Husband says I don't get paid enough

[BrokenArrowzzz]

I am in a new-ish role (6 months) that I'm really enjoying. It's constantly changing, very creative and sounds a lot more impressive to people than the role pays.

I have undiagnosed ADHD and have struggled to progress and stick to a job for more than 3-4 years. I was really unhappy and failing in my previous role, and was fortunate enough to move into one that is really suited to me. The problem is it doesn't pay very well. I haven't had an increase in my salary for 8 years. (Less than £30k) In fact the new role I have taken is the same salary as my previous one, but a grade lower so I've lost my private medical benefits and taken a cut in any bonuses. I am 42 and everyone else in my team are in their late 20's or early 30's. I am the only one who is on a lower grade (they said because it's because the role is 4 days a week and doesn't have interaction with senior stakeholders).

Recently my job has involved me needing to do a small bit of travel within the UK - both day trips and overnight. This means my husband (who is always very hands on) is left looking after both children, getting them ready in the morning, doing drop offs and pick ups, dinners, bedtimes etc. He's getting very annoyed with me and the fact that my role is 'demanding' and requires me to be away from home sometimes and not around to help in the evenings. He tells me straight up that my job is taking advantage of me, that I don't get paid enough, that it's <the job> 'not working'. When I try and tell him I have to pull my own weight in the team and things work on a tight schedule that I just can't get out of he challenges me by saying 'well I bet they make more. How much do they make?' Like I'm supposed to know?? I don't talk about money with other people. I ask him what he would like me to do - quit my job? Work in a shop with an even worse (I assume) salary, but that's more suited to him. Each option I can think of would leave us financially worse off. He just says I need to 'think bigger picture' and find a way to make more money with hours that work better for the family. But he never gives me any solutions.

His comments leave me feeling worthless and like I don't matter. He's frustrated because he pays for almost everything including the children's school fees, most household bills, food, etc. Its taken me ages to write this out, and I honestly can't even remember why I started it. More just to vent I guess.

I entirely agree. And there’s a lot more to life than money. If you can afford to live in a wealthy area and privately educate your children, you’re hardly on the breadline. I bet he’d still be saying the same thing if you got a £10k pay rise @BrokenArrowzzz. He just doesn’t want to parent his own children.

8 year's and no payrise? Your dh is right
Work is taking the piss! Is it a big organisation or non profit?

Blossometoes And there’s a lot more to life than money. If you can afford to live in a wealthy area and privately educate your children, you’re hardly on the breadline. I bet he’d still be saying the same thing if you got a £10k pay rise

But the OP is working ridiculously hard in a degree level job with years of experience and travel involved for less than 30k! Just because the OP lives in an affluent area and has privately educated children, doesn't mean that she should be entitled to a rubbish salary for working hard! I mean, if you're going to do all that, then you might as well be paid reasonably well for it. And forget all the being grateful for 27k per year stuff, the OP has years of experience and a degree.

But I'm verging again onto the issue of how salaries are going down in the UK in real times and employees are being treated terribly.

Nothign wring with asking for a pay rise, but DH also needs to value what you do at home and outside and the fact that you like it.

I get paid more than DH and I think he's underpaid- he works in the public sector and me in the private. He usually does more hours than me and his job is more full-on. But he loves it, and that goes a long way.

FFS.

Because there are NO husbands with young children who work away from home, are there? Or wives who manage & adapt despite their own career needs, & just suck up the extra domestic load?

Not sure why you see fit to question OP on her job choice, when her perfectly logical & valid reasoning is 100% laid out in her initial post for all to read.

OP doesn't want a 5 day a week non-travelling job. For all the reasons she's already stated but you have chosen to ignore- THIS is her career-path job. At last!
Having taken time out to bear children, manage MH, & wait out Covid ... this is the long-awaited chance to get her career back on track. It even has a supportive line manager who understands her desire to progress & will be highlighting the Grade issue at the next annual review.
Please stop undermining that achievement - OP has enough of that to contend with at home.

He sounds a bit of an arse really. Then again my husband makes similar inferences about my job not being as important as his, which given I earn £138,000 is absolutely hilarious.

Op worked for them for 7.5 years, before this job and was at the bottom of that pay grade. That's badly paid. She may be née in this job but she has a lot of experience in the company.

And I assume you started in publishing in the last 6 months?

Because there are NO husbands with young children who work away from home, are there? Or wives who manage & adapt despite their own career needs, & just suck up the extra domestic load?

and these men are the lower earner?

Whose decision was it to send kids to private school, and live in an expensive area? How can you have money for this, but not a private diagnosis (which you can get for £500 online)?

Oh let's hazard a guess @LegMeChicken .
DH made the location & schooling decisions.
There is enough money for the outward status-related trappings.
But there is no money to spare for OP's mental health.

Because DH chooses not to believe in his wife's neurodiversity, & uses it as a stick to beat her with, informing her that she needs to "stop making excuses & try harder".

Sounds like a loving marriage huh?

And your 'reverse cocklodger' argument is twaddle. People who are hosting cocklodgers don't challenge them or make them feel like shit about themselves. Because cocklodgers are careful to pick partners they can manipulate & control. That's how cocklodgers get away with it.
Remind me again which of this pair are goading & manipulating the other?
Yeah - it's not OP. She's all too ready to believe her DH's undermining narrative about her. If you can't see that pain pouring out of her posts, you're not reading them properly.

If this family can afford private schooling, it can afford decent healthcare for its mother. The fact that OP is still floundering for an NHS diagnosis, years after seeking one, speaks volumes about the priorities of this household.

It's not necessarily so easy, even with a degree and years of experience, to get a job that pays more. Fine if you have a degree like law or accounting or architecture - but Art History or English Lit, say? Yes, some people will get highly paid jobs with degrees in these subjects, but an awful lot of people will be doing admin type roles and never earn higher than say £35k at the height of their career. Even lecturers with PhDs will be on under £40k after years in the workplace. It's all very well saying, "Get a job that pays £60k" but the majority of jobs don't pay anything like this much.

Part-time with possible ADHD? Much harder. If the OP had suspected MS or ME, would people still be saying she should get a job that pays more? Her husband signed up in sickness or in health and shouldn't be guilt-tripping her like this because she's not earning as much as he'd like.

I didn't get an impression that OP is someone who needs a husband to organise appropriate healthcare. She suggests she had access to private healthcare through previous job - the question is - why not address it then?

I don't think he's frustrated by the fact he's looking after the DC. You yourself said he's hands on. Sometimes others sees things we fail to see ourselves. With what you've described I think you're underpaid and he probably see's this and think well you could have been spending time with the kids instead.

How lovely for you.

However, people whose significant mental health struggles mean it is a choice between being sacked, or managing the feat of staying employed by whatever means they can handle, don't have that option.

But you carry on being sniffy Snowing - I'm sure knowledge of your superior career handing skills are of great succour to OP, & we're all impressed by your fabulous promotions.

Both of these - with knobs on.

id the job suits you and you’re happy there stick with it.

If a man wanted to do a job he was happy with but was poorly paid I think the reaction would be different.

You are an intelligent and educated woman so I find this a strange thing to say:
'...and am honestly not sure where to start looking for an alternative way to get diagnosed'
Why can't you so some research online and be more proactive?
He doesn't sound at all supportive of your possible ADHD but why can't you push for a diagnosis and help yourself?

Why are so many posters assuming that the OP's husband doesn't want to parent and that she does the great majority of everything. She literally says that he is very hands on in the OP and later said that he does all the school pick ups. How if that not parenting his own children?
Lots of assumptions in favour of the female in the relationship.

Im in the 'leafy south east' and basic admin roles round here are minimum wage so around 15 to 18k a year. Average wage around here is incredibly low (we are a deprived coastal area)

The OP is well paid in terms of averages although low paid for what she might be actually doinng, she hasnt specified her role or her line of work

The other issue is that it looks as if she didnt have much choice but to move into this role, reading between the lines of the update, she was probaby going to be subject to HR/capability proceedings because she wasnt performing well enough in her other role, so they moved her to this one where although she is doing better, they wont consider a higher grade, presumably because they did some fiddling to ensure she didnt lose wages as such when she moved role but would also be rewarded for not being good at her job in the role she was failing in

I also think people are being somewhat naive in their guess of what private assessments cost, round here they are just under 2k.

This is a difficult one. I can see the point of view that your job, looking at it dispassionately, could be viewed by DH as too much hassle for too little reward.There is usually a sweet spot between input and reward and it does sound like given your circumstances, your arrangement falls short of that sweet spot. Enjoying your job is important, but if its not efficient in terms of input v output then maybe its time to find something either less demanding on your time or significantly more rewarding. Ideally both but that maybe straying into unicorn territory.

I suppose it depends on how long and how frequent these trips are. But I also agree that DH seems put out at having to do some parenting and his comparisons and dismissal of your ADHD symptoms are not at all supportive. If he is such a brilliant man and high earner, I would have thought he could have articulated his very fair and reasonable concerns and frustrations in a more compassionate and less belittling manner.

Op I have recently been diagnosed with adhd. I earn far less than you and my ex used to say similar things but I really struggled. I also have a degree from a very good university.

It's so hard because on the surface we look like very intelligent capable people but it just doesn't translate long term.

His judgement used to make me feel so much worse but he didn't help in that he wad effectively hindering my progress as he wanted instant results, was getting annoyed about a previous job having travel and also us living in the middle of nowhere to be near his kids so I couldn't access more suitable jobs either.

If I knew how to help I would take that advice but unfortunately I can only tell you that I feel your pain and the awful effect it has on your confidence.

I have started meds in the last couple of weeks and they do help a bit, especially on my mood so I'm hoping this helps me get further. I would honestly just pay to see psychiatry uk as the wait is incredible and meds titration takes ages too. Whilst I was waiting my life basically fell to bits and I regret not doing it when I first suspected a problem.

'I also think people are being somewhat naive in their guess of what private assessments cost, round here they are just under 2k.'

It's not cheap but this is a family spending perhaps £30-50,000 of taxed income on private schools and they can afford to live in an affluent area. So 2K is clearly affordable to them even though it is not for the majority of others.

Lots of assumptions in favour of the female in the relationship.

No.
Lots of experience of the abused party within a relationship minimising their distress, & countering any hints of things being awry with "but he's a great dad!" (also goes for the rarer posts from men about abusive women).

We've all seen those threads.
"Hands on dad" is too often just one of these "great dads" who is capable of being fun, giving baths, doing pick ups ... but expects applause for it. And never knows where Jane's pyjamas are, or that he should have remembered Johnny's PE kit because it's Tuesday. These "great dads" will make a mountain out of the parenting molehill, but are amazingly unable to see all the actual mental load.

This specific "hands on dad" didn't have a problem with OP's "low paid" job for the 8 years it didn't take her away from the home. He didn't have a problem with it when it was destroying her mental health for a year, He didn't have a problem with it while she was inches away from being sacked due to the stress of MH issues.
He only has a problem with it now because he wants his wife at home.
The earnings are a total red herring.
If he wants more money, or to be a less-stressed "lower" earner himself, he can enrol his kids at a good state school, & go part time.
But that's not what he wants. He wants all the benefits of a wife with a JOB not a CAREER. It's not about the money, or he would have raised this at some point during the last 8 years. Funny how he couldn't care less about OP's earning power until she found a role she's feeling more comfortable in. It's almost like he enjoys undermining her ... but surely not? Surely he was only goading encouraging OP when he banged on about the £65k wife ...?

I know it sounds stupid but I actually often forget about chasing for a further diagnosis, and am honestly not sure where to start looking for an alternative way to get diagnosed.

This is one of the big symptoms of ADHD - problems with executive function. I have ADHD and was diagnosed in my 30s and organizing appointments, so difficult. It's not stupid and you can't just get on with doing it like other people seem to, our brains are not set up that way.

I'm on some ND groups on FB and use the ND mumsnetters part of the forum and feel so much less alone in the things I find difficult!

incidentally, the lockdowns made some of the symptoms of my ADHD and ASD so much worse.

Im in the 'leafy south east' and basic admin roles round here are minimum wage so around 15 to 18k a year. Average wage around here is incredibly low (we are a deprived coastal area)

and thats poorly paid work as well. What you quoted is a converstation because some posters think it's privilege to believe 25k is a low wage. But what a low wage is, is relative to the job. Op is poorly paid for what she does. That doesn't mean other people are nor also poorly paid.

The problem is the op may well have opportunity too early to other roles or companies. By anyone standards, she has been treated badly. She has been there years and performed badly during a pandemic and they wanted ro manage her out? Still at the bottom of the pay grade? Now told she is at the top of this pay grade and some umming and arching about her progression but no actual support.

Op says she has no clue where to start looking into a private assessment. It's very likey she has never looked into working somewhere else that will either treat her better and pay better.

Also can someone poi t out where the dh said she can not use any of their ones for a private assessment?

Spot on @KettrickenSmiled !
Also not believing ADHD exists. What a moron!

So much bollocks on this thread.

You're doibg great OP. The people commenting cannot recognise or empathise with your struggles. You have persevered fantastically and you should be really proud of surviving lockdown.

Your DH sounds like an ass.

Don't let the unkind posters get you down. As someone with low confidence you are vulnerable to accepting their BS. Speak to a friend in real life who will buoy you up.

Good luck!