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.

Sorry, these do not work when bolded. Here they are again:
https://grabjobs.co/
https://rplg.co/dbaa4e20
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Yes, I've been thinking the same.

No one has a right to be financially supported.

Totally agree with this, I have worked with quite a few contractors before and they definitely earn more than a perm doing the same role, but as you say, no Holiday pay, no redundancy, no sick pay, no company pension, etc and when if / the contract ends there is no guarantee that you will quickly finding another contract.

If the OPs husband really was worried about income security he could look to swap to a perm role and take maybe a 30 to 40% drop in income at which point the OP might well have to look for more hours / better job to keep the household running

However, income-based benefits like sick pay and pensions etc can be bought privately.
Dp has done this.
Income protection.
Pension.
Life insurance.
Private medical insurance.

Holiday pay loss can be negated via gains in the tax system. The op's husband is in a prime position to be able to plan and protect his own and his family's future with projections on his workload. People directly employed cannot.
I do think people overegg the business/self-employed-contractor pudding too much. Like Dp says owning a business gives him complete control over his life financially and family. In the invented scenario without a partner, it's highly unlikely the ops husband would be better off.
He's not suddenly going to work part-time if he was single.

Couples need a plan short-medium and long, with both parties' considerations taken on board. It's unrealistic to think the op is going to be a high flyer most attain mediocrity in an average-paying role at best.

DH is a contractor and because of his high day rate he sometimes has unrealistic expectations of how easy it might be for others to earn more.

I earn a very good salary as a permie for what I do, I might be able to earn a bit more contracting but I like having a pension in place, sick leave and a bit of training, plus having one permie and one contractor is a good balance for us.

I agree that the couple can certainly revisit working roles, but she isn't going to take home much more by the time childcare is taken into account, and if he's genuinely worried about contract stability then buying a biggest house with a more expensive mortgage should be the last thing on his mind.

As someone that lives in a house they hate it can impact your MH and there are times I feel like your husband so I sympathise.

The key points are what did you decide about working v childcare prior to having your son? Putting your son in FT nursery is fine, doesn't mean anything about you as a mother. Financially providing for your child is also important. But you have to find a solution you are both happy with. He is clearly not happy being the main breadwinner which I understand but will you resent his if you work FT? Sounds like compromises are required!

I find this a very strange post. The OP is not asking a random stranger to support her. Her DH and her child and herself are a team - they are a FAMILY. Do you understand the concept of a family? Families help each other and support each other. Unfortunately, the problem in the OP's case is that it sounds like her DH wants a different lifestyle to her - they have maybe grown apart and are incompatible, which is very sad. But there is nothing wrong with families supporting each other in general, both in terms of monetary support and caring for children.

Sorry, but I think you are completely and utterly wrong here.

OP started her husband was a contractor not self employed, I work with lots and lots of contractors, the money is good when working, but you cannot project an income and most definitely cannot project a work load, in IT ( where I work), the changes to IR have almost killed the contractor market ( quite rightly in some ways), and has seen droves of contractors switch to permanent roles

No one has a right to be financially supported

This is why we now have women saving up for their maternity leave for all those Immaculate Conceptions

I could see the way this was going back in the 90s and it was part of the reason why im child free by choice.

There are plenty of people who work INCREDIBLY hard in jobs like care work and factory work and retail but will only ever live in social housing.

The DH here needs to realize how lucky he is.

Maternity leave is one thing. There's no suggestion that DH didn't financially support OP during maternity leave.

The child is now 3.

I didnt say he didnt Though obvs OP would need to say one way or the other Nice try at deflection though. My posts as it stands should be bloody obvious.

The statement was "no one has a right to be financially supported" my post was in reply to that.

Women falling all over themselves to prove they dont need anything from their childs OWN FATHER.

I really really hope more women make the same choice i did.

Yes the kid is 3 Funny how the DH wasnt sulking over the OP not doing enough financially while the child was still in nappies or waking up at night

Of course fathers should be expected to financially support their children.

However, that doesn't mean that mothers are off the hook. It is a shared responsibility. If they agree between them that one will take on more financial responsibility in exchange for the other taking on more responsibility in other spheres, then that's perfectly reasonable, but the default position is that the responsibility is shared between them.

Children have the right to expect that they will be supported by both parents. Grown adults, if they are healthy and capable, should expect to support themselves unless they have a specific agreement in place that enables them to do otherwise.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves i was talking about women having to save for maternity leave So please dont gaslight

Out of curiosity, how many years do you think OP's DH is morally obligated to be the only significant breadwinner against his will?

How on earth am I gaslighting?

Why shouldn't women save for maternity leave? And why shouldn't men save for it as well?

I'm the higher earner in my relationship so of course maternity leave had an impact on our financial situation. We both saved up prior to that in order to ensure that we didn't struggle in that period. Why on earth would that be an issue?

Of course, it is problematic if a woman is on mat leave and her DH/partner does not expect any impact on his own financial arrangements, but there is nothing inherently wrong with women (or men) saving for that period in advance.

@SunRainStorm Because i suspect he wouldnt have liked the idea of 50/50 while kid is still in nappies or waking up at night.

Oh FFS it should have been obvious that i meant women are being expected to save for ALL their maternity leave with no financial contribution from the father

OK, well yes, obviously, women are probably best off not having children with deadbeat dads that don't want to contribute. I'm not entirely sure what that has to do with this thread, though, as the husband appears to have been supporting his family for 3 years and is now looking for a more equitable split. Apologies if I have missed the point that you're making, I just don't really get the relevance?

A couple of points if the ops husband is filling a self-assessment he's technically self-employed. If he has work weeks or months in advance he can do an income forecast.

Now we've reached a point there must be parity in incomes otherwise the other is entitled to leave or complain. So many posters trying hard to push the Independence bandwagon. And yes it can be for some income brackets impossible to save for maternity etc.
The ideal situation would be to have endless support networks equal incomes, equal time off etc. Again that is an idealistic fallacy.

Obviously, it's different for everyone, but for me, it's more about parity if effort more than parity of income.

My DH will never earn as much as I do, and I am not bothered by this. In a sense, if I was, I would consider it my own fault for not choosing to marry someone with more lucrative prospects. Instead, I earned enough to support the lifestyle I wanted for myself and so I was able to prioritise other qualities.

So I don't mind that his earnings are much lower than mine. However, I would mind if I felt that he was making less effort than I was, or if I felt that he was just sitting back and allowing me to carry the financial responsibility for the family. I would resent that tbh.

Do you want another baby has that not been discussed ? Surely you’re coming up to the time where that’s a consideration?

If so, taking on more financial responsibility seems irresponsible.
By the way, this is nothing to do with the house the house isn’t making him ill at all. It’s the responsibility. The days of men manning up and actually being hunter gatherers apparently are completely over. Honestly struggling to see what purpose they do serve these days.

It's a common misconception that men in traditional societies were responsible for all of the hunting and gathering. Women certainly did a great deal of the gathering, and there is evidence to suggest that they were often involved in the hunting as well.

I was just looking at our society not comparing us with Lions and gorillas, I wonder what purpose the males of those species serve as well. At some point, Mrs lion will clock on

Nobody said anything about lions or gorillas?

My point was simply to challenge the misleading implication in your previous post that men were originally the "providers".