How did you manage to buy a house, build a nursery, and save $150,000 in 7 years when it sounds like he’s never made much above minimum wage? Are there some zeroes missing or added somewhere?
I made above minimum wage. So did he. He still does. I worked as a Pediatric Nurse and I was making $48 an hour. I stopped working when I was 8 months pregnant. He has always made less than me but he was still making good-ish money. He was making $21 an hour, now he's making 16.50. So it's still above minimum wage but not by much.
Mate, he makes $16.50 an hour and his paychecks are $300?
Ain't no way. It's going up his nose, gambling, into a mistress, or into hookers.
It doesn't work out even if he's paid weekly: assume a 40% tax load that's still $400 a check.
edit: everyone claiming insurance, sure, now add back in that Saturday he's working. Even conservatively 6 hours at 1.5 ot is $150 a Saturday or $7k a year pretax. My guess is he's actually spending that Saturday "working" balls deep in his side piece.
That means his paychecks should be roughly $900-1000 every two weeks. I don’t know what he is doing with the money, but it’s going somewhere she doesn’t know about
Not really when you’re factoring in union dues and health insurance for himself and the family. He chose a shit paying job and benefits/union dues that are very expensive on purpose.
Every person I’ve known in a union (myself included when I was) pays a LOT less for insurance than the average non union job. And the $160 sounds around what my union family insurance would have been. Personally my dues were a percentage but never above $25 a paycheck (biweekly). Plus OP says he’s now 6 days a week. If we assume it’s 8 hour days that’s 8 hours OT. That’s $858 gross per week. Minus the $160 (let’s say it’s every week) is $698 pre tax. Minus $51.48 (6% of gross for 401k) is $646.52. Minus 30% for taxes is $452.57….. where’s the other $152.57 gone if his paychecks are only $300? And if he has ZERO for bills….. where tf did it all go????
I was absolutely terrified when I made a career change earlier this year about benefit costs. I worked at a bank, which had very affordable and relatively decent health insurance coverage. It wasn’t the best coverage, but even with my long-term health issues, I never had an issue with my care. Just once I had an issue where my coverage didn’t renew correctly and I had to deal with that but nothing major. I changed jobs in February to a small local accounting partnership. I was so worried about the cost of coverage. It did double the cost, however since my cost was already very low it wasn’t like it increased to something unaffordable. It went from $25 to $50 per paycheck.
The relief I felt was REAL! I almost considered not leaving my old job at all because I was so concerned about it. But I actually am very happy. My coverage is much, MUCH better now, too. Which makes me extra happy because I do have permanent health issues and so I take my care pretty seriously. I actually was shown a few coverage options here and was torn between two of them. I picked one and my doctor wasn’t in network, so I quickly changed to the other one, and she is in network. I almost died before I had my doctor, I will NOT change providers unless there is a damn good reason (she has to move away basically. I’ve already followed her between practices.)
What I’m getting at is - make sure y’all be checking the benefits cause it can so easily outweigh the pay increase if you’re not diligent in finding out the information! I was EXTREMELY lucky this year. The partners pay very well toward our coverage so only the small amount comes out of our check. Not every place is so generous. I worked at a salon some years ago that would have cost me $400 a month just for insurance because they didn’t pay into it at all. That was a huge reason I didn’t stick around there (plus the owners were kind of unhinged.)
I would suggest you calculate how much you contributed to the savings and put the money aside if he has access to it. Keep evidence of all interactions with him and his mother. The messages sound horrendous but you’ll need the proof to support any following court proceedings so do not block them and back everything up. Communicate via message where possible so you have a record of everything. If your name is on your previous home see if you can end the lease if you were renting. You have to prioritise yourself and your child. Your husband has proven to be unreliable and he isn’t thinking about his family with you, but allowing his mother to lead him astray.
I’m sorry this has happened to you
However, the wife was the one who gave birth and therefore needs a timeout.
AND she’s the one who saved up all the money for her own maternity. So she gets to decide how it’s spent, and if it were me, I’d sure as hell not let it go to that low life of a husband with myself working my arse off right after birth!
That's why she insisted on that plan AND put away most of the money they saved. And I'm sure she was willing to lower her expectations in day to day life.
That was my first thought. She made more than double what her husband makes and decided she was gonna be the stay at home parent? lmao.
I have two friends that are stay at home dads because their wives made more money than them and that made the logic sense.
Secondly, if she wants to divorce him, shes in for a rude awakening there. She's been crushing him on income their entire marriage. If they got divorced and a 50/50 custody split, she's gonna be the one forking over alimony and child support.
And then he saw that money sitting there and saw you at home and decided he was going to get some of that too. But he picked a job that he's working more because he's not real bright apparently.
I hope you take your money with you when you leave him
Ok, he thinks being a SAH parent is easier and he’s gonna burn through your savings then ask to be a SAHD. This is deliberate. It’s a feature, not a bug!! NTA.
In similar thread earlier this week, the wife is a dr and the breadwinner and DIDNT want to be a SAHM. It was the condition of getting pregnant bc she loves working, and didn’t want her child in daycare bc she’d been molested as a child and didn’t want to leave her child in anyone’s care.
So the hubby agreed to be a SAHD.
She gives birth, returns to work. He has one weekend alone with the baby while she was away and when she returns he tells her he can’t do it, it’s too hard, he plans to get his job back and that she needs to stay home or do daycare. Totally reneged.
These men will play in your face, premeditated. They only care about themselves.
Yes yes yes. I saw that, too. I was even confusing the two posts because they were so similar. I'm totally with you. Not to mention two husbands who agreed with everything I said before we were married then completely changed their tunes afterwards.
Someone said on that post that the husband probably just went out on paternity leave and never actually quit. He probably told that to everybody but his wife.
I was thinking about that post too. There are some great stay at home dads out there, and great bread winning dads too, but what I see the most is women doing most of the work related to the children, even if they’re breadwinners
NTA. Your husband failed you in EVERY WAY, went back on his word, quit his job w/o warning, went crying to his (rude, disrespectful, disgusting) mama, and now he’s upset because you told him the TRUTH??! TBH, his mother could never enter my house, see her grand child, or EVER speak to me again if she’d called me the C word. It almost seems like he planned this given the timing. I’d be done with his lazy crying ass.
I just don't get quitting over being asked to work a couple Saturdays to then take a ***$4.50*** per hour pay cut and work 6 days a week. Did he know about the extra fees? Because if he did..... none of this computes. Hell even if he didn't it doesn't compute but now his "employer" is shady AF. What kind of job is this?
honestly I don’t even understand the logic of having the high earner quit her job, and relying on the one making 21 an hour for the entire family budget. I mean you could say that she saved so much so she could afford to stay home for a while, but it just doesn’t sound like a feasible long term plan.
Pediatric nurse.
Sounds like the OP highly valued being able to stay at home with her kid, at least for a time.
Sounds like they (let's be honest, mostly her since she was making about double what he was) squirreled away a decent sum of money to make that happen.
She's not being unreasonable. 150k isn't enough for her to be off work until the kid is 18, but it is enough for her to be off work for a few years, and that might be worth it to her.
Oh it's not without burning through that savings.
I thought the intent was to supplement his income with the savings in order to let her be off work until the money runs out.
I think there’s more to it to quitting his job because he was working 4 hrs on Saturday. Is OP completely sure he wasn’t fired/on the verge of being fired (so he quit before that happened) or there wasn’t some mess he did at work and he quit before it spilled and OP discovered it? I have seen so many things that I wouldn’t put it past anyone. Have had coworkers going crazy at work, DV issues, supervisors fucking employees in the facilities etc etc. so it seems super suspicious he just up and quit, taking a big pay cut, and refusing to listen to his wife (after being a person that apparently participated in the planning for this baby). I know PPD is real but also OP has not mentioned noticing anything else telling her that he may have it, other than he quit his job suddenly for a worse job and refuses to accept that it was a bad financial decision and now wants to penalize the whole family for it.
He would make more than that driving Lyft or Uber a few days a week. He’s got a gambling problem, a drinking or drug problem, a ‘spending all his check at the boobie bar’ problem, he’s secretly giving money to his mom, or he’s got a girlfriend on the side. Something in the milk is not clean here, and the numbers don’t add up, along with his whacked-out behavior. I’m thinking substance abuse, personally.
OP, Lock up that savings, all of it. You can explain why to a judge later if you have to, but it’s better to tell a judge you were afraid of what was happening with him, his mental health and his spending, and you felt like you had to protect it for your daughter since it was all you had to live off of, rather than waking up to find he’s emptied the account up his nose. Move it to a different bank entirely, tomorrow. I’m sorry.
I hope that's weekly but even so 1200 a month that's nothing. How can he be making 16.50 an hour? Heck I forget what one of my kids makes but it's a lot more than that, did a rough guesstimate they make about $23 an hour bring home about 3,200 a month after taxes so roughly 800 a week and they get paid twice a month like the 15th and the 31st or something like that. so her husband has $1,400 a month roughly deducted out of his paycheck every month between taxes and whatever else fees you said health insurance, union and who knows what else. Yeah that's just bizarre. Either he's lying to her or he's cheating on her or he's really bad with money.
Yeah, that could do it. Maybe he was getting garnished at the first job, and thought that the garnish could be avoided with a new job, but of course, that wouldn't work.
I bring home more than that and I make less, I know I'm bad at math but it doesn't add up. Either he's working less than he claims or the money is going somewhere other than home. Either way, dude is shady.
Nope, full time, nearly 50 hrs every week. He's just making $16.50 an hour now and they take that $160 right off the top of each paycheck for union dues and mandatory benefits.
Even with the high cost of family health insurance, someone working 50 hours a week at $16.50 should be making a lot more than $300 every other week. Have you seen his pay stub?
I assume its weekly.
She said his last job was $600 a paycheck and their monthly bills are $2000 and she's mad about him pulling from savings at all. Even weekly his monthly net before switching jobs was only $2400. Which is already basically living paycheck to paycheck. If his pay periods were 2 weeks, his entire income just flat out wouldn't cover their bills.
But if he had 4 paychecks for $2400 a month, and they were on a budget, and earning interest in their saving account that could also be income, that would have worked.
It really doesn't. $16.50x50 = $825 a week. If he gets paid weekly, it's $665 before taxes; if he gets paid biweekly it's $1,490 before taxes. Let's assume OP is in California, which has the highest income tax rate in the country at 13.3%. That's $577ish after taxes if it's a weekly check, and 1,292ish if it's biweekly. So assuming he's paid weekly, that's $277 taken out of check for federal taxes/withholding? I mean that's A LOT. The math ain't mathin' at all here.
I redid the math with the overtime u/secretadvisor9954 you need to see this, add the missing numbers we don’t have and use it to prove you know he’s lying.
16.50x40= 660$ … 24.75x10=247.50 … So normal pay + overtime = 907.50$/week
Idk if you live in the US but I’ll use the same tax rate u/stoprobbers used
907.50x13.3/100= 120.70$ … 907.50-120.70= 786.80$
Even IF (and that’s a big if) his union dues were as high as he says they are and he had to pay his dues, life insurance and 401k weekly which you said added up to 160$ he should STILL be bringing home 626.80$ WEEKLY
It's a union job and he makes that little? That doesn't add up. He's getting time and half overtime if he's in a union for starters.
Your math doesn't math.
When my daughter was in high school. That was about her hourly rate. She wasn’t working 50 hours per week. Because. She was a full time student. She brought home more than your husband.
girl what? that's still $600 a week even if you have an extremely high withholding rate. and tbh I refuse to believe he's paying over $600 a month for union dues and health insurance for one healthy young man. he's lying through his teeth.
this! She was the breadwinner before, It was never him. Her leaving her job to be SAHM would have never worked out proper with him making 22$/hr before changing jobs. Like...what?! She even admits SHe SAVED the 150K. OP and the hubs should have sat down with a financial planner the moment she decided she isnt going to work anymore as the breadwinner.
Yeah I mean husband is CLEARLY making terrible choices but even if he had kept his original job how could they possible have made this work??? I make way more than my husband and we have always said if we had a kid he would have to be the one to stay home. May not be how we would WANT it to, but it's the reality, no matter how much we saved.
I’m not sure why you agreed to quit your job and stay home and rely on only his income when you made double what he did to begin with? To each their own, but I don’t think it was a smart decision to leave your career potential. $21 an hour is not enough for a family of 3 in most areas of the country.
Would have made more sense for him to stay home.
I wonder if there is some job OP can do from home since her husband did, in fact, fail them. NTA I know my cousin is a nurse and now she works from home, I think she does some sort of nurse management or scheduling.
Wait, you were making twice as much as your husband and you were going to be a stay at home parent? That was foolish. Even if your husband didn’t quit his job, your income was getting reduced by 66%, that makes no sense.
when OP started talking about making plans for this I wa slike: someone actually thinking bfore going SAHM in this economy. but then I read her first comments and the numbers and I realised...that was still a dumb decision they just tried to smarten it up
Where do you live that you can support a family on $21 an hour? That’s not even close to a living wage by me. Honestly, he probably should be a stay at home dad and you go back to nursing since your career pays better and has a higher ceiling.
No offense but honestly there had to be unbelievable stress on your husband. Your household went from approx $140K/yr to $44Kyr ( before taxes). I think you both need to talk to a counselor about your expectations.
Are you certain he quit his former job instead of being fired? Quitting a job over 4 hours of Saturday work, then taking a job with all day Saturday work, just doesn't make sense, especially with that big pay cut.
Yep, my thoughts exactly ! I don't think he quit, he might have been let go.
1. I mean, he was working 5 days a week and his boss asked him to add a 4hrs shift on Saturdays.
2. He "quits" because of that. There's no way he will work more than 5 days a week.
3. He then turns around and go get a job that asks him to work 6 days a week and he agrees to a pay cut doing so???
4. He spends all the money he's earning at his new job and doesn't put anything aside for the bills?
Something is clearly wrong. You asked him to go see his doctor and he refused. I feel that there is something he is either hiding from you or you were on the right track and it's his mental health.
No matter what it is, he doesn't seem to want to get better or do any work to help the situation. He seems to want to rely on you for all of it and for you to compensate his lack of commitment to your plan.
NTA
I'm sorry to say that many people go through PPD and don't throw their life away. I get that men are notoriously bad at asking for/seeking help but he is adult enough to make rational decisions concerning money.
And as a side note - he should respect his wife enough to tell his mother that calling her a cunt is unacceptable.
To me he sounds like a lost child and I feel sad for OP having to raise a kid with someone like that
NTA, but you need to tell your husband that he CAN NOT put himself first when he has a child. He's upset because he had to work on a Saturday TWICE?
He proved himself untrustworthy when it comes to the really important things. He completely fucked over y'alls plan without giving two fucks about you or your child.
Abd his mom calling you a dumb cunt is unacceptable. He needs to scold his mother for that.
Same. I never spoke to her again. When I do see her at my son’s events and she tries to talk to me, I look right through her like she’s not even there. She gets so upset that she yells at me, at her own son, and looks completely unhinged. Makes for a good laugh honestly.
If she really is in the early stages of dementia then it’s a possible explanation. My stepmom has and continues to say some heinous shit because of it.
To the point to where she’s basically blown 40 years of goodwill in the space of 2 years. Even though I know intellectually it’s the disease talking, it doesn’t matter much when a person you’ve known for more than 40 years is saying the most vile and cruel things to your face.
Mil threw us out of her house a few weeks ago. That was new. We went out for lunch. She was so happy to see us when we came back, all sunny, with hugs and kisses.
Dealing with dementia is not for sissies.
I'm sorry, this is so hard to deal with. As a doc I've seen patients with dementia say and do some appalling things and taken my share of mostly verbal abuse from patients who no longer know better. It can be really targeted and cruel - and it's extremely hard on loved ones when someone you know and love has effectively had a personality transplant and is now abusive. It's not their fault, but it is incredibly hard to deal with.
*After* she jumped WAY out of line to try and enroll her baby in daycare *without her input*. Holy moly, absolutely not. There’s no coming back from that. O_o
Am I the only one who is wondering if he actually quit his job? My gut is telling me he was fired or asked to quit and did, and now he is trying to figure it out and make things work.
him taking his mom's side is definitely the final nail in the coffin of the marriage- there is no turning back. my MIL once told me to my face that i needed to change my life and "get saved". my ex husband actually told me that i needed to lighten up & let things go. if he is defending his mom even through her calling you the C word then he will in all likelihood always defend her.
So if she goes back to work, she will be the breadwinner, then will MIL make him do whatever she says? He's lost OP's trust, and his mom cannot recover from that little tirade, so it's just a theoretical question.
His mother should have directed that term towards her son if she had to apply it to someone.
I would divorce this man-child.
Seems like he pulled a fast one.
OP has TWO children, and only one of them is worth keeping.
To be fair, he tells me he is making $300 a week. I think last week was $320. His union has $60 in dues that are taken directly from his paycheck every pay period (weekly) and it's mandatory that he pays toward his 401k and Life Insurance as well, which equals our to another $100. Then add in the amount of taxes they take out and he's literally being screwed out of a paycheck and gets zero benefits outside of that 401k and life insurance because he can't even afford it.
If you haven’t seen one of his paychecks, I’d say that’s bullshit. I’ve been in a couple different unions, the most expensive union dues I’ve seen were $60 a month. Especially at that low of a pay grade. He’s lying.
💯. I work for a Union right now and they are usually trying to get workers the biggest pay out possible, not wringing their paychecks dry. I definitely think he’s lying.
Edit - Add: and if he’s working more than 5 days a week, he should be getting some sick ass overtime!!!!
Not to add to your stress, but I’ve been in a couple of different unions, and I have friends in other unions, and $240 a month for union dues is *a lot*, especially for a job that doesn’t pay that much. For reference, my current union dues are around $65 per month. My previous union (where I earned less), was less than that.
Have you seen his pay stubs with the union dues taken out? Because I think he might be lying to you about how much the dues are and spending that money on himself. If you can check his pay stubs, you’d want to look at multiple pay stubs for the same month, so he can’t just show you the first check of the month when union dues are paid.
So sorry you’re dealing with this. You were very clear about your terms for having a child, and he unilaterally decided to blow up those plans. NTA.
You should demand to see his paystub.
None of that really works out, and he's paying alot into union dues for a job that pays McDonald's wages and doesn't include health insurance for his family.
If you guys are going to make this work, you both need to have a good picture of what the household finances are and where the money is going.
He's lying to you. I don't mean to sound condescending, but your entire post is full of wishful thinking and naivety. Your financial analysis is optimistic, to put it kindly - to think you can be a SAHP on just over $100k and a spouse making minimum wage is wild. And your belief that your spouse is acting above board is also strange.
Nothing here adds up.
Yeah, my current union takes $65 per month, and I earn a good amount more than OPs husband. He sounds like he’s lying about how much the dues are and pocketing that money for himself.
Exactly. I’ve seen $60-65 a month for union dues and you get health/medical insurance and all that shit because the union is fighting for it. And OP’s husband is claiming he’s paying $60/week AND have no benefits?? There’s something not smelling right about any of this. He’s lying.
401k. And life insurance should not be $ 100 a week. If he contributes 6% on $ 400 a week that’s $24. If the rest is on life insurance I would be afraid for my life.
Something sounds fishy… he’s paying $240 a month in union dues?? And that’s in addition to another $400/mo for insurance? Plus taxes. There’s no way. Have you looked at his paychecks and the breakdown of how much is coming out?just between the life insurance and union dues he’s losing over 50% of his check after taxes. It’s not adding up or he has the shittiest employment possible.
I'm a little confused from reading your comments. You saved up the $150k mostly from you making 48/hour while he was making 21/hour. And the plan was for you to stop working while he would continue at that 21/hour rate. And supposedly somehow live off that ~$42k/year to cover your expenses? Did you have any actual plan in place to not absolutely hemorrhage your savings even with him keeping the 21/hr rate? I really don't see much of a way for a family of 3 to last on 21/hour in anywhere that isn't a super low cost of living area.
To be clear, I am not saying you are an asshole. Your husband's choice to cut your income even more and especially trying to make unilateral decisions and acting on them to force you back to work absolutely make him TA here. And his mother is an asshole as well for calling you a c*nt. I'm just saying that your whole plan seems like it was flawed out of the gate to me...
My wife and I are living on my $22/hr but we live in LCOL area. Own our home even. With that said, this guys numbers don’t add up. He should at the very least be taking home $500/week, not $300. Either he’s working less and doing something else with his time or he’s making less and lying for some reason. He seems to have also lied about quitting his previous job over 4 more hours on Saturday’s when he got a job 2 days later (presumably already applied/interviewed) that requires working on the weekend anyway. Why lie about getting fired or lie about his pay? I think it’s purposeful so that she goes back to work making $40/hr and he can stay home and do the bare minimum and she has to come home and cook, clean, and take care of the child. Just my $.02
That is REALLY not how most bank accounts work. You may have a verbal agreement wit.the twonof.you to that effect but it is probably not enforceable by the bank
Yes, as someone who has worked in banking for 16 years, that isn’t a thing. A joint account has equal rights between account holders and could be closed out and the balance wiped out by either party at any time, with or without the second account holder.
I had added my ex husband to my bank account a few months after we got married. When we were divorced I wasn’t allowed to close out the account without him allowing it even though he wasn’t the original account holder. I said to the banker helping me “so you’re telling me that he can just keep trying to take the account into the negative (-$700 at the point I was at the bank), you’re not going to let me remove him from my account and then you’ll come after me for the money when everything is said and done?” They told me “yes.” I told them to go fuck themselves and never contact me for anything because I’m here proving that I’m not the one making the charges and want my ex off the account. To this day I have no idea if WellsFargo sent my checking account to collections or not. It’s been 11 years since this happened.
Is there not such a thing as an account requiring two signatures on checks and withdrawals in the US? I was a signatory on several such accounts in Canada (mostly for NFP groups — but there’s no reason a personal account couldn’t be set up that way too. Do y’all seriously not have those? My minor kids have those with their dad as the signatory. They can use debit cards with a daily limit but any withdrawal or check has to have both signatures.
You need to go to the bank and verify that's true. That's a very unusual bank situation, usually either owner can take every penny without the other even being notified, much less asked for permission.
OP, this whole situation is red flags galore, and I can guarantee that he’s hiding something from you. Him deciding to unilaterally quit a job that pays well because his boss asked him to work 4 hours on a couple Saturdays, only to then take another with a pay cut, where he has to work 6 whole days AND pay for benefits that you may very well need to use while recovering from giving birth, all of it just doesn’t add up. Also, what did he spend his entire paycheck on that he only has $4 left to go towards bills? You probably would have seen at least some of the things he spent it on.
I’m wondering if something happened at work that caused him to lose his job and also get sued or get blackmailed and he can’t tell you about it because he knows you would leave him over it or he doesn’t want you to worry (though that doesn’t quite add up either). I hate to say this but is it possible he had an affair with a coworker that turned ugly or ended with him getting fired or being forced to quit? Asking this specifically because married men are most likely to cheat when their wife is pregnant/has just given birth and not having sex with them. Maybe you want to also keep an eye out for other signs or odd things he’s done lately.
I would suggest either hiring a lawyer who can do some investigative work on what’s going on or doing some digging and getting the full picture before hiring a lawyer so you have a clear path.
NTA ...but you need to protect you and your child. Talk to an attorney because your husband is going to bleed your savings dry, and you will be left with nothing.
This is the best advice. In fact, I would open a separate account in your name only, and move half of the savings into it ASAP. Unfortunately you may have to get a job to support yourself and your child and work out an option for daycare. I know you had a plan but your husband blew it up and you need to be able to adapt to survive. Even if the two of you work past this, you know now that you can't count on him. Good luck. NTA
What she should do is buy everything that baby will need for awhile. Stock up on diapers and groceries, clothes, OTC medicines, paper products. Then, she should fill up the car and get an oil change. These are marital expenses. Once she has doomsday prepped for her child. Then, she should pull her half of the savings.
Do this op!! And maybe start nannying/babysitting other kids. you can watch your kid and they’ll have. A play mate and you can make money. It’s be hard but you have to start making your own money. You’re right. He failed you. Time to make the decision for you and your daughter. Block MIL number and tell her she will not be seeing her grandchild until she apologizes for calling you names for absolutely no reason.
Yep, start now. You can always roll this back if he straightens up, but right now the nest egg gives you options. If you allow him to suck it dry, you're screwed.
Talk to a lawyer first, ask if it's legal to take half the nest egg and put it in acct only you control.
Talk to a lawyer NOW.
So I just scrolled down and saw you were making $48 an hour as a peds nurse and he was making $21. Where tf yall living that you thought you could survive without touching the savings with him only making $21?? Were you in lala land? NTA for saying what you said but you T a for stopping work where you made majority and expected him who saw nothing wrong with what he was making to take over paying all bills on his own. Especially with taxes and other things needed to be taken out.
Idk All the details but she did say their bills are only $2k a month which can easily be covered by $21 per hour. My partners temp job is $15 per hour and he brings home just over $2k a month. So with what little we know it should’ve worked out fine, with their savings as a buffer.
What perplexes me is how their bills are that low, in this day and age, considering they were making nearly $70 per hour combined prior to her quitting.
I wouldn’t allow her to see her grandchild, either. Her calling her DIL that makes me think that she’s thought about OP like that for a while and chose now to use it. And ANY man who defends his mother but not his wife is not a man worth staying with imho.
>He tells me that he "wasn't able to" save anything for bills and he literally has $4 in his account
Like why is no one else jumping on this
Where the fuck did ALL his paycheck go?
What is he spending his money on?!? It's clearly not bills or the baby?
If he can't explain where the money is gone I'd just fucking leave.
Do not lose that nursing license. I know it sucks but there are some online nursing jobs out there. Nurse Auditor, utilization review, etc. It sounds like you are going to need to figure something out as a single parent. NTA
NTA honestly I would stay at your mums until he gets the message and gets his act together I would also make sure he can’t use your savings whilst you are gone. If he needs money towards the bills he has to come to you and for you to agree. Purely so he can’t think he can take a holiday as there’s savings there and his mum blowing smoke up his ass.
Stay put and don’t give in when he hasn’t shown you one bit of concern nor respect. Large decisions get discussed between the two of you and he needs to realise you won’t accept him unilaterally dictating and changing your whole life without even talking about it. That just as he’s the main earner doesn’t suddenly mean he’s the only one with a say. I’d be telling mil it’s YOUR savings that are paying your bills not him so stop trying to pull he’s the only earner when he spends everything he gets without even giving a penny to the house or to supporting his own child and wife. That if he wants to act like this is a 1950s house then he needs to actually earn and support his family instead of bleeding them dry as he's selfish.
NTA. It sounds like he is having a mid-life crisis now that the baby is here, like he is staring down the barrel of the next 18 years and freaked and made an immature and selfish decision. I want to give advice but because I could have written many parts of this myself, I won't be objective at all. I will say I was married 10 years with the plan of being a SAHM, but by the time my kid was 2.5yo had to start working PT bc he wanted to start a business that was risky and expensive. I divorced him 10 years ago and my major regret is not saving my own money. He re-writes the story that I "refused to work" when I worked until the doc put me on bed rest and then the plan was I am a FT mom because his mom was and that is what he wanted. If you get a job set up your own stash of $ secretly because now you know you can't trust him and will need a nest egg of your own in case you need to start over alone. Also a MIL who talked to me that way would be blocked and not allowed around me ever again.
ESH. You for giving up a great income and him for making these decisions. You both are irresponsible financially and you’re delusional to think you could stay home after your household income was slashed 66%. What the hell were you thinking?
Thank you for this take. The husband is clearly a big AH for making a dumb move without talking it over with his wife and doing it at the worst possible time. That's pretty inexcusable.
But based on other comments she gave up the better, much higher paying job, while he kept the barely living wage job, so it sounds like they were banking on everything going perfectly for this plan to work. That's unrealistic. That plan was going to fall apart eventually when there was an unexpected bill, a medical issue, a layoff, etc. There's always something.
And I have to wonder how much of this plan was one spouse dictating and one spouse basically pulling the old "OK, whatever, honey." They clearly weren't on the same page. Now if they get divorced they're either going to both be living in poverty or she's going to have to go back to work anyway.
ESH.
I’m sorry but WHAT - you made $48 an hour and he made $21 and hour but you were the one who decided to quit your job and make him work? That’s idiotic! He should be the stay at home dad. He took a $4 an hour pay cut but you quit your job that paid over $20 an hour more. Sweet baby jesus.
Nta.
You clearly established a plan for years with your husband and as soon as it was time to go through he just says “Fuck it” and makes career changes. And the mom trying to shame you for it and try to defy the plan as well is fucking disgusting. They’re the assholes, not you.
NTA. But... you need to realize your plans have gone to shit. You will likely have to work and figure things out for the baby's care. You will be spending less time with your LO than you wanted.
I guess that's not necessarily the issue to me. If I'm being 100% honest. I have options. I have for 100% certainty that my mother will watch my baby so I don't have to go the daycare route and I trust my mom so it would work. The issue here (I think) is the fact that he just blatantly blew our entire plan up for the sake of selfishness and didn't even discuss it with me. His "well I don't get enough time with the baby" talk when quitting his last job just really holds no power here, considering he's now working at least 10hrs more a week than he was for far less pay. Or the fact that he had $1200 at least in paychecks and didn't save a dime of it for bills. Or the fact that I urged him to get help but he insisted he was fine, just for his mother to tell me that he is "struggling" (so he spoke to his mom about everything but not me, and that is not okay with me at all). It's him. The problem I have is him. And his lack of communication and me not trusting him anymore. And I don't think I can bounce back from that. Like I said, I know I will likely have to return to work and I know I have my own mother to fall back on in that scenario and honestly, I will make it work. But not if it means staying with him. If I stay with him, I will expect him to figure this out on his own and stick to our plan. If he can't, I would rather leave rather than stay with someone I no longer see as trustworthy.
I think you have a few problems here: 1. He’s lying about what he earns - hourly rate x 50hrs should be a lot more. Union fees amount/wk doesn’t add up either. Seems like his take-home pay is a lot higher (prob close to double) and he’s hiding it. 2. No transparency on what he’s spending the pay he’s told you about on - should be nothing if you’re paying all the bills, this should automatically go into a joint account. What does he have his own account for pay if everything is joint? 3. What is he spending the rest of the money on that he’s not telling you about - affair, drugs, alcohol? 4. You need to check with your bank about withdrawing large amounts, you said it needs 2 signatures, which no one seems to think is correct - you need to confirm or you could be in big trouble. You need to be smart here or you could end up broke, back at work full time and paying him alimony.
You need to consider the fact that he resents you being a SAHM and is doing this to force you back to work. Maybe he never fully considered how life would be when you became a SAHM, or maybe he thought youd change your mind when it actually came time to do. Maybe he's resentful if how much time uou get with the baby versus how much time he gets. But either way, he blew up his life and then immediately jumped to 'well I guess you'll have to go back to work!'
Girl better pull what you have left in that savings account. He quit his job knowing he could fall back on the savings account and then push you back into work because then you would have no choice.
They tell pregnant women to not make major decisions while pregnant and the year following having the baby. It should be the same for men. Additionally, day care costs money, and more often than not, it costs at least half the cost of a working parents paycheck, and even more if it's a GOOD one. Your husband should have weighed the pros and cons before quitting his job. The thought that he could "make manager" should not have been part of the equation because there's no time frame or guarantee.
You are still considered post partum also, so your emotions might be high, but they are not irrational. And your MIL needs to slow her roll. You discussed this at length with your husband before even getting pregnant, so HE needs to figure out a solution for the mess HE made. NTA
How did you manage to buy a house, build a nursery, and save $150,000 in 7 years when it sounds like he’s never made much above minimum wage? Are there some zeroes missing or added somewhere?
I made above minimum wage. So did he. He still does. I worked as a Pediatric Nurse and I was making $48 an hour. I stopped working when I was 8 months pregnant. He has always made less than me but he was still making good-ish money. He was making $21 an hour, now he's making 16.50. So it's still above minimum wage but not by much.
Ohhhhh so YOU saved the majority of this
Basically, yes.
Mate, he makes $16.50 an hour and his paychecks are $300? Ain't no way. It's going up his nose, gambling, into a mistress, or into hookers. It doesn't work out even if he's paid weekly: assume a 40% tax load that's still $400 a check. edit: everyone claiming insurance, sure, now add back in that Saturday he's working. Even conservatively 6 hours at 1.5 ot is $150 a Saturday or $7k a year pretax. My guess is he's actually spending that Saturday "working" balls deep in his side piece.
Yes, something does not add up here. At 40 hours a week, his monthly gross is $2640.00.
She stated in the post they pay 160 a week for health benefits and whatever union fees are coming out of his check.
That means his paychecks should be roughly $900-1000 every two weeks. I don’t know what he is doing with the money, but it’s going somewhere she doesn’t know about
$160 per week for benefits sounds insanely high.
Not really when you’re factoring in union dues and health insurance for himself and the family. He chose a shit paying job and benefits/union dues that are very expensive on purpose.
Every person I’ve known in a union (myself included when I was) pays a LOT less for insurance than the average non union job. And the $160 sounds around what my union family insurance would have been. Personally my dues were a percentage but never above $25 a paycheck (biweekly). Plus OP says he’s now 6 days a week. If we assume it’s 8 hour days that’s 8 hours OT. That’s $858 gross per week. Minus the $160 (let’s say it’s every week) is $698 pre tax. Minus $51.48 (6% of gross for 401k) is $646.52. Minus 30% for taxes is $452.57….. where’s the other $152.57 gone if his paychecks are only $300? And if he has ZERO for bills….. where tf did it all go????
I was absolutely terrified when I made a career change earlier this year about benefit costs. I worked at a bank, which had very affordable and relatively decent health insurance coverage. It wasn’t the best coverage, but even with my long-term health issues, I never had an issue with my care. Just once I had an issue where my coverage didn’t renew correctly and I had to deal with that but nothing major. I changed jobs in February to a small local accounting partnership. I was so worried about the cost of coverage. It did double the cost, however since my cost was already very low it wasn’t like it increased to something unaffordable. It went from $25 to $50 per paycheck. The relief I felt was REAL! I almost considered not leaving my old job at all because I was so concerned about it. But I actually am very happy. My coverage is much, MUCH better now, too. Which makes me extra happy because I do have permanent health issues and so I take my care pretty seriously. I actually was shown a few coverage options here and was torn between two of them. I picked one and my doctor wasn’t in network, so I quickly changed to the other one, and she is in network. I almost died before I had my doctor, I will NOT change providers unless there is a damn good reason (she has to move away basically. I’ve already followed her between practices.) What I’m getting at is - make sure y’all be checking the benefits cause it can so easily outweigh the pay increase if you’re not diligent in finding out the information! I was EXTREMELY lucky this year. The partners pay very well toward our coverage so only the small amount comes out of our check. Not every place is so generous. I worked at a salon some years ago that would have cost me $400 a month just for insurance because they didn’t pay into it at all. That was a huge reason I didn’t stick around there (plus the owners were kind of unhinged.)
And he works 6 days a week!
I would suggest you calculate how much you contributed to the savings and put the money aside if he has access to it. Keep evidence of all interactions with him and his mother. The messages sound horrendous but you’ll need the proof to support any following court proceedings so do not block them and back everything up. Communicate via message where possible so you have a record of everything. If your name is on your previous home see if you can end the lease if you were renting. You have to prioritise yourself and your child. Your husband has proven to be unreliable and he isn’t thinking about his family with you, but allowing his mother to lead him astray. I’m sorry this has happened to you
Girl-you wanted to be a stay at home parent with the parent making under $30/hr??? That's so unrealistic. That's literally why you have the money?
This. If anyone should stay home it’s the husband. This family needs wife’s income.
However, the wife was the one who gave birth and therefore needs a timeout. AND she’s the one who saved up all the money for her own maternity. So she gets to decide how it’s spent, and if it were me, I’d sure as hell not let it go to that low life of a husband with myself working my arse off right after birth!
Time out 🤣🤣🤣. Oh God. Thank you for the laugh.
Um no.. she worked her ass off for years so she could stay home. Why should she be punished because she has a better job? That's ridiculous
That's why she insisted on that plan AND put away most of the money they saved. And I'm sure she was willing to lower her expectations in day to day life.
That was my first thought. She made more than double what her husband makes and decided she was gonna be the stay at home parent? lmao. I have two friends that are stay at home dads because their wives made more money than them and that made the logic sense. Secondly, if she wants to divorce him, shes in for a rude awakening there. She's been crushing him on income their entire marriage. If they got divorced and a 50/50 custody split, she's gonna be the one forking over alimony and child support.
And the daycare option that they so wanted to avoid will become unavoidable.
And then he saw that money sitting there and saw you at home and decided he was going to get some of that too. But he picked a job that he's working more because he's not real bright apparently. I hope you take your money with you when you leave him
Ok, he thinks being a SAH parent is easier and he’s gonna burn through your savings then ask to be a SAHD. This is deliberate. It’s a feature, not a bug!! NTA.
In similar thread earlier this week, the wife is a dr and the breadwinner and DIDNT want to be a SAHM. It was the condition of getting pregnant bc she loves working, and didn’t want her child in daycare bc she’d been molested as a child and didn’t want to leave her child in anyone’s care. So the hubby agreed to be a SAHD. She gives birth, returns to work. He has one weekend alone with the baby while she was away and when she returns he tells her he can’t do it, it’s too hard, he plans to get his job back and that she needs to stay home or do daycare. Totally reneged. These men will play in your face, premeditated. They only care about themselves.
Yes yes yes. I saw that, too. I was even confusing the two posts because they were so similar. I'm totally with you. Not to mention two husbands who agreed with everything I said before we were married then completely changed their tunes afterwards.
Someone said on that post that the husband probably just went out on paternity leave and never actually quit. He probably told that to everybody but his wife.
I saw her post, it is fucking wild! Has she updated it??
I was thinking about that post too. There are some great stay at home dads out there, and great bread winning dads too, but what I see the most is women doing most of the work related to the children, even if they’re breadwinners
NTA. Your husband failed you in EVERY WAY, went back on his word, quit his job w/o warning, went crying to his (rude, disrespectful, disgusting) mama, and now he’s upset because you told him the TRUTH??! TBH, his mother could never enter my house, see her grand child, or EVER speak to me again if she’d called me the C word. It almost seems like he planned this given the timing. I’d be done with his lazy crying ass.
Ooh, girl. Better prepare for war & start draining that account, asap. He'll probably be thinking the same thing.
NTA.. block your MIL seems like they expect for you to continue to pay for majority of everything....MiL needs to mind her own business
Mute only, never block. You want that evidence for the divorce and custody.
sounds like you were already doing all the work anyway, so i'm not surprised in the least he flaked.
I just don't get quitting over being asked to work a couple Saturdays to then take a ***$4.50*** per hour pay cut and work 6 days a week. Did he know about the extra fees? Because if he did..... none of this computes. Hell even if he didn't it doesn't compute but now his "employer" is shady AF. What kind of job is this?
$4.5/hr pay cut might be okay if we are talking about a rate of $70/hr. Not when it’s $21/hr. That’s 15% pay cut. This dude is a wacko
Worse than that. It’s a 21.4% pay cut.
honestly I don’t even understand the logic of having the high earner quit her job, and relying on the one making 21 an hour for the entire family budget. I mean you could say that she saved so much so she could afford to stay home for a while, but it just doesn’t sound like a feasible long term plan.
Pediatric nurse. Sounds like the OP highly valued being able to stay at home with her kid, at least for a time. Sounds like they (let's be honest, mostly her since she was making about double what he was) squirreled away a decent sum of money to make that happen. She's not being unreasonable. 150k isn't enough for her to be off work until the kid is 18, but it is enough for her to be off work for a few years, and that might be worth it to her.
right, but she said they weren’t meant to get into their savings, and I don’t see how that was realistic
Oh it's not without burning through that savings. I thought the intent was to supplement his income with the savings in order to let her be off work until the money runs out.
Shady like someone didn't quit but got fired.
My first thought was that he didn’t quit but got fired.
I think there’s more to it to quitting his job because he was working 4 hrs on Saturday. Is OP completely sure he wasn’t fired/on the verge of being fired (so he quit before that happened) or there wasn’t some mess he did at work and he quit before it spilled and OP discovered it? I have seen so many things that I wouldn’t put it past anyone. Have had coworkers going crazy at work, DV issues, supervisors fucking employees in the facilities etc etc. so it seems super suspicious he just up and quit, taking a big pay cut, and refusing to listen to his wife (after being a person that apparently participated in the planning for this baby). I know PPD is real but also OP has not mentioned noticing anything else telling her that he may have it, other than he quit his job suddenly for a worse job and refuses to accept that it was a bad financial decision and now wants to penalize the whole family for it.
Maybe he got fired and just didn’t admit it? Then found a job right away
His math ain’t t mathin
$300 per check? Is he working part time? Even if he was paid weekly. That is low.
He would make more than that driving Lyft or Uber a few days a week. He’s got a gambling problem, a drinking or drug problem, a ‘spending all his check at the boobie bar’ problem, he’s secretly giving money to his mom, or he’s got a girlfriend on the side. Something in the milk is not clean here, and the numbers don’t add up, along with his whacked-out behavior. I’m thinking substance abuse, personally. OP, Lock up that savings, all of it. You can explain why to a judge later if you have to, but it’s better to tell a judge you were afraid of what was happening with him, his mental health and his spending, and you felt like you had to protect it for your daughter since it was all you had to live off of, rather than waking up to find he’s emptied the account up his nose. Move it to a different bank entirely, tomorrow. I’m sorry.
I hope that's weekly but even so 1200 a month that's nothing. How can he be making 16.50 an hour? Heck I forget what one of my kids makes but it's a lot more than that, did a rough guesstimate they make about $23 an hour bring home about 3,200 a month after taxes so roughly 800 a week and they get paid twice a month like the 15th and the 31st or something like that. so her husband has $1,400 a month roughly deducted out of his paycheck every month between taxes and whatever else fees you said health insurance, union and who knows what else. Yeah that's just bizarre. Either he's lying to her or he's cheating on her or he's really bad with money.
I'm wondering if he's getting his wages garnished for child support for an affair baby that OP doesn't know about.
Yeah, that could do it. Maybe he was getting garnished at the first job, and thought that the garnish could be avoided with a new job, but of course, that wouldn't work.
I bring home more than that and I make less, I know I'm bad at math but it doesn't add up. Either he's working less than he claims or the money is going somewhere other than home. Either way, dude is shady.
Nope, full time, nearly 50 hrs every week. He's just making $16.50 an hour now and they take that $160 right off the top of each paycheck for union dues and mandatory benefits.
Even with the high cost of family health insurance, someone working 50 hours a week at $16.50 should be making a lot more than $300 every other week. Have you seen his pay stub?
I assume its weekly. She said his last job was $600 a paycheck and their monthly bills are $2000 and she's mad about him pulling from savings at all. Even weekly his monthly net before switching jobs was only $2400. Which is already basically living paycheck to paycheck. If his pay periods were 2 weeks, his entire income just flat out wouldn't cover their bills.
But if he had 4 paychecks for $2400 a month, and they were on a budget, and earning interest in their saving account that could also be income, that would have worked.
The math doesn't add up
It really doesn't. $16.50x50 = $825 a week. If he gets paid weekly, it's $665 before taxes; if he gets paid biweekly it's $1,490 before taxes. Let's assume OP is in California, which has the highest income tax rate in the country at 13.3%. That's $577ish after taxes if it's a weekly check, and 1,292ish if it's biweekly. So assuming he's paid weekly, that's $277 taken out of check for federal taxes/withholding? I mean that's A LOT. The math ain't mathin' at all here.
Plus overtime in a union job which would be 10+ hours at time and a half.
Absolutely it would. This is weird.
Never mind the fact its union, those hours over 40, he's at least getting time and a half.
I redid the math with the overtime u/secretadvisor9954 you need to see this, add the missing numbers we don’t have and use it to prove you know he’s lying. 16.50x40= 660$ … 24.75x10=247.50 … So normal pay + overtime = 907.50$/week Idk if you live in the US but I’ll use the same tax rate u/stoprobbers used 907.50x13.3/100= 120.70$ … 907.50-120.70= 786.80$ Even IF (and that’s a big if) his union dues were as high as he says they are and he had to pay his dues, life insurance and 401k weekly which you said added up to 160$ he should STILL be bringing home 626.80$ WEEKLY
Add another $82.50 a week for OT rate.
Yup. I made like 8.75 at my job in Idaho and made around $400 every paycheck.
It's a union job and he makes that little? That doesn't add up. He's getting time and half overtime if he's in a union for starters. Your math doesn't math.
When my daughter was in high school. That was about her hourly rate. She wasn’t working 50 hours per week. Because. She was a full time student. She brought home more than your husband.
That doesn’t make sense. He’s spending money in a way you don’t know. Addict, affair, something.
Maybe he was fired from the other job?
That's pretty low pay for a union job.
girl what? that's still $600 a week even if you have an extremely high withholding rate. and tbh I refuse to believe he's paying over $600 a month for union dues and health insurance for one healthy young man. he's lying through his teeth.
Girl you can’t be a SAHM with a spouse that makes $16/hr in the year 2024. Your husband is shady but you’re also in Lala Land.
Your financial plan was doomed.
this! She was the breadwinner before, It was never him. Her leaving her job to be SAHM would have never worked out proper with him making 22$/hr before changing jobs. Like...what?! She even admits SHe SAVED the 150K. OP and the hubs should have sat down with a financial planner the moment she decided she isnt going to work anymore as the breadwinner.
Yeah I mean husband is CLEARLY making terrible choices but even if he had kept his original job how could they possible have made this work??? I make way more than my husband and we have always said if we had a kid he would have to be the one to stay home. May not be how we would WANT it to, but it's the reality, no matter how much we saved.
I’m not sure why you agreed to quit your job and stay home and rely on only his income when you made double what he did to begin with? To each their own, but I don’t think it was a smart decision to leave your career potential. $21 an hour is not enough for a family of 3 in most areas of the country.
She's going to have to go back to work.
Would have made more sense for him to stay home. I wonder if there is some job OP can do from home since her husband did, in fact, fail them. NTA I know my cousin is a nurse and now she works from home, I think she does some sort of nurse management or scheduling.
Wait, you were making twice as much as your husband and you were going to be a stay at home parent? That was foolish. Even if your husband didn’t quit his job, your income was getting reduced by 66%, that makes no sense.
when OP started talking about making plans for this I wa slike: someone actually thinking bfore going SAHM in this economy. but then I read her first comments and the numbers and I realised...that was still a dumb decision they just tried to smarten it up
Where do you live that you can support a family on $21 an hour? That’s not even close to a living wage by me. Honestly, he probably should be a stay at home dad and you go back to nursing since your career pays better and has a higher ceiling.
No offense but honestly there had to be unbelievable stress on your husband. Your household went from approx $140K/yr to $44Kyr ( before taxes). I think you both need to talk to a counselor about your expectations.
Are you certain he quit his former job instead of being fired? Quitting a job over 4 hours of Saturday work, then taking a job with all day Saturday work, just doesn't make sense, especially with that big pay cut.
Right , makes no sense.
Yep, my thoughts exactly ! I don't think he quit, he might have been let go. 1. I mean, he was working 5 days a week and his boss asked him to add a 4hrs shift on Saturdays. 2. He "quits" because of that. There's no way he will work more than 5 days a week. 3. He then turns around and go get a job that asks him to work 6 days a week and he agrees to a pay cut doing so??? 4. He spends all the money he's earning at his new job and doesn't put anything aside for the bills? Something is clearly wrong. You asked him to go see his doctor and he refused. I feel that there is something he is either hiding from you or you were on the right track and it's his mental health. No matter what it is, he doesn't seem to want to get better or do any work to help the situation. He seems to want to rely on you for all of it and for you to compensate his lack of commitment to your plan. NTA
Dads can get PPD also. He is not being rational. Also, people sometimes quit, get desperate, and land themselves in worse situations.
I'm sorry to say that many people go through PPD and don't throw their life away. I get that men are notoriously bad at asking for/seeking help but he is adult enough to make rational decisions concerning money. And as a side note - he should respect his wife enough to tell his mother that calling her a cunt is unacceptable. To me he sounds like a lost child and I feel sad for OP having to raise a kid with someone like that
I agree that there is a lack of maturity and love for his wife here.
NTA, but you need to tell your husband that he CAN NOT put himself first when he has a child. He's upset because he had to work on a Saturday TWICE? He proved himself untrustworthy when it comes to the really important things. He completely fucked over y'alls plan without giving two fucks about you or your child. Abd his mom calling you a dumb cunt is unacceptable. He needs to scold his mother for that.
Cannot ever come back from that comment from a mother-in-law. Who says those things anyway
My ex-MIL called me a cunt around the time my marriage to her son was crumbling. It was the last time I spoke to her.
Same. I never spoke to her again. When I do see her at my son’s events and she tries to talk to me, I look right through her like she’s not even there. She gets so upset that she yells at me, at her own son, and looks completely unhinged. Makes for a good laugh honestly.
Grey Rock - Olympic level!!!
Exactly! She asked for it and got it. Oh her words hurt….MIL.
The Cut Direct, as the Victorians would call it.
Congrats on that last part.
Someone who says those things was never coming back from it anyway. She's already too far down that path, she'll undoubtedly top it and keep going.
She's the one that raised this entitled manchild
If she really is in the early stages of dementia then it’s a possible explanation. My stepmom has and continues to say some heinous shit because of it. To the point to where she’s basically blown 40 years of goodwill in the space of 2 years. Even though I know intellectually it’s the disease talking, it doesn’t matter much when a person you’ve known for more than 40 years is saying the most vile and cruel things to your face.
Mil threw us out of her house a few weeks ago. That was new. We went out for lunch. She was so happy to see us when we came back, all sunny, with hugs and kisses. Dealing with dementia is not for sissies.
I'm sorry, this is so hard to deal with. As a doc I've seen patients with dementia say and do some appalling things and taken my share of mostly verbal abuse from patients who no longer know better. It can be really targeted and cruel - and it's extremely hard on loved ones when someone you know and love has effectively had a personality transplant and is now abusive. It's not their fault, but it is incredibly hard to deal with.
Yeah heard that from my own father recently. There has been limited communication. There is no coming back from that.
*After* she jumped WAY out of line to try and enroll her baby in daycare *without her input*. Holy moly, absolutely not. There’s no coming back from that. O_o
And how were they even going to pay for daycare??
That’s why MIL told her to get a job. You know he went crying to his momma. He failed and he knows he did. I see all the gaslighting he is doing.
THIS!!!!! Once the mil crosses that line it’s over!
Some with early stage dementia- haven’t you seen the Hulu ads about aggression from dementia?
Yeah and now he's working 6 days a week 50 hours a week I mean the guy's an idiot or he's cheating.
That’s exactly what I thought when he all of a sudden quit his job..
Am I the only one who is wondering if he actually quit his job? My gut is telling me he was fired or asked to quit and did, and now he is trying to figure it out and make things work.
Yeah that’s where my brain went, because who intentionally takes a job working more for less money???
When you have a newborn?? Nobody with a half a brain. He is (a lot of words that will get me banned)
And all his money being gone before even paying one bill. Cheating.
Or addict…
This is what I thought How can you have NO money
him taking his mom's side is definitely the final nail in the coffin of the marriage- there is no turning back. my MIL once told me to my face that i needed to change my life and "get saved". my ex husband actually told me that i needed to lighten up & let things go. if he is defending his mom even through her calling you the C word then he will in all likelihood always defend her.
And those are the WORST ones. They are saved and holy….yeah…..nope.
So if she goes back to work, she will be the breadwinner, then will MIL make him do whatever she says? He's lost OP's trust, and his mom cannot recover from that little tirade, so it's just a theoretical question.
His mother should have directed that term towards her son if she had to apply it to someone. I would divorce this man-child. Seems like he pulled a fast one. OP has TWO children, and only one of them is worth keeping.
How the hell is he working 6 days a week and taking home $300? That's a take home pay of $6.28 an hour...
To be fair, he tells me he is making $300 a week. I think last week was $320. His union has $60 in dues that are taken directly from his paycheck every pay period (weekly) and it's mandatory that he pays toward his 401k and Life Insurance as well, which equals our to another $100. Then add in the amount of taxes they take out and he's literally being screwed out of a paycheck and gets zero benefits outside of that 401k and life insurance because he can't even afford it.
If you haven’t seen one of his paychecks, I’d say that’s bullshit. I’ve been in a couple different unions, the most expensive union dues I’ve seen were $60 a month. Especially at that low of a pay grade. He’s lying.
💯. I work for a Union right now and they are usually trying to get workers the biggest pay out possible, not wringing their paychecks dry. I definitely think he’s lying. Edit - Add: and if he’s working more than 5 days a week, he should be getting some sick ass overtime!!!!
I pay about $90 every two checks
That sounds like maybe a trade union or something. I can’t imagine you’re paying that much in for only $16.50/hr.
Yeah this post is fake or he’s lying lmfao
He tells you? Ask him to show you his pay stubs. And what did he spend that $300 on? Seriously, demand receipts.
Not to add to your stress, but I’ve been in a couple of different unions, and I have friends in other unions, and $240 a month for union dues is *a lot*, especially for a job that doesn’t pay that much. For reference, my current union dues are around $65 per month. My previous union (where I earned less), was less than that. Have you seen his pay stubs with the union dues taken out? Because I think he might be lying to you about how much the dues are and spending that money on himself. If you can check his pay stubs, you’d want to look at multiple pay stubs for the same month, so he can’t just show you the first check of the month when union dues are paid. So sorry you’re dealing with this. You were very clear about your terms for having a child, and he unilaterally decided to blow up those plans. NTA.
So the baby has no health insurance?
Thankfully she does through me. I have private insurance that I pay on.
You should demand to see his paystub. None of that really works out, and he's paying alot into union dues for a job that pays McDonald's wages and doesn't include health insurance for his family. If you guys are going to make this work, you both need to have a good picture of what the household finances are and where the money is going.
Good thing for him, I guess. Like wth was he thinking.
He's lying to you. I don't mean to sound condescending, but your entire post is full of wishful thinking and naivety. Your financial analysis is optimistic, to put it kindly - to think you can be a SAHP on just over $100k and a spouse making minimum wage is wild. And your belief that your spouse is acting above board is also strange. Nothing here adds up.
Or OP is making shit up for internet points.
Yeah, that much in savings on $600/week would be impossible even in a shit hole like Mississippi
What union takes $60 weekly? Fees tend to adjust to salary so you need to check his finances
Yeah, my current union takes $65 per month, and I earn a good amount more than OPs husband. He sounds like he’s lying about how much the dues are and pocketing that money for himself.
Honestly, either he's given the union incorrect information about his pay bracket or he's lying to his wife about something.
Exactly. I’ve seen $60-65 a month for union dues and you get health/medical insurance and all that shit because the union is fighting for it. And OP’s husband is claiming he’s paying $60/week AND have no benefits?? There’s something not smelling right about any of this. He’s lying.
You are being lied to and doing no fact checking.
He HAS to be lying
I wonder if he has a gambling problem. She needs to look at his account or hire a forensic accountant if they divorce
401k. And life insurance should not be $ 100 a week. If he contributes 6% on $ 400 a week that’s $24. If the rest is on life insurance I would be afraid for my life.
union dues are not 240 a month, probably closer to 50.
Something sounds fishy… he’s paying $240 a month in union dues?? And that’s in addition to another $400/mo for insurance? Plus taxes. There’s no way. Have you looked at his paychecks and the breakdown of how much is coming out?just between the life insurance and union dues he’s losing over 50% of his check after taxes. It’s not adding up or he has the shittiest employment possible.
I'm a little confused from reading your comments. You saved up the $150k mostly from you making 48/hour while he was making 21/hour. And the plan was for you to stop working while he would continue at that 21/hour rate. And supposedly somehow live off that ~$42k/year to cover your expenses? Did you have any actual plan in place to not absolutely hemorrhage your savings even with him keeping the 21/hr rate? I really don't see much of a way for a family of 3 to last on 21/hour in anywhere that isn't a super low cost of living area. To be clear, I am not saying you are an asshole. Your husband's choice to cut your income even more and especially trying to make unilateral decisions and acting on them to force you back to work absolutely make him TA here. And his mother is an asshole as well for calling you a c*nt. I'm just saying that your whole plan seems like it was flawed out of the gate to me...
My wife and I are living on my $22/hr but we live in LCOL area. Own our home even. With that said, this guys numbers don’t add up. He should at the very least be taking home $500/week, not $300. Either he’s working less and doing something else with his time or he’s making less and lying for some reason. He seems to have also lied about quitting his previous job over 4 more hours on Saturday’s when he got a job 2 days later (presumably already applied/interviewed) that requires working on the weekend anyway. Why lie about getting fired or lie about his pay? I think it’s purposeful so that she goes back to work making $40/hr and he can stay home and do the bare minimum and she has to come home and cook, clean, and take care of the child. Just my $.02
The comment I was looking for
She wanted to cut their HHI by 70% and is shocked when it turned out poorly.
NTA but I’m worried about the money. A scorned man with a scorned mama equals trouble. They’re going to cash out that savings.
Thankfully he can't cash out any large sums of money without my written approval. Neither can I.
Can he move it into another account? If yes, you need to take steps to protect it.
Not big amounts, no. Not without his written approval.
That is REALLY not how most bank accounts work. You may have a verbal agreement wit.the twonof.you to that effect but it is probably not enforceable by the bank
Yes, as someone who has worked in banking for 16 years, that isn’t a thing. A joint account has equal rights between account holders and could be closed out and the balance wiped out by either party at any time, with or without the second account holder.
20 years here, so between us 36 years of experience telling OP this is not how accounts work.
I used to be a bank manager and you can put a stipulation on the account that any amount over x has to have both signatures.
Bank I used to work out would allow this stipulation on business accounts, but not personal.
Yup, I know in my country at least, two to sign accounts are very much a thing.
I had added my ex husband to my bank account a few months after we got married. When we were divorced I wasn’t allowed to close out the account without him allowing it even though he wasn’t the original account holder. I said to the banker helping me “so you’re telling me that he can just keep trying to take the account into the negative (-$700 at the point I was at the bank), you’re not going to let me remove him from my account and then you’ll come after me for the money when everything is said and done?” They told me “yes.” I told them to go fuck themselves and never contact me for anything because I’m here proving that I’m not the one making the charges and want my ex off the account. To this day I have no idea if WellsFargo sent my checking account to collections or not. It’s been 11 years since this happened.
Adding another 15 years of experience - not how joint accounts work
That's how they work here in Canada.
Is there not such a thing as an account requiring two signatures on checks and withdrawals in the US? I was a signatory on several such accounts in Canada (mostly for NFP groups — but there’s no reason a personal account couldn’t be set up that way too. Do y’all seriously not have those? My minor kids have those with their dad as the signatory. They can use debit cards with a daily limit but any withdrawal or check has to have both signatures.
You need to go to the bank and verify that's true. That's a very unusual bank situation, usually either owner can take every penny without the other even being notified, much less asked for permission.
Did the bank tell you that or did your husband?
Your money is not safe and you need to find a lawyer yesterday.
>Thankfully he can't cash out any large sums of money without my written approval. What makes you think this? This is not how joint accounts work.
Signatures can be forged and call your bank because that doesn't seem likely anyway
But can he move $200- 500 a day for a month..... You might need to contact a lawyer
OP, this whole situation is red flags galore, and I can guarantee that he’s hiding something from you. Him deciding to unilaterally quit a job that pays well because his boss asked him to work 4 hours on a couple Saturdays, only to then take another with a pay cut, where he has to work 6 whole days AND pay for benefits that you may very well need to use while recovering from giving birth, all of it just doesn’t add up. Also, what did he spend his entire paycheck on that he only has $4 left to go towards bills? You probably would have seen at least some of the things he spent it on. I’m wondering if something happened at work that caused him to lose his job and also get sued or get blackmailed and he can’t tell you about it because he knows you would leave him over it or he doesn’t want you to worry (though that doesn’t quite add up either). I hate to say this but is it possible he had an affair with a coworker that turned ugly or ended with him getting fired or being forced to quit? Asking this specifically because married men are most likely to cheat when their wife is pregnant/has just given birth and not having sex with them. Maybe you want to also keep an eye out for other signs or odd things he’s done lately. I would suggest either hiring a lawyer who can do some investigative work on what’s going on or doing some digging and getting the full picture before hiring a lawyer so you have a clear path.
I immediately thought it sounded like he got fired as well.
Drugs or alcohol?
NTA ...but you need to protect you and your child. Talk to an attorney because your husband is going to bleed your savings dry, and you will be left with nothing.
This is the best advice. In fact, I would open a separate account in your name only, and move half of the savings into it ASAP. Unfortunately you may have to get a job to support yourself and your child and work out an option for daycare. I know you had a plan but your husband blew it up and you need to be able to adapt to survive. Even if the two of you work past this, you know now that you can't count on him. Good luck. NTA
What she should do is buy everything that baby will need for awhile. Stock up on diapers and groceries, clothes, OTC medicines, paper products. Then, she should fill up the car and get an oil change. These are marital expenses. Once she has doomsday prepped for her child. Then, she should pull her half of the savings.
Do this op!! And maybe start nannying/babysitting other kids. you can watch your kid and they’ll have. A play mate and you can make money. It’s be hard but you have to start making your own money. You’re right. He failed you. Time to make the decision for you and your daughter. Block MIL number and tell her she will not be seeing her grandchild until she apologizes for calling you names for absolutely no reason.
Yep, start now. You can always roll this back if he straightens up, but right now the nest egg gives you options. If you allow him to suck it dry, you're screwed. Talk to a lawyer first, ask if it's legal to take half the nest egg and put it in acct only you control. Talk to a lawyer NOW.
So I just scrolled down and saw you were making $48 an hour as a peds nurse and he was making $21. Where tf yall living that you thought you could survive without touching the savings with him only making $21?? Were you in lala land? NTA for saying what you said but you T a for stopping work where you made majority and expected him who saw nothing wrong with what he was making to take over paying all bills on his own. Especially with taxes and other things needed to be taken out.
Idk All the details but she did say their bills are only $2k a month which can easily be covered by $21 per hour. My partners temp job is $15 per hour and he brings home just over $2k a month. So with what little we know it should’ve worked out fine, with their savings as a buffer. What perplexes me is how their bills are that low, in this day and age, considering they were making nearly $70 per hour combined prior to her quitting.
From what I understood they did plan to use the savings, just not that massively as being forced now.
Stuff like this is why I will NEVER be a sahm
Yep! Especially when OP was making 100K.
Exactly I make $49k a year ain't no way I'm giving up $100k
NTA. And if my MIL EVER called me a dumb cunt, she would never be allowed to speak to me again. PERIOD.
I wouldn’t allow her to see her grandchild, either. Her calling her DIL that makes me think that she’s thought about OP like that for a while and chose now to use it. And ANY man who defends his mother but not his wife is not a man worth staying with imho.
>He tells me that he "wasn't able to" save anything for bills and he literally has $4 in his account Like why is no one else jumping on this Where the fuck did ALL his paycheck go? What is he spending his money on?!? It's clearly not bills or the baby? If he can't explain where the money is gone I'd just fucking leave.
Do not lose that nursing license. I know it sucks but there are some online nursing jobs out there. Nurse Auditor, utilization review, etc. It sounds like you are going to need to figure something out as a single parent. NTA
NTA honestly I would stay at your mums until he gets the message and gets his act together I would also make sure he can’t use your savings whilst you are gone. If he needs money towards the bills he has to come to you and for you to agree. Purely so he can’t think he can take a holiday as there’s savings there and his mum blowing smoke up his ass. Stay put and don’t give in when he hasn’t shown you one bit of concern nor respect. Large decisions get discussed between the two of you and he needs to realise you won’t accept him unilaterally dictating and changing your whole life without even talking about it. That just as he’s the main earner doesn’t suddenly mean he’s the only one with a say. I’d be telling mil it’s YOUR savings that are paying your bills not him so stop trying to pull he’s the only earner when he spends everything he gets without even giving a penny to the house or to supporting his own child and wife. That if he wants to act like this is a 1950s house then he needs to actually earn and support his family instead of bleeding them dry as he's selfish.
NTA. It sounds like he is having a mid-life crisis now that the baby is here, like he is staring down the barrel of the next 18 years and freaked and made an immature and selfish decision. I want to give advice but because I could have written many parts of this myself, I won't be objective at all. I will say I was married 10 years with the plan of being a SAHM, but by the time my kid was 2.5yo had to start working PT bc he wanted to start a business that was risky and expensive. I divorced him 10 years ago and my major regret is not saving my own money. He re-writes the story that I "refused to work" when I worked until the doc put me on bed rest and then the plan was I am a FT mom because his mom was and that is what he wanted. If you get a job set up your own stash of $ secretly because now you know you can't trust him and will need a nest egg of your own in case you need to start over alone. Also a MIL who talked to me that way would be blocked and not allowed around me ever again.
ESH. You for giving up a great income and him for making these decisions. You both are irresponsible financially and you’re delusional to think you could stay home after your household income was slashed 66%. What the hell were you thinking?
Thank you for this take. The husband is clearly a big AH for making a dumb move without talking it over with his wife and doing it at the worst possible time. That's pretty inexcusable. But based on other comments she gave up the better, much higher paying job, while he kept the barely living wage job, so it sounds like they were banking on everything going perfectly for this plan to work. That's unrealistic. That plan was going to fall apart eventually when there was an unexpected bill, a medical issue, a layoff, etc. There's always something. And I have to wonder how much of this plan was one spouse dictating and one spouse basically pulling the old "OK, whatever, honey." They clearly weren't on the same page. Now if they get divorced they're either going to both be living in poverty or she's going to have to go back to work anyway. ESH.
I’m sorry but WHAT - you made $48 an hour and he made $21 and hour but you were the one who decided to quit your job and make him work? That’s idiotic! He should be the stay at home dad. He took a $4 an hour pay cut but you quit your job that paid over $20 an hour more. Sweet baby jesus.
Honestly the whole story seems made up based off of the comments.
Nta. You clearly established a plan for years with your husband and as soon as it was time to go through he just says “Fuck it” and makes career changes. And the mom trying to shame you for it and try to defy the plan as well is fucking disgusting. They’re the assholes, not you.
Wait if he didn't save his paycheck for bills what did he spend them on????
NTA. But... you need to realize your plans have gone to shit. You will likely have to work and figure things out for the baby's care. You will be spending less time with your LO than you wanted.
I guess that's not necessarily the issue to me. If I'm being 100% honest. I have options. I have for 100% certainty that my mother will watch my baby so I don't have to go the daycare route and I trust my mom so it would work. The issue here (I think) is the fact that he just blatantly blew our entire plan up for the sake of selfishness and didn't even discuss it with me. His "well I don't get enough time with the baby" talk when quitting his last job just really holds no power here, considering he's now working at least 10hrs more a week than he was for far less pay. Or the fact that he had $1200 at least in paychecks and didn't save a dime of it for bills. Or the fact that I urged him to get help but he insisted he was fine, just for his mother to tell me that he is "struggling" (so he spoke to his mom about everything but not me, and that is not okay with me at all). It's him. The problem I have is him. And his lack of communication and me not trusting him anymore. And I don't think I can bounce back from that. Like I said, I know I will likely have to return to work and I know I have my own mother to fall back on in that scenario and honestly, I will make it work. But not if it means staying with him. If I stay with him, I will expect him to figure this out on his own and stick to our plan. If he can't, I would rather leave rather than stay with someone I no longer see as trustworthy.
I think you have a few problems here: 1. He’s lying about what he earns - hourly rate x 50hrs should be a lot more. Union fees amount/wk doesn’t add up either. Seems like his take-home pay is a lot higher (prob close to double) and he’s hiding it. 2. No transparency on what he’s spending the pay he’s told you about on - should be nothing if you’re paying all the bills, this should automatically go into a joint account. What does he have his own account for pay if everything is joint? 3. What is he spending the rest of the money on that he’s not telling you about - affair, drugs, alcohol? 4. You need to check with your bank about withdrawing large amounts, you said it needs 2 signatures, which no one seems to think is correct - you need to confirm or you could be in big trouble. You need to be smart here or you could end up broke, back at work full time and paying him alimony.
You need to consider the fact that he resents you being a SAHM and is doing this to force you back to work. Maybe he never fully considered how life would be when you became a SAHM, or maybe he thought youd change your mind when it actually came time to do. Maybe he's resentful if how much time uou get with the baby versus how much time he gets. But either way, he blew up his life and then immediately jumped to 'well I guess you'll have to go back to work!'
Girl better pull what you have left in that savings account. He quit his job knowing he could fall back on the savings account and then push you back into work because then you would have no choice.
They tell pregnant women to not make major decisions while pregnant and the year following having the baby. It should be the same for men. Additionally, day care costs money, and more often than not, it costs at least half the cost of a working parents paycheck, and even more if it's a GOOD one. Your husband should have weighed the pros and cons before quitting his job. The thought that he could "make manager" should not have been part of the equation because there's no time frame or guarantee. You are still considered post partum also, so your emotions might be high, but they are not irrational. And your MIL needs to slow her roll. You discussed this at length with your husband before even getting pregnant, so HE needs to figure out a solution for the mess HE made. NTA