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Would this make you mad?
DH and I made certain promises to each other prior to getting married that were consistant with the type of life we wanted. For example, it was very important to DH to live in the same metropolitan area as his family, so I agreed, so long as I got to pick the town we lived in within that metropolitan area. Also, we both agreed that I would be a stay at home mother. There were a couple of other things we agreed on, but those are the big ones.
Fast forward, when my daughter is 1, all of a sudden he insists that I work because he is unhappy in his field and needs to "find himself". After speaking to him, it is clear that he nolonger wants me to be a stay at home mom, no matter if we can afford it or not, so that is out the window forever now. So I have been working full time for 4 years now, even through him losing two jobs and taking a $25,000 pay cut.
Second, we are finally looking for a house to purchase, and all of a sudden, he changes his mind about me picking the area where we will live. I cannot help feel like he purposely mislead me just so I would agree to marry him, and never intended to keep any of his promises.
When I bring up the fact that I have kept all of my promises to him and he has broken all of his, the only response is "things change". There have been other issues as well, such as his extreme cheapness and controlling attitude with money, which stems from his parents who are the same way.
Re: Would this make you mad?
Marriage is a dynamic and ever-evolving commitment that requires a shitton of compromise. From what I've read here, you both suck at it.
Honestly, if I was unhappy in my profession and my spouse basically told me "suck it up buttercup" because of some naive promise I made circa 2006 when I had stars in my eyes, he'd be getting a swift punch to the gonads.
This is the point where you bring in a marriage counselor to help you. Otherwise, you'll be speaking to a lawyer sooner rather than later.
I agree 100% with Bowies. Thirty years down the road promises you made wont apply...people and things change. Trying to force him to follow agreements he made when situations change is kind of weird to me. But complaining that he is not considering your feelings or needs, if that is what is going on, seems valid to me. I just wouldn't wail but you promissedddd and expect to win the argument, I'd say hey, this is important to me and be willing to compromise a little.
I 100% agree with this. Can you explain why if your financial situation is so dire that you need to give up your SAHM dreams for paying work, why are you even remotely considering buying a house?? That's a surefire way to kill the dream forever, when you could probably be a SAHM and be renting a 2BR house or 3BR townhouse.
I think you were looking to check off a bunch of lifestyle boxes before saying "I do," and are now looking for the money-back guarantee.
For most people, being with the other person forever outweighs the short-run compromises both parties usually must make to make that happen. Sounds like neither of you is thinking this way. But most of all you.
Re-evaluate and/or re-confirm your long-term goals together, and do it now. THEN re-evaluate, together, whether your current situation is pointing you as a couple in that direction. I have no doubt you will be surprised by the results.
ETA - reading comprehension
Why does this response not surprise me.
You expecting carte blanche to pick the place you & he move is completely ridiculous, promises or not. However, I'd like to know more about this:
Oh yeah, I forgot about that part. Really, I read this whole thing as "Fook this guy, I'm gonna list everything I dislike about him." It reeks of unrealistic expectations and a general, festering resentment that will only be fixed if she gets her way 100% of the time for the next 50 years.
It would annoy me, but I wouldn't be hopping mad about it.
The thing that would stick in my craw about it is that SAHM is extremely important to me (and I made that clear when we got married) so I would have to have some pretty pressing reasons to go back to work. Did he give you financial reasons as to why it was imperative that you go back to work? Such as, if we want to buy a house we need two incomes? If it were me I would be seriously asking for a good reason for me to change the original plan aside from "things change" . That is vague and wouldn't fly for me.
The picking the location is not a huge deal to ME. However, is it just because he is changing his mind about the whole agreement, or that picking the location of where you live is THAT important? Is that the hill you want to die on, essentially?
If I am to SAHM, DH's job determines where we live. That is the reality of it. So I am not entirely sure how you get to pick where you both live AND get to be a SAHM?
In any event, as Fuss said, marriage is a fluid dynamic that will constantly change. People are free to change their minds about any arrangement. However, you have to decide if you are willing to compromise these things or if you will walk.
What exactly are you mad about? It seems like this is kind of a laundry list of why we should think your H is a douche. Do you feel like you are giving up everything and he is giving up nothing (gross oversimplification, I know, but bear with me)?
You DO have to be flexible, but if you resent having to give up these two things so much that they cause problems in your marriage, then I would suggest counseling with a trained professional to work through those issues.
Good luck.
I think it's kind of ridiculous to expect that things would be exactly as you both swore up and down they would be before you married and had kids years after you actually got married and had kids. Things change. People change. Circumstances change. Wants and needs change.
If you're unhappy, obviously, you need to address it with your husband, duh ... but on the same token, just assuming that you'd get to be a SAHM that got 100% of the vote on where you resided just because that was "The Plan" 4 years ago is silly.
I'm more than willing to start validating people's ideas when they start having ideas worth validating
I'd like to know what "find himself" means.
I'm coming at this as a SAHM myself and I can tell you DH is miserable at his job. He hates it with a passion. As a caring partner, I want to see DH happy and not have to dread going to work every.damn.day. I have offered countless times to start working again so that DH could find something he likes better. I love having the ability of SAH with the Geekling but I'll be damned if I'm going to just say to DH "sucks to be you, now off to work you go".
There is no marriage without partnership. You have to be able to go with the flow of things. If DH lost his job tomorrow my answer wouldn't be "well, that sucks, but I expect you to have a job in a week". It would be "OK, let's both start applying and see what happens."
My point being is that you're *supposed* to be on the same team. Your whole "but we agreeeeeed that I would SAH" thing is a pretty sucky attitude to have. So the situation is that your H wants to do something else professionally because he's currently miserable while you get to live your dream of SAH? Please tell me you see how unfair this is.
And Betty is right on the money - if he's the one working, your location has to be in some sort of relative proximity to his job.
I definitely think you guys need counseling so you can both start airing your differing opinions on things and figure out constructive ways of communicating and compromising.
And while it may not be true, I'm going to just say it - you sound like you got married and had a kid so you'd never have to work again.
Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what the reality is. Is your DH as big of an a$$ as this post makes him sound, or are you SOOOOOO stuck on these "promises" that you can't realize that life can't always be planned in advance and there are unexpected turns that affect those plans?
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I do not think the issue is the job or where you live. Things in life change we have to learn how to adjust. However, it sounds to like your H decides what is going to change for the both of you and you have no say. To me THAT is the issue. He decides and you follow.
DH and I both made promises like this to each other, and each and every one of those has been broken and/or revised over the last 8 years.
That being said, yes, I think you have a right to be mad. It doesn't sound as if he's trying to renegotiate or adjust those promises to the reality of life, but is instead making carte blanche decisions without you. Maybe you really do need to work. Maybe you want to support him while he finds himself. Maybe you would agree with his choice of towns, but if the two of you are not discussing each issue as a team and making joint decisions, there is a serious problem.
Things do change, and I think the best marriages adapt to those changes. But new rules and promises need to be made together, with each person sacrificing and benefitting. It sounds like you are doing a lot of giving, and he is doing a lot of taking. Sit down and talk it out as a team - or try some counseling. You don't want the issues to have now to get to the point where they can't be resolved. GL.
"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."
Miracle DD born 12.2005
TTC #2 since Dec 2008 w/ PCOS
***P/SAIF Always Welcome***
Keep it Natural, Baby!
I can't say it better than this!
I'm floored that you don't feel that "picking the area where we will live" should be a joint decision.
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
THIS. Things do change. Sometimes unanticipated things happen. It's not possible to map out your entire life before marriage and make promises with no flexibility.
It's possible that before having kids, your husband just didn't understand what the pressure would be like as the sole provider for the family. As the breadwinner for my family, I can say that the pressure can be pretty immense, and is not something I ever even thought about before I was in that situation. It can be scary knowing that the roof over your family's head and the food on the table is 100% of up to to provide - especially in this economy when there is a lot of job instability. It's also unfair to expect him to stay in a job that makes him miserable.
You both clearly need to learn how to compromise. Go to counseling and learn how to do this.
After more thinking on this...
Does anyone else really wonder if he's really the one calling all the shots? OP sounds like a drama-llama to me. Maybe he's rationally stating his case and she's turning it into "he won't let me..." because it means he has to break one of her Princess Promises.
I dunno. Something about this just isn't sitting right with me and its not that he's a control freak or is a scrooge with his money. Maybe she wants to start getting her nails done every two weeks or wants a new car - if its not in the budget because they've prioritized other things, like her ability to SAH.... I guess I can see this turning into "well, if you want those things, OP, then you'll have to get a job to help pay for them." type of thing.
My MIL thought the same way you did. FIL made promises to her when they first got married ( at the ripe old age of 21) that she woul be a stay at home mom and once they had kids she wouldn't have to work again.
Fast forward 15 years later and my FIL becomes partially disabled and can't work his labor intensive ( but well paying) job anymore and his income becomes 1/3 of what it used to be. He begged her, BEGGED her to get a job and she refused and held him to his promise he made in his early 20's. I am talking willing to lose their house all so that she wouldn't have to get a job ( and the kids are still in school at this point). FIL knew she couldn't get much due to no education and no skills, he just wanted her to help out more and be willing to do it. Nope, she still refused because he promised.
They are now divorced. I asked my husband about this, and he thinks it was all due to the fact that his mom refused to get a job. My FIL was so resentful to her for so long that the marriage deteriated and he left.
Things change, eh? that's a copout.
Counseling is in order. I do not like the path this entire mind of his is taking. You matter here too -- marriage is 2 people, not one. Good luck.
I'm kinda amazed that there are such wildly divergent responses on this. It is possible for both of them to be the azzholes.
I am having a chuckle over the fact that she has her panties in a twist over the fact that he's tight with money (a trait she was no doubt well-aware of before they got married) and hasn't managed to change that over the years. Maybe her DH needs a list of the things that are appropriate to renegotiate after the wedding.
I think it sucks that you both agreed that you should be a SAHM and you didn't get to do that. However, if my husband were unhappy in his job and he needed help bringing in money, I would never consider letting him go to a job he hates every day so that I can stay home with the kid and have my dream life. That's very inequitable. I think you should work on letting go of this resentment.
As far as the location of your home, I don't see why you should be sticking to your previous plan of you alone choosing the town. Now that you are both working and you have a kid, you should be choosing a town based on distance from your jobs, quality of school district, safety, size of house compared to cost, etc. Things that matter for your life now. Neither one of you should EVER have given or gotten a promise that one person alone could decide. If he's insisting on choosing alone, then that's a problem too. Work together and come up with something that makes sense today given the circumstances.
Sounds to me like he has some serious control issues. This is something I would sit down and try to have a serious talk about with him. If it doesnt really go very well, I would suggest counselling. I'm sorry if I sound pessimistic but he sounds like the type of guy who would refuse counselling but I think it's definitely worth a try. He reminds me a bit like my ex fiance, who went back on promises and became more controlling over time. I was lucky to see his really controlling side right before the wedding, which is why I called it off.
I hope all goes well. Best of luck. Maybe he'll *wake up* and see that this relationship includes TWO people, not ONE (himself).
The real issue for me is that he changes his mind with no discussion about it. It was a big sacrifice for me to go back to work full time because I personally feel it is important to stay at home in the formative years. We can afford to do so but he wants a certain lifestyle that we couldn't have on one income. I just feel that his values changed. He told me it was very important to him just like it was to me but now he feels that having more money is more important even if we can still live comfortably one one income.
As far as the location, I am taking into account his preferences as well as mine bu fact is, he is holding me to my promise of living in Illinois. I even had a great job offer in Ny when he was out of work but he refused to discuss it. I feel like I am the only one doing the compromising here.
The control of the finances is also problematic because he does not discuss them with me . One example is that he did not discuss how much of his paycheck would go to retirement when he started his new job yet when I started MY new job he wanted full control over how the retirement fund from my payheck was to be allocated.