Reply to Do you secretly resent DH for not making enough money for you to be a SAHM?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"

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Option #1: He could have decided not to marry me, because he knew my desire to care for my own children should we have any before we married.  But it made him love me more, not scare him away.

Option #2:  He could have stayed home and I would have stayed in the job that was making more than his at the time (his salary has now far surpassed that)  I would have supported that if he had a strong desire to SAH, but I wanted to more than he did.

Option #3:  He could have balked post birth of first DC and said he's changed his mind about being the sole provider and we would have worked something else out. (There was a short period of time (a few months) when things were tough in the beginning of DH's career and I did contract work to help out - I didn't throw my hands up in the air and say "its all you, babe!"

Option #4:  He could have decided that he did not want to have two more DCs after the first if the pressure was too much.

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I am the PP with the resentful DH.

Honestly, you sound a lot like I did in explaining and defending the choice.  The major difference between us is that it seems that your DH was aware that you might decide to SAH before the children came along.

Allow me to give you some non-critical advice. You said some of the same things that I did and that raises flares for me.  Namely, that your personal desire to SAH trumped all (including, I assume, any concerns your DH had – expressed or unexpressed).  And that you made the decision to SAH and your DH supported your decision (i.e., went along with it).  So it seems as if you drove the decision and you were able to justify it to him.  Great.  And then you listed 4 instances where your DH could have chosen to go a different path.  All true, I guess.  But given that YOU made the SAH choice, did he really feel that he could have made those decisions without you being resentful?  Strictly rhetorical because I know my DH would not have squashed something that I felt so strongly about.

I do have a couple bits of advice that may help you avoid my situation.  Realize that all of this support you get from DH may change – especially if he gets wind that you may not be returning to work when all of the kids hit school-age. Start managing his expectations now!  Also, keep tabs on his health and stress levels.  I do not know about your DH, but my DH would never come out and say that he felt the pressure.  Thus, I assumed that everything was going fine. Finally and most importantly (this was my biggest mistake), understand that every choice has consequences.  You made the choice to SAH and that is your right – heck, I made the same choice.  What I did not realize was that my choice was not made in a vacuum.  My choice had a profound impact on my DH and it altered his ability to be focused as a husband and a father.  He was more focused on “providing” for the kids and not as much on being a “father” to them.  As a result, our priorities became mis-aligned and we had some serious problems - we were separated for 6 months and the SAH issue was a major contributing factor.   We are doing much better but it took counseling and sacrifice on both our parts.

GL and I am glad that it is working well for you.  
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