u/IdeaLife4170

Hi all,

I’m trying to sanity-check how to handle a small inconsistency between my resignation timeline and what I’ve told my new employer, and I’d appreciate some outside perspective.

Facts:

I resigned from my current job on 24 April

I have a 3-month notice period, so my contractual end date is 23 July

I only told my new employer I had resigned on 30 April, after signing their offer

I implied (loosely) to the new employer that I resigned on the 30th but haven't confirmed my final date with them yet

My new employer will likely only verify my employment end date (23 July) in a reference check and will be on my P60.

I have agreed a start date of 1 September, mainly due to pre-booked holidays in August

The issue:

There’s a small inconsistency between:

What my actual resignation date was (24 April / 23 July notice end)

What I implied to the new employer (30 April resignation)

I’m now unsure how best to explain this if it comes up, and I also want to avoid any situation where confirming the 23 July end date creates pressure to start earlier than 1 September.

My manager is relaxed (he told me directly) at me joining in September but HR are applying some pressure to see if I can negotiate the notice period. My company always holds prime to their full notice.

Questions

Shall I just say my final date is 29th July now and then at the start of July say they have agreed to cut my notice short to 23rd July?

Am I overthinking this or is there a cleaner way to handle it?

I’m mainly trying to avoid unnecessary complications or inconsistencies, while keeping everything straightforward and professional.

Thanks in advance.

I (45M) have been married to my wife (42F) for 15 years, with two kids (13 and 10). We’re in the UK, both work in finance, and on paper things look good.

The issue is the last 18 months have really damaged our relationship, and she says she’s lost trust in me.

I come from a very emotionally reserved Irish family where conflict is avoided. My wife’s family is the opposite – very open and emotionally expressive. This has always caused some tension, especially as she’s never felt fully accepted by my family.

In 2024 I was made redundant and spent a year job hunting (70+ interviews). I finally got a role in early 2025, but it turned out to be far more demanding than expected (long hours, 5 days in office initially). Around the same time, my wife’s career has taken off and is going really well.

Because of my job, she ended up carrying most of the childcare and home responsibilities, especially when our nanny was away. She also had a health issue (frozen shoulder) and needed support, and while I did help, I hesitated at times due to work pressure – which really hurt her.

I also didn’t push back enough at work or set boundaries, and she feels I consistently prioritised my job over her and the family.

Over time, this has led to constant arguments. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sleeping in a separate room and she’s saying the damage may be too much.

I’ve since found a new job with much better hours (9–6, 2–3 days in office), and I’ve started individual therapy again. We’re also about to begin couples therapy, though she’s sceptical and feels most of the work is on me.

Her main issue is that she doesn’t believe I’ll actually change, even now. She says I don’t truly take responsibility, even though I feel like I do.

I want to fix this and rebuild trust, but I’m not sure how to actually show it in a way she believes.

What can I do to genuinely rebuild trust and repair the relationship?

tl;dr;

I have made poor decisions related to my family of origin and my career, leaving my wife to pick up a lot of the slack. She now has a lot of resentment and we have been sleeping apart for the last 10 days or so. We are starting couples therapy this week.

What can I do to restore trust and repair the relationship?

TL;DR;

I have made poor decisions related to my family of origin and my career, leaving my wife to pick up a lot of the slack. She now has a lot of resentment and we have been sleeping apart for the last 10 days or so. We are starting couples therapy this week.

What can I do to restore trust and repair the relationship?

===================

Short Version

I (45M) have been married to my wife (42F) for 15 years, with two kids (13 and 10). We’re in the UK, both work in finance, and on paper things look good.

The issue is the last 18 months have really damaged our relationship, and she says she’s lost trust in me.

I come from a very emotionally reserved Irish family where conflict is avoided. My wife’s family is the opposite – very open and emotionally expressive. This has always caused some tension, especially as she’s never felt fully accepted by my family.

In 2024 I was made redundant and spent a year job hunting (70+ interviews). I finally got a role in early 2025, but it turned out to be far more demanding than expected (long hours, 5 days in office initially). Around the same time, my wife’s career has taken off and is going really well.

Because of my job, she ended up carrying most of the childcare and home responsibilities, especially when our nanny was away. She also had a health issue (frozen shoulder) and needed support, and while I did help, I hesitated at times due to work pressure – which really hurt her.

I also didn’t push back enough at work or set boundaries, and she feels I consistently prioritised my job over her and the family.

Over time, this has led to constant arguments. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been sleeping in a separate room and she’s saying the damage may be too much.

I’ve since found a new job with much better hours (9–6, 2–3 days in office), and I’ve started individual therapy again. We’re also about to begin couples therapy, though she’s sceptical and feels most of the work is on me.

Her main issue is that she doesn’t believe I’ll actually change, even now. She says I don’t truly take responsibility, even though I feel like I do.

I want to fix this and rebuild trust, but I’m not sure how to actually show it in a way she believes.

What can I do to genuinely rebuild trust and repair the relationship?

===================

Long Version:

I need some advice on how to repair my relationship with my wife. We live in the UK and are married 15 years and have 2 wonderful kids (13 and 10). I'm 45 (m) and my wife is 42 (f).We both work full time in financial services (I work in technology and she in investments) and are pretty successful.

I come from a relatively conservative family in Ireland and hers originally from India, but she was born here. We are both Catholic so there is no issues in that regard. THe key difference in our family of origin is that mine are very emotionally suppressed - emotions aren't discussed and conflict is avoided. This is in stark contrast to her family. She has quite heated argumements with her parents, her dad in particular but they can then move forward relatively easily. And she is very emotionally aware.

When we first met I was quite relaxed and she was quite shy and reserved. We got married when we were 29 (me) and 27 at her strong encouragement and we had our first child 2 years later. My family in Ireland have outwardly been fairly welecoming but in reality she has not felt accepted, most notably because she works full time and has an extremtly successful career. This is in stark contrast to my sister who lives next door to my parents and has 4 kids. For many years there have been boundary issues when we go back to visit but we only see them maybe 3 times per year (but there is always something which happens).

In 2024 I was made redundant after 9 years (I was also made redundant in 2014 again after about 9 years). Throughout 2024 I looked for jobs in my area and no kidding took part in 70+ interviews (some roles I had about 6/7 interviews and still didn't get the job!) So when in December 2024 I got 2 job offers, I was relieved to finally be able to stop job hunting. They both paid really well (similar to what I was on before). One of the offers was with a oil trading company which paid better but morally I couldn't deal with working for an oil trading company even though it paid better. The location was worse and one of the people in the interview told me I would be working really hard. So I went with the other financial company (a hedge fund) which has office hours 8.30am - 6pm with 4 days a week in the office. What they failed to tell me in advance was that I had to be in the office 5 days for the first 3 months during my probation period. I left for work around 7.30am and get home around 6.45/7pm leaving very little time for anything other than work. In the interview stage I was told that as a team lead reporting to the CTO and all other team leads are directors, then within 12 months I would be considered for promotion and once promoted the bonus would go up quite a bit.

My wife's career is really successful now. For the first 15 years she was in a bank and did pretty well but always underpromoted and underpaid. When she got made redundant in 2019 she took our 2 kids (7 and 3) to Asia for 4 months in October 2019 and really took control of her life. The plan was for me to join her in March 2020 to travel with our kids for 6 months around South America (I didn't go because I got promoted in January 2020). Needless to say we didn't go anywhere and she only returned to work in October 2021 into a stressful job. She did so to get back into the market and after 2 years she left and moved into better job with more control of her time and much better pay.

So as a result of this my wife had to pick up basically all of the childcare and things around the house for 3 months and even after that given my job was so inflexible she still did a majority of things. We do have a nanny but she went back home to Ecuador for a month in Feburary/March so my wife had to manage school drop offs for my 10 year old and picks ups (13 is able to get to and from on her own). This was clearly very stressful for her but I felt that quitting then would be cratering my career.

To try and alleviate the pressure I agreed to a flexible working arrangement (legal option in UK) to work 7am to 4.30pm 3 days a week so I would be home early when the kids got home and available to pick up in case of any issue with the nanny.

Then in September/October my wife had a flu vaccination and had a really bad reaction ultimately leading to frozen shoulder. She had to go see many consultants (orthopaedic surgeon, neuro surgeon and neurologist), had multiple MRIs and a nerve conduction study (electrical test to check nerve health which is as uncomfortable as it sounds). Ultimately there was no specific diagnosis and physio was the main treatment. One additional treatment is an injection into the shoulder of saline and anti-inflammitory to loosen the shoulder joint.

Throughout 2025 I was quite clear with my manager I wanted to get promoted to director but he was less than convinced even though a key user of mine - a managing director said I should get it. He told me people never get promoted in less than 12 months - the exact opposite of what I In January 2026 I was told that before I joined. In January 2026 I finally found out I wouldn't get promoted (in reality it was clear months before hand as my name wasn't put forward) and I got a meagre bonus by hedge fund standards. It wasn't exactly the money, but the distinct lack of value being shown to me.

Back in November 2025 I started doing some interviews and spoke with about 4-5 companies but nothing really progressed. One though did progress and I accepted an offer after literally 6 months and about 9 interviews. It is a hedge fund also, but they only ask to be in the office 2 days a week and the hours are 9am-6pm.

Throughout the last 18 months or so, given the pressure and stress of this situation was have been constantly arguing. It has got to the point in the last 2 weeks that I am sleeping in a different bedroom as she feels the damage I caused to our relationship by me prioritising job career is too much. She has lost trust that I will do the right thing.

When she was unwell at the end of 2025 I didn't really support her as much as I should have. I attended plenty of appointments with her, but for the shoulder injection one in December 2025 it took a lot of pushing from her. By this point I had used up all of my remaining holidays to take days off here and there in November/December to help with things. So when she had an appointment to get the injection I was quite hesitant to ask my boss (he is a terrible manager with zero empathy). At the back of my mind I was thinking asking for lots of time off would impact my bonus due in January 2026. I eventually went with her, but the damage was done. She feels I don't prioritise her and am unable to stand up to difficult people, may manager and my Dad being such people.

Another recent example was just last week as I was negotiating my start date for my new job. I have a 3 month notice period which would finish at the end of July. However as the kids will be on holidays until start of September she said I should ask to start then. This was quite a stretch but by basically saying I'm on holidays for 2.5 weeks of August (typical holiday pattern in the UK) then they agreed to start in September. In the midst of this last week our nanny was taking exams 2 days this week. As she has an important board meeting with her work, she was disappointed I didn't proactively say I would deal with the 2 days without the nanny. Right at this time I was about to quit my job and negotiating my new job so I was a bit distracted. She says that even with this new job, I'm not going to prioritise her. With my new job we will hiring a full time nanny.

She has regularly said I don't acknowledge or take responsibility for the decisions I have made. I regularly say I take responsibility and acknowledge issues back to her, but it doesn't stop her saying I'm still not acknowledging issues.

To try and prove to her I am willing to do things instead of just words, I reach out to my Dad and had a frank conversation about some paperwork I need to sort out related to a small inheritance my uncle left me and my kids. Anna has previously said I should stand up to him saying we need to look into it, so when I did stand up to him, she said she didn't care for my family any longer and having that conversation with my Dad wasn't a priority. Two weekends ago she had a frank conversation with her parents about our relationship and based on how poorly my parents treat her and us, her parents said she shouldn't get involved with them any longer.

I have had individual therapy in the past and recently started again. I had about 40 sessions between mid-2023 and end of 2024 primarily working on emotional awareness and dealing with boundaries with my family of origin. This stopped when I started my job in January 2025 as there was no time as I was in the office constantly. I started again at the end of 2025.

In early April we reached out to a couple’s therapy organisation and had an initial consultation. Almost a month later they came back with a therapist at a inconvenient time so we did our own search and just in the last few days we have spoken to 4 therapists and have agreed to start therapy with one of these this coming Thursday. My wife is quite pessimistic about couples therapy as she said a lot of the work is for me to do and feels it could be the last box ticking exercise before we separate.

I have told her my new job is and will be different but how do I regain her trust and repair the relationship?