SAHM’s - anyone successfully convince DH to support their staying home long term?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally agree about DH laying groundwork for divorce. I would never agree to be a SAHM unless my husband made at least $300K with no debt other than the mortgage, and a prenup that was very favorable to me, including a provision for all of his pension benefits to go to me even if he remarried.

Women need to stop quitting work unless there is a prenup in place. Or write up a post-nup or whatever that's called before you submit your resignation letter.

It completely depends on your husband and marriage. With some men (or women) completely agree. With other situations, no. However, as a SAHP you need to make sure money is in your name for easy access, you are contributing to your retirement, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Serious question: what do you do with the six+ Hours when your kids are out of the house? I can’t imagine having that much time for myself every day. I mean, any logistics/chores could all be done within three hours. And with no boss breathing down your neck. I can see how your husband could be resentful.

Not OP but it isn’t that much time. Not OP, but I workout at a gym daily and between going there, taking a shower, running some errands, cleaning up areas of the house (I do a daily pick up plus deep clean parts on a weekly schedule), yard work, I bake our bread daily and cook meals from scratch and that is very time consuming too. Six hours flies by.

I went back and reread this post and honestly think this person has to be trolling and mocking SAHMs. I honestly don't see any SAHM listing showering as a meaningful contribution, I just don't.

I agree. It seems like folks are just baiting each other with nonsense comments.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I am not worried about divorce, and if I’m wrong we have more than enough assets to divide. Which is part of my frustration about him wanting me to go back. It’s like, “why?” Things are good the way they are.

Anyway I wasn’t really looking to debate it as much as hear from women whose husbands maybe weren’t convinced at first but them changed their minds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am not worried about divorce, and if I’m wrong we have more than enough assets to divide. Which is part of my frustration about him wanting me to go back. It’s like, “why?” Things are good the way they are.

Anyway I wasn’t really looking to debate it as much as hear from women whose husbands maybe weren’t convinced at first but them changed their minds.

I think you need to focus on the substantive disagreements between you and your DH. He may not think that things are good the way they are. He may not think that your assets are adequate. It sounds like you need to make a very clear case to him that your family is financially on track to meet your agreed-upon goals, and open your mind to the possibility that his goals are different from yours or that his goals have shifted over time.

In my experience there's absolutely no way around this issue.

[Anonymous]

Make a list of all the house/kid stuff and have him select the half of the tasks that he will do. (Be sure to divide it into daily, weekly, occasional so he can't take all the occasional tasks like weeding and making drs appts and leave you with dishes and laundry and cleaning).

My suspicion is that he will balk at this. If he says no, then tell him you aren't going to go back because you can't handle everything yourself while working full-time.

If he says ok, then go back to work, but make sure he is handling all his tasks himself. If he is in charge of dishes, and he doesn't do them, they pile up in the sink. If he is in charge of trash, and he doesn't take out the trash, then you have overflowing trash. He will either step up or realize that things are better with you at home.

This is the only way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Serious question: what do you do with the six+ Hours when your kids are out of the house? I can’t imagine having that much time for myself every day. I mean, any logistics/chores could all be done within three hours. And with no boss breathing down your neck. I can see how your husband could be resentful.

Not OP but it isn’t that much time. Not OP, but I workout at a gym daily and between going there, taking a shower, running some errands, cleaning up areas of the house (I do a daily pick up plus deep clean parts on a weekly schedule), yard work, I bake our bread daily and cook meals from scratch and that is very time consuming too. Six hours flies by.

Oh, barf. Working moms do all of this with a job (except “bake bread” — WTF — but if they really wanted to do that, they’d do it on the weekend).

You take a shower, work out and run some errands? Wow! Color us all impressed.

^ This.

Exactly - I work, have kids, drive them to activities, and make every meal at home. Oh, and I take a shower. BFD. You are so lazy.

So what in your mind, makes a SAHM not “lazy?” Especially coming from someone posting on DCUM while at work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make a list of all the house/kid stuff and have him select the half of the tasks that he will do. (Be sure to divide it into daily, weekly, occasional so he can't take all the occasional tasks like weeding and making drs appts and leave you with dishes and laundry and cleaning).

My suspicion is that he will balk at this. If he says no, then tell him you aren't going to go back because you can't handle everything yourself while working full-time.

If he says ok, then go back to work, but make sure he is handling all his tasks himself. If he is in charge of dishes, and he doesn't do them, they pile up in the sink. If he is in charge of trash, and he doesn't take out the trash, then you have overflowing trash. He will either step up or realize that things are better with you at home.

This is the only way.

I agree this is a good approach but she should be prepared for DH to tell her (hopefully in a loving way) that some of the stuff she fills her days with just isn’t that important and that they can let it slide/relax some standards. Not dishes and garbage, obviously, but maybe (for example) he doesn’t care if they eat pasta and jarred spaghetti sauce with a bagged salad for dinner instead of a scratch-made meal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I was married to a doctor and stayed home. Worked out to my advantage when he traded me in for a new model. Alimony for life.

And now you don't have to wash his socks either. I divorced my wealthy husband and I will get his retirement since I was the beneficiary, not his current widow. A SAHM is often financially secure. Something many don't understand.

Your last sentence is false and a lie.

The majority of stay at home mothers are not financially secure. The majority of women who marry do not marry men who make six figures; let alone marry men who are wealthy.

Why are you lying?

[Anonymous]

How much do you have saved for college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Serious question: what do you do with the six+ Hours when your kids are out of the house? I can’t imagine having that much time for myself every day. I mean, any logistics/chores could all be done within three hours. And with no boss breathing down your neck. I can see how your husband could be resentful.

Not OP but it isn’t that much time. Not OP, but I workout at a gym daily and between going there, taking a shower, running some errands, cleaning up areas of the house (I do a daily pick up plus deep clean parts on a weekly schedule), yard work, I bake our bread daily and cook meals from scratch and that is very time consuming too. Six hours flies by.

I went back and reread this post and honestly think this person has to be trolling and mocking SAHMs. I honestly don't see any SAHM listing showering as a meaningful contribution, I just don't.

I agree. It seems like folks are just baiting each other with nonsense comments.

People are looking for reasons to belittle SAHMs. Is working out, running errands, cooking for your family, and cleaning your house, not appropriate things for a SAHP to do? Seems pretty normal and reasonable

[Anonymous]

IMO children need their parents home more as they get older, not less. There are far more reasons to stay home when the kids are in middle and high school. The activities, extra curricular activities (those that are sanctioned and those that are NOT), etc.
I have teenagers and have no intention of going back to work until my youngest is out of the house. I am sure my husband would LIKE for me to contribute finically but me being home allows him to do his job better — he doesn’t have to schedule meetings, work travel etc around the kids schedules.
Good luck! It can be very tricky if your husband is pressuring you to find a job when you don’t want to.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There was another thread on this where someone did the math on childcare hours of little kids vs school age kids, and there are only about 10 fewer hours of childcare with older kids. School aged kids sleep about 3 hours less a day than little kids (9-10 hours vs 12-13 hours), and so when kids go to school, you typically lose that time in the evening that you would normally have to yourself.

What are you talking about? My school age kids help with chores and entertain themselves before bed. I have more leisure time than ever. But we don’t sign up for travel sports so that helps.

Well, my kids go to bed at 9pm now, and they wake up at 7am, needing to be at school by 8am. They used to go to sleep at 7pm and wake up at 7am only needing to have their diaper changed.
So, I go to bed at 10pm and wake up at 6am so that I’m ready to go by 7. I used to have 3-4 hours every evening on my own, and now I really don’t.

It’s not that it’s hard, but I never really thought any of it was that hard. It’s still childcare, though.

Yup. I found the baby/toddler phase a lot less work in a lot of ways, because kids are pliable and still sleep a lot at that age. I feel like babies are time consuming but generally quite easy, get progressively more challenging until about age 7 or 8, and then typically get easier from there but it is highly kid-dependent. I certainly know plenty of kids where the really hard work of parenting didn't even start getting tough until they were in elementary school due to special academic needs that arose or social issues. So a 10 yo or 14 yo could, in my opinion, easily require more effort and energy than a baby, and potentially even more time. What parent does not sometimes think fondly back to that first year and three naps a day and a bedtime that consisted of nothing but a bottle and a diaper change? Babies aren't "easy" but they are exceedingly simple. School age kids are rarely simple.

But you have the whole day they are in school so BFD

You asked what people do for the six hours that the kids are in school. For about three hours/day, I do a lot of the stuff that I used to do while they were sleeping at night/nap time. The other three hours a day, I do some of the housework I did while they were awake, volunteer 1-2 days a week at a women’s shelter, and I call my mom and my grandma every day.


I’m not acting like it’s impressive. It just baffles me that you all are so confused.

What did you do with your free time before you had children?

[Anonymous]

RE: What do SAHMs do for 6 hours

Well, what do YOU do on the weekends? SAHMs do that. Don't you have any hobbies? Do you read, work out, listen to podcasts? Do you have pets? Do you ever clean your house? Do you ever volunteer somewhere?

Is it hard for you to fill six hours on a Saturday? It's really not that much time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should he work if you won’t?

OP here - my view is, why should I do everything I do now plus a job? I would be insane to agree to that. He’s not going to magically do half.

So have that discussion.

It is more reasonable than saying, “and I don’t want to.”

Write down everything you do, how many hours you will each work outside the home, and how the list will be divided (or outsourced).

Agree to revisit the list in a month, so you can each say how it is working .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:RE: What do SAHMs do for 6 hours

Well, what do YOU do on the weekends? SAHMs do that. Don't you have any hobbies? Do you read, work out, listen to podcasts? Do you have pets? Do you ever clean your house? Do you ever volunteer somewhere?

Is it hard for you to fill six hours on a Saturday? It's really not that much time.

Right, but most responsible, competent adults don’t expect to have a lifetime of weekends.