DH said “but you don’t have a job”

[TeaDoesntSolveEverything]

I don’t really know if I’m offloading here or wanting advice on what to say back. At Christmas I said to DH how overwhelmed and exhausted I was and how I was so behind with things and he responded “why, you don’t have a job.” It’s now February and I’m still so upset by it and feel each thing I do during the day I’m building in my head of “and this is why it’s non stop busy all the time”.
To put this into context, I am now a SAHM of 3 under 7s, one of which is autistic. DH works away and was only home at weekends and it’s always been like that but now works abroad and only home here and there and it’s been like that for 1.5 years. We have no family help. Friends offer to help but I feel a burden accepting as my kids are very energetic and the autistic one has a lot of melt downs which are tough for anyone not used to it including my DH. As it’s always me they all get very upset being away from me too and play up for anyone looking after them as they are small and don’t vocalise feelings of missing me. The smallest always used to get upset stomachs if I left them.
After a few days I brought up how upset the comment made me feel and DH replied he didn’t mean it like that and it’s more what am I doing for others that means I’m not finding time to clean the house, have time to myself etc. I do something one day a week for others that needs half a day prep the day before but his comment defending himself made me feel even worse as he just can’t see how busy it is doing everything alone, all the club runs too for 3 kids. The autistic one cannot switch off at night and is normally still awake wanting me for reassurance until 9.30/10 if not later each night.
Even though financially we are ok he also wants me to get an actual job again which I just can’t see how I can cope with. I had to give up my successful career just before having my second as I had a breakdown due to finding my first borns life was in danger with his childminder (she was reported to Ofsted over it). He pays all the bills now but I have a rental income which just about floats me each month.
I guess I’ve always felt invisible as to what I do as when he used to come home at weekends he would sleep in both days as he was tired from work and not think how tired I was solo parenting during the week and being up so many times at night feeding babies etc.
How do I go about being seen or am I best to just give myself a slap and carry on and realise it’s never going to change. Just feeling totally broken physically and mentally.

Tell the monumental twat, you will get a paid job when he gets a job where he lives at hone & does 50% of the parenting of his children.

I'd do this except it would be too hard on the kids. Especially the one with SEN.

Oh behave.

Just because you're not in paid employment, doesn't mean you can't be exhausted with 3 kids under 7. That's very hard work.

If someone did voluntarily work, they could still be tired ..it's not a job perse.

I suggest he spends 2 days with the kids one weekend, while you go away and he can see what it's like.

Being a SAHM is underestimated and under appreciated. That's why I refused to do it beyond maternity leave.

On top of this, I hope you have access to money.

Go back to work op

You're obviously not appreciated, so just do it.

Get a cleaner and housekeeper too. Cos you know, you're working and can't do housework anymore

Your husband is an absent arse. But you should be able to do the things you need to do when you’re alone for that long every day, could be better at organising your time I imagine. No judgment as I’m shit a that too. You don’t have to get a job if you don’t want to/cant, but if I was you I would try and look at a solution to time management (after you’ve given your husband a bollocking)

I disagree with the PP who say drop the community activity. Its something you enjoy and an opportunity to feel valued and important outside of being a mum. It also gets you out of the house and provides social contacts and helpt fore others. I agree with those who said get a cleaner for a few hours a week on one of the days. You said you had a bit of a rental income so could you afford this kind of help? You dont have to tell DH if he is not there during the week. You dont know everything he gets up to at work.

What an utter knob.

Next time he has time off, book yourself into a hotel and tell him the morning you leave that your non-job is his for the next week or ten days, or whatever.

Leave him a detailed list of daily tasks that he will need to accomplish, and the schedule of the kids.

Turn off your phone. Enjoy your much needed break.

I hate it when people start playing the Olympics with SAHMs. In OP's shoes (SEN and not having her DH available most of the time), working would be very difficult to sustain. Her availability is too limited, and yes, if she's being called to school for her SEN child she has to drop everything and go.

Her DH is really being unsupportive. When I was in this stage as a SAHM (which I am not anymore) with autistic dc, it made a world of difference just having a DH who was sympathetic to what I was doing, even if he couldn't do it for me. This one is neither lifting a finger most of the week nor is he being nice about it. It takes some nerve to criticise when you're not even home.

I am reluctant to say you should drop volunteering if you feel so positively about it, but it does sound like a significant use of time, and the way it chops time up may be as much of a burden as the actual time spent: you don't feel like you have solid time. Whether or not you should pay for a cleaner (I would if I could) I think some examination of where you're spending time might offer some clues. I'm worried that you say you have rental income to rely on. Do you have equal access to household funds?

Choosing to work away is not an excuse to fail to parent or be an actual partner to your spouse.

Fixed that for ya.

Good question. I was nt a mum but in a very unequal relationship and I didnt have access to the fiancés and it broke me and I ended up in psychosis

It depends. Have you been to school 18 times since September? If not you can't really appreciate how hard it is for the OP.
OP your husband is never going to appreciate how hard it is because he's never there (or rarely). Either you leave him alone with the kids on a day when he's home and ask why the house isn't spotless or explain to him how hard it is, tell him about all the school appointments and meltdowns. Let him know life can be hard.
Oh and ask him when he's giving up work and moving home so you can get a job. When he says he's not ask him how you're supposed to work while basically being a single parent who also would have to take time off work regularly for your child.

I was in a financially abusive marriage and only realised after I went into psychosis how serious it was that I didnt have access to money - it was a psychiatrist that spotted the fiancail abuse when one of my delusions was that I was goign to hell for buying an expensive duvet cover. He wasn't stupid and knew that was coming form somewhere

I don’t understand these work/living/marriage arrangements. Are you sure you’re not separated OP?

He works full time abroad and only visits occasionally. He no longer wants you to subsidise you to be a sahm and wants you to earn your own wage. Whats in this marriage for you? He doesn’t live with you, doesn’t support you emotionally, wants you to now to get a job on top of 100% of the home running. You may as well be single.

If he is not paid well enough to support the current set up, why does he work abroad? Surely people only live in this situation if the money is fantastic.

Tell him you’ll get a job if he returns to the Uk to pick up his share of family life.

I think some people underestimate the extra weight of being the sole adult responsible for the day-to-day care of three children. Do many women do it out of necessity? Yes, but that doesn't make it any easier for the OP, and she's married to a living man who doesn't seem to appreciate how much of an extra burden his absence is placing on her. Presumably he was a willing participant in having three children, so it's not as though she conjured them out of thin air and presented them to him as a surprise.

OP, I'd write out a detailed list of everything you do, how long it takes, how mentally, physically, and emotionally draining everything is, and lay it out clearly for him, explaining why you absolutely have a 'job' taking care of the children with little assistance from him. If he wants you to work, he can't expect you to also shoulder the burden of being there day and night for three children and keeping the household running. He can find a different job that allows him to live at home and share those responsibilities or he can accept that for now you won't be employed.

If he can't or won't try to understand the challenges of your daily life, I'd start thinking about what he brings to your life and how you realistically expect things to look in five or ten years. Is it a future you want?

Yes, design your life better, Op.
Restructure and take more control.

Give up the volunteer role for a couple of years, until your children are old enough to pick up after themselves, do some chores and make an easy meal for the family.

Run your home as if you have a full time job. Batch cook, prepare uniforms for five days, pop a load of washing in before breakfast, clean up braakfast as you go etc.

Then allow yourself more hours in the day to yourself.

Consider hiring a babysitter once a fortnight for half a day. That time you and DH have to yourselves.
Consider paying for a cleaner once a fortnight too.

Expect more of DH when he is home.
Allocate him your first born for set hours of his days off.
Also allocate time for him with the younger two.

Because you've made it so easy for him so far he's now detached with the realities of day to day parenting.

So clawback this a little at a time. Start with the weekend. Message him during the week that this weekend you will be taking Saturday off and he needs to have the kids. The schedule is set and this is what needs to be done. Do not try to do everything beforehand to make it easier. He needs to see and do the reality of it all. Then book yourself something Saturday so you can't get out of it and have committed to it. And go. Only answer anything in emergency but for the full day evening tell him he has them and not to bother you unless urgent. Then do this on repeat every few weekends apart and do a whole weekend at some point. This should be a good staying point for him to get it but with it being 1 day a week he still staying offslowly

I think it must be quite hard as a sole parent with a child with a disability. DH will pitch in once he’s home and on the weekends, even if he’s just doing lego with DC and I’m doing laundry or he’s making breakfast so I can shower in peace, having a second pair of hands is helpful with NT children let alone all a ND child who needs a lot of support and input. DH travels regularly for work and I have a difficult sleeper but still have to be up early, I don’t find it easy tbh when he’s away. OP probably never gets a lie in and when she’s at home she’s probably constantly on the go.

Perhaps next time he’s home you take a few days away, he’ll be fine since it’s so easy.

yep, fair comment.

I was once in this situation except that my DH valued the fact that the kids were at home with me and would never have said something like that. He knew that me being the full time parent freed him up to pursue his career which he absolutely could not have done to the same extent if I’d maintained mine. He did sometimes challenge me on why I was doing voluntary stuff but I get it, it’s the one thing you do that is valued by others and gives you social contact.

Yes you probably could work as well as all you’re doing now but probably only at the cost of your mental and physical health and therefore, your kids’ wellbeing. I hope you are able to have an adult conversation with him about what it would actually look like for all of you if you added a job into the mix, but in the meantime it seems clear that you feel what you are doing is valuable and that may have to be enough. Everyone will have opinions about it (especially on the internet!) but yours is the only one that matters. I’m sorry you and your DH aren’t on the same page though, that is hard.

How can you go out of hours to the school when they are phoning you to pick your child up because they are having a meltdown or becoming disruptive? I was up to the school every day at one point with my AuDHD ds when he was struggling the most. If your work would let you leave daily then great. Just because your child has SEN doesn’t mean you have the same experience as th OP.

She also gets no weekend breaks. She solo parents most of the year. Her husband lives abroad like a single man without a care in the world. You have a DH who can also go to the school or share kids sick days and als the daily mental load if not the physical load. That’s not the case when someone lives abroad.

@TeaDoesntSolveEverything did you say you have an income from a rental property? So passive income? If so then volunteering is great and you have income. Also please go the SEN boards for support. Everyone here seems to want to be seen to hold down full time jobs with a DH who is there but not there (so they feel like solo parents too 🙄), clean their house top to bottom daily, have kids with SEN who are also impeccably behaved and never miss school and eat perfectly and make every other parent feel like shit.

Give yourself a slap as it's never going to change is true but the slap should be a wake-up call to take back your autonomy, not to soldier on regardless when you're exhausted! Your husband is not parenting as a team with you at all. 2 options, as far as I can see it - 1. Suggest that if you are to go back to work then he stays home and looks after the kids, giving up his job. With your rental income and a job, I hope financially that would work. 2. Ask for a divorce. He will HAVE to do a damn sight more parenting if you are separated if he wants any kind of relationship with his children.

His excuse about what he meant by it is total bullshit. You and he both know what he meant. I can tell you, he wouldn't last 1 week in your shoes!!!! He doesn't deserve you.

I would be wondering if this man had found a 'special friend' while working abroad, and wanted her to get a job so that he would feel less of a cad about abandoning his wife and children at some point.

What do you get out of your marriage? What difference would it be if you were a single parent?

In order for you to work you would need full time child care and a cleaner. Norland nannies start at about £50 000 but can go higher and with an autistic child you want someone who can cope. I'm not saying other nannies can't cope, they may be fantastic but this is what your DH needs to know.

You are doing a job, more than one.

Next time he is home go out for a day, preferably 24 hours. Yes I know you will come back to chaos, a melted down child and, well you know what you will come back to.

It's about him experiencing a fraction of what you do every day with no days off.

You do a lot and give your children almost everything and I'm sorry that some full time workers with partners can't see it. How about suggesting to your husband that he gets a part time job on top of his current one because you already work way more than full time hours?

Don't drop your volunteering unless you drop it for a fulfilling similar amount of paid work. You will disappear to everyone, not just your husband, without it. There are a lot of people here who aren't understanding that either.

Stick to your guns. You are right even if a few others who haven't walked in your shoes can't see it. And don't settle for a husband that doesn't respect you if that is irredeemably the case; it'll be holding you back.