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.

I went in to nursing and literally everyone told me not to do it, my family were horrified. I’ve made a good career out of it and have loved it (although having my doubts now after 25 years 🤣). Lots of people said I’m too soft, too scatty, don’t like blood etc but I made it work. We all bring strengths and weaknesses to different roles. If we listen to other people’s advice we wouldn’t do anything! I want to change roles now but feel too old, I think shadowing or volunteering is a good idea like someone else said and then go for it

ODFOD

No if we showed more respect and compassion, we'd have fewer dead babies.

What career is like teaching, medicine, midwifery, nursing, medicine or law that you can qualify in after only one day studying a week for two years?

Those are all graduate/post graduate jobs?

I think telling people what the job here is key.

Why does he think your personality would not suit this role and why? Do you agree?

That's what you should have done, your family come first and foremost before your own selfish wants and disires. There's a disturbing lack of duty as wives and mothers that has trickled it's toxic way through society to make people believe that they are the most important person regardless of them being only a small part of a bigger wheel. It's no wonder nearly a quarter of women are now are antidepressants. That's way more than 50 years ago before anyone says women have it better now.
Yes of course it was better 50 years ago
( sarcastic tone)

Yeah, sexual harassment was a laugh (for men)
Women were treated as social pariahs of they became a lonely parent.
Domestic violence wasnt a thing and the wife probably 'deserved ' it anyway!

For many women having access to their own money or property wasnt a thing, not great when you have a controlling husband
The list goes on and on and no wonder many women were on valium or having some other 'medicinal ' help.

There may have been a massive cultural revolution in the 60s but that didnt translate well in real life for the average woman in small towns across the uk.
Things arent great for women but let's not pretend it was dreamy for women 50odd years ago because it most certainly was not.

Agreed.

Why do you need to do all the school runs?

Wrap around care exists. If you both work you share any flex needed between you, like millions of other families.

He's putting you down because he wants an easy life with you doing all the tedious domestic crap. He doesn't care about your dreams and aspirations.

Go ahead and forge an equal path. You get one life.

Just because he sees you as a servant, a lesser being who always comes second to him, doesn't mean you have to agree.

Youve had your kids young and will have many working years ahead of you. Follow your dreams and don’t sacrifice more years.

Plenty, and I mean PLENTY of women work 9-5 as do their partners and still have a stable home life.
i work 8-4, I have a childminder for school runs and we manage some quality downtime in evenings including reading/homework/tea etc.
Theres nothing wrong with not having a career but there is a lot wrong with you desiring one and your DH poo pooing it in favour of you having ‘just a job’ that fits around your childcare when you specifically are looking for a career.
first poster nailed it. You do you. It’ll work out x

Sexual harassment was no more of a laugh than it is today. Besides it's one of the things that we treat entirely subjective. It becomes sexual harassment when we don't want the man who makes advances. But when we do want him it's just flirting. 🙄
Domestic violence also hasn't really changed much either, I don't know why people had this delusion that women were all unhappy back in the 50's with wife beating husbands controlling their every move.
I expect it will be have been similar to today's partnerships. I would actually go out on a limb and say that women are actually the most violent in relationships.

We know domestic violence in relationships happens disproportionately amongst lesbian couples, then straight couples, with gay man being the least violent.
We know that most domestic cases of violence is reciprocal so he hits her she hits him, or both as bad as each other in simple terms. However, for the minority heterosexual relationships with non reciprocal violence, so where only one parter abuses, it's actually women that again come out on top as the most likely perpetrators. Worth thinking that one through!

As for being social pariahs, fair do's, but the societal benefits would be obvious in that women would be incentivised to bring their children up in a family instead of a broken one

Alicealig
We are clearly looking through different lenses.
Life in 2025 may not be perfect but I'm sure many women from the 60s and 70s would be pleased at where we are noe compared to where they were then, socially, financially, legally and also medically.

To a certain extent and in some of those respects yes, although things weren't all that different to how they are now, I mean the general happiness of women overall has declined since the 1950's so there must be a reason for that?

The nuclear family is a 20th century Western social experiment and an anomaly. Mothers have worked outside the home for centuries and children have been raised in extended families. In many cultures still, grandparents look after children while both parents work.

I was born in the 1960s. My mum worked, as did both my grandmothers. What is better now in the working world includes the range of careers open to women and the equalising of pay (though work is still needed on that).

In my view, SAHMs and WOHMs bring different but equally valuable things to the table. There are also very compelling reasons for mothers to have their own income and financial independence.

@heythereyouwiththesadface - there are women for whom homemaking is a vocation and they are fulfilled staying at home. I’m not one of those women and it sounds like you’re not either. You have career ambitions and that is fine.

Posters who say women belong at home and in the kitchen think women are lesser beings who exist only to serve others and are not entitled to fully live their one life. Their choices might suit them (after all, there were women who campaigned against women getting the vote) and they are of course absolutely entitled to make those choices for themselves. But they’re not entitled to make them for you or me. Generally people who think like that are not particularly concerned about women’s (or girls’) wellbeing.

You're missing the point. No one is saying there aren't all kinds of differing family setups and I appreciate life rarely provides a perfect platform with which to work. However that doesn't mean we should do away with the 'ideal' in that it's the best setting we have and the best opportunity in which children have the best chance to thrive

Do what you want. Even if you don’t need it there is great importance in not being financially dependent on a man. It puts you in a very difficult position forced to accept bad behaviour if that happens because you cannot afford to leave.

I work in childcare.stuck doing it around my Children’s needs. I do absolutely love my job but you are right to be concerned. I’ve been in early years for 20 years and it’s taking a toll physically to my back and my knees. It’s rewarding but never well paid. You will be financially dependent on him forever or face being poor if you leave. It’s also stressful. So little help for SEND kids, so much responsibility for their education and well being when you are not a specialist teacher or qualified in their specific SEND, you cannot have a bad day or a lazy day when you work with kids. Watching kids have safeguarding referrals made and not protected by the system takes a huge emotional toll too.

there is also very little respect for childcare workers. We are seen as stupid and not capable of challenging careers. Parents speak to you like you are less and don’t care how them being late impacts you, don’t support you dealing with behaviour challenges or outright get angry if you suggest they should support their child learning and development at home.

£1000 a month savings could cover the cost of childcare for you to study. Then when you are working the additional income could cover the cost of childcare for 9-5 working. *as in everything I to one pot and bills including childcare paid before savings and fun money. I’m fed up of mums working to pay childcare and have nothing left while dads live a life with disposable income

Sorry I haven’t read all the response but your comment about 9-5 stands out - why is it not realistic for your family? There are plenty of families with 2 parents working full time. If you don’t ‘need’ to work then you likely can afford various childcare options that fit around nursery/school if necessary to allow you to work. If following a career is important to you, then you should.

He would prefer you to be financially dependent on him, that means he has all the power and he can work everything to his personal advantage.

Then you need to do it and show him he was wrong, You go girl.

Wow, you mustn't have had any decent men in your life at all. If I didn't think you were serious it'd be funny.

If you changed the word 'personal' to 'familys' and 'power' to 'responsibility' then I wouldn't see the issue with that.

Being financial dependant on a man isn't a bad thing, infact personally I think that's the ideal.

If you have a man taking responsibility for his family then controlling the finances is part and parcel of that obligation. Im so glad I don't have to deal with any of that. If I need something or want to make a large purchase I just have to ask, if we can afford it I'll get it, if not I won't, but at least I don't have to worry about keeping a handle on all of that, and knowing it came on my toes were things to go wrong.

From my experience women spend impulsively. I certainly see everyday how much many women would benefit from a man around to take charge. That doesn't mean being tyranised and controlled, in means handing the reins over to focus on things I'm better equipped to deal with, like the children.

In fairness, @Alicealig, from other threads I’ve seen you on, you appear to have teleported from the 19thc before the Married Women’s Property Act, and to have tradwife some kink about Provider Men and Silly, Impulsive, Indecisive Women.

I mean, if you don’t trust yourself to make a house purchase on behalf of the family, or buy a washing machine, or a kitchen extension, or whatever you might mean by ‘large purchase’, because you don’t understand your family finances, and/or are afraid of taking responsibility for a big expenditure, I do pity you. It must be terrible to so lack confidence in your own ability to budget.

I think it totally depends on if you really are suited to the career and if it suits family life.

For example, if Dh came and told me he was going to become a teacher, I’d definitely be like, no you really shouldn’t do that. He’s not at all suited to teaching, wouldn’t stick with it, just would make an awful teacher, no matter how much he may think he’d want to do it.

Similarly, teaching wouldn’t suit our family lifestyle. I wouldn’t be happy with a partner who didn’t have flexibility with working patterns, having to work evenings and weekends, not being able to take annual leave during term time, such that everything was lumped on me. No, I wouldn’t be happy about that.

So I think it very much depends. It could be he’s being a big jerk. It could be he’s being really sensible.

Being financial dependant on a man isn't a bad thing, infact personally I think that's the ideal.
That may be an ideal and thats all well and good. However not all men are good men. Some are abusive and controlling with money. Some are lazy and wont work, some are unemployable or are addicts or will gamble family money. Some are rubbish with money and would rather spend it on themselves and watch the rest of the family struggle.
What about the family men who go to jail, or become disabled or very sick.
Some even die.
I have worked with families that have ended up shits creek through all these scenarios.

I've said my personal situation before, I think on this thread, but there's times when he's out earned me and there's been times when dh has been poorly and couldn't work and when he started his business it was my wage that kept the family going. I am the one that is better with money and can save, shop smarter, sort out our investments etc. However we make a great team.

@Alicealig - i’m not missing the point. I just completely disagree with your viewpoint, just as you disagree with me.

Being financially dependent on a man might be your ideal. As i said upthread, you’re entitled to make that decision for yourself. You’re not entitled to make that decision for any other women or girls. My ideal is earning my own money and being financially independent.