to ask my DH for a bit more help in dual career situation?

[mowayjose]

Just that really. Dual careers plus DC. My DH earns more than me, always has. And he earns quite a lot. That difference plus the fact that my job has always been more flexible (although I do work full time) has historically seemed to justify the fact that during the week, effectively he does nothing in relation to the kids. My salary is gradually creeping up in relation to his but he still does very, very little. I mainly understand this because his job is undoubtedly full-on and high stress, more so than mine. But to be fair, my job is not completely without it's pressures.

The other day he was working from home. I asked for some help getting the kids dressed, breakfasted, and ready to get out of the door. He got one DC dressed, then wandered off and I found him at his desk getting on with his work. I was pretty furious. When I mentioned this he made me feel as though I was being totally unreasonable and a bit of a cow, to be honest. This is a relatively regular event. He said that he had to make a call although this hadn't been mentioned earlier. He also has a habit of taking things to the extreme and saying for example, "if you want help I will HAND IN MY NOTICE, I'd LOVE to be at home, and then we can just live on your salary!" Which he knows is somewhat impractical at the moment. So .... check mate.

He is a great father and husband in most ways by the way - I recognise this message makes me sound a bit downtrodden, which I'm not, but I do feel really, really ANGRY and resentful right now and am wondering whether I should! I'm sure this has been covered before but I'm interested to know: if you have a high pressure job, or your partner does, and you both work, how do you share kid stuff during the week?

To answer your OP, I'm on mat leave but DH still does bath, book, bottle and bed for ds every night when he gets home from his stressful job. Sometimes he works late and only gets to do the bed part but he wouldn't miss it. If he has to work from home in the evenings or at the weekend, he runs it by me first (though I've never asked him to) to check I'm happy to look after ds. This is because DH is considerate and doesn't class the childcare as solely my job (even though it kinda is at the moment as I'm on mat leave!). He is besotted with ds and genuinely wants time with him every day, which is how it should be really.

I want to agree with ChazsBrilliantAttitude.

Women being expected to do the bulk of the household duties and childcare while working full time is absolutely not a first world problem. There are women around the world who would grimace in recognition at this issue - or be discouraged that Britain in the 21st century still has advanced so little in some respects.

Lack of gender equality holds back whole societies. www.unfpa.org/gender-equality

I think women being expected to free men up for work is definitely a problem.

Born the women who cannot get beyond mummy track and also the men who are locked into presenteeism because of colleagues who live in work.

No one wins here.

I think one of the things that needs to happen OP is that your DH has his eyes opened to the weight of work involved in running family life.

I have always periodically left DH to it with a full list of what needs to be done. Then there was no discussion that we a. Needed to outsource and. b. Pull together for the remainder.

Roles reversed with us - I have the high pressure long hours job and DH works from home part time. I still do the majority of the cooking (because I love cooking), he does the laundry and looks after DC after school, we have a cleaner once a week but he keeps on top of the housework during the week. I try and do mornings (getting boys up / dressed / breakfasted / ready for school) if I don't have to be in early and I always do evenings (dinner, bath, teeth, bed) - because it's extra time with my boys!

It takes 5 mins to transfer laundry from basket to machine, 15 mins to hang it outside (or another 5 to go from washer to dryer). Your DH probably takes longer to go to the loo, I seriously doubt a 5 min break away from work to put laundry on will risk his job. Seems a bit of an unfair / extreme threat to me, more what I'd expect from a toddler than a grown man and supposed partner.

It's really really hard. My career has been start stop since our first was born ten years ago(before which I was told by a senior manager that my career prospects were amazing based on my skills - and given my most recent 2 year mat leave seems to have amounted to not much!!!!).

However I get the benefit of working part time (my choice) and paid help - so I probably have a better deal than you, apologies if my advice/experience is therefore not relevant.

1. Everything has to be totally and fully agreed in advance so no asking for help flexibly as men don't seem to cope well with that (or multi-tasking in any sense whatsoever). Our agreement is DH unloads the dishwasher and clears the kitchen then gets lost by 7am leaving me to manage the whole routine alone as I know then what is left for me to manage - and it is far easier!

2. Make sure you are focussing on the time with your DC, which is sounds like you are. I would rather use my DH's limited resources on one to one"quality" time with the DC (my limits for this are totally exhausted some nights after juggling work and children all day!) than sweeping the floor or getting someone dressed.

3. You have to agree a way of working. My DH hates "taking instructions" from me, but has over the years pretty much accepted that he has to if I'm running things at home as I am best placed to know what the priorities are. Not sure if that's relevant in your case as you both work full time - but someone needs to be responsible (again unless you have fully agreed and specified who is responsible for what).

My husband and I both work full time, he earns more than I do (about 30%) but I have the greater earning potential in the longer run. DH does 70% of the nursery drop offs and collections (DD a toddler) as he works office hours and has the option to work from home occasionally if needed whereas I'm in healthcare so can't just drop everything at 530. I work some weekends/nights and have occasional weekdays off as a result and do the childcare those days naturally. Housework roughly 50:50 also. I breastfeed so still do majority of night wakeups but thankfully they are not too frequent now!

I don't feel that he's doing this unintentionally OP as he clearly values your contribution to the family pot. So I think it's a case of just telling him that you have an idea of how things could run more smoothly on weekdays 'for the kids' and making this clear in a chart or other visual poster which is stuck on the wall in the kitchen! Infantile yes. But clearly he respects that you want to work your way up the ladder, but he obviously needs it spelled out that if it is going to work properly for your marriage and your homelife, then either you both need to agree on exactly what the cleaner will do (does she need to come in more days than she does already) what the au pair can do/if she's doing enough so that you can free up time to stay late if you need be without feeling that your homelife is falling down. Balance. But definitely I'd be upping the hours and duties of the au pair and cleaner to give you a foot up the ladder. Win win - women working to support other women working while the men folk wait around for further instruction from us. Really we do too much. Then that should free up weekends for quality time with you both with the kids.

Agree with SheGot.

Oh, and while I'm around more in the week, my partner does all the weekend cooking. Actually he does most of the washing too. He has many annoying qualities but not stepping up to the plate isn't one of them.

Joint effort to get everyone out in the morning although realistically I tend to get dc dressed (altho not at the moment because I'm on mat leave so I stay in bed with the baby!) - DH brings me breakfast in bed to wake me up.

He picks dc up from nursery two days a week, I try to get home before bed but don't always manage it. He almost always does the other three days, if he's busy he goes in super early. Then bath / story etc is mainly him because I'm feeding the baby.

Surely when he works from home he has a later start to his day?
Why can't he do something then to relieve the pressure in the mornings?

And is your Au pair as helpful then as she could be?

There is no excuse for him not to pull his weight at weekends either.

You'll just have to keep talking.