My (28F) and my husband (31M) are going through a really bad time right now. We have faced many extremely difficult challenges in our almost ten years a couple and three years of marriage. Some of those things include severely toxic and abusive in laws (his family), financial stress, the tragic death of our beloved dog, and more. My husband has struggled greatly for most of our relationship with his finances and careers as he has had zero family support. He was in school part time, evening classes for a time about 5 years ago which causes a lot of financial strain on us. He was also gone a lot which put a lot of responsibility on me to take care of our home, chores, dogs, etc. This was made worse when someone attempted to break into our home while he was gone. This is my worst fear, so much so it’s a phobia so I was left traumatized for months and wasn’t able to sleep. I also had a job I hated at the time that I decided to keep because I had to support us. He was working at the time too but there wasn’t wiggle room for me to find a different job due to location, lack of transportation, etc.
Fast forward to now, he is in school again taking part time evening classes. He does his day job and his classes and the rest of the home responsibilities are on me including taking care of our dogs. Our dog recently died tragically in a horrific way and we are both very traumatized due to that.
My husband wants to reduce his hours to focus on his course work (nursing student) but this would drastically reduce his income. We would also require a second car if he changed his job right now. We have almost $20k in credit card combined, he has previous student loan debt, and we have a home renovation loan to pay off due to black mold restoration that was unexpected.
I make good money and enjoy my job. But I’m tired of supporting us and being the bread winner. My husband is 100% sure he wants children but he’s no way ready to provide for a child and I do not want to have children with all of the problems in our lives right now. I’m on way to reduce my credit card debt. I have about $6k which I can eliminate within 6 months with my income. My husband on the other hand can’t keep up. A lot of this debt came from our recent home purchase that required extensive renovation due to mold damage. We were totally screwed in our buying process. That’s another story. Sometimes I wonder if I am better off alone. I feel like I have a weight pulling me down. My family is supportive to us financially and otherwise. His family never supported us in anyway. It’s built up a lot of resentment and I don’t know how to let go that go. Two people together should support each other and go farther together but I feel that I could go farther on my own sometimes.
In a year and half, if my husband graduates he will double his income with his nursing career. So that’s a positive but it seems so far away compared to all the problems we are facing now.