Husband secretely takes day off

[katieks]

This morning I discovered that I had forgotten the kids bag when I dropped them off at childminders so drove home to get it. When I got home, my husband was in shorts, curtains drawn playing Playstation in the lounge. I asked why he was dressed like that and he said he had taken the day off. He never told me that he was going to take the day off. Until I had left for work, everything had been run the usual way and I expected he was going to work (I leave earlier than him). He also had to rearrange a delivery from a couple of days back and had rearranged it for today so he obviously had planned it before-hand.

He doesn't think it's a big deal - I do and was quite upset driving back to work. When I got back this evening I asked if he had done this before and he said no. I just think it's awful that he didn't even tell me. What do you all think?

YY to wannaBe thats how i meant it.

Laq - I think I wrote my post incorrectly! I meant to say why would you share your passwords! Like I said; there is no way I would share my passwords with dh even though I have nothing to hide; but a little privacy seems healthy to me!

Oh i see now. Yes, totally agree.

can't be arsed to read the whole thread but I would view it as very sneaky and I would be pissed off too OP

who are these people who don't have 'to do' lists? i only WISH i was on top of the laundry and tidying and cleaning and that there weren't a billion jobs that ought to be done but never do get done (dust bunnies falling off the picture rails, inside of cupboards a disaster area, and let's not talk about the boxroom which ONLY gets blitzed when people are coming to stay).

if i'm off work those jobs eat at me, and if i'm 'scheduled' to be off work then both i and my dh would expect to see some evience of progress while he's slaving at the office....

Sorry I think YABU. He just took a day off without telling you he didn't do anything dreadful. Perhaps he just forgot to mention it. DH has done this before and has forgotten to mention it. I work shifts and DH doesn't always know when my days off are. We are both fine with this and we do usually find our on the day. If we want time together then we would arrange days off together and of course tell each other.

yes PocPoc deceitful lier you are.

Makes me wonder what else you keep secret.

I can understand the OP's H wanting to take a day off, but why all the secrecy ?

For all we know, the H could have had some floozy upstairs, looked out of the window to see OP coming up the garden path and hurriedly dived in some shorts, ran downstairs to flick the playstation on and made it look like he was alone.

Just saying

Why shorts inside in the middle of winter? That's more bizarre to me than the day off. I never get up on a morning in January and think "I know I'll wear shorts today". It's too cold even to go out running in shorts.

It's an odd thing to do. My first thought is that he did a sickie and didnt want to tell you, for whatever reason.

If you're using up paid holiday then that is something you should be discussed as a couple? Especially if you have children and have to cover holiday child care. If one person wants to use a days holiday to do nothing, not even getting the kids ready, then fine but it's only fair that the other person gets the same in return. Then as a family you have to accept that thats 2 days paid childcare that could have been avoided.

Sorry about that reply, cut and paste fail during proof reading and editing. I made it worse.

How are you today OP ?

my husband done this once.

when i got home from work the house was spotless and dinner prepared.

he may have had a suprise for his wife.

i don't care if DH takes the day off for himself, as we do the housework together in the evening and job gets done as and when needed.

i have a day off booked to do nothing in a couple of weeks

life is pretty full on and i need the down time

difference between me and the op's dp is that i told dh about it

if he were to say "oh could yo do suchathing seeing as you're off?" the answer would be a firm no

dh can do the same if he likes

yes it means one less day to cover school holidays but i struggle to get any time to myself during the day if i don't do this. i only do it once a year so no big deal imo

the op's p should have mentioned it beforehand, as far as i can see the issue isn't the day off it's the secrecy surrounding it thats the problem.

We both had a couple of 'me' days each over the Christmas period, it's a really nice thing to do with 2 very small children but we discussed it and agreed it and made sure it was reasonably equal.

So not unreasonable to want to do it, but unreasonable to try to hide it.

Okay, have read all replies. One poster says something along the line of 'no need to report back', etc., but will do anyway as it's been an interesting debate.

I asked him directly, in an inquisistive rather than angry voice, whether he would have told me later about the day off and he said no. I said that I'd have told him and that I felt shocked he hadn't told me. He said that it was because of two reasons: 1) I would give him jobs to do, 2) I would have expected him to look after children.

Reason 2 is lame. The kids would still have gone to childcare: one can't get anything done with them about the house. Even I realise that. Plus we would still have had to pay for childcare so may as well use it.

Reason 1 - yes, ok, I might've done and this debate has clearly shown that one should NOT expect such things and temporarily suspend your 'To Do' list, etc. Fine, I'll learn from that.

The discussion ended there - no apology, no kiss and make up, just 'end of discussion'.

We then later had a bit of a shouting match on Friday night because he wrote the wrong thing on the back of the children's passport photos (he was going to get the countersignatory to sign them at work and he prepared them beforehand). This is after I tore out the relevant page of the passport form guide, underlined relevant bits and circled important things, like only sign back of ONE photo. He said that if there were special rules I should have told him. I figured that he could read the guidelines I had highlighted for him. He hates it when I give specific instructions: if I give him a job, he will do it his way, not mine, so I just shut up and let him get on with it. Except that this occasion just proved that sometimes I have to interfere. And I didn't start by shouting or accusing, I started with 'Um, only one photo needs to be signed and the other one has to be blank.'. Eventually, that led on to me saying stuff like 'I don't like the way you are at the moment (I got a reply of 'Nice.... nice [said in a sarcastic tone]. I said 'I don't like the tension between us, you're obviously not happy either, etc.'. He said he wouldn't be happy until the kids were grown up because they took up too much of your life. I pointed out that they provide so much happiness, bla-di-bla. In the end, we sort of kissed and made up.

Facts about the original scenario - he commonly wears shorts indoors, it's his casual wear.

• it could have been normal for him to start late so I wasn't worried about him not having put out the parcel yet or having left the house, in fact, if he had still been in his dressing gown (rather than shorts) and upstairs getting ready, he probably would have been OK, it was mainly the shorts, the drawn curtains with PS3 on that made me suspicious.
• it turned out that he has 6 days of leave to take before end of March and that this day was supposed to be after a evening function, but that the function was cancelled and he didn't cancel the leave, but I still didn't know about the leave originally being booked.
• I don't demand to know his passwords, I just find it odd that he won't divulge them to me as if his emails have something to hide. Mine don't. If I ordered him a gift or ordered a surprise, I'd hide it in a random folder expecting he wouldn't go looking for anything in the folders. I have no reason to go on his emails but on occasion, I may need to print out a receipt or something and then have to ask him to log in i.e. he won't tell me the password and let me log in for him
• I don't give him endless lists of things to do, but there is a common general list of outstanding domestic tasks to do in the house at all times.
• He didn't book the day off because he booked the delivery that day, he booked the delivery for that day because he knew he had the day off
• I think a day together would have been good for us, hence my tendency to would have suggested we have a day off together, but OK, he got some 'me' time.

Anyways, no doubt I'll get blasted for the way I handled the passport thing, but had I said nothing and just replaced the photos or not have looked at all and have had it sent off wrong...well, it just means that the next time the same happens again or he figures I'll check it in secret anyway so not bother him checking it properly.

Thanks for all your opinions. Very entertaining and enlightening. I won't be booking a day off for myself anytime soon, but have encouraged hubby to use all his leave and have days off doing nothing if that's what he wants. He did say he'd tell me next time, but I think it was in a kind of 'Well, yes Miss Policeman, I'll make sure to inform you and check that it's OK next time I want to do anything' way. We shall see. Still some outstanding issues to resolve, but progress. In the meantime, I have to get to bed as I'll be struggling tomorrow morning.

Just read my post back and it sounds like I'm the evil fire-breathing dragon 'giving him jobs' all the time. It wasn't like that. The countersignatory we wanted to ask if a work mate of his so it made sense for him to get that part done. I ended up getting the forms from the Post Office, getting the photos taken, filling in forms, etc.

I'm strugling to see where the 'progress' is tbh. I couldn't live with him - he's far too selfish for my liking and there's no way I could live with someone who thought they couldn't be happy until the children were grown. He sounds like a selfish, misery tbh.

Thing is, on OUR days off, we don't get to sit and slob out, do we? Certainly not with a baby and a toddler. We have to amuse them, prepare meals, clean them and clean up after them, wash up after ourselves (and the dc). I don't see WHY, if the OP's DH was off work, HE couldn't have lightened HER load by doing these things? Or tackling a job that needed doing. When your dc are that young, you can't EXPECT down-time like that. EITHER parent. I think this IS deceitful - and I would be beyond if I had found out about this, especially if I had had so little time from him at home running up to it. I would feel like 1) My needs didn't matter to him, otherwise he would have taken the day off to either lighten MY load by doing jobs that I would otherwise have to do, 2) He didn't care OR seek to discuss the impact of taking AL on FAMILY plans. 3) He did not communicate his NEED for a day off before just taking it, AND hiding it.

OF COURSE there would be jobs given or expected - they have a young family, and there's ALWAYS jobs to do. Why does one partner get to cop out of that when they feel like it? Yet the other one has no opportunity to do so. Because, understandably, she wants to spend time WITH HER FAMILY when she is not at work. She's working with a 6mo baby - FGS, give the woman a break, and accept that she's unlikely to be doing that because she PREFERS to be at work than with her baby and toddler, it's more than likely a necessity in order to keep their standard of living at the level they as a family want it to be. And I'm quite sure that, when her partner is not at work, she expects him to spend his time WITH HIS FAMILY. about how anyone in a couple where both partied work, and they have a baby and a toddler, can expect ANY time for themselves outside of work and family until the dc are 3 and 5yo?? It's NOT for bloody ever, and why do men HAVE dc if they can't hack the responsibility of it??

IMO the lack of communication and the deceit would really be a BIG no-no for me. I wouldn't do it to my partner, and I expect to be shown the same respect in return. What's wrong with expecting your partner to treat you the same way as you would treat them? With respect, thoughfulness, and helpfulness?

He said he wouldn't be happy until the kids were grown up because they took up too much of your life. I pointed out that they provide so much happiness, bla-di-bla. In the end, we sort of kissed and made up.

. ANYONE EVER said that about my dc, they'd be out of my door permanantly faster than my boot could hit their arse. How the FUCK can you kiss and make up with a man-child who is ACTIVELY TELLING YOU THAT HE RESENTS HIS OWN CHILDREN AND THE TIME THEY TAKE UP.

Your H, for example is a dickhead man-child, how you can be happy with someone like that is BEYOND ME. You have an extra CHILD.

No, you don't sound like an evil, fire breathing dragon.

He sounds like a childish, untrustworthy knobend though.

To be frank, you sound reasonable and he sounds an arse. Is it possible he is depressed though? I thought similar things about my son when I had PND.

I find it interesting that you go into so much detail in your post re the (relatively trivial, compared to the secret day off) matter of the passport error. Re your comment "I'll get blasted for the way I handled the passport thing, but had I said nothing...", I certainly wouldn't suggest you say nothing when you realised it was wrong - who on earth would do that?? It kind of sounds as if you think your job is to avoid annoying DH and starting an argument so you need to explain why you didn't in this case?

Just a guess, but are you (as a couple) uncomfortable about having arguments? I know that pre-DC, DH and I NEVER argued. But now - well there's just more stuff to argue about!! If you're the kind of person who hates arguments, I think you (and DH) may have to look at your methods of dealing with conflict. We can't all agree all the time!

So, do you feel that the matter of the secret day off is "resolved" for you, ie you both understand and accept each other's feelings on the matter and have thought about how to deal with the underlying issue? Do you trust him to tell you next time (as that's important to you) and does he feel able to be honest next time (as he's realised it's important to you and is comfortable with how you will react)? If not, how do you intend to move towards achieving that resolution?

The secret day off is the big deal here, not the silly fight about the passport thing.

PS Your DH's comment about the DCs is a further clue that you have some underlying issues that need to be resolved. He must be in a bad place at the moment!