Men whose lives are facilitated by women - how did this happen??!

[windygallows]

Now that I'm in my mid-40s I look around at my peers and am astounded that so many men my age have their lives facilitated by women: wives who don't work or who work part time who manage the household and make lunch for their DHs and do all the childcare and prop men up. It's just amazing how many men have a leg up by this support.

And they become blind to what it's like not having that support. My boss has a female PA, two female assistants, and a wife at home who looks after the household - leaving him totally supported and completely free to focus on his job. He thinks he's responsible for his success and doesn't understand why others can't mimic what he's achieved or even the time he dedicates to work.

How did we let this happen? How did we create a situation where so many middle aged men have such a leg up over women because they've been given so much support?

I've put this in Feminism because for me this is a feminist issue. If anything this situation it creates an absolute imbalance in life but also in the workplace, with men given much more freedom to dedicate to work and devoid of many domestic responsibilities that burden women.

I've also put this in Feminism because I'm trying to avoid the usual comments by women like 'We're a team' (referring to her and her DP) or comments like 'It works for us' or 'DH works hard and makes enough for both of us - should I go out to work just because you want me to.' blah blah blah I appreciate too that some women benefit from a set up where a DP/DH is 'looking after you' when you then facilitate/prop up his life in return, but I'm not quite sure it's really helping anyone in the grand scheme of things.

For context I'm in my mid40s, single with 2DCs and work FT and definitely frustrated when I see the advantages that 'facilitated men' have in the workplace and in life.

You are right with your observations, Anatidae. Although SAHM is a fantastic set up for the family, it is effectively the least bad option for the woman. We are making the best of a bad job here. We are losing out, but the alternative is to lose more still. The only solution to this, as others mentioned up thread, is to make it normal and commonplace for a man to reduce his hours, switch to PT employment and take out lengthy paternity leave or career breaks when children come along. Women do this at present, but not men. And herein lies the problem.

Are you planning to have more children cuppa? What then?

I agree with Anatidae that, if you are going to be a long-term SAHM, it's far more likely to work for you under certain conditions -

1. He needs to be earning enough that you feel financially secure. Financial insecurity will lead to a feeling that you are trapped - beholden to him, but unable to do anything about it.

2. You need to have equal access to all money and equal say in how it's spent (this goes without saying, but it's amazing how many women are given allowances or "housekeeping").

3. Both you and your DH need to be on the same page as to the benefits of you being at home for the DC. Does he see this as advantageous and is he willing to financially support this set-up?

4. It helps if you know that you would have a certain security in the event of a separation. Would you be significantly worse off than if you had been working for those years?

5. Are you psychologically suited to being at home?

Thanks to all for the really useful comments and questions. Really useful food for thought. I am definitely going to get back to you by baby has just woken up, so it will be later (praying for a two nap day )

"And yes, it’s often uncomfortable for women to be the breadwinner etc. We are not socialised that way."

Yes. When I was in a relationship that was falling apart, a large part of the problem was that my ex didn't understand that I was doing so much I was burning out. I was the main breadwinner, in fact sole bread winner for 9 months after my second maternity leave, and he was looking after our two small children. He just didn't do enough in the house and around the children for me to have any headspace at all. I went from stressful office to long commute to children's bedtime - they were both being tricky about sleep - to household stuff and admin to not enough sleep to starting it all again. He just didn't do anything except physically be with the children while I was at work.

When I came to mn to talk about this - I wanted to get some advice about to repair our relationship and / or make my life bearable - a lot of posters talked about our situation as one where we had "reversed roles". they talked about how it can be done but it is hard ....I didn't see myself as doing something reversed, or backwards, by having a job. I've always had a job, it's not some weird dog-walking-on-hind-legs thing. But so many women on here saw it as an anomaly and the source of all our problems. It was really hard to discuss it with many except a few people. Because they were coming at it from the position of "Well you're doing something weird, so what do you expect? You'll have to work harder to make this work."

I burnt out, we separated, everything is better now (in a nutshell)

Could I add to Vashnas list please ?

1. All savings, stocks and shares etc need to be in your name, not his. This is better for tax reasons. And more inportantly , you know where it is in the event of a divorce. Theoretically it’s all marital assets but it’s amazing how many many men manage to hide these on divorce.

6 . If you are living and working overseas then you need your own legal advice as to what happens to children and assets on separation / divorce and how to protect you and the Chidren. If you can’t afford to pay for this, you can’t afford to relocate.

1. Your family income need to be used to pay into a private pension in your name.Enough to match the contributions made by your husband AND his employer. For the same reason as above. Again if you can’t afford to, you can’t afford to be a SAHM, it’s too risky .

1. House and any other big assets need to be in joint names. This is especially important if he bought the house before you were married. Or you have some other complication, like it’s owned jointly with his family or they provided the deposit .

1. Don’t even think about becoming a SAHM or even taking a years maternity leave unless you are legallly married. It’s not just a bit of paper.

Excellent lists vashna and kristina

Being an expat Mum brings other things into the mix. I know several women who re trapped here with no job prospects because they have split, the default here is 50:50 custody and the children cannot be moved out of the country without the consent of both parents. The scenario I’ve seen a lot is that the man still isn't parenting equally, but is punishing the woman by refusing access to passports for even visits Home to the uk. These woman are trapped in a country they hate, where it’s very hard to get a job as foreigner (please do abandon any concept you have of Scandinavia as a utopia, it’s not) and unable to leave because of the kids. Thee aren’t dads who are fighting to keep a 50:50 parenting arrangement by the way. They often never see the kids, by choice, but they still won’t let go Mum go back to the uk.

Krist1na - yes exactly.

Here is the scenario of a SAHM friend of mine - She used to be a teacher in her "previous life". She gave it up to support her DH's career move when he started up his own business (something to do with predicting the trading markets). They had 4 DC while he went for it 200%. After about 10 years or so, he had made multi-millions. Unfortunately they did separate last year after he had an affair. However, she has stayed in the main house which must be worth about £4 million and is mortgage free (he took the other properties). All the school fees were in a separate fund so that was sorted and she received half of the wealth she had facilitated him making. She was aware of his trading portfolios and investments and to be fair to him, he didn't try hiding anything. Obviously, she is devastated about the breakdown of the marriage BUT she doesn't feel like all those years of being a "facilitator" was a waste. She realises her "facilitating" has raised herself and her DC into a different wealth bracket and her DC's futures are more secure than if she had not "facilitated".

Now she has a new partner. She is 42 and could go back into teaching, but is trying a new venture.

I agree with LeCroissant - getting out of that relationship has allowed me to become myself again. I'm creative, active, funny again. I literally did not have time to make a joke or listen to a piece of music.

So many women on this thread have talked about literally hating their husbands. I did, but I don't any more. He respects me more now and I have no need to hate him. I hated him viscerally and actively because he was destroying me by being so selfish I literally had no time at all to be who I was and I was crushed, completely destroyed.

One of the posters says that her PILs have a fair arrangement where they respect each others' work, even though they have a very traditional gender split. My parents are quite traditional (although my mother always WOH) and one of the things I have come to realise is how nice it is that they genuinely respect each other. I was never told to respect either of my parents - I learnt it constantly by example, by seeing how they respected each other. I became painfully conscious of the lack of respect my P had for me when we were together and nothing I did, no matter how hard I worked, was ever seen as enough and everything was my fault and my responsibility and I was sort of held to be a bit shit because I was constantly struggling.

I wish there was some way of bringing respect into relationships between men and women. It is awful to be despised by a fool when you are working so hard.

Did men once respect women more? I'm afraid in general as a default I do not respect men. I assume they will be lazy and arrogant.

It makes me wonder if there are any hands on unfacilitated parents in senior government policy making positions.

They are starting to come through now - the people in their 40s who have kids (notably plural kidS), a great career and either facilitate each other or do it alone. It probably needs another 15 years before they outnumber the facilitated men and the women with no children

JustWondering - one of the things that I have found depressing over the last year is how much easier it is for everyone else in the family to have me as a SAHM / Family Facilitator. I knew that it would be different, but had no idea how much it would transform everyone else's lives.

It feels a bit like the single sex / co-ed debate: generally, boys do better in co-ed and girls do better in single sex. So which girls get to facilitate the boys by being educated with them rather than separately? Which women get to facilitate the men?

Anti - I sometimes wonder the same thing. One thing I will say for my husband, even though he would probably be most of this board's idea of a nightmare is that he genuinely does respect the role of motherhood as something to be upheld and nurtured. His background is from a more traditional culture which is blatantly sexist in more ways than it's not, but there is a certain respect for the role of motherhood and women's role within the family, which is largely lost in British society. For instance, telling your wife it's best to put the baby into daycare at 1 year old so you can get back to work (as Anatadae describes as the norm in Sweden) would be seen as abusive! . It's a different perspective, which I don't wholly subscribe to. It's suited me though because I always knew I would feel torn apart and resentful if I had to hand over childcare to someone else and DH supports me in that. It just happens to be in his interests as well. Even though we do have quite different roles, we never argue about day-to-day housework or "stuff". I do have a cleaner, but have never had any other help (family or otherwise). Even though he is a workaholic and we have 3 DC, I don't feel that life is unmanageable.

It's interesting how rare it seems to be that a woman is facilitated to the extent that men are. Does anybody know a woman who has a partner who washes all her clothes, cooks all her meals, cleans the house, does all the childcare, admin, organisation, present buying etc etc etc?

No. The few men I know who are SAHP are very clear that their role is mostly childcare. They make a huge fuss about it - one I know actually set up a support organisation for men in his position ( very worthwhile and all that ) and managed to get onto various government committees. His views of course were much more valuable and informed than the millions of women doing the same job in the UK.

Much like nannies, they mainly do the housework assocated with the children ( cleaning kids rooms , laundry, activities ) . When their partners come in from work, they all help with dinner and childcare.

They DONT expect to do all the childcare and housework when their partners are not at work.

They all make sure they get a day off every week and everyone tells them all the time how lucky their partners are.

Which I find interesting because women who are SAHP are constantly told how lucky THEY are to have a husband who allows them to be a SAHP.

However I accept that I don’t know a large sample so my views may not be representative,

“When I came to mn to talk about this - I wanted to get some advice about to repair our relationship and / or make my life bearable - a lot of posters talked about our situation as one where we had "reversed roles". they talked about how it can be done but it is hard ..”

Well it was not really reversed roles was it! You effectively were like a single parent with kids in childcare. Much more difficult for a woman to be facilitated than a man. We don’t expect to be either, which is a big part of it I suppose.

I know a fair number of (loosely) SAHDs because I work in a creative industry where many don't get much regular work and it's often poorly paid.

They provide the bulk of child care because they work mostly from home and often have little actual paid work. However, they don't provide the sort of facility as most SAHMs. Their bread winning partners are not free of domestic responsibilities.

LeCroissant yes I have a friend like that. He does everything, She spends weekends indulging her hobby.

Vashna great list 😊. All new Mums and Dads considering SAH should read it and Kr1st1na's, then maybe we'd get more mums and dads asking for PT and things might change....

1- difficult. DH earns well above average but we're struggling as we live in one of the most expensive parts of the country (if we lived in Cornwall we'd be fine). We moved back to the UK after him earning a lot more abroad, we thought we'd be ok, but our homework wasn't good enough - it's a lot more expensive here than expected. We'd lived in the UK before, but somewhere cheaper. He is looking to do a bit of extra work to increase his salary and I'm looking at possible self employment options. We are always thinking about leaving the UK again, especially given Brexit, we'll see. Salaries in SE England are really dreadful given the cost of living. I was told when pregnant that there were a huge number of midwife vacancies unfilled so the service is really stretched. I'm not surprised.
2- yes
3- yes
4-I'd have been better off staying in my well paid job. However there were redundancies when I gave up work so I might not have managed it. The horse has bolted on that one in any case!
5- not really. Love the mum bits, hate housework, walk around the house talking to myself. Really miss the intellectual stimulation of work. Have created at least 3 long running worlds full of stories for DD1 to entertain myself (one of which is a feminist utopia )
Kr1st1na
5- mostly
6-not relevant but agree very important if abroad
7- i wish! But as soon as we get more money this will be top of the list....
8-yes
9- yes
I will be giving this list to anyone I know considering giving up work. I wish I'd had it when I had the decision to make after DD1.

I totally agree with the ethos behind Krist1na 's list and actually think it's pretty spot on. The only bit I think there is room for negotiation on is the pension bit:

7. Your family income need to be used to pay into a private pension in your name.Enough to match the contributions made by your husband AND his employer. For the same reason as above. Again if you can’t afford to, you can’t afford to be a SAHM, it’s too risky .

A generous employer might pay in 15% on top of a 6% employee contribution (DH's scheme is 20% once he is over 45). Most people can't afford a 21% of gross income to come out of net income. But I do feel having savings in SAHP's name goes some way to mitigate this and absolutely pension contributions should be made for SAHP - it makes sense from a tax perspective too. I think it's worth planning for the future and being sensible and ensuring security for yourself but putting actual figures on it is a difficult one.

I don't want to nitpick but just wanted to highlight that fair doesn't always mean equal. It's usually a damn sight closer to equal than the deal a lot of SAHMs end up with though!

A very good friend of mine is kind of in that position. Her DH is at home and does all school runs and cooking (he's an amazing cook). He doesn't do cleaning or laundry though as they have someone in to do that. She is super-successful and has won awards for being "business woman of the year" etc. They used to both work and had a live in nanny who was part of the family for about 8 years. She was fantastic, but left to have her own children. They struggled to find anyone to replace her - also the eldest was getting into the whole 11 plus for competitive indie schools and they couldn't find anyone who could facilitate the prep and homework, plus do all the running around for clubs and that kind of thing. So the DH left and never went back. He got all the kids into their first choice schools. Since then, my friend was headhunted for a new role and her salary has doubled!!
Everyone tells her how lucky she is

Sorry that was replying to Croissant!

Funny how it's always the women who are 'lucky' eh?

olennas one of the regular heated conversations DH and I have is based around him pointing out how much better everyone else's lives are when I have no paid work and me replying that I have never expressed any interest in being based full time at home. We met when very young at Uni, I have more qualifications than him for work and apart from maternity leave I had always worked prior to becoming a trailing spouse. I don't understand why you marry a peer and then expect them to embrace a way of life totally contrary to everything they have worked towards.
This sounds really wingey and I have a very enviable life in many ways but it isn't the life I worked towards and it's not what I would encourage my dd to aim for. It is however providing the best life for my DH and DC. I have decided I am not the naturally self sacrificing sort!

'I have decided I am not the naturally self sacrificing sort!'

This is the problem though isn't it? That women are expected to be the 'self-sacrificing sort' while men just suit themselves? Why should we self-sacrifice more than anybody else?

I know just one SAHD who does far more than his wife: IMO he seems resentful of her and women in general.

But he was always a grumpy, sexist git!

Funny how it's always the women who are 'lucky' eh?

Quite! For a man that's generally a given right - climbing the ladder while the domestic stuff is sorted.

Also re the lucky friend...her DH is a SAHD. Many like me work demanding jobs and facilitate and are not sahm.