Resentment over partner and his work

[BlueBritish]

So, here’s the thing. My partner has a well paid job but it’s also long hours and just recently he’s had to stay in various different cities across the UK for 3/4 nights a week. We had a discussion about him not taking this job opportunity but he went ahead and did it anyway. We have a 3 year old DD and he’s recently come back from a stag so with his mates so I’ve had 0 free time to myself as I’ve been working too. I only do 2 shifts a week as I am the main carer for our child and doesn’t get her nursery funding until September. My partner does pay for the mortgage and the bills etc and I only have some little bills to pay myself but I earn absolutely nothing close to him. I’m just starting to resent him as he’s always getting his free time, he has a career he loves and I’m just stuck ‘holding the baby’ so to speak.
I just want some input to this as I am in a state of resentment where I do not know whether I am being unreasonable about the situation. Should I be resentful or should I be grateful. I am with a workaholic and I don’t know if that’ll ever change.

I would start by telling him you need extra money for the school holidays but ideally household finances should be pooled. You have a house and a child together so why would you not share a bank account?

The unequal time is tricky. My DH worked erratic hours and was often away when our children were small. There was a small age gap so childcare was expensive so for 2 years I was a SAHM and very unhappy with it especially as he was more for having kids than me and before we had similar incomes. In the end I took a Saturday job just to get me out of the house and force him to interact with our children. He agreed and got more confident with looking after them but more important acknowledged how difficult it was. Is your partner home weekends and if he is can you work or go out somewhere so he has to shoulder some childcare? Was having a child a joint decision?

He may see the better paid job as a way of funding a nice lifestyle for you both and I don't actually think being away for 3-4 nights a week is that much fun so don't imagine he is having a high old time when away. I would say you are not happy with the current arrangements and you need to discuss. I wouldn't marry him though at the moment as he sounds selfish.

This, I cant believe families live like this. All money should be family money with equal access to it!

Looking after the children while he works is your work. He can only do his job and do it so well because you are looking after his children so he doesn't have to and childcare costs can be saved. You're not seeing any benefit whatsoever y this arrangement. He's not "paying the mortgage" - you both are. He's not financially funding your life - how can he be if you can't even get a gym membership? Nonsense.

I would not agree to having children with my husband until we had a joint account and both our salaries went straight into it. I'm currently on maternity and so I don't have my full wage coming in - or anything close to it - but all the money we both have coming in is in the account for our family to live off.

No way in hell was I ending up in a situation where it could be spun as my husband is "funding my life" - fuck off with that!!! It seems like so many people - women included- are trapped in that mentality. Like working part time and looking after the kids every second of our non working time is some kind of luxury for us, forgetting that it is literally the only thing enabling the husband to work full time and focus on work and not pay childcare. Baffling.

@BlueBritish that's fabulous - the last thing you need is the bother of looking for a new job.

When does the increased childcare kick in and can you increase your hours then? I'd then be sitting down with DP and perhaps starting to gently suggest some weekends where he doesn't work, some days/evenings when you'd like to have time to go to the gym/to the pub for a drink with a friend, start to reclaim your life. Do you pay into a work pension? Do you have any savings in your name?

You need a joint account for child related expenses at the bare minimum .

He was happy enough to be involved in the conception so the least he can do is pay for some summer childcare.

Tell him how you feel, this is grossly unfair. If he promises money then he needs to hand it over.

My ex was away quite a lot, just nature of his job, I admit I got resentful about the evening socialising or trips out organised by the hosts! But he paid the bills and I didn't work outside the home (autistic child, couldn't get childcare from 2, got kicked out of 3 daycares prior to diagnosis)

We are both on the mortgage but he pays it at the minute. This was not originally the plan, we was going to split things but he’s job took off. I have bills such as paying for the TV, paying for the sofas monthly, my car finance, my phone, pet insurance, car insurance, it sounds little but I work 2 days a week so it’s a big chunk that is taken out of my wages.

My first question is why does a high earner like your husband have sofas on finance?! But getting back to the point...

This is the weirdest way of splitting finances between you.

DH and I don't have kids and I'm the higher earner, so we don't have similar circumstances to you. But regardless, I know that the ONLY way of making it work when there is a huge disparity between you - ie, one of you works full time and the other 2 days a week - is to pool ALL of your money into one account.

Give yourselves some fun money each too. But all mortgage, bills, furniture, holidays, kids activities, kids clothes - everything - comes out of your joint account.

For DH and me, as the higher earner, who also gets bonuses, our previous way of doing things (where we paid a proportionate amount of our wages into a joint account) enabled me to build up a huge savings pot and left my husband with very little. I was able to 'treat' us to things like holidays, which made me feel like I paid for everything (which I resented) and made my DH feel small.

We now pool everything so we are equal and it's a much nicer arrangement all round.

Why didn’t you look for alternative childcare? I’ve never heard of anywhere that only takes DC from 3. One of my friends went back to work at 6 weeks (well, 2 in reality - her DM and MIL covered the other 4 as nursery would only take from 6 weeks).

Sorry did I miss whether or not you are married?

i remember this resentment well. In our case it kind of resolved as

a. Kids got older so were in school / clubs more and needed less attention / physical input

b. I built up my own career as a. Happened so felt personally fulfilled again

c. DH earning increased meaning we could hire a cleaner / have nicer holidays / over pay our mortgage etc. it was much harder when he was early in his career and the long hours didn’t even vaguely equate to a better life, turns out its paying off now and he’s made himself indispensable to them, which gives our family a lot of security in insecure times.

the differences seem to be you don’t have ownership over the joint finances? And maybe don’t feel like a team?

it wasn’t exactly a choice for any of us about having a child, I fell pregnant on the pill when we first got together, I played with the idea of abortion but I’ve gone through a lot in the past and made me feel sick at the idea. I did work a lot before my DD, in fact I was close to getting a very good promotion. I love my DD to the moon and back and wouldn’t change her for the world but I did not go into this with a mentality like people think I have.

all the summer holiday clubs around me will not take children until about 5 years old so it seems.

I do have savings but these are very minimal and something I cannot afford to add to at the minute.

I work full time. My husband is a stay at home dad.

It's ridiculous you don't have enough money to take your child out in the holidays or join a gym. You shouldn't be paying for X and him for Y.

All money earnt by you both should be joint as you are a team and you only working part time enables him to have his job for the team. You need to stop this separate finances or divorce him.

You need to tell him today that you need joint money and then some each for spending. All bills go out of the joint money. All costs for your daughter are from joint money and that includes activities, clothes, toys, presents, etc.

From what's left you save Z and each have the same amount for spending (on gym, clothes for you, etc.)

You've got into this situation but you can't let it go on.

Also, consider the future. He doesn't sound like a keeper. If you went full time when your daughter goes to school or even now, you'd be making sure you have a career to support yourself if you ever need to leave him (and once you have joint finances with joint money paying all childcare, you can pay for it from that). My husband doesn't have that but we don't have issues such as separate finances.

Finally, I've been the one away for work. Personally, it was incredibly hard as I was miserable and missed my kids. Eating in restaurants, watching Netflix doesn't make up for being with them. I gave that job up and now wfh mostly which means I work long hours shut in my office but I do get to see them. In fact, I just stayed up most of the night with one of them who has a really high temperature. DH took the other one to school and I'm crawling around getting ready to log into work feeling shattered! He looks as fresh as a daisy! He will do tonight if our child is still ill. All of this is because we are a team. If you and your DH aren't, that needs to change now.

Yes, summer holiday clubs will be aimed at providing holiday cover for school age children. For a pre-school child you'll need a nursery or a childminder.

Expenses should be split proportionate to income and come out of a joint account - that includes the cost of FT childcare. You need to work FT or as close to FT as you can manage.

Working PT is very risky when you are not married, as you are very vulnerable from a financial perspective. You are the one taking the hit to your career development, your income and your pension. If you are married then you have some protection as in the event of a split, your contribution (childcare) is recognised when making financial agreements.

If he wants to be able to continue to swan about then you need to marry, and pool finances. If he doesn't want to then you need to present him with his share of costs including childcare, and up your working hours ASAP.

Sounds pretty much like my situation but I’m grateful to have such a hands on partner who goes out and works as hard as he can so we can benefit from it and purchase what we want without worrying about the next bill. I work 3 days and am the main care giver for my 1 year old and 5 year old. You can’t have it all unfortunately. I just make sure he’s home atleast 1 full day at the weekend and he does bedtime when he’s home on time which is rare. I also go out with my friends once a month for a bit of me time.

Why aren't you pooling your income? It's not fair that you can afford less. It's not just him funding your lifestyle; you're enabling him to do the things he wants by looking after his daughter. Not all work is paid!
If, for example, one person earns £4000 per month and the other £1000 (for ease of maths) and you have outgoings of £2000 a month and the one on the lower income pays a quarter of what the other spends (so £400 to £1600) the lower earner is left with disposable income of £600 per month compared to £2400 for the higher earner so it's still not fair even if you don't halve it. I understand that people want financial independence but when you've sacrificed so much to be around for your child it seems unfair. Myself and DH used to earn the same and he now earns 4x what I do. We've pooled our income since our son was born. I expect we'd be less likely to do that if there was no difference in income.

Coming from experience, even if you work more, you’ll still not get lie ins, you’ll still have to rush off to collect your DD, you’ll still not be able to go out socially after work 9 times out of 10. Sometimes working more isn’t the answer.

That additional day at nursery will help, just make sure you don’t spend it doing housework!

Talk to him

You communicate poorly and you’re jealous.
Why are you even on separate budgets? It’s a family unit. Have you ever had a conversation with your partner as to how your life is and how the family works?
honestly 🤦🏼‍♀️everyone is like “oh your partner is a workaholic” and well maybe before child was born they should have had a talk
also thank god he’s workaholic otherwise who would pay for this family?

What a selfish prick. Of course you resent him. I don’t know op, tell him somethings got to give, quite a lot of things need to give to sort this out.

If you can purchase what you want you are not in the same boat as the op. She can’t pay to go out with her dc over summer, she is paying off the sofa on finance, he didn’t buy it. She can’t afford a gym membership, she couldn’t begin to afford the ski holidyas etc he gets.

op, this is not ok. One step is to tell people- johns away, I wish I could afford ski holidays but he’s never here so I can’t work much, so i’m pretty broke.
I am not sure what to say to him- my relationship would be over as he doesn’t want to be part of a team, either financially or as a parent and they are both complete dealbreakers. I suggest you book an extra day of childcare, and a gym membership, send him the bill, and say we need to talk. And set new arrangements. He pays for childcare so you can work more. When he’s home he does bedtime every night. When dc wake up at night you kick him and say your turn, walk around slowly for at least half an hour before you wake me, it’s 2:35 am so I’ll know. It’s your child too.

Well OP didn’t put all the details in the original post and I wasn’t going to sit here reading through the whole feed. But thanks for your pointless input

I agree with you. I think grass always looks greener on another side. There is so much talk here about higher earners having it "easy" getting lovely lunch breaks etc. In reality having a stressful, long hours job is very hard and it often contributes to many health problems!
On other hand working part time /staying at home can seem like walk in a park but it absolutely isn't if you're in it as there is lots of work and responsibilities involved.

Communication is the key. Family should be a unit working together towards same goals not competing with each other.
But that takes communication and effort.

And a parent working part time is supporting family and supporting partner in his career. So money should be shared.

For all those who don’t think I’ve tried to talk to him, I have. He doesn’t want a joint account because apparently the reason for a joint account is that we both are able to pay for bills etc and I can’t 🙄 I think on reflection, now is a good time to call it quits with this relationship.