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.

Going for a further degree won't help in the long run because he'll be even longer out of the work place. And it's just putting his issues in hold.

A writer writes...they may be unpublished as yet but they are writing. And before you got your break you were writing, and presumably working or contributing somehow to your household.

I see none of that in OP's husband...

Academia is comforting and cozy, theres no unexpected deadlines or pressure - you never have to suddenly write 2 essays because Dave is off sick and the client is yelling, you never get stuck in traffic commuting to your virtual lecture, or have to interview to be accepted onto a course.

Real life can be scary, and the only way to make it less scary is to get into it, be worried and nervous, and then find you can cope with it. Thats why there are special "back to work" classes offered for people who have been out of work for a while, once it becomes unfamiliar then its much more comfortable to just....not.

'I have had a look at the finances and we can't afford for you to do the MA.'

I did an MA whilst working three days per week in a new job, a non-sleeping toddler and no additional childcare to enable me to study - all my childcare was for my working hours.

When I first started reading this thread much of it sounded familiar - I also work full time, have a dh who doesn't, wants to break through in a creative industry but isn't pushing himself hard enough (although he does get paid work sporadically), we are struggling financially and I also wonder often how not to be resentful of the life we have. The comment someone made about enabling being a form of control rang very true with me.

Dh suffers from debilitating, diagnosed anxiety and hasn't worked full time since we had ds2, 8. So far, so similar...

BUT...dh does the whole SAHD role - cooking, shopping, school run, washing, ironing, cleaning. Your dh should at least be doing that.

Also, he worked part-time until a year ago when we jointly decided he should leave his job. He has struggled to find another job since that fits in with child care. He has tried hard, and we have recently had serious conversations about how he really needs to start working again because the credit cards are slowly creeping up. He sees that. He isn't suggesting a student loan and starting an MA. He definitely doesn't have a go at me for not magically finding the funds for us to do things. The last money he earnt for his photography all went towards our family holiday and a meal out - he spends nothing on himself.

Your Dh needs to wake up and live in the real world and that's not going to happen unless you sit down with him and lay down exactly how you feel and what you want to happen. Otherwise he will let you carry on doing what you're doing indefinitely.

I sympathise enormously with your situation - I was getting to boiling point recently and eventually just bubbled over, had a huge cry and a rant and let it all out. Things have been much better since because at least I know he doesn't think I'm all hunky dory with the way things are.

I don't want to leave my dh and I sense you don't either really - do you still enjoy spending time together or is everything overshadowed by your resentment towards the situation you're in? My dh and I still have a great laugh together and he's a fantastic dad.

I hope you sort it out, and I hope you've seen from all the previous posters that you're not being unreasonable by expecting him to contribute significantly more than he is right now.

Your implied approval for him doing the MA is irrelevant; you're finding any excuse now to avoid rocking the boat but it really does need to be tipped upside down.

Things change in the big bad world that you've been sheltering him from. Just tell him that with the price of everything going up he needs to go and get a job because your implied approval of him not working no longer stands. If his MA is so important to him he'll want to do it while working like rest of us. He also needs to understand very clearly that he is setting a terrible role model for your DC - especially DS. If he trots out the importance of being creative, a free spirit, able to follow his dreams then tell him very bluntly that he's only had that luxury because you have worked your arse off to give him that privilege not to mention used your inheritance to enable that too.

Let him throw his toys out of the pram and move in with his parents. If they really are disapproving of his lazy self indulgent ways then hopefully they'll stick the necessary rocket up his backside although are you sure his Mum didn't indulge her little prince and fall for his excuses? Hence her son is the way he is?

The DC will cope remarkably well with the situation (as evidenced time and again on MN) and I bet that you'll all be so much more relaxed without him there such that your relationship with them will blossom. You can be sure that if he strops off to his Mum's he won't initiate a divorce and he won't move out from Mum's so you'll at least have breathing space.

He has too much time to focus on himself and his issues so let him focus on himself at his parents' house. Procrastination is your enemy. It's really not kindness as borne out by all the amazing posters here who are medicated for chronic MH issues and manage to work day in day out.

Yeah, the biggest problem is the fact that this man is barely contributing anything at all. Minimal housework and childcare, no attempt at writing anything that might bring in a few extra quid, even - and I bet he just about scraped through that degree of his, due to not putting any real effort into that, either.

Why doesn't he apply for a job or freelance work at a digital content agency? Does he have a portfolio? At least then he could work and write.

On the quite basic creative writing course I did, there was an expectation that the aspiring writers would be carrying round notebooks and scribbling down ideas/character vignettes and writing a few hundred words a day. But you've already got the point.

He'll probably claim writer's block.

Has the MA been paid for? I'd tell him it's off.

Ring the bell. Tell him the free ride on the bus is over. No MAs. He contributes to the family or it's over.

"You are not supporting me!"
You have already realized that you can not continue to be a continuously renewable resource, so you really need to let that train run out of track.

He is shaming you for putting a boundary in place. Don't be shamed- just do not internalize that bs; let it slide right by you. You have nothing to feel guilty for here. The guilt is all his. He can react with whatever tissy fit he desires: just know that has nothing to do with you- it is all about him (recurring theme).

He is a parasite. His anxiety may be sincere but he is milking it for all he can. He let his hand slip with finding money any way but earning it. What did your dd get with her Amazon voucher?

You could very well slam out a couple of publishable manuscripts about him before he fills a single page (even double spaced). Wouldn't that be some Cream On Top irony!