Marriage requires a lot of give and take. It’s not always easy. But then, what is in this life? Still, we remain devoted and supportive of our spouse … most of the time.
When it comes to being the stay-at-home parent, many don't understand that most days are hectic and hard. The decision to stay home and not work is also often a difficult one to make. We ask ourselves: Will we leave your child in care while we work or will you stay home and save that "child care money"?
There is no right or wrong answer. Every family does what’s best for them. The key to success is that both people need to agree — staying at home can be one person’s dream come true while it could be another person’s nightmare. And it could be something that works for a while, but eventually needs to be adjusted.
This is the case for one wife who made a deal with her husband eight years ago after an unexpected pregnancy. The deal was that he'd say home temporarily with the baby, but he would absolutely return to work. But currently, his wife has others plans and he's pretty upset about them.
Unsure if she's being unreasonable, the wife posted to Reddit for advice.
So he was an accidental stay-at-home dad …
The original poster started by writing: “My husband and I have been married for 11 years. We met in college and got married shortly after graduating. We are both very career oriented and have professional goals that we want to obtain. About 8 years ago we had multiple changes in our lives. The first was me finding out I was pregnant unexpectedly. The second was my husband losing his job when the company he worked for filed for bankruptcy.”
OP continued, “We had a lot of hard conversations about what these two things meant for our lives. Ultimately, we decided to keep the baby and have my husband stay out of the workforce to get our home ready for a child and to be a SAHD while I continued to pursue my career. We came to this agreement with the understanding that he would be able to pursue his career again in the future. Then, 4 years ago we had another unexpected pregnancy. (Yes, I was on birth control and taking it properly, but no we were not using condoms.) Now we have 2 lovely and amazing children.”
Not for nothing but her husband's SAHD journey sounds a lot like almost every stay-at-home mom's story ever. Wife gets pregnant. Husband keeps working to pay the bills. Wife stays home and sacrifices her career and education in exchange for a lifetime supply of memories and unlimited hugs and kisses from the little ones. SAHM stays home with children and ends up having a hard time reentering the workforce. Nobody bats an eye because that's what society expects from women, career and education be damned. If a career is ultimately what makes her happy, well her happiness is secondary.
The pandemic was a game changer for this SAHD.
The pandemic hit the OP’s husband harder than it did her because he was taking on the majority of child care and the remote learning for their eldest. It was difficult. As hard as it was on him, OP says this time period couldn't have been better for her career. Over the past two years she received multiple promotions and her career trajectory is years ahead of where she thought it would be. OP’s husband, on the other hand, was trapped in the house with two kids for the last two years just trying to stay sane like the rest of us stay-at-home parents.
Then OP got some good news, “A few weeks ago I received a job offer from a different company that would be another big jump for me. However, it would require relocating to a different state. I excitedly brought this up to my husband but he wasn't happy for me.”
OP continued, “He asked what that would mean for him going back to work and I told him that it would take some time for us to get assimilated to the area and for me to get accustomed to the new job as it would probably be higher stress than what I am doing now, but with much higher pay and benefits. I told him that we could discuss him going back to work in maybe a year or so after we move.”
One huge step for mom, but the rest of the family is just moving.
OP’s husband told her that he's tired of being a SAHD and he's becoming resentful of watching his wife get to achieve her goals and dreams while he is living a life he never envisioned himself with. He told OP that she’s being selfish to want to uproot their family for her job and for asking him once again to put his goals and dreams on hold so that she can achieve more of hers. He might have a point.
OP told him that being a SAHD doesn't have to be permanent and this is just another huge step for the whole family. But he cut her off and said, "No, it's a huge step for YOU. For the rest of us it's just moving."
OP continues, “I told him that was unfair and he said the unfair thing was me breaking promises I made to him. I told him that was years ago and things have changed. If I'm being honest, I know it is going to be hard for him to get back in his career after being gone for so long. A huge gap like that in his employment record is almost DOA for him to get a good job. I feel bad about it, but we do have a pretty good life as it is and this new job would only offer more opportunities.”
The Redditors have spoken.
One commenter came at OP with the truth she might be too close to see: "YTA for your whole attitude. You should now be as supportive of him as he has been of you. 'We' do not have a pretty good life now, you do. Your husband is unhappy and you are marginalizing him in his own family. If you want to move, start actively supporting him in his job search and start interviewing nannies in the new location; stop acting like a 1950s man."
Another Reddit commenter seemed to take the whole thing a little personally: "I love how she explicitly stated that him waiting that long has his career 'DoA' if he wanted to restart it … and then tells him he can just wait another year. What's good for the gander isn't always good for the goose (and vice versa) but she's so blinded by her career that she can't see she's actively stolen her husband's in the process. Everything he tried to tell her was completely ignored because she feels justified so anything he says will fall on deaf ears as long as she feels like her career is worth it.
"OP, YTA. I feel sorry for your husband because not only has he given up any hope of professional advancement (by your words) but he's now, without a shadow of a doubt, regulated to second class citizen in your home because 'Boss Lady makes the rules' which means he has zero income aside from whatever you let him have access to which also means every family decision is made by you since you've pretty nakedly wielded your power and have no shame about it. You keep moving the goal posts and going 'Whoops, life happens' as if you don't keep putting your husband's life on hold every time it happens. You'd better hope he doesn't move his goal posts far away from yours and take a quarter of that sky high income as child support."
"Ugh, more Moms need to own this," wrote another commenter. "I’m temporarily a SAHM and I hate it. My brain was made for more than breaking up fights and repeating myself 1,000 times a day. Some women rock this job, and I thought I would take to it too. Hard no on that. Counting down the days till my youngest is in Kindergarten and I can go back to work."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
