Dh resents my lack of ambitions… DS is 3 yo

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Dh and I have a 3 year old son who is due to start morning school nursery soon. I currently work 2.5 days a week and Dh is full time self employed. He earns a lot and we’re comfortable at the moment but we don’t like where we live and want to move to a different area and get a bigger house. Dh actually hates our house… it’s a new build and the neighbours are a nightmare, the parkings atrocious, the house itself is pretty naff… it makes him super angry every single day.
I have an ordinary type of job and the money is poor. I don’t pay anything towards bills but I pay for childcare and bits and bobs like clothes and toys and the like.
Recently arguments have been brewing. He’s clearly resenting me that we rely so heavily on his earnings. He says for us to move to a bigger and better house I need to be working and earning more to help cover the bills should he be out of work (his work is contract based).
The only thing is then we would need a lot more childcare. And i love the routine I have at the moment and the thought of seeing my son a lot less literally makes me cry. I’m sure other mothers will understand this but he really doesn’t get it.
It’s all come to a head and he has threatened to sell up and get a divorce due to my “lack of ambition.” I don’t want this. He gets frustrated because Im not a career person but he has known this since he met me 14 years ago. But he is so unhappy in this house it’s making him ill, he’s desperate to move which is why there is so much pressure on me. I’ve told him I’ll do whatever it takes so I’m going to start looking at better jobs/courses etc. I just wanted to see what you all thought. As a mother to a young child it just feels wrong. But clearly it’s what my relationship needs.

I think in todays CoL crisis you need to listen , it's a huge pressure being a primary breadwinner and yes if your husband lost his job or became ill what would you do.

Completely agree with this - I get that it's important to have these conversations and ensure both people are happy with the arrangement, but if my partner threatened divorce, I'd tell him happily where to go...

(referring to this comment- forgot to hit quote!)

This.

Plus with mortgage rates skyrocketing it's a really silly time to upsize.

I think there's a real possibility he just enjoys having something to be angry at you about. Being angry about your perfectly decent house on a daily basis is not normal.

Hopefully not your situation but a friend of mine was in almost an identical situation and it turned out the push to get her working full time was because he thought it would mean he had to pay her less in the divorce... that he planned to tell her about when they sold the house and it turned out he was moving in with his new girlfriend rather than his wife.

There's unreasonableness on both sides here. You don't sound like much of a team - you're both pretty focused on when you want as individuals and there's not much of a sense of a shared family vision. I work for myself and am the somewhat lower earner (dh has an employed job) - in all honestly being the higher, much less practically sole earner would terrify me in that position. My business is going fine and there is a degree of slack in our finances, but in quiet periods there is a constant tickertape of stress running through your mind. And it is miserable living in a place you hate. OTOH berating you now for a 'lack of ambition' seems odd considering he's clearly known you a long time - or is he saying your priorities have changed?

Why are people referring to the OP as a sahm? She works.

I think you need to sit down together and look at finances. It’s worrying that you don’t seem to know how much money you have as a family.

Your son is three, he's not an infant.

I'd be feeling the same as your DH if I was in his situation. He's doing the heavy lifting financially, and you're not able to meet your shared goals through that alone.

It makes sense for you to increase your earning potential and start looking at better houses in better areas with better schools frankly.

What was your plan?

You need to sit down and have a calm conversation about how you want your family to work going forward. Ask your DH about his feelings and concerns and explain how you feel about seeing your son less. It would also be worth talking about how things would work if you do get more paid employment, would you still be expected to do everything you do at home even if you were there less, what home responsibilities would your DH cover (it’s amazing how many men think their other halves should do more work outside the home but assume it won’t impact them in any way). My DH has always been the higher earner but any time he got a new job that changed things we would sit down and discuss what that meant for our family and what our expeditions of each other would be. Poor communication is the root of most issues in a partnership/marriage.

Ffs expectations, not expedit (although it was a journey…)

I think you need to properly sit down and actually go through the implications of you working more the costs of childcare and what it means as a family. He wants something that may be unrealistic. Is he prepared to help with the childcare how school runs will work children being off sick housework life admin etc
abd if he hates the house how realistic moving is. Not to a better area of bigger house but moving

Lots of women go back to work full time after having a baby, you cannot unilaterally decide that you aren’t going to do that and your partner is going to shoulder the financial burden. Your child is three and it sounds like you need to increase your earnings and I think it s a fair point that this is important due to the contract nature of his jobs.

Where I think your husband is being ridiculous is over the house though. Yes people can have a desire to move, but to say a house is making you ill seems over the top and manipulative to me. Most people can make a home out of a house, I even remember making my shabby, paint falling off walls, university accommodation look nice and be somewhere I enjoyed living in 1989 even though I almost cried when I first saw it.

I’m part time in a job with a reasonable salary. My husband made lots of noises about me going back full time - although he waited until the youngest was out of primary school - which seemed fair. So as a trial I volunteered full time hours for a specific project at work lasting a couple of months - and both DC and DH ended up feeling neglected, he also realised he needed to pull his weight equally on childcare and it didn’t work well for our family. He literally only saw all this from it happening though. I have now reverted back to part time with no comments on it.

I think you need to look for more work anyway as this relationship might not last.

You need to work because if he does divorce you you won’t get spousal maintenance and as SE he can hide his earnings really easily and pay you minimum child support or go for 50-50 residency and you get nothing in CS then.

He sounds like he’s feeling the strain of being the main breadwinner.

All the other mums felt distressed going back to work too.

I hate where I live too so I understand his view point.

If you go back full time he's going to have to split all the housework and admin 50/50. I doubt he's thought of that.
It sounds like he expects you to work and deal with everything child related. He's either a bit daft or actively nasty.

How old were you when you met 14 years ago? What responsibilities did you have?

Just because someone wasn't financially focused in their 20s with no children to take care of- doesn't mean everyone should assume they will stay that way forever.

Getting older and have children makes most of us get our arse into gear and start being responsible in terms of affording housing and being financially secure.

I don't blame your DH for not realising that you were planning to coast and live off him indefinitely.

I was your dh in the situation and it can be incredibly frustrating and stressful to be the main earner in a family, see everyone else getting what they want and happy when you're not.

We also lived in a house I hated and I desperately wanted to move, but couldn't due to similar reasons to yourself. It can be soul destroying to work hard in a stressful job, with the weight of the family and see your partner happily getting everything they want, enabled by you, whilst you feel your wants and needs don't get taken into consideration.

You need to sit down and have a proper conversation about this. You like your current routine and he wants to move, how can you both enable this to happen?

You both need to be on the same page. I can see both sides. Plenty of parents work full time- it's not terrible and of course you'd have more money. The downside is that when he's at school it makes the holidays harder to cover.

Will your husband do 50% of school runs, housework, childcare, school holiday care if you work full time. That would need to be a bare minimum (but I bet he wouldn't).

I agree.
My dh said it once so l showed him the door.
He never left, course he didn't but he has never said it again because he knew l meant business. Was just having a strop over something.
Don't threaten me mate!

So you expect your husband to be ambitious and work full time and continue to do so, so you basically don’t have to ?

how long do you expect this? When do you plan to return full time or are you not ever? Because FT with a primary age child won’t necessarily be easier

But you do work!!! 2.5 days and then all the childcare and everything else. I agree your husband sounds a bully. The amount you work is reasonable and sensible with a young child. Perhaps think seriously if you'd be happier alone, you could then work part time and likely claim UC. You could live someone small just you and your son without an angry man belittling you.

Time to sit down with him and hash it out. Its perfectly normal for women to go back to work full time after having kids BUT it doesn't work if he doesn't do his share with the house and child. Also worth pointing out childcare costs. Realistically, if you are on a low wage childcare costs would eat it up if you went full time so staying part time and maybe retraining for a better earning 'career' would be better? Then you can hit the ground running once little one starts school? Me and OH have always worked around each other to lower childcare costs but it only works because we are 50/50 with everything. We both know we will come home to a clean and tidy house, meals sorted and kids seen to.
He needs to be realistic. He can't just expect you pull something out of the bag right now. Sit down and talk.

I think it’s reasonable he wants you to contribute more as many women do work full time now due to necessity and if you want a bigger and better house then you need to contribute too. It must be frustrating being the bigger earner by far and knowing that a lot is riding on you. If you discussed this before kids and he agreed to you working part time fair enough, but sounds like circumstances have changed and you are needed to work extra hours. I cried when I put my 1yr in nursery twice (2 kids) but needs must and glad I did as we separated and I’m ok on my own as I now earn a decent salary which wouldn’t have been the case if I’d have been part time or SAHM. It’s not necessarily having no ambition but it’s just a necessity and we all need to work to enjoy nice things in life. Your child will be in full time school anyway soon

There are multiple threads running at the moment about how awful it is trying to have two FT working parents and small children. It's very difficult to stay on top of housework, admin, drop offs and pick ups etc and the childcare costs for FT childcare including wrap arounds are crippling.

Has he done the maths of how much it would actually cost for you to work more and for your DS to be looked after?
Does he realise everything you do on the days you're not working? Is he prepared to pick up his half of all of that at the weekends???

I work PT because it allows our family to function, it allows my DH to work FT, it keeps childcare costs down. I work bloody hard on my 'days off' to keep the household running and keep everyone happy. If he told me to work FT or he would divorce me I'd cheerily wave him off and see how he got on. Thankfully he understands and appreciates the input to the household I make.

If the house is an issue can't you make a sideways move somewhere to a different house? It doesn't have to cost more to be a different style and have different neighbours. I'd do that now before DS starts school, it's harder then.