DH shut down my career desires

[heythereyouwiththesadface]

I’m late 20’s and have never had a job outside of retail/hospitality. I became pregnant with DC just before I was going to go to uni and made some stupid life decisions that put me in a position of not being able to pursue higher education or better jobs. Anyway, I managed to get out with 2DC and meet my now DH who I have a baby with. There isn’t a financial pressure for me to work but I thought I would use this time to get some qualifications to give me some better job opportunities.

After an awful lot of thinking, I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I became very happy with the idea and felt like fit the first time I knew what I wanted to do. Whilst studying, it would involve DH looking after DC one day midweek. DH is actually happy to do that for me to study but said immediately when I told him what that it wasn’t the right thing for me, he couldn’t see me doing it, doesn’t think I have the right personality for it etc. I felt so deflated, like everything I’d let myself get excited for was gone. It is a specific career helping people and the right personality is crucial. Dh then said if I was going to study, it should be in childcare ie in a nursery so that it’s convenient with family life. I love kids and I wouldn’t mind doing it for a few years but I just know I wouldn’t want to be doing it for more than 5ish years. I guess that’d get DC3 to near the end of primary so if I stuck it out until the end, I’d be doing it for 10ish years. But then I’d be 10 years older and still looking for a career I really want unless childcare turns out to be amazing. But even if it is, it must be harder to do when you start to get older? I’m not even sure what my point with this post is to be honest.

“me working 9-5 Monday-Friday isn’t something that’s realistically ever going to suit our family.”

Why not? Particularly once your DCs are in school, those hours are manageable with some wrap-around care and you might be able to flex them. Your DH can flex his too. You’re 28. You have ambitions beyond the home. Your DH should be supporting you, not squashing you.

I really think it’s about time we busted these sexist assumptions that good mothers give up their careers and stay home. Mothers have worked outside the home for centuries while children have been raised in extended families. In many countries, both parents work and grandparents provide childcare.

SAHMs and WOHMs bring different but equally valuable things to the table. If you and your DH are happy for you to be an SAHM, that’s great, but it’s also great for you and your DCs for you to have a satisfying job and financial independence and for you to model this to your DCs.

Go for your dream job if it doesn’t work out there’s always nurseries to fall back on on any other miriad of low pay long hours jobs your husband is keen to saddle you with. Does he only see you as service human? Wanker!

When I told my XH I wanted to be a midwife he first of all tried to persuade me to go into teaching and then suggested I might be better suited to nursing as then the doctors would be in charge. He's my ex-husband for a reason. I've been a midwife for 27yrs. (Retired last year).

Why can't you work 9-5? Most people do. I think your DH needs to let you make your own decisions. I'm guessing you don't interfere in his career choices, so how come he gets to in yours?

Is he controlling in other ways, don’t end up like a lot of other women on here, 10 years down the line in a marriage that has gone tits ip, with none of your own savings / or income and therefore no way out of it

This makes for uncomfortable reading, OP. He's massively pissing on your parade and it comes across like your going to let him. If the roles were reversed he would not give this a second thought. And if he earns so much money, he can pay for any extra child care you may need, so what's the real barrier to this?

I sincerely hope that the root of this is not that you're, even subconsciously, so grateful to him for "taking you on" that you let him call the shots.
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What do you want to do?

are you sure it’s right for you? Have you spoken to people currently doing it/job shadowing etc?

perhaps if you can show you’ve thought it through and put in the work in advance of spending on the qualification it would help?

But I fully agree with pp. I presume you don’t control his career decisions. This is YOUR choice.

I can imagine a few vocational - type jobs this could be.

I am all for pursuing the job that will make you happy. The suggestion of nursery work is a bit rubbish from many standpoints. Not least, it’s poorly paid and generally not that family friendly anyway.

a loving partner should want you to do what makes you happy and fulfilled. Obviously not if it means they have to work 60 hours a week and be solely responsible for all bills and have no free time as a consequence, but it’s totally normal for couples to discuss and come up with something that works ok for both of them.

For a start, £300 of that £1000/mth surplus should be going into a private pension for you. Secondly, I know you're not hearing us, but this really does strike as him only wanting your work to be convenient for him. He agreed to parent the children for a day a week because he knew whatever you told him you wanted to do, he'd just shoot it down anyway, and knock your confidence and self-esteem so you wouldn't end up doing it anyway. But he still looks like Dad of the year because he said he would of course look after the children that one day per week.

As for telling you to go into childcare, that's not a step up from retail/hospitality, low paid, long hours, literal shit to deal with, no. You go into the career that you have chosen and don't let him piss on you.

Can you arrange to go and work shadow someone in the field you want to get into? That way you can talk to people with experience, see the work first hand and make a very informed decision on if it would suit you and you would suit it?

If you then still want to progress, you can talk to DH from a position of knowledge and power

@SeaToSki I agree with her getting shadowing experience for her own sake, but absolutely not so she can evidence her case to her husband. That sort of plays into his hands of, ‘she doesn’t know what she is on about or wants’. Proving stuff and showing research effort (!) is something we expect of younger teens, not fully grown adults.

Why should you put your career prospects, earning potential and pension contributions to one side in order to facilitate his career and make his life easier?

Honestly, your DH can fuck the fuck off! He doesn’t get to decide your career, you do. Of course you can work in a 9-5 job, just like millions of other mothers.

also, I hope that you are paying into the NI to top up your missing years so you can get the state pension, along with paying into a private pension. Don’t let your DH be the only one with the option to retire comfortably. It sounds like your life is very much about what suits him. Make sure your life suits you too!

That's nice, but it doesn't make a massive difference. At some point you'll want to work (for your own interest and fulfilment even if not for financial reasons) and it should be doing something you want to do, not what DH wants you to do.

Why not say what the career is and then people who are in that career already might be able to give some insight into the realities or practicalities of it etc?

Eg I'm a teacher and very few people have a realistic idea of what the job actually looks like outside of the profession or what qualities are actually needed. The profession as a whole is finding there are a lot of people applying now who have quite rose tinted glasses about becoming A Teacher but lack very basic skills/personality traits that would enable them to do the job in the current climate once they are placed in a school.

Is he a psychologist or a recruiter? What gives him the confidence that you don’t have the right personality characteristics for whatever this role is? And also what gives you both the certainty that it’s a specific personality type that works well with this career?

I would say the average person is notoriously bad at both assessing personality and other people, and also what personality traits do in fact matter

By way, of example, people might assume that someone who is a concierge in a hotel needs to be extremely sociable. In fact, someone could do very well in that job if they are polite (but may in fact be introverted), nurture specific contacts around the city for the purposes of their job, and are very knowledgeable about events. They may not actually be highly sociable.

It's not life coaching is it?

Your solution is to get a part time job that fits around the course you want to do, and use that income to pay for the course and associated childcare.
What exactly is the qualification? Because training 1 day a week for 2 years is nothing like a nurse or midwife!

Telling us the job won’t be outing

the problem you have is that if you wait until your kids are older it’s going to be much harder - this is the perfect time to get back into education and pursue the job

Agree, lots of people think it'll be like Miss Honey in primary or 'Oh Captain my Captain' in secondary..... but the reality....

He doesn’t want you to work.
he doesn’t want the children to inconvenience him.
he wants you available for the sick days, inset days and doesn’t want to juggle holidays.

easiest way to do that is knock your confidence so you don’t feel you can.
work is about so much more than money, it’s about self fulfilment, about self worth and self confidence.

find a way for you to do what you want to do, even if it rocks the boat with him.

FGS do what you want

Both of ur careers should fit in around children OP- not just your's.

Miss Honey was exactly who I was thinking of! 😁

Why wouldn’t a 9-5 fit your family? What fits YOU. You exist as a person outside of your family and when your children are teens and have their own lives who do you want to be?

What do you aspire to?

You should be making pension contributions!