Does DH have a point- workload

[Allthescreens]

Just had an interesting conversation with DH. He is feeling rather fed up at the moment (I suspect depression may be playing a part) & rudderless & feels like our life is rubbish. I said I don't feel that way & it makes me sad that he does.

Anyway, it seems a large part of his depression/resentment stems from the fact that he feels he works a lot more than I do & I enjoy my job. He feels I have a lot more free time.

He works 35 hours per week, 3-4 days from home. He then runs DS1 to football training twice a week in the evenings. He will do the dishwasher once when he's wfh & will cook about 3 nights per week, but I plan what we have. He does have our 3 DSes every other Saturday as I work 9-5 then, usually takes them to see my parents or his dad (120 miles away) & watch football.

I work 18.5 hours, including every other Saturday. I have 3 days not in work per week & I do all other housework, school stuff, medical stuff (averaging an appointment every other week as DS2 has autism, ADHD, epilepsy, asthma & more, then picking up prescriptions as he is on 5 meds for which the dosage is ever changing), present buying, decluttering (selling on to get more cash) etc. Plus all homework with DS2 as he can't do it himself & is very slow, that's usually an hour per night. Dses are all school age.

He wants to work less or get a job he enjoys more but feels he can't as we neer his wage coming in. I have offered to take on overtime or get a second job, but DH says this will not make much difference. So I feel a bit floored & floundering, at a loss as to how to make things better.

You’re not going to get much UC on a joint income of £20k especially if one of you intentionally reduces your income. Is he aware that the UC disability top up is only £146.31 per MONTH that’s a very big drop in income especially if he thinks UC are miraculously going to throw money at him because of a disabled child. It’s so tough financially for us when both myself & our child are both significantly disabled. I’d even be surprised if UC accepted the claim when someone purposefully drops to such a low income when they are clearly capable of earning so much more. I don’t think he realises how much you’re going to struggle financially & how much he’s going to have to give up because you won’t be able to afford £200 a month for his hobbies that he’s currently spending

@Kwam31 EXACTLY.

@Allthescreens you're an absolute saint!!

he'll have you chewing his food for him next, then complaining you're not doing it properly!

id be ready to be getting a divorce. Nothing stopping him getting another job that pays what he's on now, dropping to £9k when you're in debt. WTF??

he does fuck all around the house, you do loads & all the mental work.

he needs to live in the real world, jobs kids, not some fantasy of floating around the world, writing. FFS. I'd have lost my patience well before now!!

If he is easily knocked down, it will only get worse. The criticism and rejection that comes with writing is brutal. It will send him into a downward spiral

This is a very good point. Writing is a bit like acting, very few people get to do it as a proper job (because so many people want to do it) and it comes with a huge amount of rejection. You don't just send in your work and someone goes 'that's lovely, thanks', perhaps you do if it's for a low level content creation job, but for novel writing, academic writing, all book writing, or TV writing, people tell you your work is rubbish, refuse to publish it or write very long emails full of all the things wrong with it so that you have to rewrite everything. I have lots of students who write and the worst thing is the criticism and the rejection, hands down (that's if they don't have writer's block which I don't let myself or them have at all). If you are rejection sensitive or depressed, writing is not a good career.

so hes allowed all these hobbies yo9ure not and he want to go down to part time

erm no-and anyway uc are cracking down on part timers you have to have a valid reason not to work full time

He has been in his job for nearly 2 years & has never stuck at any job much longer than that.

This is what would worry me the most

They'll require job searching activity to make up the difference to 30 hours a week.

So he'll still be complaining that he hasn't got any time but will have less autonomy for fuck all money.

A writer with a ma degree and an absolute love for the written word, he's talking out of his arse. Writers write, regardless of writing 35 hours a week in a WFH home role. If these parts writing jobs are so prolific and pay so well and it's SO easy, why isn't he writing for just one hour every week day and a full day at the weekend and then using all that easy money to pay off the debts and save for his dream of travelling the world?

He's full of shit op. If he wanted to write, if it was his passion, he would be writing every day regardless of work and family. Does he attend writers groups? Most towns have groups and in your shoes I would be telling him that if he leaves his job we are getting divorced BUT if he sticks with his job and joins a writing group AND writes at least 10.000 words a week then you will 100% carve out that time from his OooohSo busy schedule to mate sure he can carry on.

He's using his dreams ( which are actually totally achievable!) to opt out of his responsibilities while not actually doing any serious planning AT ALL to ensure the well being of his family.

Because the job he is looking at is term-time only & he would be working fewer hours than me in that, i asked if he would be responsible for housework/childcare/medical appointments especially during the school holidays, but he hasn't answered, so I'm assuming not.

Why does this not surprise me.

OP, he’s a workshy twat, not depressed.

Do not move to France. Tell him if leaves his job he’ll need to do all the housework and everything else you do.

I'm not sure his UC dream will work out. There are minimum requirements for the number of hours you are expected to work and if you are below that you will have to take part in work related activity. Even with a disabled child there will be pressure on you both to up your hours. I think one of you at least will be expected to work of look for work for 35 hours a week.

OP I see a couple of people have already said that your dh is displaying a lot of ADHD traits - given your ds is diagnosed, have you had a conversation around this with your husband? It doesn't magically fix anything; but both of you might find it helpful in understanding why he views his life the way he does.

For crying out loud. I worked 40 hours a week with extra nights at Xmas and birthdays as a single parent for years. No benefits or maintenance payments. No relatives in the country. They a moved to the states.
I did it because I was the parent and had to pay the mortgage and bills. I still managed to find plenty of time for myself. I didn't like the jobs I did either. Nursing is bloody hard work.
He needs to stop dreaming and wake up.support his family and shut up.
What's wring with men now? They all seem pathetic and as soft as butter mentally.

If you ignore the finances just for a moment. Do you even like this man? Every post is transactional it sounds like either of you is in danger of being issued with a performance management plan from the other. I might start with considering the relationship first. Whatever the plans ahead i might be considering what a few different options might look like on paper.

He says there is plenty out there which would pay (writing for TV, which is his industry) & if not, he could do unpaid writing to build up his portfolio & top up our finances with Universal Credit.

Hmm. I write for TV and unless he's established, he won't make a living at it. Times are tough right now - streamers are retracting, the BBC is strapped, international co-pro funding is scarce. Just look at Doctors being axed and all the writers from that back on the market needing work, and they'll have credits, contacts and agents. If your DH has none of those, he'll be lucky to get any paid work writing TV, especially if he's a white guy - they still get plenty of jobs don't get me wrong, but in terms of new voices, the need right now is for more diverse stories so he'd have to be something really special to stand out. That doesn't mean he shouldn't work on his writing and building that career, but he absolutely does not need to sacrifice all your stability for it.

I can see the argument for more of a rebalance, as you do your paid work less, so you could do more of that to give him, say, one extra day a week to work on his writing. But him cutting right down to 9 hours is madness, as is the notion that UC is there to fund his artistic dreams. Even when you are getting paid work in TV, you still have to do many jobs at once - it's like any freelance career, hustling, working weekends, every hour god sends, not about self-indulgence and inspiration. It's bloody hard work and not very nice in many ways, there's a lot of rejection and criticism, so he might not have the stamina for it anyway. Workload-wise, he'll need to do more work not less, but I can see that at least he needs to give it a shot so he gets a reality check.

has he been assessed for adhd ? I ask because of the information you provided about his different jobs, the blue sky escapist - let’s move to France thinking and the writing - and the depression and unrealistic plans - going from 45k to 9k in earnings. Look at hyper focus.
What he wants to do isn’t realistic.
He needs to get treatment for his depression first and then make the big life changing decisions.

@Blinkityblonk

It's absolutely ruthless. I worked with an author who spent all night vomiting as a result of some fairly tame criticism.

I also agree with others. If writing is a passion, he'd be doing it almost every day. Every writer I know (and I know hundreds) doesn't go more than a week without writing.

If your DH really wanted to become a paid writer he would be practicing his craft now, unpaid and in his own time.

I think this hits the nail on the head. He has plenty of spare time with a 35 hr/week job and a wife who does most of the home related stuff. He’s choosing to spend it on hobbies and lie ins not writing.

I may be way off the mark here but I'm just throwing it out there for consideration....

You have a child with ADHD. Do you think it's possible that your DH also has ADHD? ADHD paralysis can look a lot like depression. You said he doesn't stay particularly long in any job. It sounds like he was happier doing contract jobs. Managing time and coping with having a lot to don't sound like his strong points. His plans for a new job sound a bit impulsive as does wanting to sell your house and buy a place in France.

Edit - I see it's already been suggested. Sorry for repeating.

I sympathise it sounds very difficult and he definitely doesn’t sound “overloaded” compared with people I know

my husband had a similar crisis a few months after losing his df. Not definitely related but very likely. Refused point blank to seek help. Got made redundant which obviously wasn’t good but a few months later got a much better job and is mostly ok these days. I think that was very lucky though, most people will need professional help to get through this. They need to WANT that help though.

OP, I think what is at the heart of this is grief. Your DH has lost his mum recently and it doesn't sound like he's made the time or space to actually deal with this. It sounds to me like he is clutching at what feel like easy straws to stuff into the gaping hole of his distress (i.e. changing jobs, a creative outlet, having more free time) rather than actually deal with the source of his discontent.

He is in midlife, a key time for mental health issues to rear their ugly head. The reality is he is no longer young, he is no longer free to pursue whatever he wants to do, and he is having to face up to the difficult reality that the person he wanted or dreamed of being as a child is not the person he is as an adult, and the things he perhaps wanted to achieve or thought he might do haven't happened, and perhaps now won't. Coupled with losing his mother, which rips out the anchor of our lives, displaces us within the generational order of things, and makes our own mortality painfully real - and you've got a perfect storm.

Your DH is in the midst of the storm right now and he is looking for any piece of dry land he can grasp. This means he is not in the right place to make any firm decisions or major changes. He needs support - I'm glad he's going to the GP - but he also needs to understand that this is what is happening to him, and changing his job and going back to writing isn't going to 'fix' it until he has dealt with the root cause.

I will also say that as someone who also has a Creative Writing MA, had/has dreams of being a full time writer, and who has spent some time working in the industry before doing something else to pay the bills, he knows as well as I do that he's never going to make a living as a writer, and that if he really, really, really wanted to write as much as he says he does, he'd be finding the time already. If he has a job with fewer hours, it will just be more time for him to procrastinate and not write. My friends who are successful writers are utterly single minded about their writing and spend every spare moment doing it - around full time jobs. Their passion and drive and commitment is incredible. Your DH doesn't have that - ergo he doesn't really want to be a writer. He just likes the idea of being a writer.

Encourage him to go to the GP, encourage him to join a writing group - City Lit has amazing evening writing groups that are very cheap and provide a great community (and they're online) - but I'm sure a local evening class would be available near you if he wants something in person - and encourage him, when he's ready, to go and get some grief counselling.

What will not help - categorically - is him having more free time in which to be alone, ruminating on his thoughts, procrastinating and sinking deeper into depression.

I will also say that it is not your responsibility to fix your husband. He has to take responsibility for this himself. His mental health crisis should not cause you to need to take on extra work or work yourself into the ground.

How the hell did you get 4 years of credit card debt?! YES that means you have to work full time too!!

Try to instigate DH having few set hours per week with nothing to do - no kids, no committments.
He sounds depressed but might be needing reflection time to recharge every week. Constant being switched on as Dad or employee takes a toll.

Can you work an extra ten hours per week and pay off the debt earlier?

Can you emulate the French lifestyle right where you are for a few years? Walk to buy bread. Eat food from markets, go on more cultural and historic outings, ride bikes together, join a French speaking club, walk in the countryside every fortnight, learn to paint landscapes.
Can you make a bit of a plan for living in France for a couple of years in, say, five years time?
Can you take your annual holidays to France?

It is great that your DH speaks honestly; you will work it out and it will be magnifique.

could you both work 30 hrs a week. It’s fairer.

I’ve worked full time and part time. Full time is hard work because of the routine, the boss, etc. Part time I had more freedom. I could have a coffee when I felt like it etc.

i hope the next generation of parents have a more balanced relationship in terms of the pressure of earning a wage, childcare etc. I hope all of my children get the opportunity to work part time, walk the kids to school, childcare etc. Ideally 50:50.

@IhaveanewTVnow - the OP has said her current role has no scope for increased hours. She offered to take on a second job and her DH thinks that won't change anything.

He's clearly going through a bit of a breakdown/crisis/ADHD-related hiccup. His mother died early of dementia so he's seeing how fleeting the good years can be and he's feeling boxed in. I empathise, that's rough.

His solutions are wildly unrealistic. More time won't mean more writing, it will mean more procrastination and a sense of being unmoored - the worst thing for him in the long term.

Can he be signed off for a few weeks and address this properly?

It’s funny how these fellas always want to go part time once the real grind of dealing with toddlers and very young children is out of the way and the kids are now much more self sufficient

Working a 35 hour job is far easier than looking after children with the medical issues yours have. I doubt he's going to be as happy as he might think. Especially as he'll now be able to be more hands on with the dc, housework and life admin. On paper it should make your life easier too