Resentment - should we split up?

[Gt360]

Hi, Long story time… I’m a first time mum, and after having my child had overwhelming emotions that I didn’t want to go back to work and put her into childcare. I took the decision to take redundancy before that with the intention of finding a job but towards the end it that this became more and more apparent that I couldn’t leave her with someone else after viewing nurseries - so ended up with me for 2 years.

My partner has never forgiven me for that and thinks regardless of how I felt that I should have gone back to work and contributed - his had to contribute for the last 1 year or so fully to bills and now she’s in nursery aged 2 as after a long battle of viewing we found one we were both happy with.

Our relationship is at the end of its road and his said he wants me to pay him back in full. We have had counselling and the counsellor agreed I made an emotional decision and he was just looking at it purely from a logical perspective but I wasn’t in the right space to do that and she totally gets it.

I said to him today it doesn’t seem fair for me to pay it all back where as if I did what he wanted - she would be in childcare from 1 year and we would of had childcare fees to split so it’s only fair to minus that off the childcare as if I wasn’t looking after her someone would get paid. He doesn’t see it like that and quotes stress and that I’m a horrible person for saying that.

He resents me and I resent him for making me pay it back without deducting the childcare costs. This could get messy but am I being unreasonable to agree to pay him back minus childcare costs? It’s a messy situation as we own property together, have spare embryos from IVF and I do want another child but he doesn’t based on this whole scenario and I’m older and really haven’t got many financial options at the moment - I’m looking for work.

I said to him I would make the same decision again to stay off with her but put something in place financially to work part time after she was 1 if I had to do it again, he doesn’t understand and never will.

Opinions on what I should do as there is resentment both ends and I’m doing what I can to cook all the time, he does clean and so do I where I can, she’s in nursery now but I feel like what’s the point if I’m going to have to get back on my feet and owe him 1 year of bills which will take me ages to get back. I’m also trying to start a business alongside finding a day job which his got no belief in.

Please opinions needed on what I should do, I don’t want to be a single mum but may have to be but I’m in my 40s and feel it would take too long to find another man to have a child with - obviously making sure this time I have the funds to support and contribute to the household to have 2 years off.

I know people manage finances differently in partnerships and families, but I find the his money her money separate Bizzare and selfish to be honest. You are a family unit who supposedly loves each other and are working on shared goals. Everything should be shared.

My husband is not perfect but I cannot ever imagine him asking me to pay him back a single penny for anything. Everything he earns he sees as for our family. I work too and I think the same. Everything goes into and out of one pot. We don't even spilt/take money out for equal leisure money, we just buy and spend what we need when we want (if we can afford it obviously). We get up everyday and go to work to earn money for our family so we can have a good joint life.

I have taken time off with dc and also when I have been unwell myself or I have been studying. My dh never even questioned this. He values my contribution and I do his. If I turned round today and said I wanted/needed to give up work, I can guarantee he would not even flinch. If we were unable to pay bills or it would sink us into poverty then obviously we would have a discussion about that, but if it was due to something unavoidable, such as ill health, then he (or I if it was reversed) would take on a second job. Not once would we consider it our money and expect the other to pay back any amount. We would both still have equal access to any money.

Most of our money goes on our dc anyway.

He views you as separate op and 'his' money as more important than you. He's selfish. No, not all men think and behave this way. Better to be a single mum than in a relationship with someone who doesn't treat you as an equal, and doesn't want what is best for you. Give your dc the chance to have a better relationship than this when they are older, don't continue to model this crap to them.

All of this. Anything other than a shared pot with shared access and spending isn't a loving family.

Thanks for this. Oh no so he could force me to pay him back out of earnings if we split then?

I am actually religious and we went that route as I had fertility issues - now they are fertilised I feel attached to them so to speak.

Do not pay him the childcare costs back @Gt360 . However , it’s never a good idea to make an important decision such as not going back to work and expecting your partner to be the breadwinner without any discussion with him.

I went back to work when my lo was 9 months old and he was in full time childcare. I’m likely to be judged on that, however each month I put money aside for a rainy day / leave my relationship fund - even though we plan to get married one day lol.

You, being unmarried and not working are now in a very vulnerable situation . I wouldn’t consider ivf as your partner isn’t on board.

Also to add @Gt360 my uncle left his wife for this very same thing. His ex wife quit her job and refused to work after they had a child.
He had a breakdown due to the pressure of being the only earner and left .

He has split up with an ex over this by the way prior to me - as she didn’t want to work but it was entirely different but some similarities of wanting to start a business. We are in a much better financial position but his clearly got trauma from that.

we are also holding trauma from our past as both of our parents were single parents- we yearned for our dads later in life or felt that we missing. We also don’t want to be another statistic being BAME and somehow despite all this keep coming back to each other, could because we have a child now but I don’t want to take that lightly. I will have another child I’ve got only child trauma too- I’m not playing the victim but there are deeper stuff we both are just holding onto that I guess have made us how we are.

i feel we feel we have some obligations to each other but money troubles have really just put a spanner in the works although yes my doing.

I just keep wanting to try in the relationship it it’s a cycle of let’s split up and then silently realising we don’t then going back to being helpful in some way to each other! I found him and he found me after dealing with so many shit exes.

He does not need to be paid back anything. If he was so unhappy with your decision then he could have left the relationship. He didn't so that's that. You cannot monetise a relationship. If you could he would also owe you half of the cost of childcare, cost of cooked meals and all the other things you did as part of being in a relationship.

It sounds like the relationship is finished.

Thanks that’s the nail on the head - the stress shows on him and me. I’ve got a gap on my CV so am having a hard time don’t get me wrong I’ve been interviewing but there is always something - I’m trying the freelance route as feel I’ll get more open opportunities and am also looking at more simple jobs so I’m trying but yes it does get a bit easier I’ve got her in nursery a few days a week and do a gig job 1 day a week now.

Yeah see op, that’s really not nice is it. You know at the base this wasn’t about money it was about your refusal to work so you could stay home with your child, forcing him to go through the stress of working every day and being the sole earner. Yes now he’s arguing money but at its root cause it was the forcing him into thag position.

and it still seems you’ve your eye on what’s best for you, you want another baby and him to keep paying for you, your eye is on what you want. Not working together. Belatedly you’ve said you love him when it was pointed out you were posting like you were only with him to get money and a baby , and when you’ve done that you’ve had a right go at him.

sure, if you really think he won’t support you even to the value of a pound, and it’s 50 50 only then end it, but this is someone who paid for you for two years.

and you seem to think it’s all one way, what if he decides he wants to quit and you can pay for him. You up for that? Marriage counselling aadvising it?

He expected to bring in 50% of the money and do 0% of the childcare and 5% of the housework.

You could see 100% of the childcare needed doing, and all the housework. You also wanted the childcare to be high quality, which means something that the child would settle into, which also reduced your choices and made it either more costly (a nanny) or something you would have to do yourself.

So you could not ever, in any world, have brought in 50% of the money and done all the non-office-hours childcare (effectively 50% of the childcare) and 95% of the housework. Even if your child settled in a nursery, you'd have still been doing everything related to the child when not actually at work.

How do I know this? Because of the way you are now. You're only "allowed" to go out sometimes. I bet he goes our whenever, assuming you are on child/cooking/cleaning duty.

He may not have said this to you in so many words but it is obvious that this is what he assumed - and on some level you clocked this which is why your whole body went NOPE. Just because his mother probably worked like this, doesn't mean it was fair on her either!

Do not pay him a penny. Split up, get 50% of house, call him a bastard for not contributing more to a home for his child.

Point out if he was that traditional about the expectation that you do all the invisible work he conveniently doesnt notice, he would have fucking married you and that would have been the deal.

OP has it occurred to you that you are also being selfish ?

Your missing the point I meant £ is the answer now but was before as if it was around none of this would be happening. We’ve just got a different opinion and your now reading between the lines using my current jobless situation to justify that I’m going to do all those things I’ve mentioned without a change in my financial situation. Yes I’m goal orientated and he knows that I want these things and it’s something we discussed pre baby that his had a change of heart on because of hearing other peoples stress with babies and how it’s been a stressful few years. But the main thing is we are both open to it, but yes you can bet if he goes back on that I’m leaving as it’s that important to me and I’ve made him aware.

i’ve already been a sole breadwinner for an ex who couldn’t get a job been there and done that for years.

there is also a high chance I will be out earning him once I go back into work - so yes I’m open to that.

its Occurred to me but I don’t think my decision was a logical one but an emotional one so yes to some might seem self-fish. But no I don’t think I was selfish - I would make the same decision again of staying with my child just with more things financially in place which wouldn’t have affected anything bills wise. I’ve already told him that and hindsight is 20:20.

You definitely don't have to pay back your own partner for support when caring for his child. Tell him you charge full childcare rates.

He is just incredibly controlling. Remember he doesn’t have a good model of fatherhood himself. He worships his mother and probably resents her, too. She was a single mum who put him in nursery so she could work—where was his father? Nowhere. He, and you, want to do better “for the BAME community “ but that is a very other directed way of understanding one’s own goals and behaviors.

You never married in 12years. You never took vows “in sickness and in health” as far as he is concerned you never merged finances and he did not consider pregnancy, birth, and childcare significant contributions you made that he could not to the family.

He doesn’t know how to be in a loving, companionate, relationship.

You should leave and be the single mother he thinks is normal. He can be the controlling, distant, useless father he remembers.

At any rate you are not married. He can’t cut the baby in half or pay you back for your GIFT OF FULL TIME CHILDCARE so just walk away and tell him to get stuffed. Stingy, whiny, selfish, git that he is.

I think your DP sounds quite controlling. You describe a lot of anxiety after having your DC, although you attribute it to purely being a mother, I suspect a lot of it is as a result of his treatment of you. It doesn't sound like you have a loving relationship. Clearly he has no plans to ever marry you. What's his is his, and what's yours is yours forevermore, but that doesn't work in a family environment. Once a child is created, you should be a family unit, you have prevented this by not being married first, despite having all the time in the world to plan ahead due to fertility issues. Marriage is is how mothers get protection.
I suspect unfortunately that both of you being brought up by hard-working single mothers, means that in your experiences, the woman 'did it all'. Pretty much like I did, however, I wonder at how, as feeling burnt out and knackered tbh mostly these days - have you asked your mother's their opinions on this, I bet it was not how they would of wanted their lives to turn out?
Single mothers do it all out of necessity, but it's taught your DP that a woman's role is to do it all, and its taught you to expect that you should do it all, when that should not be the case within a relationship. It should be 50/50.
The upshot is that I think you will end up doing all the house and grunt work regardless of working. He will expect it, and you are at risk of accepting it.
Your best option to protect yourself, is actually to go back to work full time, or aim to earn as much as he does, however many hours that takes. You need to save as much as you can for your future, as your relationship sounds very unstable. You will need a separate pension in years to come, he has made it clear he has no intention of caring for you when in need. If only together for the DC, at best you can expect a split when they become independent. Plan ahead, as you haven't so far. Only by obtaining equal work status with him will there be any hope of making him see that he has to put in 50% of the family household too. Do not let him get away with you doing it all as well as working.
He's in for a shock, and it's what he deserves. Once you are working full time, you should expect that he does half the laundry, cleaning, cooking, childcare, school pickups/ dropouts and nurturing. Somehow, I think this will be met with resistance, as he wants to be the boss of this family, not an equal partner.
He can't force you to do anything, and you certainly shouldn't pay him a penny back, he really can't make you and he has no moral or legal grounds for it.
How has your default become to do things he only 'allows'? Like going out for an evening - that is an outrageous situation. How often does he go out? I'd be amazed if intimacy between you hasn't taken a knock over the years from all this? Doesn't sound like there's much love around.

Yeh thanks when you put it like this it just doesn’t add up the hours in the day. His better at cleaning than me - he helps with that at least on weekends but I think that’s allowed.

social engagements he just asks if I’m doing anything and if it’s alright most of the time now to go out - but I can’t say no so say yes most of the time as I’m usually in- it’s a whole different story if I want to go out though as the condition is make sure she’s got food and stuff ready - or it’s packet food he’ll pack or very basic food.

I do also make us lunch when she’s not around and at nursery as I’m in and he WFH but I always wash the breakfast and lunch dishes and he does dinner but doesn’t bath her is the usual arrangement.

its either this situation not improving or if marriage and another child doesn’t happen that will either make or break us.

It’s not “logical” for him to want you to give him money. He’s the FATHER of this child, jointly responsible, although you’ve done all the care. It’s not some hobby of yours. Don’t give him anything - divide 50/50 and walk.

I'd add to this that when he does do things like cooking it doesn't meet her standards. It's 'basic' or she criticizes it and then seems upset he's not happy at being criticized.

I think the DP is awful in many ways but the OP wants everything on her terms. Decided to stay at home, decided part time only, decided to start ken business, decided baby has to be with her and can't be 50/50, decided she wants to move away if they split up and has decided what standards her DP has to meet at home.

This relationship is beyond dead.

That's all we are hearing is me, me,me. You didn't sacrifice your career you choose to not go back to work. That's a choice you made without an adult conversation. I don't agree with what he's saying but I can see why he's saying it. Forget about another baby, that ship has sailed.

I left my work due to childcare issues last year. I’d said it to dh but he’d not really said much. He went nuts when I actually left and we started the lovely road into marriage breakdown, with him saying how I’d just done the same last time, leaving him holding everything up. I always thought he was irrational until I sat in on a conversation with a group- one whose dh is a sahd (an amazing one, you know, spotless home, bakes, helps out at school and the girls’ sport etc etc) and another friend whose dh quit and is job hunting. I honestly maybe stupidly never saw the pressure and the bitterness that comes with holding up a house on your own financially. I tried to argue my side (even though they hadn’t judged me or commented on our situation), but I began to see dh’s side. Neither of you can see the other’s pov, but that doesn’t mean either of you is fully in the right. You’d both need to be able to at least acknowledge the stress the other one is dealing with though

Look, his attitudes around the woman working full-time and taking more housework/child work on are clearly misogynistic.

But, you seem incapable of being able to distinguish wants and needs:

-You didn't want your child to go to nursery so you needed to make sure that didn't happen.
-You want to have another baby, so you need to have another baby.
-You don't want to be a statistic so you need not to be.
-He has trauma around a partner not pulling their financial wait so he needs for you to pull yours.

These wants however deep-seated and driven by trauma are not needs.

It's sounds like you both need to deal with the anxiety/trauma around these "needs". You also need to prioritise your "needs". Which need is more important; not putting your child in nursery or not being a single mum with no second child? Because I'm sorry the writing was on the wall.

I imagine very few people actually understand the reality of bringing up a baby before they have their first one. Certainly I didn't.

I fully expected to work as soon as I'd recovered from the birth, I expected my figure to magically ping back into place, I expected XH to realise he had to look after the baby and pull his weight around the house, I expected DC to sleep through the night and I expected my life to go completely back to normal within weeks! None of that happened at all and, like you, when it came to looking at nurseries I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving DC - especially as it was obvious by that point that if I went back to work I would still be doing 100% of the childcare and housework.

It seems to me that you contributed financially by spending your redundancy money initially and then by providing childcare/housework once that money ran out - but your partner doesn't see it like that.

I think your relationship is dead in the water. I don't see how you can be with someone who regularly threatens to leave you if he doesn't get his own way. Now that your DD is settled in nursery, get back into the workplace (even if it means a step down/sideways so you don't have a big gap on your CV) and make plans to leave. He's never going to marry you and you have entirely different priorities.

You sound so sad. I am so sorry. I was in a similar situation but have a very happy life now with someone else. Took a while but I got there. Good luck.

Agree with this entirely. You were dead wrong to decide not to work if it meant he had to pick up all the bills without his agreement first.
I think it sounds like ye are at the end of the road now anyway sadly.