Is it not really possible to remain sahm to school age children and dh have any respect for you?

[Zorona]

Have other people managed this? I feel really down recently dh I am not sure if he likes me much any more. I think that he resents me being at home when he is at work. I get little comments from him here and there. Sure I could look into going back to work but the upheaval for the family and for my children I think it is better I am at home 😔 my pay would likely be so low that it’s not worth the upheaval. Is the answer to go back to work even if the pay is low so everything feels more equal?

They do both benefit from one of them sah, since life is less frenetic, but for the wohp there's no negative consequences in terms of career progression/loss of confidence etc. There is for the sahp. The wohp does have the pressure of being the sole wage earner but they also gain by being able to concentrate on work without having to lose holiday time for childcare or piss off their employer by taking time off when the kids are sick etc.
The sahp gets more time with the kids which may or may not be a plus and an easier day to day life but on balance I think the wohp has less risk and therefore more advantage. So long as they are the kind of parent who does participate in their DC's lives when not at work, I don't think they lose out on closeness to the children.
And of course lots of sahp do so without having had a completely free choice since childcare choice isn't consistent in this country and sometimes it's just not economically viable for both parents to work.

I think the DH is bring a bastard because there seems to be no appreciation of what sah has cost the OP. A loving husband should be kind and sympathetic to her loss of confidence and actively changing his life to facilitate her retraining. Instead, having benefitted from her having done the really hard bit, he is just sniping at her and making her feel like shit.

Also if the husband is not on a huge salary and the wife getting even a part time NMW job might pay for the extra things that would benefit the family like a holiday or not having to worry about money. NMW is now quite good and going up in April and shouldn’t be beneath anyone

Well Aderyn I think they about as bad as each other. Not that either is actually bad though. Has either of them tried to have an honest conversation, or are both of them just skirting around the subject? He may not have enough sympathy for her, but the tone of her posts are just dismissive of the whole idea of her getting work, like its something not even worth her considering.

"His salary is enough. I don’t need to work for this reason" statements like this could leave him feeling a bit taken advantage of. Of course she does do almost all the housework (by her account) and the kids are still young, so I see her point of view too. They really need to talk this out. If she were willing - and able (part time work may simply be too hard to find) to work, he would have to do more housework.

Has either of them tried to have an honest conversation, or are both of them just skirting around the subject?

Why is she being blamed for lack of conversation with someone who can't even be bothered raising it other than sly comments.

He's an adult - he can, surely, use his words to say "I'm feeling a bit resentful of things at the moment, can we have a chat". I don't think mind-reader is usually listed as one of a SAHM's roles.

I think she just means that financially they don't need her to be earning in order to pay the bills. I didn't read anything more into it.

OP in answer to your question, it probably is better to go back to work but nobody can say for sure. We don't have the details of your situation, and even then, it's a very personal decision. It should not be based only on the 'usual factors' of money and who'll look after the DCs if they have chickenpox. What about you, and your needs? Your confidence sounds rock bottom. Are you resilient enough if something should happen like H loses his job or leaves you?

If H feels resentment then he feels it. MN is great at empowering women to own their feelings but less so for men. It's damaging to say to a person that they 'shouldn't feel' a certain way. So you'll need to talk it out with H openly and not defensively. You sound like you don't want to work. It's a fairly unappealing quality in a person. Cue MN pile on about work in the home being work. But unless you're a huge family, is this honestly a reasonable split of duties?

You're very vulnerable should you split. He may not have to pay you spousal maintenance and if he does it likely won't be for very long.

I think it's fear more than anything, fear of the unknown. She may be depressed or have anxiety, it certainly sounds that way, with her saying that she's afraid of failure. It also sounds like her DH isn't a good dad; he's at home in the evening, so he should be involved in getting the DC to bed. Not because he's doing it as a favour to his DW, but because he's their dad.

If they do divorce, he's going to be in for a shock when the DC are staying with him during his contact time. But then, he'll probably hand over their care to his DM if she's able to, or he'll suddenly step up to the plate when he has a new girlfriend who he takes advantage of to look after them.

I don't think he's wrong to think that his DW should pull her weight in terms of contributing to the family finances; as I said, I know that my DH wanted me to find a job, and it was my intention too, until it turned out not to be possible. Not many adoptive mums are able to work FT, and certainly not when one of their DC has a lot of needs.

But he discussed it with me and made suggestions, he didn't just make snide remarks. He also pulls his weight as a dad to our DDs, which is essential with an adoptive parent; SS ask lots of questions about what their role will be.

is no one going to comment on the dysfunctional marriage that @mbosnz and @iBos seem to have. he's come onto the thread to pat his wife on the head, admitting he doesn't lift a finger around the house and she offers him a blow job in return!

my brother just told me his work has introduced 12 weeks paid paternity leave. That's a step forward.

is no one going to comment on the dysfunctional marriage that @mbosnz and @iBos* seem to have. he's come onto the thread to pat his wife on the head, admitting he doesn't lift a finger around the house and she offers him a blow job in return! shock envy

I think that we all agree that having a sahp should be the joint decision of both partners, If this is not the case, she needs to financial contribute and he will need to pick up the slack at home. For all we know they discussed her staying at home until their kids were in school and now she has changed her mind and doesn't want to get a job, I think i would massively resent my dh if he decided to become a sahd against my wishes leaving the entire financial burden to me.
The big elephant in the room here is that she said she was not getting on with her DH, The relationship forum is chokka full of sahm whos husbands have left them for younger models forcing them to take minimum wage jobs to support themselves and their kids after many years out of the workplace. If he decides that he has had enough she will be so vulnerable. At the very least the Op should upskill.

@ohmyword20
I've seen this a lot in my social circle. The man positively encourages the woman to abandon her career prospects and be a SAHM, because it suits and enables his career. A few short years later, her career is a distant dream, and he's now making sarky comments about her being home all day and acts like he had no part at all in the original decision.

I noticed that too. It appears to be a mutual decision but really is revolves around the whim of the man. I'm sure he didn't volunteer to be the SAHP. Now he wants her to do something else so he's making little comments about it here and there. I imagine there will be zero compromise on his part. This is the family shy guy working late to avoid his family.

OP, I hope you think a little more about what you want in life. We really need more women in STEM.

I’m in a similar place to you OP - me being SAHM works for our family .. I hope to go back to work when they go to secondary - if to do nothing other than to improve our pension pot

On the whole my husband is supportive - but sometimes he’s not had a good day and maybe feels all the pressure and responsibility is on his shoulders and then maybe isn’t the nicest.

I think it depends and I do think it should be something discussed and decided together.

My partner is very hands on with parenting and housekeeping, he also cooks most nights. He works 42hrs a week.

I'm a SAHM at the moment, my daughter is almost 2yrs old. When my daughter goes to school I would expect to go back to work as to me it wouldn't be fair to stay at home and not earn when my child isn't even home for the majority of the day. Housework shouldn't take all day in my opinion, especially when you don't have the distraction of a child at home with you. It's fine if the working partner is happy to continue being the sole earner and doesn't mind their partner not contributing financially, whatever floats your boat... But I know I wouldn't be happy and would question what they do all day, even without help of daily tasks I would find it hard to believe it takes all day every day to do them all.

Each relationship is different but that's my stance.

is no one going to comment on the dysfunctional marriage that @mbosnz and @iBos seem to have. he's come onto the thread to pat his wife on the head, admitting he doesn't lift a finger around the house and she offers him a blow job in return!

I've got to say I found the magnanimous husband's patronising support of the quality of his wife's service & her resultant gratitude a bit vomit worthy, but each to their own.

For me the key is that the OP is fearful of the next step as she feels she may not be worth investing in. Training to return to work can never be a waste of money as you will benefit both emotionally, with a return of confidence and in the longer term you are more likely to get a decent job.

I am astonished that anyone is so ignorant as to question why there may be women working FT for £20k per annum.

Nursery workers?
Admin staff?
NHS jobs Band 3 - the top of the band is at £20,700. These include secretarial roles, clinical coding, healthcare assistant and occupational therapy worker.

Not everyone is highly qualified or has the ability to progress.

Fuck me days, you lot go hard out when you want to get personal, don't you?!

Nor are well-paid jobs easily available in large areas of the country.

I've seen this a lot in my social circle. The man positively encourages the woman to abandon her career prospects and be a SAHM, because it suits and enables his career. A few short years later, her career is a distant dream, and he's now making sarky comments about her being home all day and acts like he had no part at all in the original decision

This.

Lots of men are really glad that they are not a SAMP when children are small and it’s a 24/7 job. They love that their wives are working 168 hours a week while they work 50 with weekends off.

Then as soon as the kids go to school and the wife has a couple of free hours a week, they are angry and resentful. As a PP said, they suddenly want her to earn good money but still be responsible for 100% of everything else.

Life doesn’t work like that.

If it helps, the blowjob never happened and I'd probably have cooked the steak for both of us?

Sorry if we turned any stomachs, that wasn't the intent. The intended message was that it is possible to have a relationship based on mutual respect and that financial contributions to the family unit are not the be-all and end-all.

mbosnz can't contribute financially at the moment due to circumstances beyond her or our control (but she has in the past), and I respect her for the massive non-financial contributions she does make.

Sometimes I get a bit distant or work-focused and she starts to feel disrespected and taken for granted, and sometimes I feel she expects more from me at home than I can give and we talk it out. Sometimes loudly, dragging up every slight and misjudgement of the last 25 years, including those of our respective in-laws

Eventually we sort it out, cos underlying that is mutual respect and friendship.

It is possible, that's all we were trying to say.

You'd definitely have cooked the steak. Remember what happened the last time I tried to cook the steak. . .

We're in a situation where if I worked more than 10hpw, we'd be worse off, and I can't find a job with those few hours.

I know DH thinks I do fuck all, but I do the majority of the shopping, everything for the DC, I'm up at 5.20, in bed usually before 11, and don't stop until I go to bed.

This doesn't mean that DH does nothing, he does the majority of the housework as I'm autistic and don't know what to do.

I've seen this a lot in my social circle. The man positively encourages the woman to abandon her career prospects and be a SAHM, because it suits and enables his career. A few short years later, her career is a distant dream, and he's now making sarky comments about her being home all day and acts like he had no part at all in the original decision

I think this is massively encouraged because so many people think it'll be easy for a medium to long term SAHM to just go back to work. On MN on threads like this people always say how hard it is to work with school-age DC but if you look at any of the (many) threads where people are trying to make women who work with very young DC feel shit then you get endless 'plenty of time for you to work when they're at school', 'you've for a lifetime to work and they're only small for a few years', etc. People massively underestimate the consequences of a few years out of work and try and convince new mothers that they're terribly selfish if they work because their career will be waiting for them later - is it any wonder that so many of their husbands think this will be true, too?

The other thing that's always said on these threads is that these men are lucky because they got to have children without making any career sacrifice or having to do the slog of childcare and housework. But a depressing number of these sort of men see having children as something they did for their wife. If they had been told that they could only have had children if they did half the work associated with them they just wouldn't have had children.

You're not wrong about underestimating the consequences of a few years out of work @LisaSimpsonsbff. . .