Dh wants me to work more, but won’t take any time off work or be flexible

I’m on the fence here.

1. he’s being inflexible but he may genuinely have a role where last minute requests are challenging. I suspect he could try a little bit harder though and would have got more used to it if you hadn’t been a sahm during the pre-school years. I don’t think it’s possible to get through nursery years and illness without a bit of flex from both parents if they’re working.

2. On the other hand, you don’t need to default to him taking leave to cover holidays. Get your daughter booked into a holiday club and you’re sorted.

3. now your daughter is school age you need a plan for both of your annual leave. We have a joint spreadsheet generally working 1-2 years in advance once term dates are confirmed. It is inevitable he will have to take some time on his own to do childcare if you’re working otherwise it’s an inefficient use of annual leave.

Your employer will expect you to share emergency time off with the other parent. That is what being a parent requires.

Not in the slightest
we have to have minimum number to safely run our service
all rotas go out 7 weeks in advance in the first week we can request swaps A/L then week 6 it’s finalised
It’s the nature of the job they are far from unreasonable

My husband and I are divorced and I’m still trying to get him out of the house. I’ve no idea how he will manage his 50%. His work comes before everything. Even his own health. He frequently has client dinners, day trips away and week long trips away. I’ve always just had to drop anything I’ve had planned to deal with these. I think this is why he is putting off moving out. On another thread I’ve said that I don’t want his parents looking after them.

I am cross on your behalf op. He can't have it both ways and no one is that important they can't take time off..how does he manage his annual leave?

I don't think you have given him short notice and even if you have he can help find a club for your LO to go / ask grandparents as well. It's not just your problem to fix.

Can I suggest going forward he has to be responsible for one drop off and one pickup a week - he needs to feel the responsibility. He also has to have responsibility for X amount of time in the holidays for either taking time off to be at home with LO or book clubs / organise childcare.

Both my husband and I have senior roles and we both do drop off pick up etc so your husband is being a twat and needs to feel and learn some responsibility.

Hope you get to do the job x

Please tell me that he will be paying for half of this childcare if you don’t have all money pooled.

But he isn’t unwell and unable to work? He hasn’t had an accident either. These are extenuating circumstances, so it wouldn’t be emergency cover.

I obviously have no idea how senior he is, or his role, but seniority can make it harder to take leave.

For example, I can’t be off at the same time as our other director or our CEO. There’s only 3 of us, if they’re both already off - I literally cannot be.

Our teams have a minimum staffing level of 5, but there’s 15 per team. So far easier to take leave at their level, as there’d have to be 10 people off before it became a problem.

The issue isnt whether he can get the day off, I dont get why everyone is fixated on that! We all know that there are jobs where it is almost impossible to get a short notice day off outside of an emergency.

The issue is that he clearly doesnt see childcare for his own kids as his problem. He sees it as the OP's problem to solve, as if they are nothing to do with him! That he he refused to even discuss it shows that. If he had said "no I wont be able to but I can ask my mum if she can have them" shows a willingness to work together to find a solution.

Especially bad considering he is going on at the OP to work more!

If you both need to work the day then arrange holiday club/chilcare. Problem solved :)

what sort of role is he in? School teacher or uniformed services very different to some office roles ?

Your post reads as if he isn’t even prepared to ask whether his day off can be accommodated.
, that he is happy to leave it all to you.

Is that correct or has he already had a really serious effort to arrange cover? If he is that senior, what would happen if he were unexpectedly unwell and unable to work? Accidents happen, surely there is a plan in place. You just need him to accept some responsibility

sigh

Really! No, it's often not possible in certain jobs. The service just would not run. Can you really not think of any situation where if too many people were off then things would not grind to a halt? No one can be on 2 places at once or do 2 things at once. That's what would have been the case in my job.

Depends if you think this is an emergency or not, I’m guessing the husband doesn’t - certainly not his emergency anyway.

You must be a genuinely lovely colleague. My staff do swap with each other, but not around bank holidays.

I don’t know many people that would give up a 5 day weekend because of someone else’s childcare issues.

But the question could be asked, I’ve swapped with colleagues in emergency circumstances because I’m just not an arse and I remember what it was like when I was raising young children myself

I known literal brain surgeons who were on call and anaesthetists have to drop everything but outside of that I doubt there’s much that couldn’t be rearranged for 24 hours.

It’s unreasonable to not give everyone who asks for the day before a bank holiday off?

Come on. Surely you know that’s ridiculous.

We have a minimum staffing level, and therefore a maximum annual leave allowance at any given time, certain quotas per team etc.

It’d be a no in my workplace as well, because the opportunity to get Easter holidays in has long passed.

I get that sometimes there are stringent rules, and this is needed in lots of industries. But then if that was the case, the OPs DH needs to learn to communicate. He simply could have said "I won't be able to request leave but there is already X number of people off and with it being school holidays the team are maxed out on annual leave - I would have needed to requets it X weeks ago. I wonder how else we could work it out?"

It shouldn't be just up to the OP to figure out the childcare.

In some jobs though, the needs of the service dictate that there have to be a minimum number of staff at work on any day for the service to function. That was the case where I worked, in the public sector. It was very stressful if people went sick for example if people were already on annual leave. Customers always complained if we were short staffed and they couldn't get an immediate answer on the phone, for example, which made an already stressful situation worse.
So yes, I can understand why sometimes the answer is no, and it's pointless to ask.

Well, you have a highly unreasonable employer, but I suspect you know that.

I wouldn’t ask because I know it would be a no

In many jobs you can't just book time off easily and especially not the school holidays. I woudn't be able to get time off next Easter, let alone in a couple of weeks time. However, your husband does need to engage in a sensible discussion about splitting childcare to enable both of you to pursue your careers. In the future he will need to think ahead and book time off to look after your DD.

The point is, he won’t have even asked

He’s talking nonsense. My boss is an Executive Board Director and took a day off mid-week to do something for one of his kids because his wife was working. The company will not collapse because your DH isn’t there for one day (promise).

I feel like there is 2 separate issues here.

I don’t know many places of work where they’d let you book a day off so close because the other parent had to work. You find child care. It’s different if a child is sick or an emergency of course.

But then there is obviously an underlying problem with you working/not working. A deep conversation is needed.

"He’s always said" - when talking/thinking about other people. He hasn't actually considered joint custody, not really. As soon as he did, and considered how custody would 'interfere' with his image of himself as indispensable-at-work - he'll say he wants something different.

I wonder if "He’s always said" because he knows he's being unreasonable and he knows the thought of him depriving you of 50% of your daughter's life keeps you under his thumb, facilitating the life of Mr Indispensable.

Is there any way your dd can have a playmate that day or day with grandparents? It sounds like you should say yes to the job but you need a serious chat with your partner about being a team and future childcare arrangements.