calls in at the pub on the way home and comes back at around 8 to a home made dinner. The house is always tidy and clean, food in fridge, shirts ironed, admin sorted etc so he just relaxes. So maybe that goes towards explaining my attitude also, I'm fully aware that if I worked longer hours the only difference would be we'd have a childminder and a cleaner.

What an arse !!! I don't work and my dh 'carries ' us but he doesn't mind . We are a team . He works and I did everything else !! He has even offered to pay for a cleaner ( I declined ) often in sat on the sofa and we joke about it but we are happy . Whatever I earn won't touch the side of what he does so it's how it is ... we have always shared everything though so I'm guessing you don't and didn't before children .

My point exactly, I thought we were a team, I've made so many sacrifices for us as a family. I know he's worked really hard and saved loads but I think he's too ambitious and it puts too much stress on us that we don't need. I think the issue is more that I'm happy settling for far less money than I'm capable of earning and that's what infuriates him.

He sounds like an egotistical twat! He wouldn't be where he is now without you. In my experience it will take slot of drip feeding to get him to see your point of view if he ever will. Chances are he knows how you feel he just doesn't give a shit.
for you, I bet he never buys you any.

How are you, op?

Hi your message really intrigued me as it sounds like you totally get my point and have a similar struggle yourself. So the update is within one week of having all this discussion/feeling like crap I got an interview and was offered a higher paying job on the spot. 4 days a week but the commute is a bugger, 50 mins drive each way without traffic. Three times the low wage I'm on now but will mean childcare and I'm not convinced commute will work. Hubby was I think a bit shocked i managed to secure a job offer so fast and hopefully a little bit proud, he's been abroad this week with work but said work it all out and it's up to you see if it's worth it. After trying the drive there and back I'm thinking I should hang on until I find something more local as will be forever stressing I'll never make it back in time, and will be just as much in Diesel/traveling time as a train fare to london and the whole point was we didn't want both of us working in london, so difficult to know what to do.