Who's right and who's wrong out of me and my husband?

I didn’t say PIP was dependent on being out of work, I said you can claim it if you are disabled - it’s not means tested and not affected by whether you are able to work or not. Contribution based ESA is limited to one year if you’re in the work related group, and there is no time limit if you’re in the support group - although announcements in the budget indicate that this is set to change soon.

It's also not very nice to ask someone who is stressed out by driving to do that for 2 hours every day for no better reason than taking a dog to play with its friends!
Not everyone is a confident driver - I get anxious and would rather walk miles to avoid it. I'll do it when I have to but wouldn't just because my dh thought the dog should go to daycare!

I love dogs - I have one and my entire livelihood is centred around them.

I still OP is very, very much in the wrong.

I think a lot of this hinges on whether he agreed to do the driving before the OP booked the dog into daycare or whether he said he'd do it after it was a done deal.

But he doesn't have to keep the dog out of the house for the amount of time the dog would have been away - he's not the OP's employee ! All he's obliged to do is to walk the dog sufficiently and keep it company.

Re sah, if OP is desperate to reduce her work time/ wants a less full on job but they need a certain level of income, then her dh should try to find work which enables her to do that. If she just thinks he ought to do any old job just 'because', then this is unfair imo because he's ruined his chance to build a meaningful career by looking after the dc and this suited the OP well enough at the time.
There was always the option years ago for both to work but in less travel intensive jobs - it was as much her responsibility as his, that they made a different choice. There are consequences to this decision and her now having a sah partner who doesn't have great earning power is one of them.

We don't actually know what he's doing all day. Might be very little or it might be taking care of everything so the OP has little to do outside of her job.

Fudge does not need to go to daycare. Fudge is a dog, not a child. He has a human owner at home who is capable and is actively offering to walk him several times a day.
OP is not fudge’s mum, she’s a human and his owner.

It is utterly ridiculous to expect anyone, paid or unpaid to chauffeur a dog around for 2 hours a day- not including traffic.

omg this thread!!! Mumsnet slates women who don’t work when their children are old enough to be at school all day. And imagine if on top they complained that they didn’t like driving while their DH recovered from surgery ? You’d all be slating her!!

YANBU OP.
your husband is clearly a selfish , lazy arse, who can’t even put himself out for a couple of hours for five days while you recover from surgery. 😢 can’t believe he’s happy to sit there and let you drive… does he care about you and the dog at all?!

It's weird that your dog can't just hang out at home.

I love dogs

I would not agree to do all that driving so it could play with its 'friends'

given their children became adults around 6 years ago, that means they’re all, say, at least 25. This puts the parents in their mid to late 50s. I’m wondering if the husband senses something is wrong about his driving ability or his general health/cognitive capacity, hence backing out of his commitment to honour what was a very reasonable request. Perhaps, like so many men, they don’t realise how painful and tiring recovery is from things like birth, hysterectomies, any kind of abdominal surgery.

Yep; so she should call his bluff and let him…

😂

I do think that because my husband has been able to be rich and completely free with his time since the kids turned into adults 6 or so years ago, that he could stick to his promise to do just four days of dog drop offs, which he agreed to before I went into hospital, even though he doesn't enjoy driving.

He's in the wrong. He’s ’completely free’ with his time. He should be able to honour a prior agreement while the bankroller of his luxury lifestyle recovers from surgery, even if he doesn’t like being ‘stuck in the car’ all that much. 🙄

I can understand that you feel let down that things did not go as planned.

However, your driving immediately after surgery recklessly endangered other peoples lives. This is on you and not on DH.

If DH was really going to walk the dogs lots and keep him out of the way then this was a reasonable alternative course of action.

I suspect that there may be a lot more to this regarding your relationship with DH though.

Not really, if the husband is raking in 6 figs, it's common for the woman to stay at home rather than work a minimum wage job.

Sadly I know a few couples who met at our uni (prestigious uni, prestigious course, so equally good prospects) where the SAHM's chance of a City career died off during the child-rearing years. Financially, there was no point them going to do some crap admin or shelf stacking job for literally pennies compared to what they had enabled their husbands to earn.

Of course there's the whole pride/independence thing but I'm just saying financially this is a common arrangement for many former SAHMs

Laparoscopic surgery decreases recovery time. However it doesn't change that it is still major surgery.

PIP is not dependent on being out of work. And I thought contribution based ESA had a time limit - but maybe I'm wrong?

You don’t need your doctor to OK your driving. After surgery they just advise the suitable period of recovery before driving again, and away you go. That’s my experience anyway.

If you read the OP’s subsequent posts you will see that he originally agreed to this.

If he’s not working and it was agreed then yes he should stick to this despite one traffic jam. He’s being a bit precious about this I’d say.

What else doesn’t he do that he could/should do? It does seem like when he gave up work and didn’t return he’s got into a pattern of not wanting to put himself out and then stalling when there’s an issue with this. It’s not LTB territory 🤣but I wouldn’t be happy that he couldn’t make an effort.

You want your husband to drive for an hour x2 each day just so that your dog can have fun?! Dog needs trumping human needs or what.

This, yabvu. You don't just make a plan that involves someone else spending 2 hours a day doing something they hate, without ok-ing it with them. He has said he'll walk the dog?!

As mentioned upthread l had a laparoscopic cholecystectomy and was home the next day - back at work the following week because my job was sedentary. It isn’t considered major surgery in the same way as open cholecystectomy.

PIP - personal independence payment, and contribution based ESA are payable if you are either disabled in the first instance, or sick and unable to work, in the second. PlP isn’t means tested, and ESA allows for personal income such as private pensions up to £85 per week. It doesn’t count household income.

Actually yes your operation and OPs were both major surgery.

Curious if he drives 30 minutes or more to any hobbies, as that would make him a bit of a twat if so...

I know it may sound harsh but I think that if we were talking about a "stay at home mum" instead of a "stay at home dad", I feel the expectation would be that they would be going back to work maybe as soon as the youngest child started in reception. However, in my view they should certainly be doing something to contribute financially as well as practically to the care of the "children" as they get older. Although they may not need so much in the way of hands on care/the presence of one or other parent, as they get older they certainly do not become cheaper!

I think the husband here may be slightly selfish and perhaps a little bit lazy. Perhaps the OP has been so busy working to keep this show on the road that she hasn't had the space to address this. But now she has to take enforced rest to recuperate she does have that time. I hope she uses it wisely.