I resent husband after I gave up work to retrain

Dear Coleen

I’m a woman in my early 40s and last summer I gave up my job to retrain and spend more time with my kids. I thought it was the right decision at the time, but I’m beginning to regret it as it’s become financially very painful and, for the first time in my life, I’m properly struggling to make ends meet.

I know there are people worse off than me, but my husband isn’t earning any more than he was before I gave up my job and our lifestyle has suffered.

All I do now is worry about money instead of focusing on my training and enjoying extra time with the children, which was the aim in the first place – it’s all backfired.

The situation is putting a big strain on my marriage, as my husband says it was my decision to leave a pretty good job and I knew things would be tight for a while.

I’ve always been the main breadwinner, so I think deep down I resent my husband for not being able to earn more money so I can take a bit of time out to retrain. Any advice?

Coleen says

When you made the decision, which you did for good reasons, perhaps you didn’t plan enough for how it might change things. I guess we make decisions sometimes with our fingers crossed, hoping things will work out fine because we really want to do something. Then reality kicks in and it’s harder than we thought.

I think you need to take a breath and a step back, and if it’s still what you really want to do, then make a proper plan about how it’s going to work. Sit down, work out your budget and put it on a spreadsheet, which might sound obvious but, if you’ve never had to watch every penny in the past, it’s probably something you’ve never thought of doing. And do it together – start behaving as a team again.

I think there’s a lot of unspoken resentment from both you and your husband. You’re thinking, “If he were earning more money, this wouldn’t be such an issue” and “I’ve brought in the lion’s share of our income for years, so it’s his turn now”.

For his part, he’s thinking, “She knew I wasn’t earning more money when she made this decision”.

The fact is, in this economic climate, it’s not that easy to just earn more money and I’m sure if your husband could get a better-paid job tomorrow, he’d take it. He probably feels guilty that he can’t help more. So, try to stop blaming each other and think about how to make your money work harder.

He says it was my decision to leave a good job