To be fuming that DH has spent the whole day on his laptop?

Hmmm. Possibly he's avoiding interacting with foster children ? Doesn't want to get too involved? Are they with you long term?

I grew up with Foster children. It could be hard and upsetting at times. But he's agreed to it all I'm sure so he should talk about his feelings.

Is he in some bother? And trying to desperately sort it out? Has he invested in something and realised its a scam?

Also without knowing what his job is, it does seem odd to be working all day.

This is horrid. I’m really sorry. Four little ones on your own is not what you were planning I’m sure. With zero notice, I can’t imagine I would be able to get past this. My husband has checked out of stocking time several times over the years (he is a malingerer) and I’ve found it hard to get over that TBH. Is this typical behaviour for your your partner? Is he normally on your team?
I really hope he steps up I hope you have been able to give your foster babies some joy today.

Extremely weird. Did he give you any warning that he wouldn’t be available today when there were 4 dc for whom you needed to maintain expectations? Sounds really odd.

Does he have a deadline on 31 December? I have been joking about working on Xmas day since October but luckily I hit my target on 23rd. If I hadn't I may have had to work over the Xmas period but I certainly wouldn't HAVE to have worked on Xmas day and nobody else would ha move been working obviously. It sounds more like he wanted to check out of Xmas. He must know you know he's not really working so he's takin g you for a mug too.

This completely depends on what organisation he works for and what his role is.

Does he work for an organisation that supplies infrastructure or handles emergencies? Local authority, emergency service, utility company, Highways Agency, public transport etc?

Both DP and I have had office jobs which came with a risk of needing to work from home on Christmas Day and although we were lucky and never had to for more than an hour or so, it was perfectly possible that one of us might have had to work all day.

We would obviously have told our families why we were working though.

Unless he is intercepting a meteorite I would be reading him the riot act.

You could go nuclear and turn off the wi-fi 🤷‍♀️

Fuming reading this what with it being Christmas today.
OP do you want to PM me his mobile number and I'll speak to him. I'll stay calm and won't mention Mumsnet but he needs a right speaking to the bastard

He’s lying op. No one in there right mind would be on a teams call and if they were on Christmas Day and urgent you certainly wouldn’t mind a dad stopping to interact with there dc so something is wrong op.

That's is properly shit of him

My first move would have been to pull the main fuse out of the electricity box for two minutes and then put it back in.

I doubt it’s an affair tbh, he’d be trying much harder to cover it up.

He’s your husband. I would take it as read that as far as it goes, he is telling the truth - he believes he has to work and it’s important. However, I don’t think much excuses not providing an explanation and a prediction of when it will be over at the very least - and tbh I would expect him to build in an hour at the Christmas dinner table including total attention to you all as an absolute minimum.

OP hasn’t said what he does - mediocre middle management is your reading, and not something we can base a conclusion on. Besides, even small, local companies are vulnerable to hacks.

He’s not working.

It’s either a massive emergency or he has checked out of family life? Not eating lunch sounds like stress to me. I wonder if he’s done something massively wrong he is trying to fix?

OP this is ridiculous.
Your husband has an addiction to something or someone on the internet
This behaviour is totally unacceptable nobody would accept it so why do you?

I think 'affair' is a bit of a hasty conclusion... if you were having an affair I think you'd want to come and play 'family man' at least for a bit to seem more convincing. And, as has been said, he'll still need to eat.

But it's weird for him to do this and not even stop to explain why. In that position, no matter how stressed you are you should at least take 30 seconds to say or message to your partner 'All our servers are down and we're going to lose millions if we don't get it going again' or 'Something's come up that's going to be in the news tomorrow and I have to do crisis management and I'm sorry but I don't know how long it will take'.

Not just 'I'm working, don't disturb me'

I agree it's especially mean to do this to foster kids who really need a 'normal' family Christmas.

I’m not defending OP’s husband’s erratic behaviour - which seems far more suggestive of a looming personal crisis than a work one - just pointing out that even with the markets closed, it’s possible for things to go wrong that require urgent handling on Christmas Day.

He’s an office worker some sort of mediocre middle manager type most probably. Highly doubtful to be a job requiring 16 hr day on Christmas Day, if his work could be in those realms I’m sure OP would have said

Cyber attack on a company or a company's client is really the only thing I can think of that could result in unexpectedly having to work Christmas day. Or I guess an office/factory catching fire? Or maybe something like a steel mill where if it cools down it's going to be unusable.

Obviously police officers and civilians and presumably a chunk of the armed forces and the NHS and railway engineers and I assume MI5 and GCHQ must have people working on Christmas Day, but they'll have been rotaed in or rotaed on call.

I have worked in the Big 4 and I have worked in the NHS in the pandemic and still didn't have to didn't have to do surprise work on Christmas Day. I have worked on Christmas Eve, I have worked on Boxing Day so I am no paragon of Christmas Sanctity but never Christmas Day itself.

duplicate

It takes literally a few seconds to text to say 'I'm really sorry, we've had a crisis. It's an emergency'. It takes less time than going to have a pee, which I'm sure he did more than once today.

Oh stop.

He’s working? All day on Christmas Day? And herding you out the room when you try and speak to him? Something’s off imo. Is he in financial shit? Got an OW? Just trying (and succeeding) to avoid the chaos of family life? You need a serious word when he finally emerges!