Can we just be honest and say many women are trapped

[workiskillingme]

In unhappy relationships /marriages for years due to housing /income

I read so many threads on here advising people to leave their marriage if they are unhappy and live the life they deserve but in reality
A) women are often part time lower earners and wouldn't be able to afford to rent a property by themselves
B) couldn't afford to buy their husband /partner out
C) even if they sold their property and had equity would struggle massively to get a mortgage on one income
D) their other half/husband may more than likely refuse to leave the family home and continue to pay the mortgage so the wife and kids can remain there

Can we please just talk about this very real scenario and how women are meant to try and make it work?

Seeing that nowadays it’s almost impossible to get a mortgage Wo 2 incomes.
Id say that it’s the case fur both men and women. At least at the time if marriage,

The issue for women comes afterwards.

However, dint be fooled thgat marriage ur at Keats living as a couple isn’t a firm of financial security. It’s the case to buy a house. It’s also the case if you fall I’ll or end up disabled. Or U.K. you happen to loose your job.
Bring a couple helps weather those bumps, no doubt about it.

(it’s true fur men too btw…)

If I ever played and won the insane EuroMillions, the first thing I’d do is snap up every shitty house, do it up properly, and start some sort of thing in which single mothers can rent them for council house rates.

In an ideal world, I’d buy a huge patch of land and set up some form of commune with good quality, affordable housing, round the clock childcare, therapists, a few shit hot solicitors and a really well stocked bar.

But not every woman is capable of achieving a great career and a high salary. Not everyone is bright or suited to jobs which require a good academic performance to get into. And society needs shop workers, cleaners etc as much as any other role.

It isn’t about earning potential it’s about the fact that housing is now enormously expensive. If it wasn’t then a woman on 25k could afford to rent her own house even if modest.

That said, benefits aren’t awful. I just calculated a single mum with 2 primary aged children on 1300 a month would be able to claim £800p/m in UC, child benefit and council tax reduction. Which seems a fair amount to me.

What @Ponderingwindow said.

I love my husband, I met him when I was 16, we've been together 22 years. I have every intention of this marriage lasting forever.

But I was also determined not to be forced to stay in a marriage because of finances. I'm not educated beyond A-Level but have pushed myself to progress at work. Now I'm in a good position, have very transferable skills, a very good salary that on its own could support a mortgage, enough in savings to cover 6 months salary or a house deposit. Me and DH have a very balanced split of responsibility looking after DD and the house so I know that in the event something did go wrong he would be as capable of parenting 50/50 as me.

It's so important that women consider the 'what of' when embarking on a relationship, joining finances or having children.

I was trapped and unhappy, every way I looked at it I couldn't afford to pay rent or a mortgage alone. I had to wait it out until we had equity, savings and my career had progressed enough to go. Maybe it was a waste of those years but I'm secure now and will never give up having my own home again, no matter what my relationship situation is good or bad.

Legal changes would help with the reality of leaving. To start, child maintenance needs to reflect the cost of child care and the impact on job choice of being the parent who has to be available to pick up on time, answer sick calls, and cover days off by default, not convenience.

@BaddogGooddoggy
Well said.

People are going to hate me for this...

My wife earns three times what I do.

I'm sorry but "there's no fate but what we make for ourselves"

There are some (males and females) born into extremely difficult situations and I feel terrible for them, but (number picked from the air) 90% of people are in charge of their own success. Libraries are free and success depends solely on the effort you put in.

I remember my bully in secondary school... he picked on me because I was a geek, didn't go out playing football, didn't smoke, drink, didn't piss about during or after school... I hit the books. He cried when his A level results came through.

There is a glass ceiling, but 90% of the time (again, picked from the air), it is self-inflicted. I reiterate, my wife earns three times what I do. Most people are in a situation because they chose it or settled into it.

If you have sex, wear a condom or take a pill. If you don't, accept the consequence. If you choose to keep it (whatever the reason), that's your call, accept the consequence. If you put the work in young, you'll progress MEN AND WOMEN. If you want to be a stay at home mum, that is also a choice... my parents BOTH worked and studied themselves out of poverty and a good part of their salaries went on childminders. It meant that they always had a way out.

Kids... people complain they're expensive, life is hard etc. If I want a car, I save up for a car... why is the children mentality 'now now now, I'll deal with it once it comes'? SAVE UP. This is just good sense... those saying they can't afford to leave because of kids with a low income or stay at home mums.. why did you have kids without having that nest egg? Why did you have kids with that low income? Why have them if you can't afford to stay at home to look after them???

My wife could leave ANY time, with or without kids because she worked her arse off to be self-sufficient. Women are AMAZING! But so often you cage yourselves. My wife is the boss because she makes herself the boss. Our worst enemies are ourselves. If you allow the world to unfold around you without directing it, you can't complain later how it did.

Marriage is a choice, staying is a choice, kids are a choice, abortions are a choice, hard work is a choice, laziness is a choice... settling and self-pity are choices.

And what about women who had chaotic childhoods/home lives/abusive parents but flew under the radar of SS/other factors that mean all things you mentioned just aren’t possible?

Alongside the fact that the most used phrase my Grandmother says is “You tell God your plans, and He laughs”.

I have CPTSD I have redundancies built into every aspect of my life, did not see a Narc coming because my mother was one and I didn’t know any different, and despite being a fucking BioMedical Scientist with a very keen side interest in Virology/Epidemiology, did not predict a Pandemic or the impacts of that, nor did I foresee my middle child having multiple disabilities, because, well, I was in my mid 20s when I had her, there’s no genetic history on either side, so why would I?

Yes. In reality there are women who would be leaving, if the children came with them they would be uprooting them to live in another part of the city/ county they live in, to live in poverty - if they even got custody as the Judge may likely decide they would be better off with the Father.
Mothers who know that the Father is not capable of raising the children, that they are not emotionally safe with the father, and don't want to live the children spending days alone with him.
Mothers who have children with disabilities and feel they have to stay with the Father for the additional practical support.

I think there are many women who would leave if it were just a choice to live poorly for themselves, that is a freedom worth buying, but when its a choice you are making for your children too, and there is all the guilt of that, its harder.

There aren't many people earning enough to be able to afford two family homes if they were to split. I usually see women try to stay in the family home, often in extremely tight financial situations despite being on a good wage, move out and then find renting impossible or move back with family. This is only based on my experience. There is a reason why men generally move out, a lot of them simply do not see having room and appropriate accommodation for their children to stay over as a priority. It's amazing how many men move back into bedsits, mum and dad's or shared houses when they could easily afford a two bed flat and then suddenly can't have the children. Most women stay with their children and will not choose accommodation which would not allow them to stay with their children, even if they are the lower earner.
In the three relationships I know of who have broken up, the man has moved out into either bedsits or back with parents. The woman lives in the family home, often working overtime or struggling to get by. The man then meets a new full time working girlfriend and buys a house with her meaning that he never experiences financial hardship. Child maintenance is bollocks, someone on 3K a month paying £200 for their child, and the mother always loses out.

There are some (males and females) born into extremely difficult situations and I feel terrible for them, but (number picked from the air) 90% of people are in charge of their own success. Libraries are free and success depends solely on the effort you put in.

I think that’s a pretty optimistic view and doesn’t recognise just how hard it is to overcome childhood adversity, there are few safety nets now, and very little support for children with disabilities, and even less meaningful support for mental health difficulties. Those lacks actively trap people, predominantly women, in situations they’d rather not be in. All things being equal yes people can find opportunities to progress but let’s not pretend all things are equal.

@NukaColaQuantum you've made assumptions that I had a happy clappy childhood and have experienced no hardship.

I came from a very working class background, had lots of family drama and a mother who hung herself when I was 21 leaving me and my brothers to care for my terminally Ill father. By 30 both my parents were dead and I'm estranged from my brothers and all family on both sides.

I made the decision I would not be financially reliant on anyone and that I would be able to take care of myself and my daughter no matter what happens.

* Well there is always a way of leaving*

For some women, leaving might literally mean being homeless. The council won’t house a woman without dependent children, and if hers are adults or stay with dad, she’s on her own.

I'm abroad but this is basically me. The only escape I have is making myself homeless and in doing that I risk losing custody of my kids in the divorce. Plus, there aren't many homeless beds in my town so I'd be lucky to stay remotely in the vicinity of my kids. And that also means I leave them with him - and he's the problem! There's a lot of control and manipulation in the relationship, but I'm not entitled to refuge space (also over "subscribed") because it only counts as abuse here if he hits me. Not his style.

I'm trying to retrain, he's severely hindered me in that. Something that should have taken 3 years has taken 7.

There truly isn't always a way of leaving.

Other than suicide.

But that's not an option, because then the kids are left with him. As he's the reason for so much pain in my life, and has already started on the kids, there's no way I'd ever do anything that would put him in sole charge of them.

So there truly isn't always a way of leaving.

Patriarchy is not only what men do to women, it is also what women do to themselves. It is also cultural and not only economic. How many times women say "I don't want to desert my children" when they refer to childcare such as nursery. How many women in England (don't know about the whole of Britain) actively feel guilty using childcare which enables them to work? In my very narrow experience, up to 90%? We, women, need to change our frame of mind and such eagerness of self-sacrifice, and look at other countries (say, Denmark) where all children go to state funded high quality nursery at 1 yo and all women go to work. And 1 year of maternity leave is split equally between mother and father. And the mother can't take the father's leave, it is not transferrable.
As other posters say, when a woman keeps her employment throughout her life, she is much less vulnerable in case of marriage breakdown

That’s not what I said though, or what I meant, as I think you know

Children end up with their Mum because courts prefer to leave the children with the primary carer. If the father is the primary carer the children tend to stay with the father. Both parents can also agree 50/50 shared care.

CMS is paid by the parent with less than 50% care to the parent with more than 50% care. If the father is the main carer he will receive CMS.

If men think women have it easy they could reverse the situation by taking parental leave after the birth of the child, then going part time or giving up work to be the main carer of the children.

It would be interesting to know how much a woman needs to earn these days to live independently if they bought their house relatively recently. It makes a big difference if you bought your house in 2007 compared to it you bought it in 2017 so I don't think many women on here would be so smug about being able to pay their own mortgages if they compared it to what they would pay if they'd bought recently.

Perhaps but nobody is owed a lifestyle at the expense of the state, just a life. If they choose to live in an upmarket area etc than that will be more expensive and is a choice. Like I said a single mum on minimum wage with 2 kids would be entitled to £800p/m in benefits, which is okay if you’re willing to live in a smaller property but not if you want a larger house. I suspect it’s more about not wanting to lose their lifestyle than being flat out unable to afford to separate.

And worse women say things to other women like "why have children then pay someone else to look after them".

We all need to play our part in empowering each other.

Good for you, but you and I are the exception to the rule, not the rule.

My Psychiatrist told me that most patients with as many ACEs as me are either dead, addicts, in prison, completely unable to function and none of them have their children living with them, let alone a degree, raising three including a disabled one, alone, with zero SS involvement, and high functioning enough to hold down a job as skilled/pressured as mine.

I don’t know what made the difference for me, other than my Grandmothers monthly presence, because my drunk, coked up mother who beat me senseless on a regular basis, made multiple suicide attempts in front of me/I was the one who found her, her ignoring court orders that my father obtained and SS stating that we lived in a nice house, in a nice area and had plenty of food in, being kicked out when I turned 16 and had just started Y11, my mother disappearing with my siblings shortly after, and being sectioned just before I did my A Levels (so did not do them) sure as shit did not contribute anything positive to my life.

Yet I still manage to grasp that I am an anomaly, and shouldn’t be boldly stating that “well I did it so others can too”.

I’ve only avoided this by holding on so long that my child is now adult and moved away. We have enough assets to be able to split and downsize.

BUT I am so going to make sure my Dd doesn’t make the same mistake. We should all be passing on this message to our daughters and sons.

^
This
It’s very difficult and often impossible for anyone already trapped in a bad relationship, to better their circumstances. I really wish more help could be given to these women, but this is why it’s so important to educate our daughters on the importance of being financially independent and maintaining a career or presence in the workplace.
Marriage, childcare, finances, property ownership and maintaining careers should all be given careful consideration in a relationship, too many leave it to chance.

And what kind of accomodation can you get if your income is £800 in benefits? How easy is it to access?

Make sure you remember to allow for bills, food and other essentials in your budget.

Yep that’s me, desperately unhappy and drained but H refusing to change/leave so I’m trapped and going mad!

I absolutely agree, I want to end it but don’t want to lose my home.