This is a really tough situation. I can definitely feel your pain! I think it’s a COMMON situation too. Some husbands want their wives to work and the wives really just desperately don’t want to have to leave the kids with a babysitter to go work.
My Husband Wants Me to Work But I Don’t Want to Leave My Kids
I think the key here is really seeing it from both angles…
As a mom
A mom feels like her baby is a part of her. After all, it WAS growing inside of her. She feels connected to this child/children in a way that cannot be explained. They were formed in her body. They were a part of her body. They grew inside her body and so there’s a connection to them, a bond.
The day the baby is born, you feel so happy and alive. Is the baby healthy? Is she/he okay? And then it’s about protecting baby.
From harm. Feeding them, clothing them. It’s a labor of love.
The first time mom takes her child to Kindergarten, she will cry. I swore I wouldn’t cry when I took my kids to Kindergarten. I said to myself, “I won’t be one of those moms, just super attached to their kids.” You know what?! I cried! I am. And there’s no shame in that!!!
You feel like you’re losing your child, your flesh and blood. A part of your body is now separate from you and it’s tough. It’s hard to let go.
As they grow, you want to be around every single second of their life. You don’t want to miss those moments when they say their first word, when they take their first step. And it’s not any easier as they grow.
Their first crush. Their first date. You want to be there for them through it all. Every step of the way, cheering them on, supporting them, loving them, talking them through it.
But when your husband says to you that he wants you to work, your whole world collapses and you don’t hear, “Honey, I want you to work.” Rather, you hear, “I want to split our family apart. I care more about money than about my child.” Even though that is most likely not at all TRUE, the husband doesn’t care more about money than the child or want to split the family apart, that’s what a mom FEELS inside.
I remember the first day my ex-husband told me he wanted me to get a job outside the home. He didn’t want to spend time with me. He wanted to be home WITHOUT me. He wanted to get rid of me. HIS intentions were bad. He wanted to sin and be his bad little self and not have ME around watching.
He also wanted me to make money, but for him, that wasn’t what it was about mostly. It was about him not wanting to be around me, and I knew it.
As a Christian, I needed to submit. I knew that too. If he asked me to do something that is not sinful, and it’s not harmful to me or my family, I need to do it (now, please don’t use that as a blanket statement for everything because there are a lot of different situations and we are to never sin even if our husbands ask us to), but in this situation, I knew that I needed to submit.
What was I to do???
As a husband
First things first, you need to get to the ROOT of WHY he’s asking you to do this. For me, it was his sin he wanted to enjoy without me there. Such is most likely not the case for YOUR husband.
Your husband is the bread-winner and that’s a TON of stress and pressure. Now that I have been a single mom, I know EXACTLY just how TOUGH it is to be the bread-winner. Not ONLY do I have to be the mom, but I also have to make the income. One job is hard enough, but both is an insane amount of pressure.
Men are developed to handle working and it’s part of their curse. In the Garden of Eden, women got the curse of severe pain in child-bearing and men got the curse of working through painful toil (Genesis 3:16-19).
In essence, it’s not really fair at all, that a woman have to go through the pain of child-birth AND work through painful toil TOO. That’s like giving women BOTH curses. That is not fair in the least bit! And we understand that.
At the same time, painful child-bearing happens for a short time (usually within a day), whereas toiling on the Earth, working, is for a life-time.
As a wife, we are called to be a help-meet to our husbands. We WANT to help him. We WANT to love him and serve him and dote on him. We are his biggest fan. And because of a curse-filled world, we are bound to do things that are not fair sometimes.
Life is not fair. Life never was fair after the curse. Life will never BE fair again, in an overall sense, until Jesus comes again, destroys sin and Satan and his demons once and for all. Until sin is abolished forever, life won’t be fair. But that’s life and we live in it and it’s not great but that’s what it is.
In our society now, life for a husband is extremely HARD!
He has to fix things on the house, oversee the education and well-being of his children, take care to love and respect his wife, he has to go to work and earn a living and society doesn’t PAY men what they are worth!
If society would pay men their fair wage, then they wouldn’t have to work themselves to the grindstone just to make it!!!!!
It comes from a greedy society, not paying men what they are worth and charging too much for basic necessities. And that’s the world we live in. It’s rough.
For most couples, they will need an extra $300-$500/month in order to survive based on the man’s wages vs. necessities like rent/mortgage, food, utilities, etc.
It’s not easy, and that’s how society has set it up.
What I’m trying to help you see is that it’s not your husband’s FAULT.
He may go to college and get an education or even get a high paying job and that’s great, but it’s super tough in our society for a man to do that too. And if they do, then they can usually afford things, but how can they go and get that better paying job while supporting a family? There’s no time and there’s not money for college.
College is so overly expensive, it’s not even funny! I went to college. I know how expensive it is. Even with scholarships and grants, it’s still immensely expensive. And if a guy tries to go to college before getting married, what will keep him from sinning?
Colleges are rampant with sexual activities and for a single, young man of that age to go through all that, to make a better life for his future family, is tough. Super tough. I’m not saying it can’t be done and that he can’t remain pure during college, but I’m saying it’s SUPER tough for him.
So he’s made the choices he’s made. He met you at the time he did in his life. He loves you.
Let’s say he met you before college, he chose to be with YOU over going to college to get a better job because he didn’t want to lose you. Imagine if he chose college, you guys wouldn’t have been able to have a family and your kids wouldn’t be there at all.
Some of that won’t apply to everyone and I get that, but for some it will and we have to understand that society makes it very difficult for a man to support his family. In the old days, it wasn’t like that. Men could work, the woman would care for the home and children and it was okay. Our society has gotten greedy and so this is what we have now where there’s a gap between income to take home pay and then again, another gap between take home pay to bills.
If your husband is lazy and just doesn’t want to work, that’s a whole ‘nother story, but for most men, they are working and they are tired and feel like they need help and they do. Because they can’t carry the load all to themselves. Again, it’s not their fault and it’s certainly not yours either. But the fact remains that, in most cases, they will need help.
It’s super helpful to understand things from both the husband’s perspective as well as the wife’s perspective. She wants to be home with her kids, he needs help supporting his family because he can’t do it alone.
Both people end up hurting and it’s not fair to anyone, but this is how it is and it stinks. 🙁
Get creative
When my ex-husband asked me to go to work, my whole world shattered. The kids were still little. They weren’t in school yet. How could I possibly leave them with a stranger while I worked all day. I couldn’t bear the thought and so, smart little cookie me, was trying to figure out a way.
How could I work and earn an income WHILE still being home with my kids? That was the million dollar question. I figured I could get back into reselling. Taking items I get for free (or cheap) and flipping them (reselling) for a profit.
I did it before, I could do it again and so I asked him if that would work.
“What is the amount we need to make?, I inquired. He figured it out and said, “$300.”
I asked him if I could make the $300 from home, while still being with the kids, would he allow that.
He didn’t want to. Again he wanted to sin and be rid of me, but he finally did agree to it.
I was off to the races. I needed to make $300/month from home or I would lose my kids to a stranger. And so I did. I started yard saleing. I started collecting things and selling them. It was tough the first month or so. I wasn’t making what I needed to, but everything felt like it was on the line for me and so I was determined to make $300/month.
After a while, I started making more. I was making a good $1k/month and all that money went into a separate account solely for reselling. I was making super smart decisions and he was super happy with my efforts. He came to a point where he was fully on board with my efforts and saw it was so profitable that he began helping! YAY!
And when HE began helping, the income went up even more. I was able to buy things like furniture to flip. I’d see something on the side of the road, a dining set for example. I’d grab it and bring it home and he’d help me sand it and I’d paint it.
Then, I got into selling electronics and toys. Eventually, it led to selling Littlest Pet Shop toys.
I was doing really good. I was honoring my husband, doing as he asked me to do, but I was also honoring MYSELF and not leaving my kids with a stranger.
Yes, my kids had to sacrifice. I’d have to tote them along in the car with me to go pick up stuff and it became a life-style to resell, but it was a lot better than the alternative: leaving them with a stranger all day, because at least they could be with ME!
Here’s my question to you. WHY does your husband want you to make extra money? Can you make the extra money from home?
I’ve been making money online now for over 23 years and I’m telling you, there’s a LOT you can do. I have a whole course about it here.
If you need to make money right away, I encourage you to check out my making money resource here and get started reselling. That’s where I started.
If you have a little more time and want to create your own business, I suggest opening up a Shopify store, blogging, or creating an online course.
It really depends on your skill level and what you want to do, as well as where you’re at right now (do you need to make money tomorrow or want to build a more steady, long-term income type of structure).
No matter what you choose, I’ve done it all for a lot of years and I can help you. I want you to be able to stay home with your kids. I know it’s such an important thing and it’s something that I’ve fought tooth and nail to be home with mine, every inch of the way!
My best advice to you, if you find yourself in this situation, is to get your bills super low. Save as much money as you can FIRST. I have a course that teaches all about saving money and you can look on my blog to read posts on saving money as well.
Then, AFTER you save all you can (because what’s the point of making more if what you already have is just flying out the window?!), THEN, focus on creating more income, but ask your husband if you can do it from home instead.
Try your best not to invest in a program or anything until you earn the money yourself FOR the program. Your husband will take you more seriously if you do! To earn the money, you can sell things around the home you don’t need or resell to gather up the funds.
I personally gathered up $2k just selling things I didn’t need around the house and reselling for a couple months. Within 60 days, I had the $2k to start up my own business (essential oils at the time).
It was the best decision I made and it is one step in my path that brought me to where I am. Today I make millions of dollars a year in revenue on my blog, shop, and courses and it all started with me being creative. Thinking outside the box and a real fire to be home with my kids. You can do the same thing too, if you fight for it and if your husband agrees that you can earn money from home instead of getting a traditional job.
Believe me, there are PLENTY of legit ways to earn money from home! There are also plenty of scams out there too.
So make sure you do a ton of research to make sure it’s legit. Everything here that is by me, you can trust. Again, I been doing this 23 years and have done everything legit to make money from home over those years. I know what works and what doesn’t and how to get you from point A to point B as quickly and effortlessly as humanly possible, but ALWAYS research things yourself too! ALWAYS!!!
Make sure it’s the right fit for you and your family and be willing to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
You CAN be home with your babies and still honor your husband!!! I promise.
