To think my husband is being unfair about my charity work

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We used the services of a charity a couple of years ago and I now volunteer for them. It’s a specialised and skilled role which I find interesting and challenging. And of course it helps other people.

However, my husband believes it is no different to a hobby and then takes exception to it impacting on the things he sees as my role. He works full time, I am a SAHM and am unable to do paid work due to a disability. This voluntary work helps keep me sane and makes me feel useful once more. I have no other hobbies.

AIBU to think that he’s BU by treating it as the same as any other hobby when actually it’s so importnant to me AND benefits other people’s lives? Most of my work is done during the day when the children are at school or in the evening when they’re in bed. He sees this as using my “free time” which means I actually don’t get much down time at all. AIBU or is he?

And user - why are you so concerned for insurance companies? Do you not think they are capable of working out the best way of operating their profit making enterprises?

Gosh their are some dimlows on this thread. OP was insured to do a job she is no longer able to do due to injury. She could do some other job, probably for much lower pay, but why the fuck should she forego her insurance payout to do so when she (or her employer) paid the premium in good faith?

2-3 hours per day? It's nothing; and the salary for a job that would take more hours sounds like it could well be lower.

If your 'D'H doesn't want to pick up a bit of family responsibility slack to enable you here I would suggest that you cease to facilitate his 'hobbies'.

roundabout - I wasn’t intending to make that comparison. I was saying that I make considerable changes to my working day to accommodate my husbands working day and he does the same for mine. Would I do the same if I was accommodating unpaid work and not paid work. In all truth I would not (unless he was about to find the cure for cancer or something - in which case I would reconsider).

I’m not suggesting she should not be able to do anything at all. Of course she should. Just that there is a question of balance and I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable to regard paid and unpaid work differently in terms of how much slack you expect the other to pick up. IMO.

Am I the only person who noticed the OP slip in fairly early on that it’s NOT just 2-3 hours per day?

“Or a bit of down time in the evening when I’ve been at it all day.”

I suspect that what originally started out as only a couple of hours a day has over time spiralled into much more (as things do when you are passionate about something) and this is why the DH now has a problem with it?

A bit of an irrelevant point, surely, at the stage where the dh only puts one load of washing on a week and puts the bins out, surely, though, famousfour? How hard would your full time job need to be that you resent your dw doing voluntary work for 2-3 hours a day, when you used to tolerate her doing full time paid work?

In all truth I would not

Not even for a charity that had helped your family in the past?

Well, if the OP has been doing childcare, housework, shopping and voluntary work all day, then she has been at it all day. Why must she give up the voluntary work in order to have any rest?

Her children are at school so no childcare

Childcare before and after school. A considerable expense to many households and a benefit to the children to be able to have breakfast at home and attend activities/have friends over/veg at home rather than ASC or childminder.

And holidays presumably.

It would not surprise me at all if the OP’s husband in this scenario is delighted at the prospect of a cleaner but will not consider himself to have any responsibility at all for the pre-cleaner-tidy-up which is necessary for the cleaner to be effective. This job will fall to the OP: her responsibility. There will be a honeymoon lull for a time, then he will moan again that something is not right.

I think the op is truly to be commended for trying to find a way to stick to her volunteering commitment, which benefits her and is altruistic. The poster who goes by the magnificent name of OrgasmicBirth summarised it perfectly for me.

If or when the OP is in a position to return to paid employment, I am sure her volunteering experience will be incredibly valuable to her, not least to her professional confidence.

No childcare - yeah, because they get themselves up and fly there and back, and don't come home before the end of a normal working day .

Gosh!!!

Instead of the one eyed pilot, what about a one armed golf pro? Or a one handed pianist? Or a partially blind surgeon?

My job involves some particular duties which I cannot do, nor will I ever be able to. My voluntary input is mentally gruelling, and completely different.

And SGB my husband is not pleased that I’m disabled. What a shocking thing to say!

User13932xxx “Any specific job insurance that doesn't make allowances for lower paying alternative work to be combined with a partial continuing payout is a fundamentally flawed product in my view. Ideally the taper rate would be much lower than 100% as well to encourage those who are able to take alternative work to do so.”

That’s exactly what happens. I am not paid my full salary. I get a %, and no bonuses. I am much worse off than I was when in work full time BUT that amount is still way higher than anything I could earn elsewhere.

As for alternative work to make up the difference, in theory that’s all very well but in practice that’s actually hard to implement. To use a different analogy to the pilot, and going with say, a salaried surgeon who isn’t physically able to practice, their employer can’t redeploy them into a junior/non surgical role. They’re either a surgeon or they’re not.

Yes people seem very concerned about those poor insurance companies. The op bought a product. Essentially placing a bet. And now she's getting the 'reward'. I suspect she'd rather have her health.

He’s treating you like a
SAHP who contributes by giving time to run the house and care for the kids. He sees your vouluntary work as a tag on, which it isn’t as it’s essential for your well being and in turn family contentment. However although you do the majority of the house/child work, your contribution is financial just like his. He needs to value your voluntary work as much as his paid work as it brings so much more then money. In addition he’s a father and should be pulling his weight to look after his kids. Working isn’t a free pass to sit on your ass

Yy stealthpolarbear. The OP had the foresight to buy insurance hoping she would never need it. Would we all be on here decrying the money the OP has paid the insurance company if she had stayed in good health? Everyone worried that the OP isn’t working hard enough and should be saving her poor insurance company money can fuck off.

Presumably these people, in the awful situation that their home burnt down, would be happy with any old house anywhere as its somewhere to live, rather than compensation to the actual value?
Or if their watch was stolen they'd accept the cheapest watch in replacement, it works doesn't it?

I think some posters are seeing my insurance in the same way as a state benefit somehow. It isn’t.

It's interesting that so many women on this thread are happy to suggest that running a home (aside from the voluntary work issue) is of lower value than paid work and that this allows the paid person to contribute practically nil to the running of the house.

It is also very surprising that other women feel that OPs DH can dictate duties and expect certain services in return.

Autonomy is a pillar of psychological happiness and being dictated to in this way reduces the SAHP role to servitude.

The patriarchy is alive and well it seems.

But don't you see, StealthPolarBear, when an insurer of all things is more concerned about a person's mental health and wellbeing than the great users of mumsnet (and central government), it must be wrong! It makes those taking a harder line look even more mercenary than the insurance industry!

Op I think you sound amazing. It can't be easy to accept developing a disability and losing your career. Good for you being so determined to volunteer. I think you are doing incredibly well.

Your dh may not fully understand why you volunteer. Maybe you can talk it through some more and explain why it means something to you.

I hope the cleaner helps - good luck.

Yes OP you’ve taken an awful life changing event and somehow found a way to help people. Good luck to you!

It's work. I don't get paid to clean the house - I would be seriously fucked off if I was told it should therefore be done in my "free time."

The issue of whether voluntary work is a job/work or not is context dependent. In this case, the context is whether it counts as free time versus work in terms of its contribution to the well-being of the whole family. The dividing line for that is whether it mainly benefits the individual or the household. Unpaid cleaning and childcare would count as work, but unpaid being a brain surgeon would not, even thought the latter is (in other contexts) a proper job.

Obviously the unpaid cleaning and childcare only counts if it is done for the family, if exactly the same work were done for others then as far as household accounts were concerned it would come out of free time.