dad wants time off

[natandjacob]

My OH has his own company and works untill 6/6.30 every weekday and sometimes on the weekend. Our 1 year old son goes to bed at 7 every night so this means they dont get to see much of each other. OH has started saying that he wants half a "day off" each weekend for him to smoke, drink or just do his own thing without any parental duties. I can understand his work is hard and he does deserve a break but he goes to the pub most friday nights with his mates and barely has to do anything with our son apart from a bit of playtime on the evening as i do everything else. he does no housework as this is my job as i dont work.
am i being unreasonable not wanting him to have this? how many other partners get time off like this? i just want a general idea of how other families work so i know whether im just being mean or not!!!

Ha ha I get that a lot! The ladies at DD party last week were all impressed as he did all the washing up, food prep, cleaning etc and said I had him "well trained".

I like to take the credit but thats just how he came!

When ours were little, we divided the weekend up into 6 bits - morning, afternoon and evening on each day. We had one whole bit off each, 2 bits as family time and the other two were negotiable, depending on what was going on, how tired either of us was, how daddy-deprived the chiildren were - lots of variables. But the bit free each was non-negotiable.

Not sure I have much more to add, as I agree with most of what the others have said.

For what it's worth, I am currently on maternity leave, and DH works in a demanding job from 7am-6.30pm (plus commuting time!) and he shares equally in all childcare / household responsibilities when he's at home, and some would argue he does more than his fair share. As I am breastfeeding that is the only job he doesn't help with. But he changes most of the nappies, settles baby, cooks dinner every night.... at weekends he gets up with baby and lets me sleep as much as possible... and he's also made sure I got extra help during the day with a cleaner so that I can focus on baby and myself.

I guess it's just to say that there IS a different way of doing things and you have to decide what you're willing to put up with!

I do appreciate however that since you already have children together it's a lot harder to change behaviour without inflicting some kind of risk upon yourself. Not sure how I would tackle that problem retrospectively.

coco, you are not lucky you have a normal, decent guy

many of the selfish and self-entitled men described on these pages don't really want or deserve a collaborative family life

they just want to continue as a single man, and replace the domestic servant that was their mother with a wife

SOOO depressing that people are wildly impressed by a man behaving like a normal adult human being!

What are you going to do nat?

Wildly impressed! I like it. He he!

Anyway OP hope your doing well :)

hi, thanks for the advice again...cocoflower, fancy sending his brother my way?! haha!
have had a long talk with dh and got a lot of things cleared up. it wasnt an easy conversation and was very emotional but we got through it without any arguments so i'll consider it a winner! told him about some of the advice i've been given on here and what other dh's are like with their family and he did take it in, i got a whole morning off to chill in the sun :o
we've booked a late deal holiday for august for just the 2 of us so we can have some time to reconnect :) he's also agreed to help a bit more round the house and has set a date to stop smoking in 2 weeks....we'll see how that bit goes but i've got my fingers crossed!