Does your husband belittle you for not working?

[pienum]

I was I nurse and worked upuntil i had children.
My husband worked his way up through the years and makes milions a year so there is no need for me to work.
He also does crazy hours which means i run the house, kids, finances and all the other bits. In that respect i do feel like a single mum with an unlimited bank account.

The thing is he belittles me that I dont work. He has lost respect for me and it is really hurtful. He doesnt see my worth or what i do.

i thought it was most mens dream to earn enough so their wife can stay at home and look after the house and kids. Hes not proud at all. This really hurts me as I gave no idea how I would go back to work and do pick ups/drop offs and the kids to clubs and deal with the admin of everything i do without feeling completely and utterly shattered, exhusted for no real benifit. Is this a wrong way to think?
I elivate all the little things for him in life so when he comes home he can eat and chill.

If i worked, i would be stressed and i dont see how this will benefit us at all.
We dont need the money so its not about that.
I cant go back an be a nurse as so much has changed in 10 years, I would gave to retrain a little, nor do i want to go back to that. So i dont know what else to do.

i do feel sad and I feel he just hates me and had fallen out of love with me. He must just see me as a nobody. I look after myself, look good and i am an amazing mother. I am a good wife, take care of my husband, always let him relax when he gets home. I never get him to lift a finger and always deal with 99% of life admin so he can just concentrate on work. He is very ASD so he cant really focus on anything else and thats fine. Hes a good provider.

Can you share what your thoughts are?

The way you’ve written this it sounds like you’re still with him?

He has a job, he is taking time out but will be going back soon.
We live an extremely modest life. You wouldnt guess we were super wealthy so I would be able to live off half but saying that out loud, I wouldnt want to just piss away money that I could give to my children when they are older. Theres alot of mixed advice and mainly the advice is to do something to bring in money.

Definitely retrain or do something towards getting back into earning. Your future self will really thank you - not just for your own future financial security,, mainly because once your kids are up just a little bit more it is so easy to be lonely and bored rigid and left behind (especially if you aren't getting on well with your DH).

Also school pickups & dropoffs - soon you will want to encourage your kids to be more independent. They will be taking the bus/train/walking or you could start to share school runs with other parents whose kids are on similar schedules - saves time, the planet & great for their life skills - the kids end up organising the adults. Not entirely sure what age your kids are now, this may seem like light years away, but it comes round very quickly once higher up in primary / they start senior.

Why could this not be real? It is very real.

You live a super modest life with a cleaner 30 hours a week despite both of you not working? I think I can find at least £15,000 of savings for you pretty easily.

i thought it was most mens dream to earn enough so their wife can stay at home and look after the house and kids.

I've never met a man that thinks this. Don't forget when he goes to work he is working with women who want to be in the workplace and possibly have the same work goals that he does.

I'm a single parent working full time. This whole "I can only work 10-2 in term time" business is nonsense. You absolutely can do something even if its just volunteering to start with.

I think I should have explicitly added ‘if you are very weathly’ in the heading. 99% of Mums here can not relate to having wealth, and that’s understandable and therefore cannot relate. I couldnt, nor could my husband before he made loads of money. Neither of us came from money.

OP I understand that you find it hard to hand over your time to an employer’s schedule. Bringing home a wage that’s likely similar to the interest/passive income your assets make.

Does your husband work in the city? Hiring and firing happens a lot there, no need to panic. But it might make you wonder how you to keep your lifestyle in the future?

I can see a way out for you. Keep the full time cleaner. Surely there’s a manageable amount of tasks around the house for you to do when your housekeeper is around? No need to stress about who does what, that’s a red herring in this case.

Get your husband to take his kids to clubs in the afternoons and on weekends as he currently has time. It’ll be good for him.

Use the time you have freed up to start owning your role as a business owner. Make your Yoga, Reiki etc a business. Get testimonials and start charging.

Assuming this is real, are you sure it’s your lack of a job that your husband resents, or your attitude to it?

Your casual reference to buying ‘a couple of businesses’, not being able to work a ‘job’, thinking you live an ‘extremely modest lifestyle’ with a cleaner who comes 30 hours each week, all suggest a certain level of entitlement and a lack of understanding of what working really means. Is it more that he’s frustrated by your lack of understanding of what he does, or what other parents do, rather than resentment at you not having a job?

And yeah, comparing yourself to single parents is embarrassingly offensive.

I think many men have the attitude that if they earn more they are in charge. It wouldn’t matter if you worked part time he would simply make snide remarks about your ‘little job’ or if you started a business it would be ‘little project’.

Studies show that even when women work full time and are the main bread winner, men don’t step up. Women still do the bulk of house and family admin and run the household. IMO the majority of men are self centred and see this stuff as womens/wife work. Women entering the work place and earning has simply meant not having it all but doing it all. Women also know that pushing back often means children miss out, the man’s freedoms stay the same, the women and children have to adjust and lose out.

Your DH sounds as though having money has gone to his head, he sounds typically self centred. Just stand up to him and tell him you won’t allow him to belittle you. Frankly given what you’ve explained you’d be well off if you divorced so I’d be telling him you won’t be putting up with it.

He’s checked out. Has he mentioned anyone in particular?

Modest for what we have/own not compared to the general public.

Regardless of wealth - life needs to have purpose.

At the moment, managing the kids and household and keeping yourself healthy are your purpose. Absolutely fair enough in your circumstances.

It may not seem like it at the time, but kids grow up very quickly.

Yes, you have the luxury of getting to be there with them more of the time, but you don't have to be there all of the time. If you don't want to pursue anything just for you, also think of it this way - it is also great for your kids to see you having purpose outside of just them.

No its not. There are really rich mums out there who are single and dont work. You clearly never have come across them. They are in my circle.
i make all decisions and do all but earn money, but i manage finances which means buying investments and manging them. I just dont think people with little money understand how people with money live.

I don’t work DH is definitely not a millionaire and he’s happy tbh. DC have a lot going on and we are a busy family. Never said anything about it tbh. Also happily pitches in after work.

If I were earning millions I’d be pretty happy with DH taking care of everything else. I definitely wouldn’t feel angry or resentful towards him.

Why did he need to take time out of work? Is he burned out? Not wanting to go back so he’s acting like a shit? Can you afford for him to retire?

I’ll be honest @pienum most of the high achievers I know these days are married to high achievers. While of course that provider mindset does exist it is not by any means the default mindset it was thirty years ago.

He resents you not working, you resent him not appreciating your contributions to your relationship, that resentment is a recipe for disaster.

"We could probably afford a housekeeper" , says an earlier post.

A later post says they have a cleaner 30 hrs a week.

A housekeeper and a cleaner are different things…

He just wanted to have a change. yes he can afford to retire but doesnt want to. We have another 5 years and then he will.

OP, this thread is odd.

You don't want to work. You want to be able to go to the gym, do some reiki, pick your kids up from school, cook a meal and do any cleaning that your 30 hour a week cleaner hasn't done.

Why are you not owning this when your husband belittles you for not working? Why are you pretending that "oh well I would work but my nursing skills are out of date and who would pick the children up if I got a job?" You are not being honest with him, or possibly with yourself.

If you had the slightest intention of working, then you could. Add a housekeeper and after school nanny to your staff. Appoint an investment manager to manage the investments and property manager to manage the rentals.

You say your DH seems to have lost respect for you. Do you respect him? What has he been doing in the 8 months that he has not been working?

How do you imagine your lives together will be in 5 years when your kids are older and your DH is retired?

Yes you should work. Im a nurse and have an amazing job. Gives me a sense of purpose. Why cant you be a pip assessor? Or volunteer ?

I wanted to go back to work when the kids were younger. It was particularly hard as one child was very sick for many years so there was an incredible amount of resentment for dealing with that on by own. He didnt want to do 50/50 then so I could go back. He didnt even want to do 10/90. So now i am in a predicament where i do enjoy the life i have as thats really all i know. Working was now a lifetime away. I have forgotten all the skills i have and my passion for what i used to do has gone.

i do own that i dont want to go back to work, i would be doing it for him and not for me. I feel like i deserve it after having an horrendous 5 years. i know i should work but im honestly not passionate about anything that makes money.

No, I work because I enjoy my job and want financial independence. We could live of DHs salary (or just mine) but working and providing financially for our family is important to both of us.

Being a SAHP only works if both of you are on board.