I have a 4 and 7 year old. I got made redundant at the end of my second maternity leave and ended up being self-employed for nearly 3 years. It worked out well and I made plenty of money and it allow me a lot of flexibility with family life.
Fast forward to this year, and a really good job opportunity came up on a 12 month fixed term contract, full-time. I felt like I should take it because it would look very good on my CV and be a good step back into an employed role. It would also help the family financially as it is highly paid. In this employment market felt like a no brainer.My DH works shifts but has recently gone part time (we decided this before my job offer came up because he was working almost all weekends and we never got a family life). He works 5 on, 7 off and for the 5 on he doesn’t always have a shift. It really varies from no shifts to one everyday. This means sometimes he might have as much as 19 straight days off.
On paper, this sounds great, but somehow we can’t make it work and I just feel overwhelmed the entire time. My job is fine, people are nice and I can do the work but it’s reasonably full on and I often dash home from the office to put the kids to bed or see them briefly and then open my laptop again in the evening. The youngest in particular finds it all a bit upsetting and it’s constantly crying for me wanting me to take her to nursery put her to bed etc.
I have outsourced as much as I can - I now have a cleaner, gardener and send ironing out. But I still feel like I never get a chance to make a home-cooked meal, do any reading book or spellings with the eldest and by the weekend I’m exhausted with juggling it all. DH isn’t a massive home person so he’ll do some DIY and put a wash on but most other stuff falls to me.
When I try to get him involved things always go wrong. For example, we went away for the weekend and he was off for the whole week prior so I asked him to pack for the kids. For one kid he brought loads and then the other he brought only 2 t shirts (but oddly 9 pairs of shorts) for 5 days. I try not to criticise so just find myself making a mental note that I’ll do the packing next time. I have loads of examples of this sort of thing. The result of this means that I’m picking up more and more.
He does a very responsible job that I have respect for and complete faith in him. He is very highly regarded. But he seems to really struggle with simple day-to-day tasks, he’s always forgetting things or getting things wrong. I have an any time pass on our supermarket online shopping so we can order any time but he just forgets to do it. I was away a couple of nights this week with work and came home to the fridge being completely empty and there’s nothing to feed the kids. It wasn’t the end of the world because he just gave them a cream cheese sandwich but I just find it weird when all he needs to do is a few taps on his phone.
Are some people just wired differently? I’m very methodical and organised and I find it difficult to relate to the challenge he has with simple everyday tasks. I know people will say he’s lazy and should be more thoughtful and believe me I feel like this sometimes too. But to be honest, it does seem quite genuine. He tries but just keeps messing up!