Sulking husband

I'm wondering if part of the reason for living rurally is to have space/facilities for his sideline business? Either it makes money and he could rent a garage/container if you lived somewhere more convenient for 4/5 of your family or it's just an expensive hobby.

You need to decide what you want for yourself and your DC and tell him you are no longer sacrificing everyone else for his selfishness.

Yeah he is using work to hide.

Do you think he will actually follow through with this new job? If he does will he just become very busy with his self employment? I can’t see him suddenly becoming immersed in family life somehow…. Oh and ignore the sulking.

The OP has said they share their locations.

I was in a bit of a loop like this before children.

The truth of the matter was that I genuinely forgot how not to work and I was afraid not to work because I didn't know how I fitted into life or what to do when I wasn't working.

He'll need to adjust and it won't be easy for him so be very understanding and patient it'll be worth it.

OP his office door is shut so he can hide from you what he's actually doing. Because he sure as HELL wasnt working christmas day.

He DOES understand.
He just doesn’t like you challenging him with the truth about himself.
No point wasting any more energy on doing it OP. Nothing will change that way.
You have to decide what you are prepared to put up with, -for yourself and the children and make your own changes.

This. I know people who work as telecoms engineers out fixing stuff when Internet/phone goes down and they weren't working 24-26th December.

He's bullshitting to get time to himself to scroll his phone or whatever.

Something does not add to here. No head office of any company is open on Christmas Day. They'd need to pay all kids if support staff to be on site.

Also, you have up your dream career because you loved him (more fool you) and he won't even stop working 7 days a week to co-parent your children? You're being made a mug of, OP.

30k for all that? Unless he's an engineer of Fire Engines or something no need to work on Christmas day. Even blue light workers get the odd Christmas off!

30k a year is only a rung or 2 above minimum wage and for the hours he is supposedly working it's probably not even minimum wage. Is he actually working all those hours or does he shut himself in his office and video game /watch crap because he doesn't want to get dragged into watching the kids or doing household tasks?

Not a chance would I accept my husband working that much and that intensively for only 30k plenty of people do far less for double the pay.

I genuinely thought that was a typo and you meant £300k. From your initial post I assumed your husband was on that kind of money and had as job as a banker or corporate law firm partner) £30k is a graduate engineering entry role salary. And even on £300k with a genuinely busy job he could contribute more to family life.

He’s taking the piss out of you all, and there’s no benefit to it as you don’t even have financial security as a trade off.

He's effectively working a minimum wage job. How much can he really like it, relative to his kids that he never sees.

I'm also a workaholic but I at least get recompensed for it. And I still see my kids pretty much all the time. Maybe don't get to spend the quality time with them I should but I'm paying for their schools + tutoring + everything else. For 30k a year I would want a job I could do from the gym or while playing board games with the kids. I know salaries are generally pitiful in this country but something doesn't sound right here.

So he's never around and he doesn't care about your or your dc's feelings? He only priorities his wellbeing, never his family's?

Tell me how your life would be worse without him? He's clearly a terrible husband and father.

Leave him and move to somewhere with public transport. If he can't prioritise your dc, then you will have to, because they deserve better. You do too.

Theres more going on here.
The hours he's working don't tally up with the salary quoted.

Unless he is in a really niche role I honestly don't think he was working Christmas day. and what on earth would be so pressi g that he has to go out to the office. My husband is a engineer in sales. Their office and service department shuts down for the week at Christmas as do the majority of his customers.

You need to do more digging something is seriously off.

I think that’s what he’s hoping

all of that for 30k?!?! OP - this ain’t working out - he’s going to lose his family over this if he’s not careful.

MI5 can be like that.

Seriously what job is do important that he works 7 days and week and through present opening?

Why am I not too surprised by this?

this is not possible. A graduate engineer starts at £28k. You need to check better and understand which lies he is telling you.

I am sorry to have to state this so baldly; "his own needs" consist of spending as little time with his family as possible.

I don’t think he likes being a dad.

Is he only working about ten hours a week on the engineer job? That would be about the equivalent wage. He wouldn’t be called in on Christmas Day. Something is very wrong with this scenario.

I agree with PP - don’t give up your job!

That's lower than I was on the last time I worked an average 9-5, which was over 10 years ago. Working 7 days a week for that is, as others have said, probably illegal. Was it him that told you it was a decent salary??

Surely you can’t be stuck in a rural location with no choice to move somewhere in the vicinity more practical? Unless you’re based on the plains of Mongolia I can’t see why there are no other living options.

How can £30k a year be well paid? That’s the sort of salary an entry level engineering grad might expect.

Yes he's a selfish twat. He's making these choices. His job and pay doesn't warrant those hours at all.

I don't understand why people find it so hard to grasp that when people are asking for advice or support it's usually because they're in their specific situation due to a culmination of circumstances and if they had had the ability to unilaterally change a factor of it they would have.

Don't give up your job, you absolutely must not do that.