1. How to Build Positivity in Married Life? : Click Here
    Dismiss Notice

Husband Asking To Go Back To Work. How To Handle This ?

Discussion in 'Married Life' started by EagerForInfo, Oct 16, 2017.

  1. Brevity

    Brevity Gold IL'ite

    Messages:
    325
    Likes Received:
    587
    Trophy Points:
    173
    Gender:
    Female
    Do you think that your husband's salary is enough to support necessities of your in-laws and your family? If not you need to help out.
    If you are going to support their luxuries then you need to save most of your money.

    If you are planning to divorce your h based on this then you may need to start working anyway.

    Better to have an open discussion about the need and what's better for your kids objectively without dragging in-laws into this. Think of their monetary requirement as monetary obligation number 'n'.

    Also does he help around the house, kids, do chores etc at least when you are working. If he is supportive of you working in all aspects then you need to consider this positively.
     
  2. DDream

    DDream Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    1,917
    Likes Received:
    3,997
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    In US, it is not that easy to lead a comfortable life with only one income. If kids start school you need more money. It also depends on where you are living now. I think you should think about it very well.

    1) How much you can earn ? Will that help?
    2) What you do with salary- Are you going to create your own account and share money to joint account. What percentage you are going to spend and save. Have your own savings account (very important point)
    3) What about kids. What is the additional expenditure if you seek help of daycare ( in big cities it is very expensive (> $1500 per month for one kid). Wife staying in home and taking care of kids may be a better option, So it depends on where you are living now. Also depends on your salary).
    4) How will you manage the house, cleaning and other house hold jobs. Is he going to help you.
    5) If you are uncomfortable sharing any money with PILs or other families, be very clear about. Stick to your decision. You can tell him that you are not going to contribute anything to his personal expenditure like spending for his parents, which he has to do.

    OP , I suggest you to have a nice discussion with your dh to have a better idea. Take it in a positive spirit and finalize your decision after having a clear idea.

    I think it is better to be financially independent to gain more confidence in your life. That will give more freedom in many ways. Think about it.
     
  3. BhumiBabe

    BhumiBabe Platinum IL'ite

    Messages:
    1,025
    Likes Received:
    2,216
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    While being forced to work seems like an awful thing, it will only help you in the long run. I was hesitant to start working because I too wanted to spend time with my son, and knew that I would struggle balancing work and home. At 18 months, I enrolled him in a part-time daycare/early preschool, so I would have time to apply for jobs (but you can start before that). Now, my son is comfortable with the daycare staff and I actually have more energy to spend quality time with him (sort of, there are other circumstances that are brewing in my area).

    The biggest strength is the income. It really helped to have money to spend on myself and my son, instead of begging for each purchase. Make sure that you have a separate bank account and control the amount of money that flows into the family account. This way, your husband can't take advantage of you. Basically, if you stay knowledgeable in the finances, your husband needs to start explaining to you, why he's sending money to his parents for luxuries.

    I don't know why there are so many men who see their wives in dollar signs, and not as emotional investments who will help them raise a family. A single-income household is financially tough, but definitely do-able when both husband and wife are working together. In your case, your husband needs a reality check and understand how much extra work he will have to do, if you get a job. These men are generally not ready for the extra burden. But that doesn't mean that you should not go to work, please do.
     
  4. ZenSojourner

    ZenSojourner Silver IL'ite

    Messages:
    135
    Likes Received:
    153
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Gender:
    Female
    OK as far as all the people saying you should work to help your husband support his parent's lavish ways, NONSENSE.

    It would be different if he weren't sending them money and still was struggling with family finances.

    In the first place, what kind of job can you get here anyway? Unless you have some expertise in a technical field or medical profession it is unlikely you will earn that much money anyway. ESPECIALLY when you figure in child care. That may be cheap in India, but it is very EXPENSIVE here. It is liable to eat up a big part of your check anyway - as it certainly does not sound as if your husband is going to be interested in splitting THAT bill. And if you can make good money - who needs him?

    In the second place, as far as "eating off him" - since when in an Indian marriage is that considered unusual?

    My ex did the same thing to me. My salary bought his parents house. His parents though were not greed monsters like your in-laws, they did need some help and I didn't object to that - but in the end it came totally out of MY salary and that was not fair, especially since he berated me constantly for not being able to "manage my money". Well maybe he was right - I should have managed to keep more of it and send less to India. Turns out more than half my salary was sent to India to buy his parents a house. After we got divorced it just seemed like I was suddenly RICH - I didn't do the math until then to see just where all my money had gone, converted to lakhs and lakhs of rupees, LOL!

    He also was cheap with me, not allowing me to spend my own money on anything as simple as a watch or a winter coat. His idea of a "gift" was a vacuum cleaner, eg something to do work. (And it wasn't even a GOOD vacuum!)

    At one point I was laid off work for awhile and he constantly berated me for being useless. He said since I brought him no dowry (so-called "love" match) that I was only any good while I was working, so when I was not working, I was no good. (BTW I DID bring him green card/citizenship so not so useless after all, eh?)

    Then we had a child, and things got even worse, because now not only was I expected to work and send money to his parents, but also to have 100% of child care at home and to pay 100% of day care expenses, while kicking in 50% of house payment and down payment and all utilities, and buying 100% of the food (because he never went to the grocery and never ponied up any grocery money). Plus 100% of kid's clothing, toys, etc.

    I couldn't even go to the bathroom alone according to him. My son would stand outside the door and cry for me and he wouldn't pick him up and comfort him for TWO MINUTES so I could use the toilet. If the baby cried in the middle of the night, promises to split that equally went OUT the window. Only I was supposed to get up and take care of him because hubby had to "go to work in the morning". Well so did I - and earlier, too, because I had to drop the boy off at day care on the way.

    One day he was calling me names again and telling me how useless I was and I was in tears. My son, who was 22 months old at the time, came to the top of the stairs and yelled down at his dad, while shaking his finger, "YOU SHUT UP! You don't talk to my mommy that way!"

    My ex looked at him with his mouth hanging open, then turned to me and said, "You need to control YOUR son".

    I said, "He's your son too, and I'm not about to "control" him because he is RIGHT. You DON'T talk to me that way."

    I got a divorce shortly thereafter. When I finally made him go to marital counseling, he admitted to the counselor all sorts of things he had done to control me and make me do what he wanted, and the solution to our "marital" problems was for me to just go back to being cowed and depressed all the time. He didn't see anything wrong with that at all. So DIVORCE.

    And I have NEVER regretted it. In fact my son will be 33 soon, and he regularly to this day says that he does NOT understand how we ever got married because we are two ENTIRELY different people. His dad STILL has no interpersonal skills to speak of outside of work. My son got furious with him at his wedding because his dad stood up and took credit for a bunch of things that *I* actually did, LOL!

    I can't say for your situation what to do. I don't know how well you can support yourself or if you can or even want to go back to India and how/whether you can support yourself and your kids there.

    But I can tell you that your husband is being supremely unfair to you right now, and that going back to work is not going to change that situation at all - because your money is just going to go to the black hole that is your in-laws. It will never be enough.

    He may be suffering to, wanting to live up to his parents' expectations and not being able to see how unreasonable they are really being. But the answer is NOT to take it out on you.

    The problem is not you and whether or not you are making money. The problem is the pressure his family is putting on him, and his inability or unwillingness to put his foot down and close the American branch of the family bank. If he is not able or willing to address THAT issue, things will not improve for you no matter whether or not you go back to work.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2017
  5. DDream

    DDream Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    1,917
    Likes Received:
    3,997
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    You are a strong women. Sorry if I am diverting from OP's post. Can you share , how you survived in US with 22 month old son to now. How was your journey? Did you stay in US or went back to India. How did you manage everything alone. Thanks
     
  6. ZenSojourner

    ZenSojourner Silver IL'ite

    Messages:
    135
    Likes Received:
    153
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Gender:
    Female
    I don't want to go into too many details, but basically I had a lot of advantages many women of my generation did not have, even in this country, let alone in India. Such as a non-jerk dad who thought his daughter could and should do anything a boy could do. Sort of counter-balanced by my mother who started working on my marriage about as soon as I could talk. Actually she got mad at my dad's attitude and my own tendencies and soon started telling me things like "it's a good thing you are smart because you are not pretty and no man will ever want to marry you so you had better be able to support yourself". Which sort of back-handedly actually encouraged me in what she was trying to discourage, LOL!

    My dad was born in 1919 so he was particularly non-misogynistic for ANYBODY born in that era, in any country.

    But hopefully in this day and age most women are AT LEAST that "liberated", as I was 50+ years ago. Its a wonder I wasn't burned for a witch, even in America, in the 60s/70s, with my attitude, LOL!

    Heck, you know how nosy the questions are from immigration when you are a citizen and your spouse is applying for green card (or at least they used to be, especially for non-Europeans, and I bet they will be again if that ever changed, given the idiot bigot in the White House these days)? You know, asking all sorts of questions even up to detailed sex life? The first time the interviewer even TRIED to go there I gave him a BLISTERING speech about women's lib. Because I was ALL ABOUT the women's lib! Thank you, Daddy, for not raising me to be a typical girl! Anyway it seems I scared him so bad he entirely dropped that line of questioning. He still asked such questions of my ex, and he answered them - and clearly by that time it was just to be obnoxious because since I REFUSED to go there he couldn't compare the answers, which was supposedly the whole reason for asking them at all. Anyway. I've always been pretty independent.

    Because of that, and because I had a high-paying tech job, AND because my dad didn't try to make me fit cultural norms (so he didn't make divorce an issue at all, and my mom, after predictably blowing her top, just looked at it as another chance to marry me off to a doctor, which DID NOT HAPPEN EITHER) I really had no problems with supporting myself and my son.

    Plus, since my ex worked for federal government, even back then (before it became the norm for pretty much everybody) his salary would have been GARNISHED by the feds if he hadn't paid his child support - so he paid it, regularly and on time, to avoid the embarrassment - because he KNEW I would get that done if he slacked off, LOL!

    So no problems for me, really. I grew up here, in the 60s so during a particularly "revolutionary" and liberal time even for the US. My dad was supportive, my mother's attitude didn't matter, and my siblings I don't have contact with anyway because they're all nuts (thanks to my mom). Ex's family was in India so no worries there, I had no contact with them anyway. So my situation, totally out of the norm.

    Which is why I don't feel I can tell the OP what to do, much, because I don't know how financially stable she could be on her own or whether or not she could rely on any support at all from her own family, or whether or not it would bother her to have to go her own way without family support if necessary (at least for awhile).

    I mean, I was upset having to divorce, and I never remarried - not interested any more, really. I went into marriage assuming it would be "forever" and then it wasn't. I was fine on my own, thanks to my mother's constant harping on my unmarriageability I had grown up assuming I would be on my own anyway. So a 10 year interlude of marriage seemed more out of the norm to me than being single and self-supporting, LOL! Way to go mom! Like I said, the exact opposite of her intended effect!
     
    zeppelingirl likes this.
  7. DDream

    DDream Finest Post Winner

    Messages:
    1,917
    Likes Received:
    3,997
    Trophy Points:
    285
    Gender:
    Female
    Thanks for sharing your story. Yeah, your parents were here to support. That is a great difference. I asked this question because even now many women find it difficult to take a decision like this, in your case it was almost 30 y back. Also I was curious to know, how you and kid alone managed everything in a foreign coutry. Best wishes.
     
  8. ZenSojourner

    ZenSojourner Silver IL'ite

    Messages:
    135
    Likes Received:
    153
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Gender:
    Female
    Actually just my dad. The entire rest of my family - well, to say we're "estranged" is putting it mildly.

    As for my son - he was born here. *I* was born here. So - not really a foreign country, either.

    But I hope the OP can stand on her own two feet and get out of her situation. I encourage her to do so. I sincerely hope she has the education to be able to go out on her own. Believe me, having been in an abusive marriage to an Indian man, I can tell you first hand that it will be better for your kids to get them away from the abuse. That story about my son shaking his finger at his dad? That may sound funny and inspiring - and it is - but the flip side to that coin was that my son was having NIGHTMARES almost every night, but was too young to tell me why.

    After that incident it was obvious - he was having nightmares because daddy was mean and abusive to mommy and he was, at not even 2 years old, trying to protect mommy from daddy.

    Once I realized that, all doubts dropped away. I couldn't move to save myself, I was so beaten down and depressed, but I could CERTAINLY move to save my child!

    So back to the OP - do what you need to do to protect your children. And that is NOT staying in an abusive marriage so they can be traumatized and damaged by watching their father abuse their mother. And verbal and emotional abuse is just as bad as taking a physical beating - sometimes worse.
     
  9. EagerForInfo

    EagerForInfo Gold IL'ite

    Messages:
    979
    Likes Received:
    124
    Trophy Points:
    108
    Gender:
    Female
    What u said is true. But ... he has not bought anything for the baby. He just sent me a pic of his parents buying a car, brother buying a scooter and a house all of which are apparently "gifts " from him. He has not told me about the house and scooter but I accidentally saw messages in his phone that he is the one paying for them. How did he get money for this while he is taunting his wife who just had a c section about staying at home ??!!
     
  10. EagerForInfo

    EagerForInfo Gold IL'ite

    Messages:
    979
    Likes Received:
    124
    Trophy Points:
    108
    Gender:
    Female
    I did work before. When my child was sick for 2 Weeks he did not take even ONE DAY OFF.
     

Share This Page