(Long post) My husband (23M) and I (25F) have a 1 year and 3 month old baby.
We are currently arguing badly and haven’t spoken in three days now which is the longest it’s ever been.
For context I got pregnant during uni so only have a college degree. I was working a lot so had a bit of money saved up. Personally I’m not comfortable with abortions myself, and my partner and I decided we wanted the baby together so I went along with it given the fact my parents sounded super supportive as well.
First trimester I was really sick but was balancing pregnancy uni and work. I worked more hours and made more than my husband which annoyed me because I felt he wasn’t thinking about the future as seriously as I was.
Things happened, I got upset for various reasons and I decided to go back to my home country to my parents for emotional support, where I worked all the way up to my third trimester. Since I moved, it was part time and it wasn’t something that granted me maternity leave. By this time my husband was getting ready to come to my country since I wanted to give birth there, and he was finally working more while finishing his degree.
Towards the end of my third trimester I stopped working, he proposed and we got married before the baby was born. Since we had other priorities at the time he gave me a ring that my father gave to him to give to me (so he didn’t pay for it) I was still very happy, it didn’t even cross my mind at the time. But I did have hopes he would work hard for us to have a nice wedding and ring for me in the near future once we were financially stable.
I had a really bad birth experience, and since he had moved countries he didn’t have a job but he had a fresh degree. I obviously couldn’t work straight away, I had a c-section. I started getting anxious when he kept pushing his job search back. He ended up not having a job for 2-3 months (voluntarily). By this time, I was using my savings and my parents were helping out immensely because they knew I was really stressed about money. I felt hopeless and disappointed, but was glad he finally started working when he did. Since he was young and had just graduated his pay alone was not enough for us to feel comfortable so I started working a contract job 4 months PP. it wasn’t much money… and I really wanted time with my baby. But it was still better than nothing. PP depression and pressures ended up with me not being able to breastfeed after 4 months and this made me sad.
Fast forward to recent months, 1 year and 3 months later.
My boss is unreliable and would keep forgetting to pay me, so I had to ask each time which is absurd. He slowly started to give me less work, he owns the company so I’m guessing his sales weren’t going as well as he thought they would. My husband gave me 400 dollars a month from his salary, where he expected me to pay 50/50 when we’d eat out most times, and I was looking after the baby during the day and paying for baby expenses with that and the money I scraped from my part time job. My mom would always help, but I hated that she was so I stopped asking for help.
On top of this, there hadn’t even been a conversation about a plan for a wedding, a ring or anything. I slowly started to feel emotionally deprived and so financially stressed. Being with my baby was the only happiness to me. Every time I tried to talk about a wedding plan for motivation or an even just a vision my husband would brush it off and say he’s only worried about what’s in front of us right now and that he’s “tired from work”. I have never felt so tired myself, or broke in my life.
The emotional aspect of our relationship started fading away. I decided my contract job wasn’t enough so even though I wanted to continue my studies, there’s no time for that, so I recently started a night time job. I work at night, finish at 4, and take care of the baby full time during the day now.
Now, my husband is saying I need a full time day job. And honestly I agree with that, and I was definitely going to at some point- but it’ll take 3 months in my country to get my baby into daycare so it’s basically impossible to start straight away, plus we want to move next month therefore I only see it as logical to put my baby in daycare once we move so that my baby can stay in the same place. I know he feels financial pressure, but i can’t help but feel like I’ve taken so much load and sacrifice from this relationship. All he talked about to me for a few days was money and me getting a job, so I lashed out from being so immensely pressured despite the fact that I was constantly looking for jobs, and his response was “how have you contributed to us?” Totally disregarding the fact that I was a FT mother + working.
I honestly can’t believe him and feel so much resentment right now.
I sacrificed my degree, my life plans, my mental health and sleep to be asked what I contributed to the family. I can say I damn well contributed so much more than him if we go down that route.
I’m upset so I may not have written it well but I want people’s perspectives on this.
For now, I’m numb and checked out