Should DH's job come ahead of mine because he earns more?

The poor children..... Why bother having them. They just sound like an inconvenience to both you and your DH.

When he asks if you really need to be in the office, that’s your cue to say yes and not make it sound like it’s optional. Tell him that it is essential (it is if you’ve agreed to a minimum number of office days and you’re not meeting that).

I do think that you’d have been better off finding a job closer to home though, given that you accepted you’d be sorting most of the childcare and didn’t need to get a specific salary from your new role. You could have always changed roles again when the kids were in secondary and able to get themselves home. There are plenty of full time homeworking roles now too, which would take the stress out of your situation. It may be worth looking into as the pay can still be pretty good and without commuting costs.

Why would anyone pay 2k per month childcare to allow them to go to work and earn 2k?

You’re being totally disingenuous though, it wouldn’t be 24k to allow for sufficient wrap around for your school aged children.
The majority of working parents have childcare to allow them to work, only being able to facilitate one parent working out of the home on any given day isn’t sustainable.

Ask him how far he thinks his big man salary will go in supporting two households if you split owing to an escalation in his twatishness.

@OpalFruitsAreBetter that makes him sound like a twat tbh. You might need to have a clear conversation - the fact that his job is more important doesn’t mean that it’s the ONLY thing that’s important.

@OpalFruitsAreBetter - my DH is very well paid and I’m a SAHM.

But if I already have a commitment he doesn’t just announce that he’s now going to be in the office so I have to change my plans, he tells me that he’s been asked to attend an in-person meeting but knows I have plans and asks if it’s possible.

I think that’s all you’re really asking for? That your husband respects that you also have plans and commitments and that the two of you need to make plans together, Ultimately you don’t work for him, he doesn’t get to just unilaterally decide how you’ll be spending your day.

Do you have a family calendar? When we first had kids I followed advice on here and set up a family calendar - whatever is on there first takes priority, and nothing is rearranged without a conversation!

His earning more shouldn’t be an excuse for him to leve everything to you, but it sounds like you agreed in advance to be more available, so I think you should honour that.

In my experience most corporate jobs provide as much flexibility as you are willing to demand. And women demand it whilst men do not. I suspect your DH absolutely could be more available if he wanted to be but he chooses not to.

In the example you gave, if you said "ah ok, What's your plan for pick up then, cause I'm already going to be out?" What would he say?

@OpalFruitsAreBetter My opinion on this hinges on what the nature of the emergency was that required DH's presence in the office at the last minute! There are some things I'd find reasonable and others not!

Perhaps also if it was something related to "keeping the job" vs "chasing the promotion". If he is on £150k already, in my experience promotions start to involve quite serious increases in money from that point - which could be very material for your family - so perhaps he is prioritising it - but maybe worth a discussion? Perhaps you'd support some last-minute things if he'd lose his job otherwise but not things that are "optional but would look good to the promo committee".

Creative industries, advertising, in that world sure you couldn’t be constantly changing stuff due to family needs but it would be 100% acceptable to say ‘sorry Big Boss/important client I can’t do that meeting in person tomorrow I’ve got to be WFH for pickup, can we do zoom or Monday’. Especially once you’re towards the upper levels, if it’s occasional it’s not just acceptable it’s respected.

There was a thread on here once about men pretending their job had no flexibility in order to get out of stuff, and I think a lotttt of it is that.

Why? The family income is £200k, more than enough to pay £2k pm on childcare.

I would also question why you applied for a job whereby you have to travel a round trip of 3 hours when you’re in the office. Especially when your last job was causing you to be so unwell - that’s just madness.
I know of a couple with school children in a similar situation whereby the H is paid a lot but fully WFH, the W is also paid a decent, but smaller salary and can sometimes WFH. Luckily, they live very near to school so whoever is WFH can do most school drop offs / pickups as it only takes 10 minutes. They have a wide support network that can pick up the slack if the children are ill / during school holidays etc which helps immensely. This is where 2 working parents manage better than those who have further to travel, have no support network and need regular childcare. It causes stress all round - if both workers have very demanding jobs it can be much worse. Something has to give in these situations. In your case, your children seem to spend a long time in childcare when you’re in the office, your relationship is affected due to disagreeing about who does what which likely the children pick up on. The only way forward is to both sit down and thrash out a solid plan, and stick to it.
In the situation you described, I would be telling DH that as he knew you were in the office, he needs to sort out the kids - end of conversation.

Well of course there was a change in tone once OP revealed how much they both earned. Even OPs step back less stress job is paid a lot more than average wage. Between the two of them they have more than enough income to throw money at the problem. Most people don’t have that option.

But if you’re both full time workers, then it’s irrelevant where you’re working surely? I assume you mean that as you’ve got to go into the office he should look after the kids if he’s WFH and vice versa? That’s never going to be fair to either of you - you need proper childcare arrangements regardless as to where you’re working.

You totally miss the point.

If FT childcare is let’s say £2000 per month and you are excluded from funded hours due to your partners income then it means it is totally unviable for you to do a normal job.

My dh is similar but I work (as a consultant) with professional and financial services and the culture is like this in these firms. It's cut throat and very masculine. People don't realise how so when they are in the lower grades and then they hit the point where they do realise, which is when they either comply, get forced out or leave because they hate it. So the culture continues.

£200k and you won't pay for childcare? Cry me a river.

OK I couldn't do that, that would bore me to death. But great for him 🙂

Compliance. He is based at home so easy to pop out if needed.

Of course his role is deadline driven but that doesn’t mean long hours and inflexibility.

He works M-F 9-5 but has to deliver what’s needed so makes sure he can do that within his working hours. Evenings and weekends are family time not work.