I’m a long term Mumsnet user but I rarely post. I have followed the relationship threads, found many to be heartening with good advice given. I would be so grateful to have your views on my situation as there are very few people in RL in whom I can confide.
I have been with DH for 14 years. I was a professional in a good job but gave it up on the birth of my third DC (I have 3: aged 12, 10 and 8). It seemed easier to be a SAHM as DH works incredibly long hours. He is a hard worker, and seemingly devoted to his family. I say “seemingly” because work takes everything out of him and we get the dregs. He suffers from stomach complaints which he thinks are stress-related and he’s probably right, but he eats really badly too which must exacerbate things. He had a tough childhood and says he wants more for his children. He earns really well and on the face of it we have a lovely lifestyle: nice house, holidays, the children want for nothing on a material level. They go to a fee-paying school which they love and in which they are thriving but which is becoming increasingly unaffordable.
I have been unhappy for a while. We moved away from my family for his job around 10 years ago and over this time I have built up a support network of sorts, through the children. I have one or two good friends and several acquaintances. But I still feel lonely. In part, this is, I think because I always thought I would have my career for mental stimulation but going back into it has been harder than I imagined: both because I would have a long commute to where I need to be and also because I just don’t have the capacity mentally to cope with both a full time job and all I need to do at home and for the children. I have looked for part time jobs but there are none in my field unless I commute for 4 hours a day and having done it before I know it would exhaust me.
DH pays lip service to my getting a job. He knows I am unhappy and have been looking for a while, but his view is, why work if you don’t have to and someone needs to be keeping the domestic fires burning. He tells me he does not want the children to suffer through my being pulled in another direction and that if I am not doing what I do at home he cannot continue bringing in the money we need to keep the children in their school. This keeps me feeling sufficiently guilty and constantly looking around for ways to make it work. The longer I am out of work, the more confidence I lose and the more I feel vulnerable about being reliant financially entirely on him. I feel an increasing sense of anger that I am expected to do everything domestic: because of his work hours, I do all the children’s stuff, all the cleaning and cooking and washing (although we do have a cleaner once a week and I could enlist more paid help) and most of the shopping (he will bring shopping home willingly if I ask). At weekends, DH is exhausted and apart from doing runs to various children’s activities and shopping it is difficult to get him to do anything else. So I do the gardening, the bill-paying and the DIY, as well as organising any social activities. Occasionally, if I nag, he will mow the lawn but only when he is ready and on his terms. He is fanatical about sport and spends much of the weekend watching TV and he will go to the gym which he says helps him to deal with the stress. I encourage this and also support him in finding a hobby because I want him to be happy and I realise his mental and physical health suffers because of the time he spends at work. But I keep thinking - is this all there is? It is just domestic drudgery.
I have asked him so many times to find a less stressful job so that we can spend more time as a family and have proper quality of life and fewer material things, a smaller house. But he keeps saying he can’t do anything else and that the area he works in is just like that. He says there are more staff joining or he will delegate more but it never changes. He keeps saying he wants the children to have the best chance in life and that they are happy at their school (which is true).
I have started to disconnect emotionally from the relationship: I seem to be trapped with no way forward; I feel my needs are neglected as his work always comes first and if he doesn’t do what he does we will have to move the children from the school and the friends they love. We never do anything fun at weekends because I have so many chores and he is so tired. To make things worse, DH binge drinks every Friday or Saturday night (again, stress-related) so he usually spends one day lying on the sofa recovering from a hang-over. He won't admit to having a hang-over and blames his torpor on his week at work. But I know he drinks more than he says he does as I have found the evidence. In fact he lies about various things to avoid confrontations: e.g. how much he spent on buying his car, what the children have had to eat (he lets them eat junk food when I have asked him not to) and sometimes I catch him out. He will tell me it’s because he knows I would badger him about it. He has consistently lied about seemingly small things over the course of our relationship and the lies (and his inability to see that his lying upsets me) has slowly eroded some of the foundations of my love for him. There are other issues, such as his anger and selfish behaviour; the fact that when he is not working he puts his needs before me and the children, but from his perspective this is a quid pro quo as his working the hours he does is a sacrifice that he makes for us. But from my point of view, it is not a sacrifice I or the children have asked of him and we would rather he earned less but was happier and participated fully in family life! He has seen a counsellor a few times at my instigation, who, apparently has confirmed to him he is not an alcoholic and he says he is getting help for managing the stress. My question is: are any of these points potential deal breakers for you? I am coming to the end of my tether and I am not sure if this is just my frustration at being an SAHM with little practical support, or whether it is him that is making me unhappy. My counsellor tells me I can’t change his behaviour but I can change mine, but I just feel overwhelmed by all I have to do with so little support. I am thinking of insisting we move closer to my parents so they can help with childcare and I can go back to work. But a large part of me doesn't want to take him with me. Am I being unreasonable? Should I try harder to make this work?