DH’s contempt at my lack of job

[Clawsible]

I need to preface this by saying I know I’m viewed as lucky because I’m not working and we can survive on one very large salary.

But it is not all it seems. The contempt I now have from DH is off the scale and it’s infecting the DC. We both come from poor backgrounds and feel utterly broke once tax comes out and the huge school bills are paid. I feel terrible for saying this as I know families out there are relying on food banks.

This is a long one but I don’t want to drip feed. My confidence is in pieces. I know I’m viewed as a worthless person. Not only am I not working after being pretty good at what I do but I’m also absolutely terrible around the house so can’t even claim to be a housewife. Possibly ADHD masking for years. I can’t follow instructions but somehow got straight As at school when I stayed up all night cramming having zoned out during lessons…

I’ve had very fleeting thoughts about walking away - possibly into the sea somewhere - life as I know it is over. My confidence has always been low which is how people with arguably less talent (ok so maybe it’s not THAT low?!) have leapfrogged me career wise.

DH and I have been together since I was at uni. He is five years older and has always worked. We are now pushing 50 and 55 with two young teen DCs.

I was always ambitious and did well to secure work in a very competitive field as an outsider (not wanting to go into details as quite outing) but did not land well paid roles until about 7 years ago when I used transferable skills to go into a better paid field. I’ve had several blips - two redundancies including one in new career. DH has remained steady and now earns about £250k (including bonus).

DH has stayed in the same sort of role but climbed his way up. He’s now hit a ceiling on pay and possibly promotions. He is very keen to retire and feels burnt out and trapped due to school fees and future uni costs. Yes I know it is a luxury but DC thriving and our catchment schools are simply not good enough. Moving would cost more in upfront costs which we can’t finance.

When my last contract ended, (I can’t believe it but 20 months ago!!) we agreed I would take my time to get a really good role. So many jobs were around. Then the job market tanked the summer before last and the roles I interviewed for dried up. I had some freelance work but not enough and that has now been largely taken I think thanks to AI and firms not having budgets.

Perimenopause also hit hard and I had zero energy and felt very off my game. I’m now better on that front I think and ready to work properly.

I’ve only had a handful of interviews and have not secured work. I’ve been prepared to take significant pay cuts. Some hiring managers have noted my experience very positively but are bewildered as to why I have wanted those particular roles.

I am now facing ageism inadvertently perhaps but it’s there. Meanwhile DH said last week this was unacceptable and he will want a divorce. He thinks I’m a shit parent and shit around the house and the DC hate my cooking. They also undermine me to DH when I annoy them, so it is becoming a toxic cycle.

I very much want to get a kick ass job now to pay the bills but also to contribute as much as I can to my own savings and investments so I can have an escape plan if needed.

I think he is being unfair to you OP.He sounds jealous of you! How dare he say your food isnt good enough.I think he sounds depressed and is taking it out on you.If you got divorced he would have his pension halved! I think you lack confidence, and he is playing on that to make himself feel better .If he continues like this. see a Solicitor and where you will be if you got divorced .Look for a job in the meantime

You need to take stock and appreciate what you have.
I was made redundant last year. Fortunately I have found work now, though I am working 2 jobs to still not make quite what I was before.
I am a lone parent. You are in a very fortunate position. I think you are muddling your marriage problems with your financial concerns.

@BringBackCatsEyes Well done on securing two jobs. That’s impressive. I’ve long thought being a lone parent deserves way more protection in employment law by the way.

@Clawsible your H sounds horrible. You didn’t answer my earlier question asking if you still love him or not. It’s a fast moving thread so that’s not an issue, but nothing in your posts suggests that you still do and to be fair he sounds particularly unlovable.

However I think you need to be honest with yourself. If you’re staying together just so that the DCs can continue to go to private school, that’s not fair on anyone really. Also if you didn’t have the back up of a £250k salary coming in the household door, I am pretty sure you would have managed to find a job of some description which would be healthier for you than the current situation. I think I might be a bit frustrated as well if my DW was volunteering rather than trying to find a job.

How old are your DC, can't they go to school themselves by now? That would free up a good chunk of time in your day?

Your dh sounds truly awful but I do think you're making excuses and could have got yourself a job by now.

I also think if I had all day free every day with no work and kids at school I'd be cooking fabulous meals and the house would be a showroom.

Another mumsnetter wrote on a thread recently "if I didn't have to work or do childcare you'd be able to see my house shining from space".

Sorry, but you have so many hours free everyday. You need to stop navel-gazing and just get on with things.

If being in the world of work suits you better than being a housewife, go do that.

Lots of excuses OP. Everything is a choice.

Relationships, lifestyle, career, schools, house.

None of these are fixed. They are a choice.

You feel broke on £250k while paying private school fees. That’s a lifestyle decision you made, not a trap.

If it was truly unbearable, you'd change it.

Your DH has shouldered this huge financial responsibility for years and you have enjoyed the perks of plenty of money without doing anything to earn it. So I'm with your DH here. Time you started taking some responsibilty.

He thinks I’m a shit parent and shit around the house and the DC hate my cooking.
Does he say this to you? My DP has and has had at least his share of depression, anxiety and general job and money stress, but I can't imagine him speaking to me like this. I think this is your real problem. I do hope you get a kickass job though, so you can build up some money of your own.

Can I ask are you also dealing with ND and emotional/verbal abuse?

Its not just about working or not, is it?

writtenfrom a women who is main breadwinner - responses very different and her husband has some job
I think DH should give up on his business | Mumsnet

OP re. work - the job market is known to be weak at this time. Could you do a side hustle at all ? Do you have any previous skills that you could use as ''one offs'' perhaps getting jobs through agencies? Also one can sometimes get ideas too by visiting franchise exhibitions etc.

He might not want a divorce if/when he finds that the pensions have to be divided equally and he has to transfer a big chunk of his pension fund to yours!

That's what happened in my divorce, but in mediation we agreed to avoid that by me keeping a bigger chunk of the house equity to offset it.

Do you recon Mr £250k looked after the children when they were little, did doctors appointments, pick ups, drop offs, school events and all the countless things that the default parent does? Maybe op cant tell us the facts.

Ok,do you think he has benefited, in terms of his career progression, with having someone else take care of all the 'unimportant' details.

Oh and op worked full time as well until recently.

WTAF!😱

My thoughts exactly. I can’t understand how any private education is worth someone on £250k living like this, and with so much stress. Bonkers

There are some absolute twats on this thread backing up an abusive man over an OP who has disclosed thoughts of self-harming. Shame on you.

I don't see how this is going to get better while you stay with your husband. He is all about finding fault with you and blaming you and belittling you to big himself up. So it's not about money and private schools and houses. What you said about your lifestyle and your husband made me think of this:

"I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
Than feed on delicacies and have him talk to me
In any summer house in Christendom."

If you left him you'd have enough to get by. And in a divorce it wouldn't just be him that decides how much you get or which school the children go to.

came from a DV household where my siblings and I were beaten by one parent. Pre middle age I used to be very argumentative but I just want a conflict free life now.

Well that kind of explains things, maybe even more than ADHD does. Your husband is treating you horribly and now that he has turned nasty you've gone back emotionally to where you were as a child just trying to survive.

Have you done any therapy that specifically focusses on unpacking your childhood and the effect it's had on you?

This sounds complicated.

Your husband isn't poor. Even if you the both of you were on 50k each, you would still be in the higher earning bracket of society.

I think you've established a lifestyle that relies on two very high earning people, which will be the minority of people within the U.K, and are now feeling the effects on being on just one very high salary.

Unless you go into something like consulting or you can work part time in a much sought after medical profession, most very high paying jobs are going to be full time. So.....in that event, who'd going to be doing the life admin and cooking? Is he prepared to split down that down the middle, or is he one of those wankers who expect his wife to work full time AND do most of the life admin, AND most of the childcare, AND most of the housework, and then still call you a loser when you don't manage to do all that perfectly without complaint?

The job market has been very difficult for the last year or so in particular. The fact that you've been such a high earner means that you'd be considered as overqualified for a lot of roles. My impression is also that a lot of employers don't like empowered people working for them as they like to have the option of exploiting or mistreating employees without the risk of them leaving easily. Age discrimination also starts for women at around the age of 35.

The way you've describe him, it sounds like he no longer views you as a team, if he ever did. Instead, some of the media he's consuming suggests he views you as a woman as a freeloader, and he's trying to separate himself from that and from you, so I'm not surprised he's said he wants to divorce.

Such men view women's place as within the home.....but when they get that, they're still not happy, because they ultimately don't respect women, and don't respect mothering. They end up viewing the mother of their children as a skivvy that has it all easy, ad themselves as a heroic man, a victim that's doing all the hard graft that's exploited.

Thanks @AmaryllisNightAndDay . I think you’re right but as someone else on here said, I feel I’ve spent enough time navel gazing and I just need to get out there and do stuff rather than talk out stuff. My problem is not the motivation but the organisation. I have always found hard things easy but easy things hard. That’s why my life and day to day paralysis for want of a better word seems ludicrous to most reading this.

Do you know how much 25 children at Eton would cost a year?

About £1.5 million a year. I mean with 25 they'd probably give you a kind of family discount, but 250k wouldn't begin to touch the sides after tax.

I think you’re summed it up well @EarthSight. He was never a Neanderthal before as his own mother worked and she really had no choice at all. I don’t think he thinks women’s place is in the home but he probably regrets not marrying someone in banking. His aggression and resentment towards my less than two years out of work (during which time I have earned some money freelance) seems disproportionate though.

I think there is something in the social media he is consuming though. Indeed this week I reported an ad on a social media site which was aimed at men asking whether ‘your woman’ was manipulating you…

How rude.
Btw, read the OP again.
OP, I hope it works out for you.

You're ok Op. You've been through a tough phase. Everyone has them - and everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Personally I don't really rate housework as a major strength to admire, though plenty on here disagree. Don't be hard on yourself; you have DH to do that right now.

To Build resilience I would suggest a multi pronged attack plan:

1. Daily exercise first thing, healthy food and good sleep every night, get outside daily
2. Then job hunting, CV improvement, networking. Might be a local job club?
3. A side training project to build your skills for the job you want
4. Time with friends and family

How does the above sound, anything you would add OP? What brings you joy?

@Viviennemary OP has been working. Sounds like she is doing everything with the kids. She isn't doing nothing. At one point she was earning around 100k.