Or is this set-up unsustainable and shit?

[AnnaHorribilis]

I’m having yet another thoroughly miserable day (it’s becoming an almost daily occurrence now) and I’d just like a reality check — is this a totally crap and unsustainable situation or am I just in need of a grip? Wondering if this could be PND, even?

DH and I have 3 young children: 4, 2 and 9 months.

My husband works full-time; I am a SAHM by day but WFH (web-related) in the evenings. I earn roughly half what he does, if that’s relevant.

The 4yo goes to a local preschool for her 15 funded hours a week. The younger two are with me full-time. The 9mo is still breastfed and will not be put down for more than 5 mins, and will only sleep on me, day and night.

So, after the older two go to bed, I feed the baby with my laptop balanced on my knees behind her, and work like that from about 8-12. She’s ill and teething at the moment so not settling at all, but I have to just keep swapping sides and carry on because she won’t settle otherwise and I have deadlines to meet.

When I’m too tired to work any more, I close the laptop, slide down a bit on the sofa and sleep half sitting all night, with constant wake-ups from the baby.

DH sleeps in the bed upstairs, usually also working late, and if the older two wake up early or in the middle of the night, they go in with him.

I do all the housework, shopping, and any “life admin” (sorry, I know MN hates that term but think birthday/Xmas cards and presents, bills, insurance, tax, appointments, everything). After previous outbursts about this (from me), DH now does most of the washing up in the morning before he goes to work, leaving the dirtiest pans etc. as he washes cleanest-dirtiest and they won’t all fit on the drying rack 🙄

So my day is basically: get up with the baby; get all three children bathed and dressed; put wash on; make breakfast for everyone; walk eldest to school for 9; come back and look after two or three preschoolers all day as well as any chores that need doing; make dinner for 6 so we can all eat together when DH gets in; bedtime routine; work with fussy baby on top of me; sleep/not sleep sitting up all night; repeat.

Is this normal/expected when kids are this age? I just feel like there’s absolutely NO fun or downtime in my life at the moment.

I’m also not enjoying my children at all. I’m knackered and bad-tempered almost all the time and it feels like they’re always complaining, bickering, crying, making mess, demanding things, etc. etc. etc. I know they’re not, and they’re actually lovely children who I love to bits, but I’m just so worn down and snowed under with everything I’ve got to do.

I feel like a totally crap parent at the moment. I snap at them and feel awful for it, but my temper seems to be getting shorter and shorter by the day. I feel on-edge, stressed out, angry and tearful a lot of the time.

Sorry that was so long! 😭 Basically AIBU to be feeling this way, does this sound like too much to cope with to you or am I just not resilient enough?

The trouble is, he's not just giving the family business his own time, he's giving them yours too.

You do full time childcare (pretty much 24/7 at the moment) and work PT and still manage to cover your half of household chores. He works FT and should be covering his half of household chores... except he doesn't - he leaves most of them for you to do.

The family business shouts, he says 'ok', and just assumes you'll pick up the housework he can't do. So he dumps extra work on you because he can't bring himself to say 'no'.

“the work’s still there, I’ll just have more to do when I go back”

There will always be more work, as long as he's willing to do it for free.

Is everyone in the family business working those sort if hours, for that sort of pay?
It's easy for someone to slip into the role of Dependable Old Joe.

LannieDuck Exactly!

Nicky and Pluto you’re totally right, it has crept in because we’ve let it, through sheer exhaustion and busyness it’s been easier to carry on what we’ve been doing than put in the time, effort and short-term pain required to make a change. I’m trying to tackle it now; he’s still being insanely passive/defensive about it.

7days I’m 99% sure not. I know the ILs take home a hell of a lot more than 18K (entirely fair enough, it’s their business) but AFAIK no one else puts in anywhere near the hours at home that DH does. He definitely is “Dependable Old Joe” — he’s even called upon to do stuff like web content for his sisters work, and his brother’s uni personal statement (for free!) All always extremely last-minute.

I know the ILs take home a hell of a lot more than 18K (entirely fair enough, it’s their business)

Well, sort of fair enough. But sort of not, in fact.

If he's working for the family business out of loyalty and wanting it to do well and hopefully taking it on one day, then I guess perhaps a low-ish salary is one of those things you could suck up for a while. But not for the amount of time your DH seems to have been sucking it up for! He should be moving up the ranks in responsibilty and commensurate pay. Otherwise they are exploiting him.

If he was a bog-standard employee of the company, would he remain for £18,000 a year on these terms?

Surely not?

So either they treat him like a valued partner in the business - even a junior one - or he should treat them like a bog-standard employee and do less. If they want to sack him for working to rule... he can get a better job!

None of that helps unless he is willing to acknowledge the power disparity, though.

Wow op just read his hours and salary. It's awful his family are letting him do this. I really think his work is a huge issue here. Could he leave the family buisness? His family are effectively making his family suffer for their buisness (profit) really sad actually.

@NoSquirrels You’re completely right. He doesn’t acknowledge it, though. We had a long talk about this yesterday and he feels I’m “blaming everything on him working in the evenings”. Not true, but I genuinely feel it is a huge factor — and not just the workload, but the amount they’re paying him to do it just feels ridiculously unfair.

Apparently, his step-father is planning on gradually divesting himself of the business over the coming years, so DH will theoretically get to a point where he’s getting “some dividends” from the business, but he has no idea when this will happen or how much this will be. And there’s also the added uncertainty of what will happen when FIL is no longer involved with the business, as his name and presence is quite a big selling-point of the business atm (think specialist retailer, and he’s very well known in the industry, with lots of long-standing contacts).

There are also added complications: this step-father has been very generous towards us in the past, eg. contributing a large amount towards our house deposit to allow us to buy (although it’s understood that this is an “inheritance in advance” type arrangement). So again I’m not sure where that leaves us in terms of legs to stand on with these workload/pay issues

Ok the problem is you are combining too completely separate things. Your FIL has been generous great and lovely but it is an inheritance in advance it should be separate to work. His pay/workload and his SF as an employer is separate

None of this has any baring on the workload/pay issues. The fact is he is treat as a dogsbody and has no dividends at all. His wage on his salary based on 40 hours a week is £1 above the national living wage. Add in the hours he does and it is £2 below

Now look at how your PIL live - I reckon is nothing like you do at all is it?

The problem isnt him working in the evenings it is his job full stop. My advice actually would be too leave but I suspect he wont do that. In absence of that get him to really look at the money they are taking it and what they ask of him.

In all honesty they dont sound particularly pleasant people. I imagine there is a lot of emotional stuff and FOG to get through with him given the facts you have stated

I should add that the house deposit thing was FIL’s suggestion, to allow us to get on the ladder and to hopefully enable him to gradually pass assets on, this paying less inheritance tax. Win-win

They are, genuinely, lovely people. As I said, Im not sure how aware they are/want to be about DH (and therefore my) workload at home. I think I’m going to talk to MIL about it as DH clearly isn’t going to bring it up.

I don’t think your in laws will have any idea this is what’s happening in your home and I imagine they’d be horrified if they knew x

It's easy to be seen as generous etc while paying an employee £2 an hour less than minimum wage for the number of hours they work because by keeping you at a subsistence level of income for family crushing work hours they get to be the generous charity givers and you're emotionally grateful.

They may not think like that so bluntly but the outcome is the same.

The more I read about your posts etc op I honestly don't know what your DH is playing at. A carrot dangling in the form of "some" dividends "in a few years"... Well, the electrical bill is here NOW. Your children need clothes NOW. Your working hours are fucked up NOW. It doesn't matter what might happen at some point in the future, what matters is reality NOW.

If his family business values him, there should be an agreed plan with specifics in place. If not, I refer you to my earlier post about my colleague's gig musician husband. The job just isn't compatible with your family's needs, and your DH needs to see it. Until he does, you're basically in limbo.

Can't he see that you've been more accomodating (him working in his shit job) than most wives would? After years of this, most marriages will end in divorce. Your relationship doesn't sound like it has any memories being built to get you through the tough times... When was the last time you watched a shared 30min of TV together? Or had a long dinner chat about non-work stuff? Or just smuggled up as a family in bed to play puppets with your baby, who will be a toddler before you look twice? These are the memories that form good family bonds.

And your & she's working practices mean that they must be rare if not non-existant.

The inlaws run a successful business paying people a full time (40 hr a week) salary of 18k they must have some idea they certainly dont sound naive! And its a web related as well which means if he is qualified in that kind of work he is being under paid wherever he is based!

As with so many threads on here, you have a husband problem. His passivity and people pleasing is at YOUR expense.

The answer isn't for YOU to stop breastfeeding, or for YOU to work harder or whatever, it's for HIM to do more in the evening, HIM to stand up to his parents or get another job and start putting you and your children first. (I do think if the baby could take a bottle occasionally that would help you, but only if your husband is going to step up to give it to the baby).

Urgh, my DH pulls the “blaming it all on...” card sometimes when he knows he’s in the wrong really!

Do talk to your MIL. Good idea. You can frame it better, perhaps.

And talk to DH about the fact that he and FIL should be talking about succession planning and getting to a point where DH can confidently take over some responsibilities, if that’s the ultimate plan.

Why is he doing his sister's web work and his brother's personal statement?!

He needs to prioritise the housework/childcare first, and then help out his family if he has any spare time after that (which of course he won't while the kids are this age).

There are a few threads around that highlight I think how some men put their parents and siblings ahead of their new family. And I think that is what is happening here - his priorities need to switch

Can your husband put in a flexible working request? Say if he normally does 8-4 5x a week, could he instead do 7-4 4 days a week and have a regular afternoon off work. During which you could work something like 12-8. This would account for a good chunk of your work time, the remainder could be done in a couple of two hour blocks on other evenings.

But I think the main thing to address is why you are sleeping on a sofa with a baby? why not just go to bed and sleep with husband and baby in the bed if you want to continue co-sleeping. No judgement on co-sleeping, I co sleep with my 9 month old but in a bed.

Specifically why is he doing work for siblings without following it up with “and I’ll be working on Sunday so can you come over and take the older kids out to the park for a couple of hours to give op a break”

I doubt that, once they find out what hours he's spending on work and how it impacts on your family life, that they would be happy about it. Who wants their son and his his family living like that?

I just did a quick sum, assuming 60 hours a week average and 48 weeks a year..... (does he get holiday, or does he have to pitch in at some point inevitably?), anyway, I made it £6.25 an hour. Not enough (and illegal?).

Interesting, thanks for that @Jux.

Honestly can’t thank you all enough, this thread has been an absolute eye-opener for me and I’ve gone from feeling overwhelmed, guilty and inadequate to really quite pissed off!

I’m going to be nice, but I’m definitely going to talk to the ILs about DH’s workload and pay. I’m also going to keep a diary of household tasks for the next couple of weeks. I don’t think DH has the first idea about how much “magically” gets done around here, it will be very interesting to see how many hours I put in per week vs. him.

Also I’m definitely going to be taking some hours to myself on Saturday to work in peace. Especially as DH is apparently working this Sunday 🙄

Lastly thank you for all the tips on gentle sleep training techniques; I truly haven’t the heart for CIO (my baby doesn’t just whinge, she gets genuinely hysterical). I’m planning on trying the moving chair one somebody linked (thank you, sorry can’t remember the name!) but it will have to wait until she’s recovered from her illness, she needs cuddles for now

Obviously ignore my last post, it was a long thread and I hadn't had time to read the updates from today about the family business side of things. Hope you get something sorted OP.

Working for income isn't time for yourself though op. It's a miracle you haven't burnt out, ill, or been fired for sleep deprived/interruptions fuck ups tbh.. I would have in your situation!

If it helps to succinctly articulate what the nugget of the problem with your DH is (I know mine would struggle to understand because he'd struggle with all the "I feel..." Side)... It's a resource problem.

Every time he says yes to his work/family business/outside commitments, he must say no to something else. Sometimes that's a good idea, but this has gone into unreasonable territory; his immediate family is in such a state because he's having to say "no" to critical stuff like doing childcare while you work because his finite time/energy is funneled to saying yes to his work family!

If your dh doesn't see it after a calm talk about how you're on your knees with this, you have to get tough and not allow him to take himself off alone to do extra work in the evening - you're enabling this situation to go on by going along with that.

I suggest you look for somewhere to work outside of the home occasionally - hot desk spaces, local cafe or whatnot. Leave him in charge at home.

At that salary and those hours his employers are breaking the law as 8t is nowhere near NMW

I'm glad you're starting to take control of the situation, where family are involved it takes time to establish boundaries. I think in the new year your dh should be looking for a new job. His current one isn't sustainable mentally or financially for both of you. Your in laws are taking advantage of you all, it's just dressed up differently.

Try looking at the mumsnet jobs board for family friendly jobs or this agency for flexible working hours.

www.peopleperhour.com/hire-freelancers/uk+version

bernadette not sure but I don't think nmw applies to your family business.