Reply to Making SAHM get job to pay for private school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I think its a great idea for your wife to go back to work.  Clearly you are not a particularly nice person and would probably leave her high and dry in a divorce and she needs a back up plan.

With that said, if she goes back to work, she will have little to no leave.  Are you prepared to do all the doctor/dental appointments? Are you prepared to take of for half days and  teacher work days?  Are you prepared to make child care arrangements for summers, spring break and winter break.  Are you prepared to take off at a moments notice to pick up  your sick chid from school?  Are you prepared to be at home 10-14 days if they get covid?  Are you prepared to be home early to drive you kids to every activity?  No including, the cooking, cleaning and other household duties.  And, how much do you think it would cost to hire a full-time nanny?

You make a fortune.  I don't get it.

If we made what you did there is no question our kids would be in private.  The publics are a hot mess right now.[/quote]

Does anybody read?? Ops kids are entering teenage years. What is wrong with y’all!![/quote]

Everything Pp wrote applies to teenagers. You think an 11 year old can drive themselves to activities, drive home when sick, and cook their own dinner?[/quote]

Wtf are you talking about??

[b]Another woman who just does not want to work. [/b]

Newsflash most families have two working parents who get all of those things you mentioned done for their children. The binary thinking from some of you is sad af.[/quote]

I am a woman who works. I even out-earn my H.

You're not understanding the point. The point is not that OP's wife shouldn't work. The point is that OP needs to consider how her working will impact his life, lifestyle. and career, and decide if those trade-offs are worth it to him. He will have to make sacrifices in his job, his personal life, hobbies, etc. He won't get to come home and unwind after work, he'll have to pitch in. He'll have to take days off work for sick kids. He'll have to make sure he leaves the office by a certain time to get his kids to their activities. He can say good-bye to any hobbies he has, won't be able to participate in them much anymore.

It's delusional for OP to think his wife will work AND continue all of the SAHM duties, and equally delusional to think children in middle school require little to no care. 
[/quote]

Fine, but then the kids can stay in public and she can continue not working. [/quote]

That's not how marriage works. OP very obviously views himself as the boss and his wife as a subordinate - his words are "making" her pay, "forcing" the issue, he wants to "sneer" at his wife. Marriage is supposed to be a partnership, where you listen to each other, value the things your spouse values, and work together to figure out a solution.

A healthy solution for OP would be:

- Having conversations with his wife about why private school is important to her with a very, very open mind. 
- Letting go of his obvious resentment for his wife and view her as an equal partner
- Letting go of his own baggage of outperforming the "Ivies" (who probably never even think about him and may very well have happier marriages and lives than he does). This seems to be the biggest issue, it's not that OP can't afford the school, it's that he has resentment towards people who went to better schools than him.
- Valuing his wife's opinion as equally as his own and acknowledging that she likely has good reasons for wanting their kids in private school.
- Working together to come up with a solution. This could look like many things. Maybe OP's wife goes back to work. Or maybe they figure out other ways they can budget for school, such as downsizing to a smaller home, downsizing their cars, taking fewer vacations, spending less on eating out, etc. On a salary of $500k, there's probably a way to find the $30k for school if you cut out some other things. Or, if OP was planning to retire at 50, realizing that 3 extra years of working until 53 is worth the trade-off. Or OP could look for opportunities to advance his career and make the extra money, if he's interested in developing his career more. [/quote]

It's clear this is a marriage with a lot of toxicity, but you are excusing the wife's disdainful treatment of OP entirely. She didn't bother to have a respectful conversation with him either. She didn't ask him how he would feel about working an extra three years, she just demanded it. It is remarkably toxic to demand someone else's work like that.

I don't disagree that marriage should not work that way, but you are constructing a narrative where OP is entirely at fault here, and that's clearly not the case. [/quote]

We have no idea what OP's wife has done or said, because she's not here telling her side.

Regardless, OP is the one here trying to find a solution. If he gets into a power struggle with her and tries to force his decision, it will not help their marriage and will very likely cause more damage.

If he just wants a magic phrase or action to force his wife into submission, well, he's gonna have a difficult marriage and life ahead of him.

If he wants to preserve his marriage and find a solution that works for both of them, then the advice still stands. An open-minded, non-judgmental conversation. [/quote]

We know that OPs wife has demanded that he work for three more years against his will. That's extremely toxic behavior, and I don't understand why you won't acknowledge that.[/quote]

Where are you getting that she demanded it? The only thing I can find referencing three years is "Can I afford it? For sure. Does it mean I will work at least 3 more years over this, for sure."

I don't see anything about wife demanding he work. [/quote]

She is insisting on a course of action that requires [I]at least [/I]three more years of his work. So, demanding he work. What else would you call it?

I do not understand why people are minimizing this. It is abjectly terrible behavior from the wife.[/quote]

It's because I do not think that asking for somebody that would require more work is "abjectly terrible behavior."

I am a SAHM to a high earner and I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of somebody in my position pressuring their husbands to work more for actual luxuries. I never wanted to do it. But then we wound up living in a 900 sq ft 2 bed one bath apartment for years when the kids were little. When the kids were 6 and 9 I decided that yes, I needed to pressure my husband to spend a lot of money that would require a lot of work so that I could have something I wanted. It wasn't comfortable asking for that, but we are in a house now and I have no regrets, and I certainly don't think it was abjectly terrible behavior. And looking back DH agrees that it was definitely the right decision.

Private school might be a luxury, but it might not. It really depends on the experience of the child. Maybe it's about wanting to impress friends, or it could be helicopter parenting, thinking your kids need the fanciest of everything fancy. But sometimes even at "good" schools, the experience is horrible for kids. If you read the special needs forum, you will see a lot of parents (all mothers) who basically had no other option to switch their kids to private. For them, it's not a luxury like a skiing holiday. Getting them private when they can, with sacrifice, afford it is basic good parenting and it's a shame that other kids who need it but are less fortunate can't get it too.

Basically we do not have enough information to know if OP's wife is entitled or is just a good parent who is in tune with her kids' needs.[/quote]

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