feeling very low

[mmithers]

I've been with my DP for 10 years. We've usually always gone 50/50 on our expenses. For the last few years my DP has been underemployed and the bulk of the financial side of our life has fallen to me.

This is obviously a bit more pressure and worry for me. The issue is that he feels very... belittled by the situation (not me, we have talked about that). So not only do I have the pressure (fine, that's life) I have to take on his negative feelings about that.

I do my best to make sure he has access to money etc I pay the bills and then send him money each month and I never ask or check up on what he uses..I have been in a financially abusive situation before so if anything I am more conscious than the next person about being fair in that regard.

The thing is ...I'm tired. He bangs on and on about his low earning business all the time. If I mention my job he gets really huffy and bored, now I try not to. So there is an imbalance there, I have to work hard but I also feel like I have to have a second job thinking about this business all the time.

He has become quite selfish around the home as well because this business is all consuming. I won't take that and make him pull his weight but it is constant agro.

To be clear, I have no problem with being the earner. I don't think it matters tbh. You have one life and you need to live it. Who cares where the number in the account comes from?

It just seems like he has an issue with it and I am honestly exhausted by it all.

Does anyone have any experience with this type of situation? How can you make the lower earner feel better and also stop their dreams of a business taking over everything.

I just told him tonight that I want to split because he is cruel and he just laughs it off and says it's a row and I need to get over myself.

I do want to split. He needs to either be ok with me being the earner or ...not, but I can't live this way anymore.

I'm sorry if this is jumbled. I just feel so low now.

There's quite a lot going on here. I'd define it as:

1. He resents you being the main earner and you having to pay bills/give him money. I'm not entirely sure of the solution for this but I'd suggest it is partly that a) he has to just get over himself and b) is there a way to make it feel less like you giving him money? DH and I have had 1 account for years. All the money goes into that and all the money comes out of that. There's n sense of me sending him money or whatever, even though I am the main earner.

1. He is starting a new business and is obsessed and therefore dismissive of all other issues from your work to household tasks. Here I think that it really does depend on what you and he agree are long term plans for this business and/or his career. DH earns much les than I do, but his career (a new one that he retrained for) is important to him. As a result, as he is advancing in that career, there are impacts on me and us. In our case, we have been able to buy in extra support (eg we got a cleaner) and have made arrangements for childcare sharing with a friend to facilitate things.

If however, this business is really just an excuse for him to feel like a "big man" then I'd expect him to be less obnoxious about it.

Hi @Triffid1 he doesn't want a joint account. I do try my best to not make it feel like I "give him" money. If I'm failing in that he could tell me but I am honestly out of ideas there.

This business is a passion thing for sure, which is fine, but he brings in all this stress with it and hates hearing anything about my work or financial things.

A cleaner would be great but he says no to that.

It's hard to explain but this has all happened slowly and now I'm kind of at the point where something has to change because I feel really sad and squeezed.

@Triffid1 It sounds like your husband is just fine with you being the main earner, was he always like that?

I think if my DP was earning more than me our life would be fine, but somehow he can't see that's his issue and not something to take out on me.

You want to split.

Everything else is just noise. If he accepted he was the lower earner, would his attitude change in other respects? It doesn't sound like he resolves conflict very well and is dismissive of your point of view.

I think my dh does find me being the main earner hard sometimes - he was brought up to believe that men should be the breadwinner. But on the other hand, he 100% knows that he does contribute in ways that are very important - eg by being a SAHD when I first went back to work after the DC were born and being the primary caregiver now.

Your DH's refusal to work with a joint account and you having to "give" him money smacks of defensiveness to me. What is he spending money on? Do you genuinely know how much money his business is earning?

Starting a new business is stressful, I see that. But DH and I did have a huge argument a while ago when things were ramping up for him and he seemed to think that meant he could just check out of everything else - do the bare minimum and that was it. He felt I was being unsupportive because I wasn't willing to facilitate that. I actually do see where he was coming from - this was important to him and his career, even if he wasn't earning a lot of money. But I also feel strongly that he was being incredibly selfish to just expect me to pick up the slack without even acknowledging what that required from me. He had also been very very anti getting a cleaner but it was after that that we did get one...

I don't have an answer for you. But I do think your husband doesn't sound like he sees things as a partnership. I'd be concerned about why he doesn't want to share finances and I'd be concerned about how he seems to think he doesn't need to contribute in any way, including financially.

I divorced him in the end. Made everything better!

No patience with the person who does no cleaning saying he doesn't want a cleaner. He gets no say as he had plenty of opportunity to step up.
I wanted to get someone to clean all the windows. Dh said he would do it to save money. I gave him a week..nothing happened so l just called the guy and got it done.
Op l think if things were going well in the relationship the whole earning thing wouldn't matter. So mean to say he doesn't want to hear about your work...where is the joy in that for you.

Are you sure its not that he has fallen into the Poor Me, What About Me kind of whinge/rant pattern.
Any time he sees you he has to activate his 'Get Sympathy' button? So he starts moaning poor me, my life is so hard, sigh, huff (has she noticed?).
It creates a scenario where he is he Victim and you are the Rescuer. The more he Victims the more you Rescue by shutting up about your own stuff.
He loves attention and if you talk about yourself, you'll get put down and dismissed and ignored, because only babba is allowed to get attention, no other children in the room can get that from mamma (for want of a better way to explain the attachment dynamic!)
His only interest in you is the amount of interest you have in him.
You might catch him on the phone to someone and see him smiling laughing enjoying himself. But then when you come into the room, the shoulders drop, you get 'the face' and woe is fucking me storyline repeated at you again.
Yea. Ain't easy luv. Instead of engaging with the content of it, draw attention to the context, such as 'you seem very angry' or 'you seem frustrated with the job, have you thought about how you could change things' or 'you could talk to a counsellor, you seem to be getting more distressed as the days go by'.