Farm wife seeking complicated advice

[Birdsofprey]

Sorry, this is long.

I love my husband, and his family.

I thought I knew what I was marrying into, because I'd worked on a few farms so the labor was familiar to me.

Basically, hubby's grandpa owns the family farm. We farm 1,000 acres, some lots leased some owned. Not sure what the proportion is.

"The farm" owns our home. So no rent or mortage, but also if we lose the farm, we lose our home.

I don't mind the april-november 16 hour days. I mostly don't mind that sometimes I'm doing various rennovation projects on my own because my husband is too tired.

What I do mind, and want advice on how to handle before I freaking explode:
Granpa owns the farm, but he doesnt live on it or work it.
In laws are the farm managers. FIL is a narcissict who I can't stand. MIL.. I love her, but the better I get to know her, I don't like her. Example: we have a 6 month old baby, and in laws live 10 minutes from us on another farm owned home. I'm done making plans with her or accepting offers to babysit so I can go to a dr appt because she cancels everything last minute and screws me.
Grandpa doesn't like women being in charge of business, so FIL is really the one in charge but MIL and hubby are worked and stressed to a point where I'm suprised they havent had a heart attack, just keeping the farm alive from FIL's stupidity.

MIL doesnt want to subject me to FIL's tantrums, so there has been outright REFUSAL to teach me to do anything on the farm that I don't currently know from previous job, "to protect me". Let me deal with him and or make that decision on my own!!!! This means that I know very little of what actually goes on because grandpa wants to protect hubby from FIL tantrum, and MIL wants to protect me. So hubby was told to go to college and get a degree, with the promise of working on the family farm when finished and just needing to work off-farm until then, and is just permanently on-call with the farm if FIL isn't around, or is preoccupied, and hubby's experience is needed. The entire thing is a cluster fuck.

Hubby is the only one of 5 kids interested in farming. So he's supposed to eventually inheret the farm which is why he's willing to put his soul into something this convoluted.

I've been remodeling my chicken coop. Long story short, the thing was a disaster when I moved in two years ago and it's been a PROJECT. MIL recently told me how my coop is gonna operate when it's finished. I don't even remember what she said because I tuned most of it out. She has 5 coops, and wants our properties to work in tandem basically. But -telling- me how my coop was gonna work, just because she owns the property rubbed me the wrong way.

I was a stay at home mom for baby until recently because we could afford it, but we can't any longer (burned through my personal savings to do so) and I went back to work last month. I work nights, hubby works days. I sleep very little, mostly just with baby during her daytime naps. Hubby is a full time college student "who can't multitask" so I've got baby duty + house duty + yard duty + doing the remodel I was SUPPOSED (yes, I'm mildy angered) to get help with by myself + winter prep of chopping wood, stacking it, and kindling because a fireplace is how we heat our home... 90% by myself unless I peek, see he isn't in a test, drop baby in a play pen in his study, and walk away to make dinner or do whatever it is I can't do with a baby, which isn't always feasible because of what he's working on or what I need to do.

I just want to explode some days with the utter bullshit of it all.

If it was just hubby, baby, and I on our own plot I don't think I'd be nearly as pissed/stressed/confused all the time, but the combination just....

Add that when we dated, and pre-baby, we had discussed having 2-3 kids so no single one felt the burden of keeping the family farm on their shoulders, but 7 months post baby, I'm very conflicted because I don't think I can do this again. Emotionally, physically, definately can't afford it financially (plus, the idea of "would I feel guilty for giving baby A 7 months of stay at home mom but baby B only got whatever maternity leave my job offered, which is likely to be 2 months or less?"). Plus, grandpa recently decided hubby needs to get a job outside the family farm (to "expand his knowledge of how successful farms make it") once he finishes his degree next month, which means that one person at home on the farm with baby helping with farm chores while the other is at work is no longer an option, so either we work opposite shifts or pay for a babysitter.

I told him a few weeks ago that I definately can't do postpartum 2x again, and he said he's OK with it if I can't even do it 1x more, because he loves me more than our potential children, even if we have to adopt to keep the pressure off the kids shoulders, but realistically we can't afford to adopt, so if I decide I can't do this again, our current child will be an only child with all the weight of the farm.

AND - it doesn't help that I can count the number of times we've had sex in the last year on one hand. I used to be the initiator, my drive is easily twice his if not more, but starting at the end of the pregnancy, my want to dissapeared and now.. I want to want to have sex, but I just don't have it in me.

So my life looks great on the outside, but is a giant stressful shit show on the inside.

Does anybody have basically coping advice for me

Gosh OP

Many years ago, when I hated my life and was overwhelmed by stress from work, marriage, family and all the rest of it, I read a Sunday magazine article about what life was like for coal miners in China. I cut out the photos and pinned them to the kitchen door to remind me, every morning, how lucky I was.

Not that I need to remind myself to be happy nowadays, but I think you just became my new Chinese coal miner family 😮

I can't comment on the farming life, but would say two things:

(1) Sometimes we start a job and realise quickly that the whole company is fucked. It's best to find another job rather than try to fix things as a new recruit without influence.

(2) There is no shame in bailing out of a marriage after a short period. I probably should have done it on my wedding night.

I'd suggest prioritising your own health and sanity by detaching yourself from your DH and his family bullshit. He could come and join you; he is free to build a different life elsewhere. As the child of toxic parents, though, he might feel trapped. But there is nothing you can do about that, sadly.

@BrassicaBabe yes, I know all too well about land and inheritance of farming land in the UK from personal experience

Four small points.

1. You (collectively) couldn't afford to be a SAHM. You (singular) afforded it by spending all your savings and your financial security to allow your husband to keep going in his current life without any change to his circumstances from becoming a father. If you're being exploited, keep a very clear vision of what is happening and who is benefiting.

1. I don't think it's an accident that things have suddenly got a lot worse since you married and it became more emotionally and practically difficult to go elsewhere.

1. When the grandfather dies, even if your MIL inherits officially, it will be your FIL who calls the shots. She's not going to leave him or say no to him. Why would she do that now?

1. Working in expectation of an inheritance is working for nothing because it is more than likely it will never happen. Your dh is indentured labour right now. See point 1 about clarity when you're being exploited.

I've seen more than one of these multigenerational farming shitshow threads, UK and elsewhere. Make your own security- you've done it once if you had savings, do it again. Plan to build funds in the future to buy a house elsewhere - rent it out if you have to in the meantime. I think you will need it. Get a daytime job and use childcare. It's all impossibly hard but at least holds out the prospect of a manageable life in the future.

Yes and no. Our reasoning for more than one child is so one doesn't feel all the weight, as in if they don't say yes, the farm is gone. With the five kids, they were able to discuss amongst themselves who, if any were willing. One of hubby's siblings is dead, and the agreed census pre-death had been that him and hubby were going to do it together. With him dying...

Yes and no.

Daycare here is so expensive, it would literally be equal to what rent would cost, making it so we/I had no ability to save up to get our own place.

I am in my 30's, sadly. 20's were unfortunately wasted on a toxic relationship, and then several years healing from said relationship.

Hubby working outside the farm sound great, for those reasons, except that in reality I know it will mean he ends up working two jobs - his paid one and the on call errand boy for the farm.

Then you go without him

If you don’t want to leave him
OrderOfTheKookaburra
gives some excellent advice on how you could make it work

God, this sounds horrific - a miserable life working your hands to the bone with the vague promise of inheriting the farm at some point.

There must be recognised methods of succession planning for things like this, I'm pretty sure this isn't one of them.

I think you should consider cutting your losses and working towards being self-sufficient.

I think it's working fine for hubby because he essentially just gets to be a student right now whilst you do all of the work. As soon as you drop 75 percent of what you're putting in, things will change.

That’s a scarily low bar to set! Humans need sleep within every day, ideally at night.

Sorry, but I think you have a dh problem here. Too many farming families end up falling out over inheritance, and the one who has devoted their life to running things often lose out.

Your life sounds unsustainable, and lovely ideas of breeding chickens and selling eggs is unrealistic, unless you have the money to set up a unit to keep thousands of them. Even keeping 50 hens and selling the eggs you’re unlikely to make more than the cost of keeping them.

Your dh should be listening to your concerns and wanting to make sure you both have a stable future. As it is it sounds like he’s sticking his head in the sand about his family set up, which doesn’t bode well for your future.