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.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves you obviously do care or you wouldn’t be writing ranty posts. I’m saying nothing controversial, children under five are probably better off being looked after by their mothers then other people being paid to provide that care. And yes, when I was working lots i felt more distant from my children and they from me. I have said if you have to work then there’s no choice, then that’s a shame. Society should value mothers and the mother child bond more. It would make for a better society.

Well personally I want a spouse to be there for family life, I also want them to prioritise spending time with their children, to play an active daily role in parenting.
Personally I wouldn’t want to build a family with someone who worked away regularly for a week at a time.
I don’t view it at all as being obsessed with equal financial contributions or to match household task for task but I would find it really unattractive if a man didn’t want to do whatever he could to also be around his children daily, to get them ready, to pick them up, do bath time etc. It’s not a family life to me if my spouse viewed that as only
my job while they largely just worked. To me that’s like single parenting but with a financial contribution from someone.

Sadly our children have all left home now so it’s not an issue.

The nature of his job is such that he started by 645 am and when our children were young we lived less than 10 minutes from the office so generally home by 630pm or so and dinner and a good few hours with the children and then sometimes a few calls once they were in bed. Zero weekend work fortunately.

@Hippyhippybake a 60+ hour week is near enough two full time jobs though. With those hours it means one parent is largely absent compared to the other one and particularly compared to a normal 35 hr full time role.
To me that’s not a family life I would want.

@Hippyhippybake i’m not making that comment to shit on your set up, I just really hate the idea that a SAHM is this holy grail family life when a husband working nearly 2 full time jobs is just not something I would want for my kids. It’s not an ideal for everyone.

@QueensBees beautifully put- it's a very different kettle of fish having 2 full time professional well paid jobs with possibly a bit of WFH for one or either parent and the cash to pay for holiday care , clubs etc to 2 jobs that are out the house all day, may involve shifts, aren't particularly well paid and don't allow enough surplus cash to ease things in holidays or outsource some tasks etc. I've been in both situations and when it was more of just 'a job' it came down to hard cash- was I considerably better off working FT factoring in school holidays , childcare costs, commute costs etc and to be honest I wasn't really-

This really isa very individual thing to each family and also needs to factor in how much in reality the H or DP will actually contribute to childcare and house work , cooking , plus shopping, general home admin - not how much they should do if you both work FT but how much they are likely to do in reality.

If you divorce will he have to go part time to facilitate 50/50 shared care of the kids or will you be expected to do the majority of child rearing? If that's the case you'd most likely have to go FT anyway to afford being on your own (or stay PT and possibly top up with UC and CM, both of which are risky incomes imo)

Realistically, you'll have to go FT whichever scenario, but in one of them you won't have an angry husband in your space constantly giving you shitty ultimatums...

I apologise if I gave the impression that I think that I or necessarily any SAHP has a holy grail life , that certainly wasn’t my intention and if certainly isn’t the case.

I agree but let's face it: happens very infrequently.

@Hippyhippybake see to me days this long sound like a nightmare and I wouldn't want my husband to live like this. I don't think he'd have much energy after a day like that either. Sure it's doable, but not a set up I would want for my marriage and I don't think I would even marry someone who insisted on staying in this type of work.

But that's just me - everyone has different arrangements that work for them. the problem happens when two people in a relationship have very different ideas about how that life should look like.

I’ve just had a look on Legal Cheek and the average start finish times for trainee and junior lawyers are 9am - 8pm / 9pm. So add in a commute and 60 hours is pretty standard. I was always glad that dh and my jobs started early and finished early.

Oh I do care.

I care about the messages that society sends to young women because I have a daughter and I don't want her to limit her aspirations. I care about the sadness that I see in my mother who regrets having given up her career unnecessarily. I care when I see women going out of their way to denigrate the choices of other women simply so that they feel better the choices that they have made for themselves.

I don't care how others choose to live their lives as long as they aren't impacting negatively on anyone else. I don't care if you want to SAH with your kids. I think it's a perfectly valid and acceptable choice if your husband is on board and you can afford it. What is not valid, in my opinion, is the desperate attempts to insinuate that your choices somehow make you a better parent. You are not.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves I work two days a week. Im not a sahm parent. I won’t apologise for saying children are best off being cared for by their mothers rather then people paid to look after them.

The idea that a woman is limited by caring for her children in the short window of their early childhood is preposterous, it’s a joy and something to celebrate, not see as a consolation prize. A career will never be as important as your children. And if it is, then I would question someone as a mother.

You are projecting a great deal on to me and my comments and have launched into personal attacks. Why is this making you so angry, I don’t think my opinions are so outrageous.

I was the main breadwinner and I wouldn’t be up for a spouse that didn’t work at all even though I was a high earner. I think you find that a lot of men feel the same way although it’s less acceptable for them to say anything than for me (a woman). Often they don’t say anything to keep the peace but when things start to go south the resentment at a spouse who doesn’t contribute financially comes out.

Of course he has. However I work 3 days in a stressful job and do all childcare, all house maintenance, all admin. He literally doesn’t have to do anything. Of course he does things because we’re a team but he doesn’t have to. I never moan at him for working late or answering calls/emails when he’s at home because I appreciate greatly what he does for our family. Equally he appreciates everything I do and recognises the time I spend doing everything that needs to be done. The op’s DH seems to think she’s not pulling her weight and she needs to factually tell him what she does but also the cost of putting their child in nursery if she increases her hours. Which is a cost to be shared as it seems she’s paying for everything at the moment.

Also I see women my mothers age who have never had a career. They’ve really missed out on a huge part of adult life.

I agree with @MrsBennetsPoorNerves and @Ngmi, I choose to sah with my kids because the young women in the nursery etc couldn't have given my kids the parenting I would have. But there are so many ways to grow up that if someone else choose differently I wouldn't find that objectionable. There are some kids who don't thrive in full time external care and some mums who don't thrive in full time sah... And every shade between. Sometimes we don't even have a choice.
But I do find it a shame when a main breadwinner believes that income generation is a greater contribution than main carer. Both are equally valuable imo.
If you can earn high figures, so you can pay for child care and still being in enough to make a difference that's great, but not everyone can do that.
If you can go to work and fully focus on that because your partner has got an the domestic stuff covered that's great and vice versa. Or if you both pull in some money and can afford good care that great. But to think your partner isn't an equal partner because their contribution isn't measured in pounds and pence is faulty to me.

Sue, I do work, I just don’t get paid for it. To replace me DH would need a cleaner, gardener, handyman, shepherd, groom, dog walker, cook, an occasional painter and decorator, and a part time PA to do all admin and book holidays etc. And that’s not even including all the stuff I still do for our Uni age children. I’m lucky that he can see how hard I work and he values it.

He doesn’t do any housework at all and we are both happy with this as we really enjoy spending down time just being together.

Agree, it's like on here when people say 'give him.the bill for housework/cooking/childcare etc.
Yep if that's how you want to play it then you pay 50% mortgage, power bills, general living etc!

But that’s something that should be talked and agreed to before getting married really, let alone before having a child.

If you’ve never discuss it with them even though it’s a deal breaker for you, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s on you.

Fully agree with this. I could be a SAHM and my DD could have virtually no relationship with DH so he could work all hours to compensate for my lack of earning. Or we can both work and both have a proper relationship with her and be involved in day to day parenting, and exist as a family. To me, having 2 parents properly involved in her life and her care plus using some paid childcare beat 1 parent doing everything and the other working all the time, so that’s what we did.

@BelindaBears that assumes that the child has a father that WANTS to be involved at take on some responsibility in parenting them.

Not all fathers do.
Some just dint.
Some hide behind long hours at work
Some put more importance on their career/work that child rearing.
Some are actually deeply sexist and see that as beneath them.

So yes great if two people working means they can both be involved. That’s tte best situation imo too.
But I would not automatically assume this is how tte OP’s DH feels. (Because he never mentioned wanting to be more involved with his child as a reason for the OP upping her hours)

He pays for everything else OP says

Very true, but she also bears some responsibility if she’s chosen to have a child with someone like that. I wouldn’t.

@SueVineer funny you say you’d resent a spouse not working, or working part time. And you say that’s something a lot of men feel too. So your view of sahp is actually one of resentment towards them fur not pulling their weight, as you don’t consider childcare and looking after the house real work as it’s unremunerated.

So for all your projection and personal attacks, we now see the nub of your feelings. You don’t value the contribution of mothers. I feel it is you that look down on those that make different choices much more then anyone is looking down on you. As you’re a high earner I’m assuming you’ve had a raft of domestic help over the years, not patching together the washing cooking cleaning childcare around a couple of low paid jobs that eat up most of your salary in childcare. As it ever was, women with privileged expecting lower paid women to copy them with none of the financial, intellectual or societal perks. But on top of a job a ton of other responsibilities. Got it now 👌