DH advice needed...

[ChairmanMeowww]

Feel like I'm going crazy... would appreciate some perspective.

Things have been challenging for a while, he's got more and more miserable, I think he's probably depressed. Even my sister has commented how miserable he is to be around.

No effort is made in terms of compliments, or affection, any sex is instigated by me. I'm never just randomly hugged, never told anything nice or comforting. He would never organise a date night, or a holiday or anything outside the house. Happy to stay in and do nothing all the time. I have been having a tough time lately, and I've had to tell him to be supportive.

We had a huge row where I said I was leaving, I'd finally had enough after a particularly bad period of him getting at me over small things 'I hadn't done this right or that right'...He apologised for not being kind for the past few years, said he felt he was sabotaging it but didn't know why. He started therapy.

He's said today he wants separate finances as I'm not good with money. All my money goes on the kids, I spend very little on myself. He earns 90k a year, so we're not short. I also work, but run my own business so I can be flexible as his job is VERY inflexible. So it's me who takes time off for illness, school runs, clubs, holidays. I feel like we should pool our resources as my earning is restricted by HIS job, I also spend hardly anything on myself as it is!

I don't think this is normal is it? Or is it? Has anyone else been in this position and managed to turn it around?

I’d be saying ‘ok- separate money it is. I’m going back to full time work to protect myself then. Here’s your share of the childcare costs’. He’s a selfish bastard who has clearly checked out of this relationship and family life. Depression is NOT an excuse.
Don’t hang around waiting on the off chance that he might suddenly start being a decent person and start recognising your worth and what you bring to the relationship. Stay one step ahead and get yourself out of this miserable excuse for a relationship. How dare he demand separate money as if you and the kids are some sort some of drain on his life. Urgh.

I’d say if we separate finances then I am going to stop facilitating your job and get a better paying job myself. Which 3 afternoons and evenings and 2 mornings would you like to be 100% responsible for your children? There will also be an uplift in housework. I’m not doing it all anymore for a miserable man who is unkind, does nothing and doesn’t even share money, the only thing you’re contributing right now.

This sounds really hard. If he is not willing to get a diagnosis or help for this possible depression, you can’t just be expected to put up with this. What value is he actually adding to yours and your children’s life at this point? If the financial side was one of the main reasons to stay and he’s now trying to withhold money from you, then is this the point that there is nothing holding you there? If he’s unwilling to work towards a better relationship maybe it’s time to seperate, I can’t imagine it’s a particularly nice atmosphere for kids to grow up in

Jump online and look up Zawn and read her stuff please.
Sending solidarity hugs. You have one precious life and you're allowed to be happy.

Get back to the corporate world and out-earn him. You say you spend your money on the DC's, does he fund more than that currently out of a joint pot? He should be as earning more.
If, he wants to play it separately in future, he still has to pay for his DC's. Pay his representative portion of childcare. Then he can buy his own food and cook it himself, sort his own laundry out, and look after his DC's when not at work - club drop-offs, bedtimes, school runs etc.
All household chores to be divided 50/50. See how he likes those onions.

Could be the making of him actually, he won't have time to navel gaze.

You said you’re leaving.
Afterwards he says he wants seperate finances.

Surely having seperate finances is quite normal after separating. He’s being very practical about your plan to leave, you would have to seperate finances at some point when you leave.

I think first you need to have an open, honest conversation and ask him if separating finances is a knee jerk reaction to you saying you're leaving.

If he wants to continue in the relationship but proceed with separate finances I'd present him with a spreadsheet of ALL chores and childcare, 24/7.
Ask him to select which 50% he's going to be doing from now on. Childcare, school runs and pick ups, grocery, cleaning, changing beddings, laundry, school uniforms, packing school bags, preparing meals, kids lunches.
Explain although you'd love to give him preference, when you go back to work full time you may not have flexibility, so his preferences are not guaranteed.
Maybe research the cost of a nanny/ au pair and present him with that for when he inevitably says he can't do it.

He can certainly separate his money into child maintenance and then what’s left unless you go 50/50.

He woke up one day, looked at his life, decided it shit having all these responsibilities and has been walking out since.

If you are married, it’s half yours anyway. Get a corporate job and get ready to co parent.

You need to both talk about a realistic plan for the future. Money he earns off your flexibility is not HIS money anyway.