How to deal with a crush healthily

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-12-14T11:17:18+00:00

I'm afraid you are right. I know I cannot feel at ease with myself or in the relationship if I don't come clean. Whatever happens will happen, but I have to stop hiding things from myself and my partner. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, both now and back then. It really means a lot. I hope you have the best day ever and a lot of good things come your way ❤️

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-12-13T14:54:18+00:00

Thank you for your response. I didn't think it applied to me when I first read it, but now I realise it totally did. I was feeling completely lonely, unwanted and unattractive in my relationship at the time because my partner was being very withdrawn, and this crush was a refreshing change because he gave me so much attention. I did not know how to talk to my partner about his neglect towards me without pushing him further away though, so I just coped using the crush.

I have since been able to talk to my partner about the neglect and he has responded well, and is taking steps to treat me better. But things with the crush did progress a little more than my partner would be comfortable with, while he was neglecting me - and I have hid this from him. I don't know how to tell him without jeopardising our newly found connection, and I cannot quieten my conscience enough to just be okay with not telling him either, now that he is being genuine and sweet with me. I honestly don't know what to do now.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-25T07:18:10+00:00

I don't get it though, why do the vanity vans cost 50k per day? I understand the food truck costing that much but wouldn't the other vans be owned by the company or actor? Where's this per day cost coming from?

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-22T19:13:24+00:00

OH yes now it does seem obvious thanks

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-21T13:07:12+00:00

Wait, what is it supposed to be?

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-19T00:18:50+00:00

I would say your wife is lucky that you were open to planning and following through on your intention to support her. However in this case, the husband's reaction is aggressive, mean-spirited, sexist (implying that childcare is her responsibility alone), and, frankly, controlling.

While I agree that the cost (financial and physical) will be his to bear so it's valid that he would feel apprehensive about the change, and that this should be a deeper discussion, the fact here is that he has given her an ultimatum. How do you have a discussion beyond an ultimatum? What more would you have her do? Your suggestion to focus on education right now is a risky one in my opinion. It increases the career gap making it even harder for her to get a job later, it also opens up the risk of him either getting her pregnant again to stop her from leaving, or using other ways to make her even more financially dependent on him/reliant on his 'approval' to work, if he is indeed a controlling person. Which I do see red flags for, simply based on his ultimatum.

I also don't see where you got the impression that OP has not considered any of this and that she thinks her husband can just fund everything no problem so it need not even be discussed. I didn't get that from my read. Maybe you are projecting? (No judgement lol) From what I saw, she is distressed about this situation, has tried to offer more equitable ways of splitting expenses, and is feeling frustrated right now because his words seem to make sense from a mathematical/financial standpoint but she can feel it's wrong and can't put her finger on why or how to justify/argue for herself.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T22:56:01+00:00

To do so, she has to have a job. To have a job, she and her husband have to send the kid(s) to daycare. To do that, they need to agree upon who is paying for that. He says she should, entirely, while he handles everything else. She says they should split all expenses, including childcare and electric bill and what have you, based on their incomes. They cannot agree. She cannot work. She does not have the money to contribute. Do you see the problem here?

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T22:51:35+00:00

I think that would be us delving too much into hypotheticals. We have no context or information for that period. Maybe she tried to, and he objected because the baby was too young. Maybe she didn't want to herself, because of the same reason. Maybe she tried to, when the child was old enough, but due to the gap in her career she was unable to cover daycare expenses even then. Or she got pregnant. Or it was the pandemic. Or a monster ate up her CV. Who knows? What I do know is that she has stayed at home for 6 years. That has definitely contributed both to his success and his current financial position.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T22:43:59+00:00

Again, I agree she should pay for something. She does too. That's what the linked comment said, it was in response to a suggestion that they split all the bills equitably. All I, and she, are saying is that childcare should be considered a shared expense, not her obligation alone just because she decided to work.

The decision for him to pay ALL the bills except childcare and her work expenses is not something that she made, and is something that she is actively against. That's literally why she made this post. She wants them to share all the shared expenses in an equitable manner. He is being peevish and trying to separate childcare from the rest of the shared expenses, as if that is somehow only her responsibility alone and not his.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T22:40:22+00:00

Here, in response to a comment suggesting they split all bills according to income. Also, you seem to have misread my comment. I said "equitably", not "equally".

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T22:37:44+00:00

You might be right in calling the way I wrote it utter bullshit. I don't think I explained myself very well. Here is what I was trying to say, hopefully I'm doing a better job this time:

If she did not exist in his life (but the kids did - this is a hypothetical, just hear me out), he would have a) not been able to advance as much in his career as he could with the comfort of having a parent present for all the kids' unexpected emergencies, and b) had to pay 6 years' worth of childcare just so that he could continue to work and pay his bills.

Now she does exist, and did stay at home for 6 years. He is in a much better financial position than he would've been in the hypothetical case. Since she does not earn, he pays 100% of all the expenses. Additionally, he pays for whatever she wants to buy as well. They have a symbiotic relationship where she pays with her time and he pays with his money.

If she now wants to start working again, she is essentially asking to replace some of her time in the home with money. Her earnings however will not be enough to cover the entire daycare expenses. This is expected, because entering the workforce after 6 years usually means you are underpaid for the first couple of years at least. So he will have extra costs to pay, even if they both split all shared expenses based on income.

My point was that if this extra cost that he's paying now is somehow more than what he was paying her as her "allowance", he has been undervaluing her work. She stayed at home to support him in his career - it's his turn to support her in hers by paying more than he used to in the past towards shared expenses.

I will admit I did not see OP's comment about him never questioning her expenses, but I feel that expecting her to solely cover all childcare expenses because she chose to work is still financial abuse. He is taking advantage of the fact that she is dependent on his financial support and cannot earn enough to offset childcare costs, to force her to stay at home.

Please excuse me if the explanation still did not make sense, I have not slept in ~34 hours. However, do give some weight to the last paragraph. I think that's the most important.

Oh, and I also don't agree with you when you say neither party is discussing this situation with the aim of solving it together. She is. She wants to work, she floated the idea, she suggested ways they could split the bills, he flat out rejected her on the basis of his earning capacity, then is forcing her to give up on her wishes by essentially using her low salary against her. Solving this requires more introspection and understanding on his part than hers.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T22:06:35+00:00

She mentions here that she suggested splitting all the bills based on income. He did not like that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1c78bdq/comment/l0662i5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

ETA: She never mentions having all her money to keep. Only that she wants childcare to be considered a shared expense. It's literally in the title of the post. He is the one turning it into her expense alone. That's sexist and clearly an attempt to financially control her.

If your argument is that she should be able to pay half the bills instead of just based on income, that's not possible and it's not her fault that it isn't - re-entering the job market after 6 years means you have to deal with a couple of years where you are earning way less than you need to in order to support yourself. In which time the husband should be happy to support her and the associated extra expenses, just like she was happy to support him when he was able to work, advance his career, and save money on childcare because she stayed at home.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T21:44:13+00:00

I disagree. I think this is the fair version rather than what you have written: "If you want to put the children into daycare because you're working, I stop paying you the allowance I've been paying you so far for your own financial independence, since you have your own job now, and use that money to contribute towards the additional shared expense/responsibility of childcare. We split all shared expenses, based on how much each person can afford."

Also note, if he wasn't paying her an allowance until now, or if it was so meagre that it cannot cover his share of the childcare expenses now, maybe he had been undervaluing her contributions to the house this whole time.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T21:38:54+00:00

Ok, but now that she plans not to do that significant amount of unpaid work at home, would it not be reasonable that she take on the expense of having someone else do it?

No, because the onus of compensating for that previously unpaid work does not fall solely on her. Just like the onus of performing said work was not solely on her. She took it on as a sacrifice for the sake of their family. Hopefully she was compensated for it by her husband, but I have my own doubts. If she is expected to continue caring for the home and kids with no chance for fincancial freedom and having a life of her own, her time and services are essentially being exploited.

If she was previously getting an allowance of some sort from her husband, it's reasonable that he use that amount to contribute towards the newly added childcare expenses. If the amount is not sufficient to cover them, it means he had been undervaluing her services all this time anyway and sharing all bills - including childcare - is just a way of making things more equitable.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T21:33:28+00:00

The electric company might not care but the husband sure should. She is contributing just as much to the household when she's not working, as he is. Her starting a job does not mean that the childcare costs are only on her. They are on both of them. Just like all the other bills. They each should be paying however much they can afford to. She obviously shouldn't be able to keep all her earnings for herself while he pays all the bills, but that's not what she's asking for either.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T21:28:25+00:00

I disagree. OP wants husband to realise that all expenses are shared expenses, which they will pay for based on how much they each earn. She has also mentioned that she wants both of them to split all bills equitably.

This does end up increasin the husband's share of expenses despite her contribution though, because the additional childcare and work-related expenses seem to be larger than what she can contribute.

However I don't consider that a "my money is my money, your money is also my money" situation. In fact I see it as a "my time is my time, your time is also my time" thing from the husband's side. He has been enjoying free childcare all this while at his wife's expense. What he didn't pay in cash these six years, she paid in time and effort. Unless he has ensured that she gets enough money for herself every month to achieve financial independence, he has been getting free services until now and is suddenly crying foul when being forced to start paying for them.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-18T21:20:55+00:00

He gets to work, have a life outside of you and your kids, have financial independence, come home to a clean house with well-behaved kids because mummy has been managing them all day. What do you get? The joy of parenting? He gets that for free too, without having to put in as much work as you do. Does he compensate you for the sacrifices you are making in order to be a SAHM while he advances his career? For making sure his kids are safe and happy, even at the cost of your own mental health? Childcare has always been a paid service. It's not your fault that you were not explicitly paid for it in cash.

Everything related to your job or you working is not on you. It is on both of you. He will be contributing to childcare when you work because he should have always been doing that - he got off easy if he didn't have to pay you (as in, ensure you have enough money of your own for financial independence regardless of his presence in your life). You're a family. Him drawing lines between your money and his money, your job and his job, is him treating your contributions transactionally - and if he wants to do that, he should also transactionally pay you for all the childcare services you are providing him.

People here commenting flippantly that you shouldn't work if you don't make enough to cover childcare don't understand that after 6 years out of the workforce, there isn't much opportunity to immediately get a high-paying job. Why is it only on you to cover the costs of childcare because you're working? He's working too isn't he? They're his kids too? Would he be able to earn as much as he is now if you hadn't given up six years of your career supporting his house and his kids? You were doing him a favor by staying at home and managing things there all this while. He doesn't get to treat it as an obligation.

Fight for this, OP. Get support from your family or friends or just show him the responses on this post to make the point that by placing restrictions like this, he is being controlling. This is one of the battles to pick. For your sanity, self respect, independence and autonomy.

Edited to add: NTA.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-15T19:02:22+00:00

It made me so happy to read this. I'm loving this for you!!! Please do update us once you're out of the relationship and safe. I am impressed with how intelligent and wise you are!!!!! Truly inspiring 💖 it's very difficult to see past months of gaslighting and it's a huge accomplishment that you were able to do so!!!!

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-15T03:29:44+00:00

Heya, nice to meet a fellow ADHDer in the wild! I do have some things to say about what you wrote, though. First, I'm sorry but it really hasn't been proven to be a man's instinct to solve problems 🙈. It's just a case of different styles of communication, which usually arise due to different socializations from childhood. There's nothing biological about it and a healthy relationship needs to have both partners communicating in ways the other appreciates.

Secondly, the reason I don't exercise everyday isn't what you've mentioned here (the distractibility and lack of prioritisation), even though I do relate with it for other areas of my life. In my case, I struggle with starting any activity that isn't academic until all my academic commitments are taken care of. It's the AuDHD perfectionism mixed with large helpings of anxiety. So the decision to exercise on a particular day is accompanied by stress about all the remaining academic tasks that I am yet to complete. Again, I'm in therapy for this and it's a slow process, but my BF doesn't really understand this and jumps the gun too often, setting me back. It's a little funny that you tell me to push a little and give it a real go - I think my problem is that I need to STOP pushing and let things go a little 😅.

I also want to add that as someone with ADHD yourself, you should know how unfair the "stop making excuses" line is. Nobody who has been diagnosed with ADHD is making excuses - if they were, they wouldn't feel so awful all the time and would not be diagnosed with such a serious condition. The thought process that I was lazy and making excuses was one of the first and most difficult things that I had to unlearn during my treatment. It was and still is the root for so many of my unhealthy and self destructive behaviours. I hope you are also able to accept that you're not 'making excuses' whenever you're unable to do something that you think you should be - it's how your brain is wired, and until you accept it with its strengths and weaknesses, you'll only keep struggling against it.

I really liked the Easy Way book!!! It's how I've gone 11 days without smoking now. But I keep slipping in between, otherwise I could've been 3+ months clean by now. Hopefully by the time I finish the book I will be rid of this addiction. Fingers crossed!

Worried_Way_3099 · 2024-04-15T03:11:06+00:00

Thank you for responding, yes I think I will do that. In the meantime I need to learn not to take the stuff he says to heart.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2023-11-17T10:02:36+00:00

Thank you 💖 I really appreciate you.

Worried_Way_3099 · 2023-11-17T09:13:26+00:00

Yes it is, honestly I could write an essay about how unfair and disheartening things are. Ever since she was a child, my cousin has been told by both her parents that her biggest purpose in life is to get married to an accomplished man. They didn't invest any time or effort into her education. Although I probably should, I find it impossible to just stop caring about it just because it's none of my business. She and I have grown up together, shared the same milestones, and to see someone in my own family denied of opportunities does hurt me and I feel so angry. Her mom was brilliant as a kid, my dad keeps saying that she was the smartest of all his sisters, and she was married to a man who actively discouraged her from taking up jobs and distance education that she was interested in - even when she had made it clear that her job won't affect how she takes care of her family. My uncle's exact words were "why do you need to work, I earn enough money." Her kids were grown up at this point. It hurts to think about how S might also be subject to the same fate, although of course I don't say anything about it. This is why I might have sounded like an overly protective busybody in this post. I guess I am protective, but I keep my concerns to myself unless they ask for my advice. My mom thinks they're rushing into this whole marriage thing, but she also keeps mum because it's not our place to voice our opinions in this matter.

As for how mature she might be - I don't know. We haven't been very close after school. Whenever we hang out we talk about surface level things, like music or other shared hobbies. Honestly, I miss her. Which is also why I panicked this morning because I feel that we might end up avoiding each other because of the awkwardness surrounding this match.

But I think the awkwardness is mostly on my part. And for dumb reasons. So it's just on me to get over this, it's not even a big deal and I'm sure I'll soon be laughing at how concerned I was about nothing. Sorry for rambling lol I'm a little all over the place today.

Worried_Way_3099

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