To be a bit annoyed at DH because of this?

[Madratlady]

I'm totally prepared to be told IABU, I have a feeling I am a bit anyway.

A couple of weeks ago I had a bad cold. I'm 6 months pregnant and have PGP as well so I felt like death but I went to work for 3 12 hour shifts in a row, in a demanding job, anyway, because we need the money and I wouldn't have got any sick pay.

DH then caught my cold. He also felt terrible but took 3 days off. He also doesn't get paid for not being at work so we're now short of money which I was relying on to pay the bills. We're currently clearing debts from me being out of work for 3 months (I got a new job after 10 days but CRB checks etc delayed me starting). He works 8-4 and has a laid back job in IT.

And just to make it worse the tumble dryer is on it's last legs and the washer isn't much better so we'll need to find more money. I'm stressing cos we can't make ends meet and it's going to carry over into next month cos I'll have t use money I was going to put away towards bills at the beginning of next month to pay off the last of the things we owe this month. And I'm struggling at work due to PGP and could really do with stopping for maternity leave a few weeks earlier than my original goal of 38 weeks but I don't want to because we need the money I earn.

I know none of that last paragraph is DH's fault by the way, I'm just stressed and £300 isn't money we can afford to not have just because he had a cold.

I would have to be hospitalised to lose money through being sick.Feeling a bit rough really doesn't cut it.

Jesus wept it was a COLD, you should have told him to take some bloody coldrex and Man Up. He needs to fully understand that you are not in a financial position where he can 3 days off to blow his nose! He is shortly going to be a father - he needs to grow up before then or your life is going to be miserable.

..er, is this pick on Anyfucker day? I must've missed the memo
No need to be so personal.

So let's be clear, while waiting for clearance to come through, the OP is supposed to go out and get another job? How, by lying about the one she is contracted to start any day? Or is she supposed to temp day-by-day to keep in work? In this economy? That's a tall order. A lot taller than going to work when you have a cold.

20quid and you are being nasty - uncalled for.

AnyFucker you're not allowed to do that job. But you can certainly get a temp admin or customer services job until the CRB comes through.

Honestly, Jesus Christ AF, the poor sod had a cold and had a few days off. I assume that he will be helping to support the OP in mat leave when she's not getting paid as much.

Is this all a one way street to you? Men have to be treated like complete doormats and given no support at all but if they don't peel their wives grapes and fan them with palm leaves whilst handing over their entire wage packet and living on a dry slice of bread and glass of water a day they're complete bastards you should leave?

I suspect if the post was from a woman who had supported a partner throught 3 months of unemployment then got a bollocking off him for having a few days off sick you would be singing a completely different tune.

YANBU. A cold is not a reason to take three days off work.
He sounds a bit pathetic tbh.

Technically it's an option, and if I couldn't pay the bills it's one I would be exploring.

I missed that memo too.

Ilet he knows our financial situation and the fact that either of us taking time off is problematic at the moment. We should be caught up by the end of next month so we'll be fine while I'm on maternity leave. There is other financial stuff that's caused problems making ends meet in the past (him before joint money but that I ended up sorting out) but I don't want to go into any more detail about our finances when my initial question was whether I was BU to think taking several days off with a cold when money was tight was a little unreasonable.

Sign up with any agency. Ditto bar work and events stuff. You don't need experience particularly if you have already worked in a 'demanding job'.

You don't need experience to stuff envelopes and do filing. And if you have the computer literacy to post on here you could do data entry. And customer service work all you need is common sense. There are plenty of those sort of jobs about. You are numerate so you can work a till. You don't need a degree to pull a pint or take off a bottle top. It takes 10 minutes training.

It's common for doctors and nurses who've come from overseas to do a few months of such work before they get cleared. Working in kitchens, doing bit of typing etc, etc. It appears from your posts that you didn't try and get something to tide you over, you just waited.

I'm a public sector contractor but when I'm between contracts I do the same.

If you wanted to take the 3 months off fine, but don't moan when your partner takes 3 days off.

If anyone could enlighten me as to where I could have found a job that I had no experience for with no notice period to allow an immediate start for the job I was waiting for the checks for once they came through then that would be great. In the current job market you need experience for everything, from checkouts to filing.

Was it a cold or was it flu? Did he have a temp?

Your DH was extremely selfish and irresponsible, I would be really upset if I were in your shoes.

Regarding the tumble dryer, you'd be better of replacing it with a decent dehumidifier - dries loads of clothes really quickly, warms the room up and really cheap to run ( I've just got one and I love it )

Piece I will look into getting a dehumidifier, the main problem we have drying stuff indoors is dampness. The tumble dryer was a bit irrelevant to this thread really, it was just one more thing to stress me out today. Although after I posted my op the hoover died. And I'm just ignoring the funny noise the washing machine makes Maybe I should start a new thread 'aibu to think my household appliances are conspiring against me?'

Retro No temp

So he saw his pregnant and physically compromised wife do 12 hour shifts while she had a cold because she couldn't afford to take any time off and then he took 3 DAYS UNPAID LEAVE to sit around a nurse the same cold?

And you think this lazy, self-indulgent manchild is going to magically "step up" when your baby is born?

Dream on.

You are PREGNANT - the time for stepping up has already started.

And he has already delayed the time when you can start your maternity leave so he could sit at home being nice to himself for more than half a week while he had a mild cold.

"I think he tends to assume I'll make it all work out somehow which is nice that he has so much faith in me but a little frustrating when he takes time off willy nilly. He's a lovely husband but a little incompetent at times."

He's not a lovely husband, he's a self-indulgent, selfish sod who expects you to put him first.

And he'll still expect that when the baby comes.

And then you will find out what he's really all about.

Hint: HIMSELF

Madratlady temporary jobs often don't have a notice period but if they do it's a week and it's never enforced if you don't work it. Agencies expect temps just to say they're finishing. It's the nature of the job. And you don't need experience for a lot of temp jobs. They're not stuck with you as they are with a perm employee so they will take people on with low experience as they can get rid of you if you're no good. Also they only have a limited pool of people who want to do temp work so are flexible about experience. Even university students who've never worked know that you can get temp jobs over the summer. There are plenty of low skilled temp jobs that you need little or no experience for around.

To say 'Oh I couldn't even get a bar job' is absolute rubbish.

So just to sum this up, you stopped working for 3 months and made no effort to find anything which might tide you over in the meantime.

Your husband took 3 days off sick.

And apparently your financial problems are his fault.

I don't mean to be nasty but at the end of the day the main cause of your financial problems is the fact you didn't work for 3 months, not the fact he took 3 day off sick.

You must have known that taking 3 months off work would cause you financial problems yet you still apparently did nothing to even attempt to find a stop gap job. I don't think you can really moan about 3 days off sick when you compare it to 3 months.

Don't know anything about dehumidifiers, but these heated airers seem popular with mumsnetters:
www.lakeland.co.uk/21736/Dry-Soon-3-Tier-Heated-Tower-Airer

Um, she didn't "take 3 months off work."

She lost her job, found another job quickly, and had to wait an indefinite period before she could start.

WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT.

Of course that hurt them financially, but she wasn't malingering.

Unlike her husband who took 3 unpaid sick days when he knew that his pregnant wife had just worked through the same illness because they couldn't afford to lose days of pay.

I would guess anyone suggesting the OP should've taken on bar work has not personally experienced pelvic girdle pain (assuming OP had this then) it would be completely unsuitable for her - actually any job likely to exacerbate it.
I have been signed on with temp agencies and not received offers of work, it is not always that easy. I think the OP is hardly scrounging given she has already helped her dh pay off a debt incurred before they met.

Seasick what on earth makes you think I didn't attempt to find something else? I applied for everything I could do when I first lost my job, was offered another one 10 days later and once my crb didn't arrive in the usual time period (a few weeks) I looked for any temp jobs going. I couldn't find bar work because there were no bar jobs available anywhere. I never heard back from any of the admin jobs I applied for apart from one agency who said wouldn't take me on with no admin experience. I certainly didn't not work for 3 months through choice.

Would it make it better in your eyes if I said that I supposed dh when he lost a job and was out of work for a while 18 months ago? It took several months to get caught up financially after that as well.

Three days off with a cold is not a lot. Calling it 'the Common Cold' doesn't diminish the effects of a real cold (as opposed to an autumn 'sniffle'). Colds are nasty. And for some strange reason, they do seem to hit men harder. Either that or every man who has ever suffered a cold is a lying malingerer.

I would hesitate to call either the OP or her OH wrong in this situation.

Perhaps if OP had taken time off with her cold, OH might have felt forced to go to work. Neither situation is ideal, but being ill falls under 'unplanned events' in anyone's book.

Relationships are about give and take. Obvious, I know, but the OP seems to think that ATM it's all give on her part and all take on his.

This rough patch will pass OP. You will get through it, even though it means a little financial tightness in the short to medium term.

You've supported each other through hardship before, and without doubt you will have to again.

If he had the flu and a raging temperature, then 3 days might be reasonable but a cold, even a bad one, shouldn't warrant 3 full sick days especially if you work in a job that's not very physical and without sick pay.

It does sound like you need to talk more about finances together though because you shouldn't bear all that stress alone.

OP, several times you've said you're working to clear the debt you got in to when you were out of work. These things happen, as a couple or family you deal with them. You helped him with his IVA debt and now he's helping you but you're in it together!
I hope you haven't got guilt feelings over being out of work and this isn't partly the reason you didn't go of sick. Look after yourself and the baby.

I think he was a bit unreasonable to take 3 days off for a cold under the circumstances and that he needs to take more responsibility for understanding the finances and budgeting. You mentioned he was in care, do you think that he never learnt household budgeting and skills like that. He may not have much of a model of family life to work from IYSWIM.