How can I get a job to fit round DH?

[TiceCream]

I’m sick of being a SAHM. We manage on DH’s middle management salary but I’m intelligent and I want to achieve something with my life. Plus I don’t like relying on DH and not having my own money. If we divorced or he died I’d be screwed.

DH is out at work 8am-7pm Mon-Fri. He has occasional overnight business trips that last 1-3 nights. He goes out to a music group one night a week as a hobby (not always the same night) and he also goes approx 20 weekend days out of the year for between 4 and 8 hours (sometimes Sat and sometimes Sun, it’s unpredictable).

DS is currently two and is with me pretty much all the time (except when I go out to my own hobby one night a week). We have no family or friends childcare available. I can’t see any time where I could rely on DH to definitely be available for childcare while I work, so I’d have to arrange paid childcare. The problem is in that scenario I’d have to earn enough to make it worthwhile. While we scrape by on DH’s salary there isn’t any left over so we couldn’t afford for me to work and make a loss.

I just feel trapped. If I had a good career in place before becoming a mum then I could go back to it and make a profit from day 1. But I don’t see how I can start from the bottom now when the salary won’t cover the cost of working? DH has suggested starting a business as that would be flexible, but I wouldn’t make any profit in the beginning so how could I pay for childcare?

Given that his colleagues find it so easy to support a family, I wonder if he’s questioned whether he’s being paid as much as them for the work he’s putting in? If you can’t afford to get childcare so that you can work, then he can’t be doing that well.

I wonder whether perhaps he doesn’t want to be seen by colleagues as not being able to support you financially as they might assume that’s why you were working? If he was really comfortably off he wouldn’t have an issue at all as 1) he would feel secure in himself and 2) as a family you could pick up the cost for whatever extra the childcare costs. Just worth considering.

I was also wondering how you can be so financially stretched and also for this to be the case:
He’s salaried so is expected to work whatever hours are required to get the job done. Sometimes he works even later
I too suspect there's some exaggeration going on. Definitely time for him to change jobs for the sake of his own work life balance.

I’m not sure what he thinks he’d be doing in the evenings tbf, my DH is like yours and once the kids are asleep (7-8pm) then all he has to do is eat
Our DS isn’t a good sleeper. He’s regularly awake till 11pm and will cry and refuse to stay in bed. If you’re looking after him in the evening you can’t watch tv or relax, you’re on parenting duty all evening. The only time either of us gets a rest is if the other is upstairs with DS. That’s why DH doesn’t want to be stuck with him every night.

By the way, an important factor, are you planning to have anymore DC?
Nope. The current DC is already making it difficult for me to have any life. If I had another one it would be even worse.

You Mum might not be supportive but is she close enough and fit enough to do the odd pick up from nursery if needed
She lives nearby but doesn’t drive. She isn’t fit enough to babysit for more than an hour or two. I think part of the reason she likes me being at home is because I can take DS to see her but she doesn’t have to look after him. If I went to work he’d be in nursery and she wouldn’t see him.

Sounds like your DH needs a new job as well
He does. Jobs in his field aren’t common though and usually pay a lot less than what he’s been lucky enough to wangle. We’re both stuck I suppose. He dislikes his employer but can’t leave because he couldn’t match his salary elsewhere.

I was also wondering how you can be so financially stretched
We bought a very expensive house. DH wanted to max out the mortgage and get the nicest we could stretch to. And he wanted a nice car too. If our house was half the price we’d have money left after bills.

Your husband's attitude absolutely stinks.
He is selfish and sexist.
You should not rely on him to do childcare while you're working, he will sabotage your work by letting you down and/or he will punish you for asking if of him by sulking and worse.
You will need to study/work from home in the evenings when DC is in bed, or get a job during standard office hours when you can use paid childcare. With tax free childcare you could save some money on it.
I do wonder about the state of your relationship because it seems that you'd have a lot more freedom and independence if you divorced.

I’m starting to see why you both feel you can’t be at home for more (or as much time) as you are.

Perhaps one of the first things has to be to get DC’s sleep pattern sorted, until then making or planning for any kind of rational choices is going to be impossible. If I was you I wouldn’t want to be stuck in it all the time, and if I was him I’d be pushing not to have to take on anymore than I already have. It sounds like you’re both burned out with what you’re doing.

What have you tried with the sleep, what are your gut instincts on why it’s happening?

Sounds like a plan op. Prep, get a basic job and childcare and don’t forget network for s year, get the free hours and step up to a proper job. Then you can decide what to do about your dh.

What have you tried with the sleep, what are your gut instincts on why it’s happening?
I was a poor sleeper myself as a child, sometimes only a couple of hours per night. Perhaps it’s genetic, I don’t know. I’ve tried cutting out his afternoon nap but he just gets whiny by 5pm and dozes off on the sofa. But if he has his nap say 2-4pm then he won’t go to bed till 11pm. He still wakes up 5-6 times every night wanting milk too. We’ve tried saying no but he gets absolutely hysterical.

@TiceCream when you said you coded websites 15 years ago, are you a website designer (HTML & CSS) or front end developer (JavaScript)? Are you near a city where you can find a job in website designs without much of a commute? I am fairly sure you can get a front end developer job with flexibility and very 9-5 hours. There are a lot of jobs in UX designs too if you aren’t on the JavaScript side. Baby won’t be 2 forever and once they are over 3 and then at school, the childcare cost goes down rapidly. And the hours being flexible and predictable will make childcare much easier. There are quite a lot of remote first companies too but I don’t know if they take on inexperienced devs.

Would you feel better about things in the short term if you had more sleep? My DC2 was similar, it really got me down and I didn’t realise how much until later. With DH away so much you’re battling that on your own, no wonder you’re craving something different.

Do you think you’re addressing the right problem, first and foremost? I’m sure you’ll go back to work at some point but could you really manage without sleep, and are you really looking to go back just to get a break from everything?

To the posters saying OP needs to sort kids sleep first. No she doesn't. Getting a job is an absolute priority, have you seen what she's written about her selfish husband??

Plenty of us work full time with disturbed sleep. Don't get distracted OP.

Employ a regular babysitter or get an au pair

I read this last night but I was too tired to comment. My DS was like that with sleeping but I was (am) a single parent so it was just me, and then I didn’t have a choice about going to work as well. I do think there must be something in what Mayborn says about just wanting a break from everything.

It strikes me that your DH is being quite controlling here whilst dressing it up as him making all the sacrifices (long hours, giving up his hobbies). You have no financial autonomy, no free time and no prospects, he has committed you both to high levels of debt and little flexibility in your income and your choices are limited. For all he says he does not like his job, a smaller mortgage would have given more choice for him to move. So he does get something out of being the big breadwinner able to support the wife at home (as evidenced by his efforts to keep you in that place).

You are right that financial autonomy gives you more choices; he is invested in making sure you don’t have those choices, it seems.

I do think playing something of a long game is needed here. Do what you can now in terms but plan for when you will be able to do more when the children get older. You actually do not need his permission to get training and qualifications - impeding this, for example, by withholding childcare or funds for childcare, would be a means of control.

When will things become easier with to regard mortgage. He wants a big house, big car, big prestigious job where he acts like the presumably much older bosses.
He's got all this.
Are you happy?
So none of his colleagues is divorced so does pickups regularly. They all have a contented wife squeaking out the housekeeping (as the pay doesn't sound that good) whilst they devote themselves to their long hours job. ......... Really??
Downsize would be one idea.

OP, I agree that your husband sounds sexist and selfish.
Once your child starts nursery and school you can use after school clubs/childminders.

Start getting your career on track because you are not here to accommodate a man child.

You have both trapped yourselves into this situation. You could downsize your mortgage and car, free up your DH to get a different job and enable you to work as well.

The more I hear about him the less I like your DH. He doesn't sound like he treats you like an equal. The marriage doesn't sound like a partnership at the moment.

Do you have full access to the family finances? Does he complain if you spend "his" money?

Sometimes you just have to take any job going.

I'm highly qualified in my field but now do it part time (in my spare time from home) and work in a tiny local supermarket for NMW. It gets me out, I meet people and earn some money. My old field involved travelling a lot, teaching, a sporadic income and zero flexibility. As a single mum I did whatever came to hand to make money, and now the kids are grown up I work to keep a roof over my head.

It might be a waste of qualifications, but I took food on the table over maintaining my career and starving.

DC’s sleep is an issue, for sure, but agree with the PP that WoH is an even higher priority!

If DC is over one year old I recommend Dr Jay Gordon’s no milk at night method.

He's been spoilt by the situation as it's easier for him not to change. Perhaps he also needs to change to a more flexible job to allow your progress.
In reply to comment about not even texting if running late, he sounds a little self important to he honest.
My dh is a surgeon and would ask someone to ring me from the theatre if he was late to collect kids for example.

A lot of men I work with go home on time/early then do another hour from home, once kids are in bed. Would your husband consider that?

Now is the time to retrain or update your skills so you can get back out there when you get the free hours.

There are firms that do returning to tech courses. Some are free. If you want to go that route.

Can I ask those of you who say each parent needs to pay half the childcare in order for (in this case) the OP to work, realistically how does this work?

Mu sister is in a similar situation minus the lovely house and car. The main earner earns approx 85K. the other parent (sister) is a SAHP. In order for the SAHP to work, childcare would cost £1200 a month. SAHP if paying half of the childcare bill would end up paying £600 per month which would be over three quarters of her monthly pay. Add to that tax, expenses etc - take home pay would be less than £300 a month. This means the children would change from going home after school to staying until 6.30pm in childcare. I know they would adapt to this. The thing I struggle with is the payoff of working full time hours worth it for an additional £300 per month if that money wasn’t essential though would help a lot too. She says it is, I think her DH should pay more of the childcare but she says it’s all ‘one pot’ anyway and if she didn’t pay her half of the childcare bill, she would have to use it to pay other household bills. Either way there is no financial payoff for her personally.

@Rowenamud, it's an investment in your future career. Childcare should be seen as a shared cost a to avoid situations like the ops. Where she wants to work.

it's an investment in your future career. Childcare should be seen as a shared cost

Yes I get this where the SAHM is going to have a 'career' but if she is going to have a low paying job for a number of years and working for no tangible financial reward, it doesn't seem like a great choice (to me).

Would you feel better about things in the short term if you had more sleep?
Not sleep particularly. Free time to be myself perhaps. I’m with DS all day doing kid things and chores, when he naps I nap because I’m tired due to frequent night wakings, and he doesn’t go to sleep until adult bedtime. I literally don’t get a waking minute when I’m not looking after him. Maybe a couple of nights a week he’ll go to bed with DH and not cry for me so I might get a couple of free hours after 9pm. It isn’t enough.

Well you need as much time off at the weekend as DH gets.