How do I stop feeling so resentful?

[slothsandunicorns]

Regularish long term poster here but have name changed in case DH looks for any posts under my usual username.

I am usually someone who can see the positive side of things and will use this if I am feeling unhappy but lately am struggling to get past my feelings that this is my lot now. I have 2 healthy DCs, I am healthy, I have a satisfying job, I own a house and a car...there are lots of good things.

However, I am feeling increasingly resentful towards DH. I have always been the main earner and this has been mutually agreed. I am completely fine with this BUT we are finding it increasingly difficult to stretch my income and our tax credits/child benefit to cover everything each month. I have recently retrained and have had to start at the bottom rung of my profession's payscale. It will increase but this will take a few years. On paper this should be OK as our outgoings are comparatively low and we can afford bills/food etc but once they're paid there is little left over for anything like birthdays, new clothes, school uniform, holidays, school trips, house maintenance emergency...and something like this crops up every month.

My parents died a few years ago and we used the inheritance to pay off the house and DH gave up his part time job to do a degree. So whilst he wasn't earning he was around for school pick ups etc. He didn't get any student income as studied with the Open University which is not eligible for loans or grants apart from for tuition fees. He has now graduated and did well. I was hopeful that he would be able to find work so that instead of scrimping and just about getting by each month we could have a larger family income and feel less panicky about extra expenses etc.

However DH has said he does not feels anxious about applying for jobs as he has been out of the workforce for so long. I can understand this would be difficult and why he feels nervous about it. Things came to a head a few weeks ago when our money ran out when we had a few nephews' birthdays to pay for. DH had a go at me for not making enough effort to find ways to pay for them (his suggestions were digging out old Tesco vouchers, using DDs Amazon voucher that she won at school for outstanding achievement). I felt I had already put the effort in by earning the money despite the fact it was not enough. We had a big discussion where I put my foot down and said that if he is too anxious to look for work he needs to get it diagnosed and claim sickness benefits.

He has since seen the doctor and is on a waiting list for CBT which will take some weeks for an appointment to come through. Not able to apply for sickness benefits yet. He has now enrolled to do an MA and the student funding this time will provide an extra £200 or so each month which can be put towards the family income. So better than nothing. But still not enough to put towards a holiday or get an occasional takeaway on a whim like other families who have two working parents seem able to do. DH's attitude to getting money is always to see what he can borrow or what benefits he can claim. It is never get a job and earn money.

I feel bad moaning about this as I know as a family we have a lot more than others. But then other families seem to have much more than us. I just want to have a reserve for emergencies and a little bit extra to do something fun every now and then. I find the endless scrimping and juggling exhausting and feel very down that I'm going to have to do this for the foreseeable future. If I earned an extra £10k a year I would be more than happy for DH to play computer games in his pants all day if this made him happy. Splitting up would not solve this problem. It's not the simple fact he doesn't work more that I feel unsupported and trapped each month. Although I understand things aren't easy for DH either. So this it. How do I make peace with it?

Thanks so much if you've been able to get to the end of this. I may not be able to reply straight away as I can't sign in under my usual username etc.

So you are going along with his plan to do an MA and pretend to be a writer? That's worrying! If this is his first stab at being anxious, there is zero chance his plan to be unable to work ever ill come to fruition. As you say, many highly anxious people work and function.

1.he can't do the MA, you can't afford it, plus it's pointless (for him atm) as it won't lead to paid work.

1. The longer he puts off going to work the worse his anxiety will get.
2. You are not helping him or your children or yourself by enabling this.

If he doesn't want to engage with people he could get an office cleaning job.

Oh and bollocks to you are not being supportive, you've supported him during his degree and it's time he stepped up. You are not his mum. You are allowed to consider things and change your mind. Stop being a mug op

TBF I do know writers who completed their first novel as part of an MA in CW.

One was very successful ( translated into multiple languages and even made into a film).

So it can be the catalyst for a writer.

It's just that more often it's not.

It might help to ask your DH what sort of book he's proposing to write. How he sees this as part of an ongoing career. In what way he imagines the MA will help with that.

I'd also ask why he thinks he wants to be a writer and why he thinks he can be a writer.

I'm the very last person to discourage anyone from pursuing a writing career. And I don't buy into the notion that all writers having been writing day in day out since they were four. I had written precisely nowt when I embarked on my first novel in my early thirties.

I also had a great deal of support from my DH who had faith in me based on no evidence whatsoever .

But our situation was different to yours. Financially, it didn't matter if I had a break from earning (and indeed I was forced to take a break from earning when we moved to a country where I wasn't allowed to work).

Plus, I had a well paid career I could go back to on our return without too much fuss if nothing came of my writing.

carl from what op has said I don't think that will be her dh. He has not written all summer. He is not a writer. The MA is an expensive self indulgent hobby. I would love to stop working and spend all my time doing an MA in renaissance art, but there are bills to pay and mouths to feed, pensions to save for. We can't afford it. So I don't.

He's a massive lazyarse domestically as well.

If he is truly committed he can start his writing career whilst working, he doesn't need an MA to do it.

He hit paydirt when he met you.

He is all grab grab grab and in it for his own self and you were raised to give give and give till you have nothing left.

Goodness alone knows what your children are learning about relationships here; suffice to say its a shedload of damaging lessons.

You wrote this re him earlier:-

"DH's attitude to getting money is always to see what he can borrow or what benefits he can claim. It is never get a job and earn money".

Exactly, that is his whole MO here and I would argue his visit to the doctors anyway is a further continuation of all that. If he has done no writing at all this summer that suggests a lack of overall commitment as well to future writing. Do not whatever you do suggest you take the children out to give him a bit of a break!.

theorchard I agree that it is highly unlikely that the OP's DH will use a CW to galvanise himself.

Which is why I would interested to know what he's thinking about writing ( the thinking is part of the process) and if that has any legs.

If he hadn't given it any thought and expects the MA to somehow turn him into s writer he's going to be very disappointed. They're incredibly woolly courses, even the most well regarded ones.

Of course he's going to lose his confidence and be anxious! His field is super hard to get into and you have to be able to deal with the setbacks and there will be many

Can't he turn his hand to something else?

You need to be honest with him and tell him that he needs to earn whilst writing p/t in his spare time.

He needs to get his priorities in order. Don't baby him. You are t his mother. He's a grown up with responsibilities and a family can't be run on fresh air.

I'm not saying you should end your relationship but the resentment and lack of respect will eventually kill it anyway if something doesn't change soon.

Carl, but you write NOW. You didn't call yourself a writer when you weren't writing.

Also, obviously I don't know your situation but it's likely that as well as your writing sales, you do things like teach creative writing workshops, journalism and bring in income other ways too? If not, apologies, but many self employed writers do do that, if they don't have fixed day jobs. OP's husband isn't even willing to do some low stress part time day work to keep the wolves from the door. How's he going to have the discipline he'll need? OP herself says he looks to every way of getting money except earning it!

On what basis did he give up work when you inherited money from your parents and paid off the mortgage? What did he do before? Didn't you have a discussion about finances at the time?

I find this thread depressing. Despite the excellent advice you have received I have a horrible feeling that you are just going to carry on indulging him at the expense of your own health and strength. He knows just how to manipulate you, unfortunately and the sorry situation has gone on for so long that he will not be willing to change.

You know this is wrong op.

You know he's bullshitting you and so far you've swallowed it.

You have 2 kids to provide for, not 3.

You are obviously an intelligent woman and you know you're being taken for a fool.

Its up to you how long you stand for it, that's all.

Surely you're not going to go along with the MA necause he will whinge and feel let down if you say NO?

Would you give in to one of your children's unreasonable demands to stop them feeling hard done by?

and throw your spreadsheet out and him along with it.

then, and only then, will you feel better and start living a real life.

Look, no spreadsheets. That's just going to let him negotiate. That's a tool that will let him use more leverage on you. Put the spreadsheet away!

The answer to the MA is "no. It's more debt." If he wants to do that it needs to be in he future when he has a job and it can be done on the side.

He needs to get a job. If he thinks he's going to get a diagnosis and benefits for anxiety he's deluded. I have crippling anxiety and I work. I've HAD to work.

You're enabling him - even the spreadsheet is (sorry to sound harsh because you sound like such a nice person but you need to hear this!)

No MA
part time job

He's a leech.

I have severe anxiety. I have to work, l don't have the luxury of my disability stopping me being able to work.

I get Access to Work from the government. This releases to my workplace to make my job easier for me. He could look into this if he DOES have anxiety. He just sounds lazy to me.

Releases money to my workplace....

I wonder if the CBT course is a red herring? Your DH will certainly need to put in the effort to get the most out if it, and have clear goals.

My DH suffers from awful anxiety. He has completed a one to one CBT course as prescribed by his GP. If he failed to 'attend' any of his CBT phone appointments, he would no longer be allowed to participate. He spent a few hours in the evenings and weekends practicing the exercises given to him.
And in between he continued to successfully do a professional, senior role, 70hr a week job.
He is focused and motivated I am more like your DH

Has he considered medication? If he is of the personality type not to really focus on the CBT, it could be a faster way for him to get his symptoms under control and for him to be able to face job hunting.

This is the perfect time of year for him to apply for a seasonal job, which may be less scary for him to contemplate?

Sorry should have clarified - the spreadsheet is for evidence of my non financial contribution to the household should we split and there is a dispute over access to the DCs.

Tell him to get off his ass and start making a contribution or bugger off op.
Sorry but sometimes you have to force them the stark reality and let him have to sort it out.

If he's got a nervousness about going into the working world he ought to be working in that. There are lots of places you can go to and speak to potential employers in the field your looking for.
The job centre sometimes offers a service whereby someone will help you.

yorick the teachImg I've done in CW and English has been more for the fun of it rather than the cash (I earn far more from the writing) and to mix things up a bit. I love to discuss writing and the craft of it.

But I have a lot of mates who do it to supplement their meagre earnings from writing. That's not to say they're not good teachers, but it probably wouldn't have come about if they could earn more from writing.

I don't know what point I started to call myself a writer. Probably when I got my contract so I had money and deadlines. But before that point when people asked me what I did, I'd say 'I'm writing a book', which probably had a lot of them secretly rolling their eyes.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there is a point when you're not really a writer, but you want to be. And everyone finds it ridiculous and childish and impractical.

I always considered myself a writer, even when I was a daft teen writing appalling Mary Sue nonsense (and sending it to publishers - this was decades before the Internet/the self publishing explosion, for which I am very grateful tbh. Or some of my adolescent drivel might still be out there...). When I first graduated, I had two or three crappy clerical jobs, but I was still pretty much constantly writing (still mostly crap at that stage) then I got a lucky break in the form of a staff position at a magazine. And carried on writing fiction in my spare time.
It doesn't sound like your H has any idea what he wants to write (though if he is doing creative writing courses, it's probably fiction or poetry) - and it also sounds like he has nothing to say were he to write anything.

Both DH and I have anxiety - yes the debilitating kind! I have a complex MH diagnosis. We both work full time.

I think in most cases not working feeds the anxiety.

Perhaps just say you won't support him doing an MA unless he works part time for a couple of years...

When whines I would just say that until he starts helping himself why should you be supportive?