To lbecome a SAHM if I don’t want to?

[Yesgojess]

My husband works in finance and works 12 hour days including commuting, and once a week will be out late with clients. The kids (18 months and 3) love him but he’s very much fun dad. I do all the hard graft, everything at home falls to me and I’m trying to hold down a part time senior level professional job that I worked hard for. The thing is I’m just crumbling. I’m burnt out week to week, I do all the meals, drop offs, pick ups, housework, cleaning, organising. He leaves the house before the kids wake up (and they are both up before 6), and then it’s just non stop until they are in bed. If he gets back in time he will stick them in the bath while I clean up downstairs but it’s all just a mad rush and it’s not like he takes over, I’m still just grafting alone all day. He’ll do the dishwasher once a day, make a soup and a few brunches on the weekend and that’s about it. He thinks this counts as being “non-stop” and “doing everything” outside of work. Neither of us ever get any down time. It’s been all go ever since we had our second. Not to mention when he started a new job and I had a 21 month and 8 week old and he said he needed to sleep in a separate room because he had to be on form, while apparently it was fine for me burn out and break down while being made to feel like I was pathetic for not coping.

I’m barely staying on top of my job, it’s impossible to get into the office because the morning juggle is usually so stressful that I’d end up being really late if I went in, added to the stress of being the only one to do pickup if the trains are messed up (which is common). So I stay at home and end up doing a million household jobs and just being stressed out all the time. We had a cleaner who had to leave the country a few months ago and I tried getting a babysitter in to help and she kept flaking, but despite all this think ultimately the issue is I just don’t want to be parenting alone or with paid help and no partner to share the load. It’s just not the same and it’s not what i want. I feel like my own mother who was a single parent and always stressed out doing it all herself. recently I’ve realised that something has to give and I’ve seriously thought about giving up work to stay on top of it all but I just feel so sad about giving up my career to be a skivvy just so my husband’s life can carry on as normal. We’ve talked about all sorts of options but he’s just so intent upon needing a ridiculous amount of financial security at the expense of my mental health. I feel like I just hate him for leaving it all to me and I fantasise about leaving him. Struggling to see what’s best for the kids in all of this because I just want them to have a happy home life with some equality and not a stressed out mom and absent dad. What should I do? Would you quit, give him an ultimatum? Spend all of his money and stop giving a shit? I just don’t know what to do. Things are so bad I’m just crying all the time, still getting support from the peri natal mental health team and just see no sign of things getting any better.

thank you for reading if you’ve got this far. I know it’s a first world problem and people have it so much worse for so many reasons

I really would do the sitting down and planning what life looks like in 5 years time, 10 years time...

I'm about ten years older than you, late 20s was weddings, mid thirties divorces came along. In 40s lots of my high flying friends feel life is a treadmill but they can't get off. As kids get older you make decisions about things like schools that make it harder to change location or career.

Say if in 10 years time you want kids in x kind of school, your partner wants to be teacher, you want to be in marketing - where can you do that, do you want to be in London, what income would you need etc. Work backwards to today.

Ha, your in laws sound a bit like mine - tbh, now I don't have small children and we're happier I can deal and they're a minor laugh it off irritation.
But when the kids were small...the rage.

Dh travelled a lot. I did a tiny bit of travelling when dc2 was small, and one of the trips I was away for two days and they all caught noroovirus. His parents never stopped mentioning it!

Poor dh, I felt so sorry for him etc etc - I guess that generation of dads never dealt with anything much childcare crisis wise.

I lost count of the number of times the kids were sick when he was off on an extended two week work trip - no mention of that.

And yes, why would you want to work/why would you want to work full time/why can't you get a nice part time job at the school etc. etc.

As well as plonking themselves down and doing zilch. Except judging!

Ignore ignore. Focus on boosting the family happiness.

I guess I'm out the other side and I'm so glad I held onto something, career wise even if it's not amazing.

A mum at school who is a sahp to kids who are older primary and early secondary got divorced, you never think that will happen but a varied life is a more robust life.

I apologise, I haven't read all your posts, but having been in a situation with some similarities to yours, I think the root cause of your problem is that your husband underestimates and does not appreciate what you do. He also overestimates and over-appreciates what HE does. I am not sure this is fixable because you don't have a meeting of the minds here and no matter what solution you create, he will likely judge it as a sign of failure on your part.

If you quit your job and become a SAHM, I think he will see it as a sign that you "couldn't cope," not because he was providing insufficient help but because you are incompetent or lazy or some other pejorative reasoning. He may compensate for your "inadequacy" by ensuring that you are financially dependent and that he has financial control.

If you get a nanny, he will treat it as a sign of your inadequacy and you may find yourself paying for the nanny out of your sole pocket while he makes comments about how easy your life is and, again, sequesters some of the family income to his own pocket to compensate himself for your "failures."

If he was reasonable, I would say, hire out some help. Get a nanny, a housekeeper, etcetera. He's in finance and you have a senior position, you can probably afford to hire some help, especially while the children are little and need so much hands-on care.

The problem is that if he sees you as failing (while he is marvelously succeeding, in his eyes, at both work AND parenting) then he can quite easily sabotage your efforts to make your work-life balance more do-able, even if he doesn't acknowledge to himself that's what he's doing.

Please do not quit your job. I did as you are thinking and I was very unhappy as a SAHM. And now it is 20 years later and all my skills are gone and I'm working menial work just to ensure I have a little money I control. And my husband was well-intentioned (unlike yours, sorry to judge your dh), but made it impossible for me to work and now I'm reaping the effects of that and it's not good for me even though he now acknowledges he was mistaken to have made it so hard for me to work.

OP your thread just popped up on my feed but I had to comment as your posts really resonate with me - even down to the foot - I broke my ankle but DH would not come home because he was in the middle of a deal (I was home alone with two v small DC and crying in pain). He wouldn't even take an hour off the next morning to take the DC to nursery - I had to hobble there on crutches. He cringes now when I remind him of it.

My DH works similar long hours and always has done, is absolutely here for DC when home but I am the one that carries the mental load/ does everything.

I ended up working very part time when I went back to work after my second as I couldn't do it all - I did two days but nursery had a three day minimum policy. I used that extra day how I liked - gym, meet a friend, clean the house if I felt like it. It made everyone happier but I kept a hand (well, toe) in my job. I also joined a fancy gym with a creche so I could work out for an hour on the days I had the DC. Even that made my mental health loads better.
I have a cleaner.
His shirts go to the dry cleaner to be laundered.

My DC are 10 & 8 now - I upped my hours when the youngest started reception. I work 22hrs a week now, in a job share with another mum of similar age children. I feel like I could do more hours now and would absolutely go back full time if DH gave up his job (which he threatens from time to time). I am so glad I didn't give up work - even though DH used to call my salary a "rounding error" as it barely covered nursery fees.

Being a SAHP was not for me and my DH also encouraged it with egging on from my MIL (I think we have the same in laws... 🙄) but I struggled through those days.

It is HARD. It is relentless. It gets better. Once they are more independent it gets easier, school is not as easy as nursery because of the holidays but if you can afford a nanny and/ or work full time then go for it. Use parental leave (and make your DP take it too - I managed that once!). They stay up later so DH comes home to do the bedtime wrangling - they aren't quite as ratty as toddlers in the evening (I shudder at the memory of having to wrestle an overtired toddler into the bath after a long day at work).

I would also caution that not being married puts you in a vulnerable position. Update your will once married as it becomes void - don't rely on intestacy.

Also - as the username suggests think long and hard before choosing private education. My DH sounds similar with money - always saving, worried about redundancy (happened to him too and I also regret that he didn't take the time to look for something else, he was back in work a month later), doesn't spend anything on himself - now he has trapped himself for another 10yrs. However my DH is 15yrs older and much closer to burnout.

Good luck OP!

Oh yeah and our money is completely shared.

@schoolfeeslave thanks so much for your post. I’ve not used mumsnet much before and am a bit overwhelmed with the replies. Omg you poor thing with your ankle.
i really appreciate these insights because despite everything I still really quite like the idea if not worrying about work for a bit. Obv wouldn't risk it without being married but I feel like a career break would be ideal. In Australia they get offered a 2 year break by law after their year of maternity leave… wouldn’t that be ideal? I don’t feel cut out to be a SAHM either, but your situation is exactly what I was hoping for - to see if I can cut down to 2 days to keep my role ready for the time when I have some more head space. The problem is I don’t think they’d go for it, but I can only try. Fingers crossed 🤞

I’m conscious that even if my partner did have a different job, then we’d potentially both be juggling everything and it would be even harder. A lot of my local mum friends and their partners both work full time with school kids and it frankly sounds terrible, and that’s with family nearby who help a lot. I’m dreading next September when DS starts school and DD is still in nursery. I don’t know how I’d fit work into 3 short days a week and my commute is an hour each way so it will just all be a pain in the arse to go in etc etc. I just feel like I want to be around for them and not paying someone else to do it when I could effectively afford not to do… but I gather that those who do quit work regret it later? Is anyone actually just glad they gave up the juggling and enjoyed the down time??

I think there's a lot of truth to that. They had no choice but to stay home and be dependent on the man (or, even for those in the first years of women being able to work, there wasn't the infrastructure to facilitate it), so they had no choice but to come to terms with it and even see it as a positive that they were "able" to be home with no pay (or financial power).

I think also that in some ways there WERE more upsides for women to staying at home (if their husband wasn't abusive) as there were a larger number of women to share the load with, kids could play outside because there were lots of mothers keeping an eye on them, the rules on leaving children alone weren't maybe as stringent, there were often teen girls in the neighborhood who were made to babysit for low (or no) pay as "practice for motherhood" and so on. There was a social life to staying at home, whereas SAHMs now are often the lone one in their neighborhood, which is a very lonely lifestyle.

I think about my own MIL who is very similar to OP's MIL in seeing my DH as being a sort of saint for going to work. I think one thing is that, because women of that era were usually not able to work, they had no data to compare to know whether they were having the wool pulled over their eyes by the husband. So if the man felt that his paid work was so important and difficult that it entitled him to never lift a finger once he was home, she would not know any different, even if his "workday" included shooting the breeze with the other team members for hours over several pints of beer, or wining and dining clients at expensive restaurants. And they often grew up with a religious worldview where the "Sin of Eve" caused all the problems in the world and where women were expected to be submissive to the man because he was, by virtue of being male, assumed to be worthier than her. I think even for nonreligious women, that worldview tended to bleed over into one's thinking, subliminally.

This is a ridiculous conclusion

Hire a nanny and cleaner like everyone else in this situation does...

OP, with all respect,you’ll never get a headspace. The kids are getting older and life is changing and evolving all the time.If doesn’t get less busy.
Your children have 2 parents and not just the mother.

Whatever you do, DO NOT resign from your job. Sit your “D” H down and tell him that he either picks up his slack or outsources it or you’re seriously considering splitting up. No negotiations,no pleading.
Tell him you’re heading for a burn out and something’s gotta give. You are already doing your share and bearing the brunt.

How did his life change since you’ve had the kids?How is he affected in term of employment,finances,time?

As for your MIL-tell her to shut her gob.I did tell mine when she suggested that I pack on my job(I already went part time to facilitate family life)to look after DC and to not to bother her DS as poor lamb had it so hard.That was the hill I decided to die on. I’m also not cut out to be SAHM

Cautionary tale- I did burn out. Paid with my health. I left him last year.

Thank goodness I had my job with very good package. They paid my long term sick leave when I crashed mentally and physically.

”D”H is apparently very remorseful and regretful. Too little too late.Suddenly turns out it’s not fun coming to an empty house so he’s asking to have kids. He can also organise himself-shopping,housekeeping and so on.

You only have one life and one health. Don’t let anybody take advantage of it. If you don’t look after yourself nobody will.

Don’t be me. Don’t let him reduce you to the role of kitchen appliance with built in childcare and sex functions. Don’t wait until you can’t function.
Either he will find a solution and pitch in which will show you he’s listening and cares about you of he won’t (where I’d plan my exit).

Good luck 💐

My DC are 10 & 8 now - I upped my hours when the youngest started reception. I work 22hrs a week now, in a job share with another mum of similar age children. I feel like I could do more hours now and would absolutely go back full time if DH gave up his job (which he threatens from time to time). I am so glad I didn't give up work - even though DH used to call my salary a "rounding error" as it barely covered nursery fees.

Frankly, this comment is bloody rude and your DH is a twat. My DH is on 7 figures and would never call my salary such a thing. Its a lack of respect that should be shot down and not laughed about

I have read through all this with interest OP and here is my take on it.

It feels like these early years with kids will last forever, that life is going to be crazy forever, but it isn't the case. Do NOT give up your job; please don't do this. Your employers sound great and it isn't that the job is not working for you, it's that life surrounding the job is not working for you.

We can all find ourselves suddenly single. I cut my hours right down when my kids were young and thought I was safe in my family unit. Turns out I wasn't and thank god I'd kept my job and could up my hours. Do not give this up.

Having young kids is firefighting when you're working too and he is being very unfair leaving it all to you. But you couldn't be more correct that giving up your job is playing right into his hands,

You don't like or respect his awful parents so who cares what they think. Let them judge. Force the issue of cleaner and part-time nanny. If this works you'll enjoy the days you have with your children way more.

Remember this time will pass. Don't make permanent decisions based on temporary situations. Buy in all the help you need and use the money he's making, this is the best possible use of it.

I think I’m going to join a gym with a crèche because the only thing that makes me feel any better is time to exercise and it sounds ridiculous but that was my main motivation to quit my job - thanks so much for the idea @schoolfeeslave. I figure that could also solve the problems of the long mornings with no time to get ready, if they are in a crèche while I have a shower?

Okay if your marriage in any way might not be legal
Get married
Even if it's a quick registry office job.
Then get a nanny.

Do not give up your job - especially at present you do not have financial security.
I was a SAHM to a city type. Even though at times he did try to be involved - eventually I was doing most of it. At least when we divorced I got 50%.

DH is on board with changing his job but it won’t be immediate. I am thinking that maybe a compromise is that we outsource to survive for the next 3 years, while he saves, with the aim of him having a flexible job by the time both kids are in school and we can share more

Yes we are definitely getting married asap. It was always the plan! Honestly I’ve just become a fat lump of lard living on biscuits so I didn’t want to do it until I felt better and we could have the belated party we never had last time because of lockdown.

Yes I agree and I’ve never accepted him belittling me for earning less than him. It’s an absurd comparison and we all know why women end up earning less so he can shut his gob on that. I think what’s really hit home is me expressing just how much I will hate him if he takes this all from me. He isn’t completely ignorant, he’s seen my resentment build over the last year and how little I want him near me and I think we’ve only both just fully realised why that is.
Thanks again everyone 🌺

Spend all of his money and stop giving a shit

Why is it his money? But yes I would use his presumably large salary to cover a nanny, either FT or wraparound for nursery, plus a cleaner/housekeeper if that's what required to run the household absent his contribution.

Someone upthread said becoming a SAHM will make it worse not better and I completely agree.

I think that’s true and the expectations and childcare options were different then. BUT that said, my MIL had a psychology degree and is a psychotherapist by trade (absolutely laughable given her sociopathic tendencies).

She did go back to work very part time when they were 10 (which apparently was a breeze to get back into in the NHS although she did work for peanuts). What’s even funnier is that when I quizzed her on it all recently she admitted that she even put the kids in nursery for 3 half days a week and put the toddler in preschool when he turned 3. No judgment from me but what a fucking hypocrite. Nurseries are awful and you shouldn’t get any help despite having a job and an absent husband but I absolutely had to use them when I was a housewife who didn’t work and hubby did 9-5 and the drop offs? No thanks pal.

whenever I try to give her a dose of reality (or simply a reminder of what she must have lived through herself) and say how hard it is she just goes on and on about how amazing it was to be at home with them, how I should enjoy every moment, etc. They are both northern children of miners who think you should just get on with it and not complain. They clearly think I’m just a snowflake.

i DON’T care what they think of me anymore, I’ve effectively burned my bridges with them this past year by not accepting their dogma anymore and calling them out for all the weird shit they do and say. They think I am an insubordinate witch now and that’s fine by me - I just avoid them at all costs. Which has had an impact of my marriage. But the bigger problem is that I have started to see elements of their attitude in my husband and it’s been a horrifying realisation!

Trying to unpack and separate what I want versus what I feel under pressure to do is the biggest thing I’ve worked on with my perinatal therapist. She’s been amazing and I’d highly recommend accessing the service to anyone who qualifies (up until baby turns 2). I just wish I’d done it sooner 💛

Oh - believe me, I know. This was back in the day when DH could not understand why I wanted to work when he earned enough for me not to need to.

Things changed a lot when he got made redundant - he did get another job quickly but he realised that things can change very quickly.

I think that informed his attitude to a lot of things - I chose to work and so had to suck it up and poor him for having to work such long hours and not see the DC. His mother was the same. Still is. If she comes to stay she will do things to help him but not me (because I should be at home, like she was).

Covid changed a lot because DH can now work from home a couple of days a week (he would really rather not though) and I only go in 1/2 days.

Six years ago I would have called him a twat myself but things have definitely got better.

@Yesgojess see if you have a David Lloyd near you, a game changer when my DC we're little.

Also - he won't change career unless he has to. I have had 15yrs of the same chat. One more year.... every year. Don't do private school.

@schoolfeeslave sounds very familiar. DH thinks that I’ve won some kind of lottery and that he would LOVE to be in my position of choosing what to do or spending as much time as I like with the kids, completely forgetting how useless and stressed he felt when he didn’t have a job and how different it is for mom vs dad. Because I’m the default parent I get all the whingeing and shit bits even when we are together.

if we stay where we are we would most likely go for private secondary school. But that’s always been a good reason to keep my
job as it could cover most of the fees.

we do have a reasonably local David Lloyd and I am joining it!

My MIL is the same with not helping. They’ve always suggested they are desperate to help out, and when I got desperate enough to ask them to come down because I was burning out recently she said they were busy but would always come “if it was an emergency”. They either have no concept of my mental health being important for the kids or they just think I’m choosing to burn myself out by working. When going to work is the least of my bloody worries and the only actual break I get!
thank goodness they spend 2 months a year in Australia tbh.

Op, you need to be honest to yourself and compromise a bit.
I do not think he will change the job and help you more. You giving up your job will make you happier? Really? What guarantee do you have he won’t decide to leave you later on because he met someone else?
If I were you I’d not give up on finding another cleaner/babysitter. Use an agency if you must.
I’ve seen too many times your scenario in these families where he works in finance and she has a part time job and everyone is ultimately unhappy. Get paid help.
At the end of the day your happiness is just as important as his. Does your DH play golf too?

Ah yes, so familiar with that, the token offers of help that aren't meant to be followed up! Good news re gym/creche! And yy, we've had all the same debates when the dc were little and sometimes the talking doesn't help, it makes things worse, but actions do help.