OH wants me to leave PT job to work FT....

Having 4 under 5 is a choice also children cost, it is not hard to do the money maths v amount of children

Did her partner think about how having 4 kids under 5 would affect OP’s mental health? The physical impact of three back-to back pregnancies and births? The impact on OP’s career and earning prospects.

The husband’s complaints do not exist in a vacuum. There is no “luxury” or “easy ride”

I find it disgraceful how women can insult and belittle another women for not sharing the financial burden while her life has been completely changed physically and emotionally during the younger child raising years, in full knowledge that the physical toll of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding cannot be shared by the male partner.

I think you need to find out why he is suddenly saying this and in such a nasty way. Is there a threat to his income, is there debt you don’t know about, is there a problem re mortgaging or is it that he wants you to be financially independent so that he can leave?

It sounds to me more than a conversation of whether you should be working more and I’m sorry if I’m wrong about this but how are other areas of the relationship? Could he be wanting to split? I imagine with young dc it’s never going to be easy but do you think this is a possibility?

Haven’t read all the thread but are you sure wraparound childcare is only £400? I pay £1000 for 2 children a month for full time before and after school care.

I think that your DH is being really unreasonable, but probably because he is feeling the pressure.

Are you sure there are no financial problems in the business?

I think speaking to your current job, asking for a raise and taking on a 4th day during school hours is a very sensible plan.

I also think that doing that will test the waters with how things like housework/childcare etc will work if you’re working more.

There is a huge difference between going full time when you’ve got 4 young kids, when responsibilities are partially outsourced and partially split. vs trying to work full time and also do all of the rest on your own, which is a recipie for a breakdown in my opinion.

A lot of people reassuring you that you’re in the right and you should continue as you are - he’s abusive, unreasonable, a bully. That you contributing financially is not necessary because you do the domestic stuff,

everyone assuming he won’t do his fair share when it sounds like he is actually trying to come up with alternatives for OP to be able to increase her hours - his mum etc,

I think it’s fair enough that he’s saying all the kids are in school. I am no longer willing to work long hours and be the sole breadwinner. I cannot cope any more. And to be fair from what you’ve said it sounds as though he would leave. And you call him OH, does that mean you’re not married? How would it work if you ended up splitting up? Would you be financially protected or would he?

I think you need to have an honest conversation and work out what hours you can realistically do. It doesn’t need to be 9-5 mon-fri, you could look at working when he’s at home. Maybe retail or care etc alongside your tutoring.

it might be worth getting some legal advice OP, because I wonder if he’s planning to leave you and if you are working full time with a higher income he will think that he can pay less child support etc.
He is being entirely unreasonable given the ages of your children and this is the only plausible explanation for his demands.

As someone who has been/is the main earner, I get the stress of this and how he might be feeling the weight of this. Especially when there are ways to outsource the cleaining and cooking, and when volunteering days could be switched for earning days. Yet you both chose to have 4 kids and the responsibility that comes with that. If you went to 5 days a week, what would he take off your plate, if the answer is diddly squat then don't do it. My husband took all the weight of our daughter school runs, clubs etc, during the week whilst I was at work and on the weekend. He was never great at walking the dogs or cleaning (hence outsourcing to a cleaner).

Get a job in the evening and leave him to do everything at home.

Is it more cost effective for you yo up.your days to 4 and pay a etc to do what you would usually do on your cleaning day ? Long term 4 kids and full time- no way if I could avoid it. If u had to go back full-time you should not be the default parent or house keeper- 50 50.

OH means 'Other Half'.

I'm going to add that ms fairydust said a lot that could be true, but we don't know. Yes, if things are really tough then maybe drop the volunteering for a while, but volunteering is a career builder. Only she knows. I know I've been in a situation where the H had plenty of securuty and after commiting tried to begin shaming me for not making enough, not owning a house, etc etc. There was no need, it was pure abuse. And if it was a form of panic it was still not okay. If he is losing his shit about money - maybe ask for a day that you two go over the details - what he's stressed out about - maybe insist that you both be book-keepers together on the same page. So if he is losing his shit bc he is paranoid you can show him the books and tell him to go lie down.

I don't understand all the info or what OH means - "On-something Husband?" "Oh gfys Husband?" "Omg why did I marry my Husband?"
I recommend for the kds, and in case he changes one day from an asshole - apply to those jobs he sends, and only unless something truly better than what you have, and something with a contract, and something you yourself know is a step up in the right direction and not a mistake - otherwise, oh well, you were not offered the job. If he won't stop talking about bringing in money then wear headphones. If he is relentless you need to take your kids and file for divorce and I hope you have friends or family to stay with. Anything that resembles abuse or him being an asshole document it, record it if you get a sinking feeling that you married a nut. It happens.

If my DH was running the home and doing all the childcare and we had four kids, I wouldn't expect him to be working at all, and if he did all that OP is doing and had planned for I'd think it was an immense contribution.

If I was stressed out in my job aa her DH is I'd consider it entirely my responsibility to find another one that suited me better, and which better fitted around me having more family time too so I was able to be present and do more at home.

As I have done, in real life, with two kids, us both working full time and being the main earner myself.

He’s an idiot. I can understand why he’s reached the end of his tether - he’s working his socks off and getting nowhere. That’s where a lot of people are at.

But you are working, and when you’re not doing paid work you’re looking after twins.

If you do more paid work, the extra money will be lost on wraparound care and holiday clubs so that other adults can do the work of looking after your 4 children. They’re bloody expensive and usually it’s a lottery of first come first served. That x4? He’s not being logical.

I would be really hurt too. The disregard for everything you’ve put into your family, the way he’s speaking to you and about you and the kids.

You’re obviously a do-er and you’ll get there in a way that makes sense.

He needs a good, feminist telling off in my opinion!

First off, you have literally just saved over £3.5k of summer holiday childcare.

Your update, with him suggesting 'you get a ft job and I'll sign on' is nonsense from him. The numbers clearly won't add up that way round. If he was asking you to up your tutoring hours, perhaps taking on some evening work as pps have suggested as much easier to get, and he comtinue working and pick up some of the evening childcare at home that'd be a workable team solution.

As it is, he's just tantrumming. There may be something behind it at work, or he may have picked the moment when the hard work before kids start school is done (sounds like this is literally the first week in years of parenting that they're all in school?!) and decided to throw his toys out of the pram.

Have you a spare room/ garden room where you take in a teenage French Spanish student for extra cash? Could you do 1 exam a week for an EPA company if you have a PGCE?

Could you work at the weekend? Maybe a Saturday job or evening bar work. I did this when my kids were little and loved the change of pace.

Does he really think 2 elderly grandmothers are going to cover all the school holidays? £800 a month for wrap around care. Is he going to do his share of drops offs and pick ups from wrap around or will this all fall to you? Will he use all his AL for school holidays cover as 2 elderly ladies can’t realistically look after 4 young DC. It cost me a lot for 2 kids in wrap around and holiday cover. Do some maths and ask him what he will be doing to step up.

I wonder at English people's lack of comprehension of their own language. OP clearly states she has four year old twins who were in a nursery for three days a week. She looked after them two days a weeks and fitted her volunteering around looking after the twins. It is only this week that the said twins have started school along with their two older siblings. So the idea that OP was frittering her time away volunteering while her husband worked himself to death is far from true. It also appears that one of her children has some sort of mental health issue which she describes as upsetting, stressful and not easily solved. In fact, she has been trying to improve her CV by doing volunteer work online while looking after her children.

I think you need to work out how much wrap around care will cost for four children. I don't think it is £400 per month - that would be a £100 per child per month so £25 per week per child so £5 a day per child. I know costs vary from region to region but I think wrap around care could be easily three times that. Say it is in fact £15 a day per child - that adds up to £75 x 4. That adds up to nearly £14,000 a year. You would have to earn more than that though to cover tax because you pay out of net income. Then there is the cost of school holiday care for 4 children which is not cheap. Would working two extra days bring in that much of an increase in your income that it would offset the increased cost of childcare? Out of interest, has he actually asked his mother to take over the school run, dealing with the school avoidant child, 5 days a week?

His delivery is obviously not good but having seen my husband go through burnout it is really serious and I would never feel comfortable living off only his salary for that reason, I think it’s a lot of pressure nowadays for one person to finance a family of 6. I’m not saying you don’t work hard or that what you do isn’t valuable, because it is and 4 children is a lot. You haven’t said that your husband does nothing around the house or childcare wise so I won’t assume he doesn’t (me and my husband split everything 50/50 so it is possible for men to do their share of at home tasks…)

it does stand out to me that you work 3 days a week 9-2:30pm, I would consider this very part time to be honest, most jobs are 9-6pm nowadays even if doing part time. 30 hours a week is considered part time. Surely housework can be done between 3pm and 6pm on those days?

I appreciate until now you have had two four year olds to look after on your non working days, but also one of those days is dedicated to volunteering, which as others have said is a luxury. And I also appreciate you are doing it to gain experience for the job you want but to be honest having a job you want is also a bit of a luxury, if my husband was burning out I really would take any job at the best pay I could get and no that doesn’t mean I’m saying you should be doing everything you’re doing now plus working full time, obviously he would also need to pull his weight with household tasks and caring for his kids.

theres clearly a reason he’s done this 180 on you and it sounds like he is very stressed about money, whatever that reason is doesn’t give him the right to speak badly to you of course, but at the same time if I was the breadwinner and my husband worked 16 hours a week, had a day off to do housework and a day off to volunteer I probably would be telling him he needs to work more. How many hours is he working per week? As he has his own business I’m guessing it’s more than 40? It does kind of sound like either his business or his mental health might be in trouble, I would spend less time focussing on the fact he’s being mean and more time trying to get to the bottom of it to be honest, if his business fails or he has a mental breakdown you’ll be forced to find any job that can keep your roof over your head and keep your family fed

@GreenLemonHedgehog I was going to ask if 4 children was part of the plan - it looks from your update like 2 was the plan and it’s ended up being 4, is that right? I wonder if this is in part behind your husband’s outburst - maybe he’s been thinking subconsciously that he just has to hold on till they get to school and everything will suddenly feel easier and it’s only just hit home the realities of the ongoing costs involved.

He’a communicated really badly and I can understand why you feel blindsided, but it really does sound like there’s something more going on. I’ve been there as the main breadwinner supporting a spouse with poor MH and the responsibility weighs very heavy. It led me to feeling trapped, as if everything and everyone depended on me. I think it’s worth signalling you want a proper conversation, once the kids have gone to bed, over a bottle of wine, to understand what’s at the root cause of this - maybe get your finances out together and go through them, as well as the costs of childcare and what additional hours you think you could pick up. But it has to be positioned as compromise eg you could get a job 3dpw; which drop-offs or pick-ups will he be able to do to facilitate that? Can he commit to eg doing all the laundry or all the meal planning and prep? Come at it reasonably and logically with him so it’s not such an emotionally charged conversation.

gamerchick

Change the conversation.
Ask.him what he's taking on of the shit you do now. It has to be realistic. If he wants you to bring in coin then he needs to take some of the heavy lifting.
Tell him to write it down what he's willing to add to his workload and then you'll have another chat. Until then he can be quiet about it.

This might not work as the other parent generally doesn’t see/ acknowledge the extras the other parent does eg if she says ‘can you take child to swimming’, they’ll say ‘oh we should cull swimming, it’s too much hassle. They’ll say it’s fine just doing washing at weekends etc etc. Nobody ever gets the extra little things the person predominantly with the kids does- ds forgot something from school once, not something that outwardly looked important but I knew it made a difference to his day and he’d be disappointed. Dh couldn’t understand me making the trip to get it to him and said had I been in work he’d just have had to do without it (even though dh was wfh that day and had I been him I’d have driven down on my lunch break)

That seems very on-brand for your husband. Just outsource the childcare for four primary age children to two more women, one of whom is in her 70s and neither of whom are in good health. Do you and your husband still have your dads? It never seems to be suggested that the grandads do childcare, only the grandmothers.

I've got three adult children and two primary age grandchildren and I worked as a childminder for a few years when my kids were young. I also had a pretty senior, very stressful job for many years until I retired. I do childcare for my grandchildren. The physical tiredness when looking after small children day after day is relentless. At least at work, I had lunch hours and colleagues to offload to and to to provide mutual support.

Hi OP, your husband sounds unreasonable with his new expectations of you, but I think you need a sit down and try to see where his worries are coming from. Does he simply want more money in the family pot to lighten the burden, or is he struggling to make ends meet each month? If it’s the latter, that will need some movement on your part. Could you tutor for a couple of hours on one of your days off to increase your hours? Could you volunteer for half a day instead of a full day say?