Leave my husband over lack of career

[Shiraznowplease]

I have two children, 6 and 9 and have been married for 15 years. I had the successful career and earned three times what my husband did then. He was doing lots of courses and I left a job I loved for one with a lot more money. He subsequently lost his job twice and when I previously tried to go back to my old role he said we couldn’t afford it so he finally has a better job and I have been trying to go back to my old field but can’t as things have moved on and even when I apply for junior positions which I was several grades above I can’t. I can’t get passed how much I have given up for mu husband and while he is doing better he is still isn’t great financially. Do I leave him as I resent him so much or how do I get passed this ?

OP maybe you should go for some
CBT yourself before involving dh. If you're on the tablets then you are suffering from depression so this may cloud your judgement. We all have things that we regret doing/not doing and job opportunities/education levels do seem to play on parents minds as usually someone has to sacrifice their time/journey to accommodate having kids. But you've had kids, wonderful amazing little people who surely mean more than that? Try to make yourself happy and go to a therapist and then if there's more to the resentment of your husband you can make a decision. I'm sure if you were working hard in your old role for all these years and dh had a lesser role you could also have felt it then? 💐

If you're working part-time, sort out some extra childcare and try to get training/experience to get you back to where you want to be career-wise.

If you've lost all respect for him because of his career fuck-ups (were the job losses actually his fault or just circumstance?), it might be too late for your relationship, tho.

If you resent him and want to end the relationhip because he hasn't been as successful as you at work / doesn't earn enough money for your tastes then he'd probably be better off without you, to be honest.

Has been feckless with work? Is that what this is about? He was feckless, you were dumb enough to enable it, now you regret it and are furious at yourself.

Going temp/contract/locum/interim is the usual means of getting experience again in my industries.

You sound well off so presumably you could reduce your standard of living to take a career risk. Are you worried he will fuck up this latest job too?

Don't let 1 interview discourage you.
Get back in the game. Find networking events and meetups for what you do and get some new connections. Start a blog for what you do. Volunteer to speak on it. Upgrade your skills. Volunteer somewhere in your role. I bet you'll feel better overall once you are proactive about your career and won't feel so much like blaming your DH.

@Shiraznowplease
You sound like you’re very unhappy.

“I feel I can no longer support my husband being the dutiful wife and doing the mundane domestic tasks so he can concentrate on his career (his third different one”

Why are you doing the mundane domestic tasks.
That alone would drive me to Shiraz!

He needs to pull his weight, in every area, not just working and finances.

I think once you despise your partner you’re better off separating.
Your dcs won’t thank you for staying in a situation where they can feel the resentment.

I don’t think it’s selfish to want to have a career and to take pride in ambition.

To me, sounds like you married a waster.
Do you want to spend the rest of your life with him? I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t respect me enough to pull his weight or support my ambition.

I’d leave, have him take the kids for one week on and one week off.
Retrain, and get your mojo back.

You won’t miss being married to him if he’s not pulling his weight at home or supporting you as he should, I guarantee.

Shiraz I understand were you are coming from but a couple of things come to mind. Your resenting the wrong thing

1. If you had stayed in your full time career it maybe that you'd resent your husband for being at home raising the children and you missing out

1. There are no guarantees - you don't know that something else may have come along and affected your career

I'm not saying your DH sounds perfect.

I think there's more to it and that the resentment is the surface thing.

Are you more annoyed about the income drop? the career setback? Or that your husband has pissed about a bit with his careers?

It is actually invaluable that you earn so much money and can work part time. In fact I think as children get older they need you more as you need to be so much more vigilant. I envy the position you are in.
You haven't said much about your DH. Do you get on well in other respects?

OP I totally see what you're saying, it's just that it's a bit of an unusual situation.

So as I see it:

• you have always been the higher earner
• in order to allow him to retrain you took a higher paid job with fewer hours (relevant - you've had to do the grunt work at home while he 'finds himself')
• The well-paid but full time job was the one you loved
• you now are stuck in a very high paying job that makes you ill and you can't return to the one you loved, which is a pay cut but still pays enough.

I'd be SUPER pissed off with this. You seem to have all the downsides and none of the benefits, money doesn't buy you everything. He has scuppered your chances of getting back to your previous career by making you wait so long.

If it is literally this situation that is the issue and there's not a whole lot more, couldn't you go back and maybe do some shadowing or essentially 'return to work' placements in your old industry in the days you have off from the stressful job, with a view to going back to it once you have more proven recent experience? Even if it's unpaid, if you're earning enough part time you should be able to do it. And if more childcare is needed as a result then that should be a discussion not a complete barrier.

You only get one life and him getting to just dick about and expect you to fund everything even if you're miserable isn't a good way to live. xx

No one ever lays on their death bed and wishes they had worked more. Plenty lay on it and wish they had loved ones around them in their last moments. I think you need to have a word with yourself and realise what is really important in life. When you enter into a partnership with someone else and have children with them you make a choice. You made it. Now you must live with it. Your children are more important than work or your ego.

See yourselves as a unit, not competing individuals and work together not against each other.

Or leave him with the kids so you can pursue your career. Just don't deprive him of his children because you're not happy about the choices you made.

If it is literally this situation that is the issue and there's not a whole lot more, couldn't you go back and maybe do some shadowing or essentially 'return to work' placements in your old industry in the days you have off from the stressful job, with a view to going back to it once you have more proven recent experience? Even if it's unpaid, if you're earning enough part time you should be able to do it

Was going to suggest this.

It’s not his fault you didn’t get the job you interviewed for.

Just keep applying for different posts.

Ok his career’s not great but surely a person’s a whole package and not just £££.

I think some of these comments are way too harsh on you OP.

It sounds to me like you have had the worst of all worlds OP.

-take a job you don't enjoy in order to support the family
-carry the bulk of the mental load keeping the family on the rails

In the ordinary run of things the high earner dodges the domestic drudge but you have copped for both. That's bonkers.

All this while he indulges himself with 3 new careers!

I completely see your point OP.

I do concur that counselling would be a good idea... to allow you to figure out what way forward is best for you. Because up until now it's all been about what's best for him.

Depression is often anger turned inwards. Your OP sounds filled with rage. It makes sense to turn that outwards against your DH to give an outlet. But it sounds like really you are angry at yourself. Feeling like you made a massive mistake and now unable to accept the situation you find yourself in.

Let's be honest, in life we make decisions as best we can in the moment. We have limited information. No one knows the future. No one can predict the full consequences of a decision.

You did not make a mistake OP. At the time, you did what seemed best for your entire family. Only in retrospect does it look like a mistake. Please try to find some compassion for past you who made that decision with best of intentions and limited information.

If you can access counselling do it. Even if all you do in the sessions is rant and rave and cry. It sounds like you have a lot of pent up emotions and have been keeping things together, carrying the emotional load for far too long.

I think reading the posts (only got 1/2way through thread) a lot of people seem to have missed this

"when I previously tried to go back to my old role he said we couldn’t afford it"

Which may be why people are being so hard on her?

www.timewisejobs.co.uk

candidates.capabilityjane.com

Don't know what area you're in, so these may not help. Maybe branch out more, think laterally. Career coach could help?

For some people work is a key part of who they are. I enjoy work and am good at office type jobs, when I went PT after the kids I was lost TBH. I decided to get back into my old industry where I had been quite successful and I had interview after interview where it was between me and 1 other, and kept getting, you are very good, but you've been out for 5 years, so we are giving it to the other one who is working in the area now. Anyway I kept at it and after a year got a job and am very happy.

Don't give up.

I would say though that my DH hates his job and I have said if he really wants to retrain we will find a way to make it happen. I think the flat no (was it a flat no?) from your DH is crappy. You're miserable. He needs to work with you to see what all the options are to make things better for you and therefore the family.

Op, I'm in exactly your position but in the early days. I look after my kids during the day, work evenings for a good hourly rate while DH works all day for minimum wage. I feel I run house and work while he works and chills. He'll be retraining in September alongside working full time so more will fall to me as the boys will both be under the age of two still.

No answers but I see myself following in your footsteps

What about volunteering for something in your field to give you that experience? Give yourself 6 months and then reapply for the well paid jobs. All that’s missing is recent experience. Seems a shame to quit a marriage over this. I quit my very high profile job to be a SAHM. Very happy with my decision. I’ll go and do something at some point but I’m totally fulfilled bringing up the kids. Bloody love it. Think you should take lemons and make lemonade. Do more fun,spontaneous, interesting things with the kids that you can’t do when you are working. I’ve often taken my 6 year old out of school (ring her in sick) to do a sunny day on the beach or go to legoland. They won’t be interested in you when they hit teenage years so maybe try and focus on fun with them while they lap it up. There’s always work but there’s not always childhood days.

persevere shiraz, you'll find a way in if you don't give up

@SardineReturns agree - I think people are being very hard on her generally! It's seriously stressful being the financial provider, especially when you're also the main carer AND not enjoying your work, while your partner gets to retrain. Perhaps all the flaming is because more posters on MN are the lower earner Vs higher and it's a sensitive topic/more people have the other perspective?

If she was on a lower wage and came on to post about her DH going through three 'careers' and still not earning enough to support the family I think the answers would have been quite different...

Perhaps all the flaming is because more posters on MN are the lower earner Vs higher and it's a sensitive topic/more people have the other perspective?

I'm the higher earner in our family, I earn around 5 times what my DH earns. I'm also the "main carer" and do more about the house because DH has to travel a lot. I still think the OP is unreasonable to blame her DH for her current situation.

It seems to me that men are still considered to be failures if they can't earn enough to support their families, whereas women are rarely judged for this. Different people have different earning potential, and unless the DH is deliberately pissing around and not bothering, it isn't fair to blame him for the fact that he earns less. The OP needs to own the choices that she has made. Sometimes, when you choose to have a family you have to make tough choices. My career wouldn't have been the same if I hadn't had a family to support, but I did. It's just life, there is no point in putting all the blame on someone else. Just be proactive about changing the stuff that you don't like.

Goodness, people are being a bit hard on you here, OP. In your shoes I'd be eaten up with resentment, and resentment is very hard to come back from. I hate this narrative that if a woman's husband behaves in a way that is selfish or feckless or whatever, it's somehow the woman's fault for 'enabling' his crapness (i.e. trying to keep the family fed and clothed and vaguely organised rather than letting it all go to shit in the hope this might prompt the crap husband to step up), or for having children with him in the first place (usually the crapness only manifests once children arrive on the scene), or whatever. Then if she talks about leaving, she's devastating her poor children. WTF.

It does sound as though you've had to be the grown-up for everyone, and that is, at best, a passion-killer. Try counselling - even if you don't feel the marriage can be salavaged it might help you to think about how you might move on. I can see how the loss of the career you loved might hurt even more because you don't feel supported and appreciated in your marriage. Best of luck working things out.

I merely moved to a different branch of my field so that he was able to work away/ put in extra hours etc. I work part time now but was full time until children (6 years after all this initially happened). I now view my job as a job and not a career

But that was YOUR decision. It’s about compromise and in a marriage with children that’s what you do. One of you would’ve had to compromise and you chose to do it. If you hadn’t of moved to another branch he wouldn’t have been able to explore his career. To be honest if DP refused to compromise to help my career I’d be bloody pissed off as well.

You chose to go part time. One of you would’ve had to have compromised somewhere along the line

Now he’s doing well you resent him?

You sound full of jealousy and anger.

He's not doing well. He's doing better but not great.

It's hardly a choice, choosing to earn what your family needs. Someone bloody has to. Instead of stepping up so OP could do the job she loved, he stalled and hemmed and hawed and now she can't do her old job and there's no payoff on his side so she's stuck with all the shit and he doesn't care. That wouldn't feel very supported to me.

OP I feel for you. You sacrificed your career to enable his thinking it might be a better deal for the family for the future. Only it didn't turn out that way. This may or may not be his fault but the fact that it turned out to be the wrong decision and you feel you ought to have kept your career going or allowed to go back sooner is what is really bothering you.
A seperate issue is it seems he started to make all the decisions in the family because he saw himself as the full time worker and you went into being 'just" the part timer, even though in reality you're doing the bulk of everything including earning more income and majority of house/family related jobs. Of course all of this is going to cause resentment.
Aside from the fact that you probably can't or don't want to keep the relationship you should definitly take the advice of some of the posters and do some shadowing or retrain. It's not the end. It's a huge set back,yes, but if you really want it work for it. Don't let anyone hold you back OP. Yes of course on your death bed you wont be saying oh i wish worked harder but you may regret giving up trying for something that you loved.