OP here. I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with this. My mom quit her job to raise me and my brother. My SIL quit her job to raise her kids. Several friends wives quit their job or started working PT once they had kids. I don’t see anything wrong with a woman wanting to stay home to raise kids. |
OP here. No. I’ve had 4 other serious relationships and and several casual relationships. |
the point was this aspect of her you said you love is something she's happy to give up in a second, so her passion for her work isn't all that ingrained. it's fine for one spouse to quit their career to raise kids if the couple agree to it. Anyway, it's clear you're trying to twist yourself into a pretzel to justify to yourself marrying this woman. good luck, man. you'll need it. |
OP here. I had an issue with her wanting all these expensive things and an expensive lifestyle while she quits to stay home. I was not happy with that situation, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with a woman who wants to stay home and raise kids. |
yep. i hear ya. good luck. it's nice you have a mother who was a stay at home mom as a model. so hopefully her opinion on all this, as she's expressed it thus far, means something to you. now that you're family has made their opinions clear, it will be very difficult to get that genie back in the bottle if you suddenly find your engagement back on. next thing you know, you'll be estranged from your family as your wife dictates who can and can't see your children. |
This is good advice. The only way to work this our is through difficult, grown up conversations. IMO, her comments about the ring are inappropriate and hurtful. I would never tell someone that just proposed to me that the ring wasn't good enough. Really poor form. That is a red flag. The house stuff is tricky. She could be revealing that she's totally bratty, or she could be watch the market and seeing that the kinds of house you were consider before at $1.5m are now far more expensive than $1.5m and she wants the same thing. The shifting plans on SAHM v working - you spend $3000/month. She might be freaking out and realizing that you are not going to want to spend the same amount you pay now for all monthly expenses on childcare alone, and you will. Infant care can easily cost over $2500/month. She may be figuring that is the only option if you are so cheap. I would go into the conversation neutrally, listen and don't assume the worst. |
I’m a sahm with an expensive lifestyle. I always liked nice things but I paid for them myself before I got married and had kids. I’m often resentful that Dh gets to Focus on his career while I’m home with the kids. I’m sure he wishes he had a wife who was content being home raising the kids. |
I think men are allowed to not want to support their wives staying home. Lots of families go through this. It just usually happens after they are pregnant or have the baby. Lots of families also go through difference in opinion of how much house they want. Recently I had an old friend telling me they are looking in our neighborhood. She sent me a link to a $4m house. They live in a modest home now. I thought maybe they won the lottery or something. Friend told me this was her dream home and perfect for their family. They didn’t move. She still works. I don’t work and she sometimes comments how she had my life. When I had my first, my baby had congenital heart defects and required 2 heart surgeries. I desperately wanted to stay home with him but we simply couldn’t afford it. Eventually we could afford and I stopped working when my second child was almost 4 years old. I got pregnant shortly after and am now home with our 3 kids. |
Pp again. My point was that every couple has differences in opinion about some spending or priorities whether it is house or vacations or whatever.
I know for me 1 vacation per year would be a dealbreaker. Maybe it is a dealbreaker for OP that his future wife wanted to be a SAHM. |
Why not just go back to work? Work PT and have the best of not worlds. You can’t resent him if it was your child you quit your job. |
Some people work too much to take several vacations year. That’s a privilege most don’t have. |
She has - at best - been fickle and changed her mind on you several times, OP.
At worst, she has misled you OP; maybe even gas-lit you. If this is her personality now, just wait until her pregnancy hormones kick in. You will then be dealing with an entirely different level of insanity from her. She's far from the only eligible woman in DC (on the contrary; DC is a dating Mecca). I would not put up with her, personally. |
You can’t base relationship decisions on number of vacations per year. |
I have been married for 15 years. We go on 10 vacations per year - some small and some large. Dh doesn’t join us for all of them. He probably goes on 3-4 weeklong and then a handful of long weekends with us. I once dated a guy who didn’t like to travel. He didn’t enjoy it and that was a dealbreaker for me. You can’t tell another person what is a dealbreaker for them. |
Unless you want those things living in a 2.5 million dollar, 5 bd home, with a SAH wife, and a nanny/helper, having brought a larger engagement ring and spending most of what you make, I’m gonna say you need to move on. The whole “you weren’t the man she thought” and feeling disrespected because you wanted to go to counseling to talk through your differences - that’s manipulative. I’m not going to vilify her for wanting what she wants but she needs to own it and find a guy that wants the same things. If she doesn’t want to compromise on those things - she shouldn’t have to, but is also shouldn’t be that your the bad guy for gasp, having a backbone and preferences as well. |