DH and work issue

[ILoveEurovision]

I'm starting a new job when DS turns 1 year old. The rest of the team will be based in London and I will be working remotely from our home town . DH has only earned a few grand a year for the last few years doing freelancing and we rely on my salary. DH is going to stop freelancing to be a SAHD.

I'm meeting with my new boss tomorrow and said to DH that I was thinking about suggesting that if they wanted me to, I could be in London for the first week to settle in and get to know people. My parents are in London so I thought DH and DS could stay with them. They have a large (by London standards) house. My parents have bought a cot and other baby things so it wouldn't be too much hassle to travel.

DH has said no. If I need to stay in London for a week I should just go and leave him with the baby in our home town. He said I can express milk. He doesn't like seeing my parents and doesn't want to travel.

AIBU to be extremely upset? I feel I've been supporting him for years and he doesn't support me in return. I feel I never get to see my parents either and have taken to Skyping the. When DH is our because he moans about them (they are polite to him).

@SuperSara so ensuring the baby is kept near its mother who is breastfeeding it while also enabling his wife, the breadwinner, to make a good impression in the job that is supporting the family is “no good reason”?

There is no way I'd stay with my in laws whilst my dh was away!

It's not about this visit only though is it?

He won't visit and doesn't want you to take your DC on your own?

You can't talk to them when he's in the house?

You're the breadwinner.

You're on dodgy ground. You need to start thinking seriously about your future before this SAHD thing becomes a reality.

OP please don't agree to this set-up. Your future will be utterly miserable.

Your OH sounds selfish in the extreme, a cocklodger who is setting the scene to trap you into facilitating his lazy lifestyle for the next 17 years (or more, if you have further DC with him). Do you trust him as a SAHD to give your baby the best possible care? Or do you think (as a PP said upthread), he'll stick the kid in a playpen all day whilst he plays Xbox and wanks, then quickly change DC's stinking nappy just before you get home and play-act about what a hard day he's had so that you have to make dinner and do bedtime to give him a break.

His attitude to your (perfectly nice, ordinary) parents stinks. He is jealous of your relationship with them and successfully isolating you from your support network. These are classic signs of an abuser.

It must be very hard to read the opinions about your relationship on this thread, but please listen to the advice. It is all given with the very best of intentions and with the wealth of MN experience behind it.

OP, go and see your Mum & Dad. Really open up to them. They must be worried sick about you.

I must admit, the more I read this, the more I think OP should take DS and move down to London, getting rid of cocklodger in the process.

^^ This. He sounds awful.

He sounds rather unpleasant with his attitudes to your family (particularly compared to his) and to the household work/ life balance.

So you get the demanding job, and the nightfeeds. It will be exhausting. Not that it's not worthwhile, but is someone who is long term unwilling to work actually going to appreciate just what you are doing for your family?

I've nothing against SAHPs, but the value of both parties contribution to the household has to be valued for it to work.

Have a good think about what you are getting from this relationship now and in the years to come.

I went back to work while BFing and engorgement was tricky by the afternoons. I did a 4 night trip away when baby was 12m. Engorgement was tricky. Baby latched back on straight away and supply was fine, but I would not want to stretch that out for a week and be trying to settle into a new job with solid leaking breasts and a breastpump on standby. I can see why you want to go to London and bring baby.

I'm sorry but he sounds like an idle, controlling arse who won't put himself out for the greater good of his immediate family. He wants to have it all, while you do it all.

He should take advantage of a week in London, your parents to give him a break, all of you together. Him wanting to stay at home is perverse.

Now I m not sure, but wouldn't it make sense to be weaning a 1-y-o off breast milk. Maybe a good time to do it. I can't think you would want to express a weeks worth of milk.

I'd move to London without him. I don't think this is just about this week you are discussing, it's about him being a cocklodger and an unsupportive one tat that. You don't need him.

Re him and baby staying at your parents for a week - you're going off to earn an income to support the family. A bit like when forces people are sent on postings and their families go along to - earning that income is a joint effort and the breadwinner should be supported. And in this case it's only for a week! However, reading what you say about him objecting to you staying in touch with your family, and you not being able to go and visit them... big danger signs there. You should think long and hard about this.

If you are going to ditch him do it now before he becomes a SAH parent.

He clearly wants OP to commute every day rather than stay in London. He knows expressing a week’s worth of milk is difficult OP. He will do nothing to support OP.

I hope OP will be back and she didn’t just come to get it off her chest and go then do as he wants.

Its amazing how many people are saying how easy he'll have it as a SAHD, but would never say the same about SAHM's!

@newmomof1

Because it sounds like he’s going to be a shit SAHP.

He wants OP to continue to breastfeed the bay even though that means OP has to co-sleep from 1.30am with baby. That’s not feasible when OP has to be up early for work. He doesn’t spend much time baby at the moment despite only working a few hours a week.

Also, OP says:
I was going to ask my new boss if I could work 4.5 days compressed over 4 with Wednesdays off so I could give DH a break mid-week. I think I'm trying my best to support him bring a SAHD and he won't do anything for me.

How many working dads do this to support the SAHM?

I hope you read carefully OP. Lots of people have expressed that he sounds controlling, bordering on abusive.

I'd be seriously considering moving to my parents with DS, so he isn't the primary caregiver or you'll be split up, only having every other weekend and paying your ex to sit and do nothing.

Have you discussed with him that being a SAHD means going to the baby groups, doing 80% of housework and cooking etc.
Perhaps it will be better if he gets a min wage job for 3 days a week, your DS goes to daycare 3 days a week, you look after him 1 day (doing compressed working week) and take DS to London for your parents to look after one day a week.

Your DH will then also be contributing to his pension etc and wouldn't stay on a starter wage forever. Unless he's lazy there too.

While I think YABU in expecting him to stay with in-laws he's not keen on, there's a whole heap of other issues that you need to sort before you go back to work.

I wouldn't worry too much about the London trip. By 1yo, the amount you'll be expressing will presumably be a lot less than now and you can plan ahead and freeze some so you're not killing yourself (and your boobs...) just before you go. Or, the ideal solution would seem to be that you take the baby to London and your parents have some time with DS while you're working?

But yeah, he sounds like a lazy unsupportive idiot generally. And if he's going to be a SAHD, he needs to get used to spending a lot more than the odd couple of hours with DS.

Look on it as a totally free week to settle in at work and see your parents. I would quite like this to be honest (but perhaps not a whole week at my parents...the food would do my head in ).

I can see from his perspective, he would like the settling in time too as a SAHD. If there is enough notice, you could express milk to see him through or mix and match with formula.

Just don't forget to take your breast pump! I went away with work once and forgot mine and had to hand express in the bath. Not great.

@honeygirlz

Playing devils advocate here...

• she can express a bottle for the nighttime feeds.
• maybe he doesn't spend much time with LO because OP does everything and he feels like he's getting in the way, and things will be different when it's just him and LO

With the reduced hours thing, she just doesn't want to work a full 5 days. Sorry but it's true!

When women post about men working full time, they get the "yes but being a SAHP is a 24/7 job and he only works a 40 hour week" response so why should OP get so much praise for trying to get a day off midweek?

newmomof1 Because no on here is diminishing the work he WILL be doing (note he isnt doing it atm...). But the reality is

• he isnt bfing so is doing few of the night waking. The OP is ging to, despite the demanding job. Men with demanding jobs are usualy totally ok to hook and get to have a full undisturbed nught so they can be on the ball at work.
• he isnt putting the wellbeing of HIS CHILD first. He is happy for a baby to be separated from his bfing mother, not have a breast at night etc... if a SAHmother was told that she was to be separated from her baby ike this, would she accept it?
• I would want to be sure he is also taking on all the mental load, emotional support HW etc etc that women take on. As it stands, i very much doubt it as the OP is already proposing the compress her hours 'to give him a break'.

Basicaly you are trying to compare women who are SAHM who not only care for the bby for the entire household, take on the mental load, et up at night every night etc a man who wont get up at night, wont take the mental load, is putting his needs befire the ones of his dc and dw. Not comparable at all.

@ComeAndDance as I've said before in PP, she can express the night feeds so he can get up with baby

I just feel that people aren't giving him the chance to be a SAHD before casting their judgments (yes I know he doesn't do enough with LO at the moment but he's probably conscious of that).
I don't see how uprooting LO and taking him away from his home for a week will help anyone.
Surely it's good if dad and baby spend that week working out their routines?
Mom can't BF on demand when she's working, even if she's at home, what about when she has to dial in to meetings etc? So LOs routines will change when she's working anyway.

Nobody judged whether I could handle being a SAHM before I had my LO, I just got on with it. Dads should be allowed do the same.

I think this is one of those where with the actual issue you may be a bit unreasonable and we can understand his point of view, with all the background information this is the straw that broke the camels back and you are right to be annoyed.

Sorry but if this was a guy trying to pressure his wife to take the baby and go and stay with her inlaws who she doesn't like for a week while he deals with his career i can just imagine the replies

If there was a physical reason for doing so, it wouldn’t make a difference.

OP is BFing. You can’t just easily store up a week’s worth of expressed milk and for the baby to go a week without BFing, he is effectively saying she needs to wean by 12 months. That’s not his decision and there is absolutely no reason for him to do this to support his wife, except that he just doesn’t want to.

Not unreasonable OP. Can your parents look after the baby whilst you are at the office. Could you offer to go in to the office for half a day rather than full days?

@Yabbers she's already said he wants her to carry on breastfeeding. He wants her to express milk for him to feed LO while she's away (which we all know would be a mammoth challenge).

But why should he have to have NC with his son for a whole week just because he doesn't want to spend the week with PILs? It's her choosing to go to London - she offered

With the reduced hours thing, she just doesn't want to work a full 5 days. Sorry but it's true!

What the hell is wrong with that? Both OH and I worked part time when DD was a baby. We didn’t have to, we chose to. Neither of us wanted to be at work full time and have her in nursery full time. We wanted to spend some days with her. We could afford to do that so why shouldn’t we?

I can see why you are upset that he doesn't want to go but I think YABU if he doesn't feel comfortable there, a week is a very longtime. I think you should go on your own

@Yabbers I'm not saying there's a problem with it but she's using that against DH - saying she's doing it to support him and give him a break, which isn't the case.

I think it's brilliant if both parents can spend a lot of time with DC when they grow up so fast!

she's already said he wants her to carry on breastfeeding. He wants her to express milk for him to feed LO while she's away

You do understand there is more to breastfeeding for a baby than just getting food? Switching to a bottle for an entire week with no physical BFing is effectively giving up BFing. It will impact on how baby feeds, may well cause them some distress, and will impact on supply.

Arya RTFT