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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DH and work issue

243 replies

ILoveEurovision · 17/06/2019 19:33

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).

OP posts:
SilverySurfer · 18/06/2019 11:01

I would be telling your DH to get his head out of his arse, find a proper job that paid a proper wage which allowed you to go part time initially and then pay for childcare. Are you optimistically assuming he's going to be doing the housework/washing/cooking too?

Yabbers · 18/06/2019 11:02

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.

The sheer number of threads about SAHMs never getting a day off, never having a break would suggest this is a good thing for OP to do.

If a working dad compressed or reduced hours so he could give SAHM a day all to herself every week, he’d be hailed as a hero.

newmomof1 · 18/06/2019 11:03

@Yabbers I'm currently BFing myself so well aware of the implications. It clearly wouldn't work for her not to BF for a week.
We've established that if you RTFT.

But either way, LO would have to take a bottle through the day while she's in the office and she will have to find time to express at work if she wants to continue to BF

AryaStarkWolf · 18/06/2019 11:05

Oh just read some updates, is he telling you to continue breast feeding when you don't want to? Don't let him do that

Selmababies · 18/06/2019 11:13

He sounds like a lazy, selfish jerk

I'd seriously be weighing up whether I wanted to stay in this 'partnership' that doesn't seem to be much of a partnership.

I suspect I wouldn't be able to come up with many reasons to stay.

I'd be considering a nanny, nursery or a childminder going forward as a single parent in a positive way.

motherheroic · 18/06/2019 11:16

He has been faffing around for years with his freelancing that is making almost nothing while you support him and he can't do you this favour?

GreenFingersWouldBeHandy · 18/06/2019 11:17

Why does he have to uproot and spend 24 hours a day with your parents when he's happy to stay and care for DC at home?

Pinkmouse6 · 18/06/2019 11:17

I can understand him not wanting to spend a week with your parents especially if he would be stuck in their company for the week whilst you were at work. Sounds like my idea of Hell!

I would personally take baby with you and have your parents look after him while you work. Your milk supply will decrease if you don’t feed for a week.

honeygirlz · 18/06/2019 12:00

Why does he have to uproot and spend 24 hours a day with your parents when he's happy to stay and care for DC at home?

Because baby is breastfed and he won't let her take the baby with her.

CanCanCanYouDoThe · 18/06/2019 12:06

YABU I couldn’t think of anything worse than being stuck at my in laws with a baby for a week. It’s so much easier being at home where you have everything set up and they’re often quite unsettled in unfamiliar environments. Surely it’s only 5 days and a 1 year old can take cow’s milk and solids as well as expressed milk.

GreenFingersWouldBeHandy · 18/06/2019 12:16

@honeygirlz surely by 1 year, baby will be weaned?

RubberTreePlant · 18/06/2019 12:21

When I was a SAHM to a one year old, I wouldn't have wanted to be parked with the ILs for a week.

justasking111 · 18/06/2019 12:32

My friend took a job like this working remotely, well it is not as easy as that, she was expected to attend meetings, go on courses, so was commuting often and staying over in London. OP if you cannot get past what is only the first of many hurdles job wise you are in the wrong job.

Whackitupto200 · 18/06/2019 12:33

I originally thought you were BU because there’s nothing I’d hate more than having to spend a week with my ILs looking after a one year old while my DP was at work all day.

Also, I do think that you were BU to volunteer to go to London for the week and expect that he’d be okay to stay with your DPs. Why did you think it wouldn’t be a problem? He doesn’t want to see or talk to them usually. He doesn’t even want you or DS to see them. I don’t know why you thought your plan would work.

But having said all that, the more you post about him, the more he sounds like a massive twat. He doesn’t work because he can’t be arsed. He stops you from seeing your parents and your DS from seeing his grandparents. Unless they are abhorrent criminals, racists or otherwise dangerous or disgusting, he has no right to alienate you from them and that is a massive red flag.

I understand you have to work but I would caution against continuing with the plan for him to be SAHD. If you do split he will be considered the primary carer and would get majority share of DS’s care.

Howyiz · 18/06/2019 12:37

You say you had to express recently because he wanted to go see a band?
Did you not want to see the band and if you didn't why did you go?
I would be wary for any person to become a stay at home parent because they don't want to work!

Yabbers · 18/06/2019 12:43

We've established that if you RTFT.

I did RTFT, but it is concluding this kind of nonsense....

But either way, LO would have to take a bottle through the day while she's in the office and she will have to find time to express at work if she wants to continue to BF

For one feed a day is entirely do-able. And the baby will still be BFing in that day too, probably morning and night. I did it for almost a year.

That’s an entirely different thing to having no BFing for a whole week. Which is what I’ve already said several times if you read my fucking posts.

Jocasta2018 · 18/06/2019 12:43

I wondering whether the DH is trying to distance the OP from her family because they've got him sussed....
From what the OP writes, he seems very unsupportive of everything the OP does and it doesn't appear that he brings very much to the relationship.
If I were her parents, I would be concerned for her and the child.

justasking111 · 18/06/2019 12:46

If she were my daughter and my SIL was lazing around I do not expect he would want to see me or my OH because we would not be able to hide our distaste of him.

TowelNumber42 · 18/06/2019 12:49

The way this relationship works, he gets the hump even a little bit and you roll over and do whatever he wants. Why are you living your life that way? It's shit.

Is your primary role in life to do absolutely anything no matter what just so a man never ever has sad feels even for a second?

He's allowed to be pissed off with you. You are allowed to do stuff that pisses him off. Whether that's refusing to be nice about his refusal to work, or stopping breastfeeding if you want to stop, or visiting your parents when you want, or inviting them to stay or whatever other perfectly normal stuff you currently don't do because pleasing your man is your number one priority.

Wake up!

What are you so terrified of that makes you pander like this?

TowelNumber42 · 18/06/2019 12:54

Despite what I've said above. It is entirely reasonable for him to say that he doesn't want to spend a week at your parents in a different city with the one year old while you are at work. You are being unreasonable to expect him to do that.

IceQueenCometh · 18/06/2019 12:58

You're starting your new job and he's starting his. I think he's NBU

KatherineJaneway · 18/06/2019 13:03

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.

Agree.

yesteaandawineplease · 18/06/2019 13:10

yanbu and at the very least your dh is being selfish ... possibly worse but only you will really know. the not working at all because he doesn't want a minimum wage job is quite shocking to me.

HiJuice · 18/06/2019 13:14

YABU to expect him to stay with your parents for a week whilst you are at work - I would hate this and it's nothing to do with being supportive.

Baby will be 1 so no need to breast feed at that stage - if you really want to then expressing would be possible.

I think you should let him stay at home with baby.

However, you do need to see your parents and he shouldn't be trying to stop you, even if he doesn't want to see them himself. That part needs a discussion.

newmomof1 · 18/06/2019 13:18

@Yabbers no need to get shirty and aggressive...

The child will still need 5 days worth of expressed milk if she's working from the offices for the first 5 days...

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