Advise from female breadwinners please !

[Mercier1]

Thanks for taking time to read what I expect will be a long post.

Married for 6 years with two little ones, 2+4 years. I work p/t plus run my own business. My DH is unemployed but since taking redundancy almost a year ago looks after the kids and helps as of the last few months in my biz. He hasn’t done any real job seeking. He is doing an OU degree but he’s got a few other degrees so ...

My biz is really going well at the moment, my job is my security. My job would only cover our mortgage and basic bills and my biz covers the rest.

Our relationship has been so hard for the last few years, my H had a big MH crisis/breakdown and I stood by him through this. It was super hard. We’ve also done Councilling a few times in the past.

He’s improved a lot I think working (for me) has helped. But we still argue a lot. Tonight we argued because he was micromanaging my cooking and he stormed off etc.he said sorry but I’m fed up and he said he hates me tonight.

I feel like I really am now considering some kind of separation.

I did see a lawyer some time who strongly encouraged me to get him back to work as she said otherwise he would be the primary parent and I would be the person who would need to move out/ pay him maintenance.

This is a massive concern for me. I have no family around me at all, no one to fall back on financially etc etc.

I’ve been fighting for my marriage and now I’m just tired. My husband isn’t a bad man, he’s a committed father but also I really don’t know if I can keep living like this, equally I can’t abide the idea I’d have to leave our home and pay for him to live there with my children. I am also worried about how to keep the momentum up on my biz without his help, although I think I could manage.

Any feedback, go easy on me !

I am in a very similar position to you OP. I am the main breadwinner with a degree and professional management career. I have been married 7 yrs (together for 9yrs). We have 2 DCs 6yrs and 4 yrs.

I own the house that we live in and a 2nd investment property which I owned before I met him.

He provides the child care between. 9am and 6pm. But I do everything else. All their evenings meals 7 days a week. All their bath time , every bed time and story, trip to the park. Reading practice. homework. I work full time but I am still the primary care giver and provide for everything outside of my working hours. However I fear a court would not see it that way.

He didn’t give up a career. He is self employed working here and there in the music industry but not enough to live on.

It’s very difficult position to be in. Plus he is very resentful of anything extra I have to do for my job like a late meeting. He can make life very difficult for me. He refuses to get any paid employed job role.

So I am biding my time. My only saving grace is that he may inherit his dad’s business which will give a more equal income. It would Hopefully mean I would not be taking all of the financially responsibility for our family.

OP - why does he say he hates you?

That sounds really tough @Heartofgoldmumof2 is there love there ?

My husband does all the cooking, hence the drama about me cooking tonight. He questioned my recipe, technique, pans etc. He’s a control freak about it. Exhausting.

He’s also created annoying bedtime routine and my kids are awful sleepers, he does a lot but I find it hard that he doesn’t see that I have no time out for hobbies whilst he gets a day a week to do his studying (a choice he made to take on without consulting me years ago).

I feel you are in a much stronger position than me financially. His parents helped us with our deposit as a gift and our previous home was his. I only have a small bit of cash in the bank off the back of my biz. I’m so worried about being penniless.

I also really still do love him and our family but I also feel like I don’t want to be told I’m hated (this was because I wasn’t really accepting his apology)

Anyone else?!

I am lucky that financially we are stable. But that is due to me owning both houses before I met him. I ensure savings are set aside each month. I put money in the kids savings account each month. He was going to give me some money to put in the kids savings account but he went back on that agreement.

When our youngest goes to school in Sept he could do more to contribute to the family finances by getting a part time job. But he won’t.

I do love him but feeling very resentful about being in this position now when all of the financial responsibility falls to me plus the main child care and household responsibilities. It’s definitely not 50/50 share or equally split.

@Heartofgoldmumof2 you sound exhausted, it is exhausting. What are you waiting for? Kids in a school or the finances to change? I worry my husband has basically retired... he has no pension and has zero interest for our finances. It’s all on me too.

Definitely both kids in school. Because then in terms of parental task and care given, my hours and input would be more.

I also am interested to see what happens if he does inherit the business and he has an ok income - what his attitude and behaviour will be like.

Also if divorce were to be pursued I’d like to think he had assets that could be taken in to account. Rather than feeling like I have to fund this overgrown teenager and lose my assets.

I really wish I hadn’t got married. If I could do it again I would not get married.

I’m sorry to hear it, it’s really shit.
I’m also concerned about doing anything until my youngest is in school but that’s a solid Three years away. Sigh

equally I can’t abide the idea I’d have to leave our home and pay for him to live there with my children - welcome to pretty much every divorcing man’s viewpoint.

And “my” children?! That’s a bit of a telltale OP.

But have you really reached the point where this is unfixable? You said counselling helped - has that stopped? If so, could resuming that ease the tensions? Lockdown won’t have helped; wouldn’t it make sense to give it a few months until we come out the other side of that?

IMO I would be honest with him that you’re feeling the cracks in the relationship and that you need him to dial back on picking fights (and look at your own side of this - are there times when you’ve escalated something into a fight and didn’t need to, eg the different bedtime routine for the DC?)

@PaterPower I didn’t say Councilling helps just that we had done it. He doesn’t have any interest in it and a few weeks ago I suggested I might have some alone to help me process the utter trauma of the last few years. He told me not too. Whenever we would leave therapy I would be berated for whatever I said in there.

I understand this is every divorcing mans anxiety however my situation is a bit more complex. I work f/t round the clock because he doesn’t. He doesn’t look for work or engage in wanting to get a job on any level. He doesn’t like to discuss money or the future and tells me he lives day to day, what a luxury! I used to have 1-2 days midweek with my eldest, and I miss it. Never happened with the smallest because of H being off work, always at home etc and me then taking on as much work as possible due to him not working.

I feel like I never made a decision to be a breadwinner and him be some kind of SAH parent, that would be different and feel like teamwork. Instead I feel like he’s basically retired, I’m funding everything and now because he has made choice I actively cant I’m fucked. Sorry if I resent it.

This is a highly intelligent educated person BTW who started a biz of his own, also had diff professional roles...

If I tell him how unhappy I am he will prob suggest we break up which is what he’s done many times. Sorry if I’m angry.

Well you need to bite the bullet and separate. If he gets the children more than 50:50 then you will need to go to court. Personally I couldn't put up with him, so maybe you should see it as a long term project to get shot of him and give him the minimum while ensuring your children don't suffer.

Your update tells me its unsalvageable. I would get some more advice from a really good divorce lawyer and go from there. You are in a better position than your cocklodger husband because you have purchasing power and he doesn't.

Unfortunately, i think you are in a very difficult place in that you are doing all the work and he is dong all the childcare and home management. Although on plus side, that's actually quite unusual, even when the woman is the breadwinner so arguably, as a family you should be able to find a way trough this. As the main breadwinner in my family, if DH did all the cooking and the bulk of the cleaning and the childcare, my life would be immeasurably improved. As it is, he does far more than any other man I know so I don't get a lot of sympathy if I complain.

What it comes down to is it doesn't sound like you're a team. You're not really respecting or valuing his contribution and he is not really respecting or valuing yours. I work hard, and long hours. DH appreciates that and tries to make my life a bit easier. He is doing a good job taking on a lot of the home stuff and without him looking after the kids it would be very difficult to do my job and I appreciate that and try to make his life easier. When I work late, I feel like we're both working late. When (outside of lockdown) he is working (he has a part time job that he fits in around my work and childcare) I feel like we're both working because I am then doing the childcare.

If yo don't have that partnership thing going on, then it won't work. I'm sorry. And I don't have suggestions on how to manage it. But at the very least, I'd have thought you could get 50/50 childcare.

@MsMarch exactly. We aren’t partners in this. It wasn’t a choice I made. I miss having my kids alone a day a week. As it stands I actually have a third job I took on when he left his so I just work all the time. I was also paying the childminder for 2 days per week when we could have her before he worked for me so he could study and have head space. He cooks not as a favour to me but because it’s his passion. Baking bread, everything from scratch which comes ahead of pairing socks, laundry, cleaning more than a surface level. Although he’s domesticated it’s in his passions. He’s not scrubbing the bathroom, stripping beds etc. I spend the weekend catching up on laundry... when it’s the weekend and the kids are doing an activity I’m doing chores. He isn’t. I can’t have these conversations with him because he will be defensive and get pissed off, I do recognise childcare is much harder than anything I do but when I ask what he wants to change about the set up he says nothing, but he still moans about it.

I’m just so frustrated by him right now. I have to just say sorry and move on until I’m in some kind of a position to have more choices than I currently have.

@CallistoSol thing is I don’t feel like I have purchasing power. He can go back to his parents house and I can’t, they would also sub him cash if he needed. I heard him discussing tutoring on the phone to his mate something he could easily do. But won’t.

But you do have options, even if it doesn't feel like it, purely because you work and have an income. Get more advice so you know definitively where you and he stand financially.

Well he’s going to have to get off his arse if you leave him and I agree with PP that, after your update, I don’t see how this relationship can be salvaged.

So it comes down to how childcare would be split and how you’d house yourselves. I think it’s unlikely that he’d get better than 50:50, particularly if you can be flexible with hours, which means you shouldn’t owe him maintenance.

Obviously the house equity would need to be split but, (making a massive assumption here, so sorry if not the case), if he was the previous homeowner then he must have put the bulk of the deposit in? In which case you might come out better from that than you went in. Assuming a 50% split, would it give you enough to buy something?

Lack of family support is regrettable, but tbh he sounds more of a hindrance than a help and I think you might be surprised how much hassle it removes from your life.

I’m genuinely sorry that your relationship has come to an end. My circumstances were a bit different than yours, but it hurts regardless of the backstory.

the longer he goes without working the more likely it is that he could claim spousal maintenance . It sounds totally unsalvageable, mostly because he is not willing to change anything. If you have no voice in how your life is panning out why on earth would you stay ?
I was the main ( and at times only) breadwinner in my marriage, and the strain was one of the things that contributed to its breakdown... if you are working as team with joint voice and a feeling that you are sharing the family 'work' you have a chance, otherwise ? none

Can you cut down your working hours and still keep afloat? Yes you’ll lose money/income (that you could squirrel away for a leaving fund) but it would give you more time with the children and maybe reduce his claims on you? Best plan is to speak to a good lawyer and find out the definite facts.

I divorced, well judicially separated divorce pending, my ex. Owned and paid for the home, breadwinner etc etc. He was unemployed at the time and would “look” like the main parent, although he actually did Jack.

I was given the same advice by my solicitor, if I carried on I’d end up paying him spousal maintenance. Luckily for me he had no interest in taking the kids and I paid him off basically in a flat/car, taking on all debts, and have since moved on.

It’s hard but better to bite the bullet and then rebuild.

@goody2shooz no I couldn’t my salary from my job covers bills and not even our food bill so we need my biz income too. It’s not possible right now to cut back. My dream is to quit my steady job to focus on my business. Sigh

@lilybetsy that’s really hi a nerve. Having no voice in how my life pans out. That’s how it feels right now. Just going through the motions

@PaterPower thanks for your kindness. His parents put the deposit in but we lived there from day one together- I always paid In 40% of our costs in proportion to my salary compared to his. We made some money on that house sale and his parents gifted us some more cash for this house which I assumed we would be in forever-ish. I would be devastated to sell it. Although I did not put in the deposit etc I spent about 15K last year on the house, and now I pay for everything. So I think that’s pretty fair.

Thing is if we split i would have to pay childcare for my kids, pay a mortgage alone, it just all seems massive. Scary etc

The mistake was not splitting up when he refused to look for another job after being made redundant despite your not having agreed to be SAHP together. It's probably best to bite the bullet as it's only been almost a year since he wasn't working.

@Mercier1 I was in in a similar situation to yours in that my ex basically gave up on working yet wasn't willing to be a true SAHP and do the childcare, cooking, house maintenance, etc. Basically I was just supposed to support him and be grateful when he felt like doing a load of laundry or picked up the kids from school.

I would consult another lawyer about spousal maintenance. I don't think you would be expected to support him just because he isn't earning when he could be. It's supposed to compensate spouses who gave up a promising career to support the other by doing the traditional homemaker role. Just because he does the cooking now doesn't mean he's doing that, and it doesn't sound like it from your comments on chores that he is. If he looks after the children more than 50-50 you may have to pay him child support, but that's for them (and presumably that money comes out of your earnings now anyway).

Good luck!

Op, does he have a dink/drug/ambit/dependency? I really feel for you. I don't like the sound of him berating you for what you have said in counselling. It sounds quite abusive. Is he good to you in any way?