AIBU to expect my DH to cut back on games nights to help out more while I study?

[cedartree2]

I was a SAHM for eight years whilst my DH has worked to support us. (I did work to support him early on in our marriage, and I already owned our first house when we got together, so I feel I have contributed financially in the past).

Now that the children are both at school I have returned to full-time study to start a new career. Now that I am busy with classes and assignments, it is harder to keep up with housework and helping the kids with homework etc. I usually spend 8 hours a day looking after the kids, taking them to and from school and doing housework.

Recently I've had to spend entire weekends studying, leaving my DH to do everything else. He has become resentful about having to do more. Meanwhile, he has gotten into Dungeons and Dragons and has been spending more and more time attending games nights and sometimes running games days himself. Recently it's been at least two nights a week as well as a regular monthly games day that he runs and spends hours preparing for. Last night he stayed out until 1:30am and was tired all day today and seemed resentful that he was having to look after the kids and run some errands while I finished an assignment.

I feel he is going to need to cut back on the games nights/days to have more time and energy to do other things rather than being resentful that I'm studying and not always available like I used to be.

Am I being unreasonable?

All these people slamming the OP for not using her time during the day to study, she’s looking after 3 children, maintaining the house and studying full time
It's not slamming her to point out that if her children are in school she has the whole school day for studying, plus she's studying on an evening and now she's wanting all weekend.

Some of us have studied with DC and worked full time. As many people have said, the OP's account of her day doesn't sound as productive as it could be, plus some of the tasks she's listing are not big tasks.

It's fair to say her DH could do more, whilst also saying she has a hell of a lot of time to study so needs a better strategy.

All these people slamming the OP for not using her time during the day to study, she’s looking after 3 children, maintaining the house and studying full time.

I don't think she's been slammed - people are trying to offer her constructive criticism.

There's really no need to spend 2.5 hours each morning getting everyone ready for school, especially when OP isn't going out to work afterwards. If she got more sleep, she'd be productive during the day.

She could get up at 7, get everyone fed, dressed and out of the door, then spent 20-30 minutes cleaning up when she gets home. It's much easier to do all of that when the house is empty.

Lunches can be prepped the night before. Piano practise can be done in the evening instead of trying to cram it in before school.

OP, are you in the UK?

Your DH should be helping you 50/50 any time he's not working.

A fair schedule in my mind is:

• before DH goes to work, everything that needs done gets split between you
• he's at work while you take kids to school, study, pick kids up
• you both do house chores and childcare evenly in the evenings
• weekend - 50/50 split of chores and downtime

So him not helping in the evenings is not ok, but you being unavailable all weekend also isn't really great.

He sounds like a sulky teenager - I'd totally lose my shit.

Yes he should be pulling his weight. No you shouldn't be studying 7 days a week. We can only take on so much new information. You would be better optimising your study time and having some down time/fun yourself. That may restore some balance in your relationship, along with him pulling his weight more as a parent and doing 50% of the housework

Doing the maths too I did a science degree so some of the highest contact hours but we still only did 3 full days a week (9.30-3.30) and then a couple of hours lectures the other two days. And then worked every hour at the weekend to pay for it and ran our student houses after a fashion. Obviously few had kids as well but everyone was still plenty busy.

I'm not saying that to be a martyr, I loved it, but what I am saying is that being a full time student is not the same as full time work. It just isn't.

Maybe if the OP comes back and tells us what she's studying and the contact hours things will be a bit clearer and we can give her some more specific ideas, different subjects have different study patterns etc.

I usually spend 8 hours a day looking after the kids, taking them to and from school and doing housework.

YABU for this comment alone.....couple of school runs and housework doesn't take 8 hours per day unless you live in a Castle 🤷‍♀️

YANBU for the rest of it

As someone who did an engineering degree (in person) and looked after a 2 year old, I really don't see how you 1) somehow spend most of your weekdays & weekends on study/assignments 2) spend 8 hours a day looking after 2 primary aged children. Even the timelines you gave, didn't add up to that.

Children from 8+ barely need supervision, and unless you need to supervise them during activities, could you not study at the same time? Housework can be organised efficiently so you don't need to do it as often. I'm not saying your husband can't pick up a fair emount of chores, but unless you live in a mansion, I really can't imagine where your time is going.

He should be doing some of those chores and childcare between 4 and 8pm. What time does he finish work?

You have 9.15-3 every day to do your course - that seems like it should be enough?

But ultimately I agree - while everyone is so busy, the hobby time should be reduced.

@Shehasadiamondinthesky

He sounds like a sulky teenager - I'd totally lose my shit.

What part sounds like a sulky teen?

But ultimately I agree - while everyone is so busy, the hobby time should be reduced.

It depends what they're "so busy" with, though, doesn't it? I wouldn't give up my downtime to let a partner study 60+ hours a week, because that's ridiculous. Either they're pretending to study to get out of parenting/housework, they need help learning how to study effectively, or the course is way beyond their abilities and should be dropped.

I say YABU. I think you just need some better time management. I returned to uni to do a vocational course when youngest was 2. Half the time was on a placement with deadlines still. I used to study when they were at school or nursery and DH took over bath and bed when I had an assignment due so I used that hour and evenings as needed. I only used weekends a couple of times when I had an assignment due and I’d really struggled so it impacted very little on the family overall. I’m not academic at all and got a first.

My days were more of 7am set off to uni, arrive 8.15, breakfast and half an hours study. 9-4 lectures, home 5.30 to collect children then make tea. Study 7-8. One day a week there were no lectures so study all day on assignments/revision.

So disappointed in all the women saying it’s not fair on DH to work all week and then look after his own children at the weekend

Op is studying full time, that’s normally at least 35 hours per week - often that’s on top of the class time
She does 8 hours childcare per day too that’s 40 hours per week
So op is doing at least 75 hours per week in total.
The time she’s asking for at the weekend is to study ie to work

DH is complaining about having to do all the work but it sounds like Mon - fri he goes to work, then comes home, doesn’t have to do much for the kids or the house?

Thank you again for all the reponses!

To clarify again:

Studying doesn't take up the enitre weekend. I spent most of Sat with the kids, and did my assignment Friday night and all day Sunday. There are about eight assignment per semester, so roughly two a month, so I don't need to study on weekends all the time.

It's not eight hours of childcare or eight hours of housework. It's about six of both combined plus two hours of driving kids to school and back. "Childcare" for a 6 and 8 year old really means making them meals, helping with homework, reading with/to them, chatting to them, helping them when they ask for help putting Lego together or something like that, generally spending time with them so they're not starved for attention.

I have to admit, the 8 yo has a lot of homework, but that is apparently to make sure they're ready to work independently in case there's another lockdown.

There are also other things that come up too, like calling insurance companies, organising a birthday party, buying the kids new winter clothes, chasing up a supermarket delivery that didn't arrive etc. They all take up time. DH is a teacher, he just had two weeks holidays and did about 1.5 days of work in that time. During his holidays, I asked him to help by calling the insurance company and he was very resentful about having to do that because I've always done that sort of thing the entire time we've been married, even when I worked full-time before kids.

I am doing a Masters, so I have studied before, the amount of work required is pretty similar. Usually 4-5 chapters of reading, and three sets of tutorial tasks, roughly 200-300 words each every week. Plus 7.5 hours of Zoom classes/lectures a week, some extra industry seminars sometimes too. Some weeks there are 1000 word assignments as well.

Sorry but I agree with @Hont1986, I haven’t ‘paid a bill’ for years. All Council Tax/Utilities are on DD and to pay my credit card I just use my banking app, which takes all of three minutes once a month. As for ‘calling insurance companies’, unless you crash your car on a weekly basis, this is an annual job surely? My car insurance is due for renewal soon, I’ll go a price comparison site, probably have to ring as they never have my exact job title so I just need someone to manually enter it. Ten minutes once a year.

I’ve never understood what ‘life admin’ means on here; most people don’t have endless dentist/doctor/hospital appointments. Most activities are same time/place every week. I’d also leave piano practice until after school.

I am honestly gobsmacked at this thread.

The OP is doing everything on her own all week - she's doing essential household chores, school runs, cooking etc plus studying during the daytime and in the evening. She's then having to spend a couple of weekends per month on big assignments.

Meanwhile, poor old DH works full-time but doesn't appear to pitch in during the evenings and is bleating about having to do more at the weekend.

Yet the comments here are all about how OP needs to manage her time better and try to study more when the DC are around. I don't know if you've ever tried to study when you're constantly being interrupted by DC but it's impossible.

Heaven forbid the DH actually steps up while his wife is running herself ragged trying to do it all - which will presumably benefit the whole family when she's qualified and earning more. Heaven forbid he gets less time doing his hobbies or reduces his down time - bearing in mind his wife has NONE. Fucking hell.

@VegCheeseandCrackers

I think it's unreasonable for you to tell him he's not allowed his hobby because you are studying. Surely him out working is helping to fund that. I don't think you're at all unreasonable to want to make the work in the house more equal but I don't see how that means he has to give up his D and D nights. If it's only two nights a week, can you not take two nights a week to study while he gets the kids ready for bed and does any of the laundry etc that needs done? I know you say you have zoom calls that can't be moved but I mean for assignments etc. Then he has two nights for games, you have two nights for study and that leaves three nights for you both having quality time together.

It's not just two nights. Lots of prep time and organising towards the two nights.

You’re both working/studying every weekday so I think you and DH need to split the childcare/household chores at the weekend. You shouldn’t leave it to him as that isn’t fair. Your DC are at school now so you can study whilst they’re at school and in the evening. I’m sure they’re old enough to entertain themselves. If you manage your time well then you’ll only need to work maybe 2 hours on a Sunday, leaving your Saturdays and most of Sunday free.

@ExhaustedFlamingo

I am honestly gobsmacked at this thread.

The OP is doing everything on her own all week - she's doing essential household chores, school runs, cooking etc plus studying during the daytime and in the evening. She's then having to spend a couple of weekends per month on big assignments.

Meanwhile, poor old DH works full-time but doesn't appear to pitch in during the evenings and is bleating about having to do more at the weekend.

Yet the comments here are all about how OP needs to manage her time better and try to study more when the DC are around. I don't know if you've ever tried to study when you're constantly being interrupted by DC but it's impossible.

Heaven forbid the DH actually steps up while his wife is running herself ragged trying to do it all - which will presumably benefit the whole family when she's qualified and earning more. Heaven forbid he gets less time doing his hobbies or reduces his down time - bearing in mind his wife has NONE. Fucking hell.

Agreed.

And does he use his marking/lesson prep as his excuse reason not to help?

Many of the previous posters have said that the OPs DH does need to pull his weight more, but that he (as well as the OP) needed downtime as well.

The OP also said that she spends 7-8 hours a day doing childcare and life admin but the children are at school for 6 hours per day. This led many posters to conclude that the OP wasn't using her time very effectively if she was spending most of the time the children were at school doing housework and life admin.

It’s probably a different course but I could never study my post grad subjects in less than a 2-3 hour window just to start thinking the right way. I couldn’t do more now while I have young children, it’s not possible for my brain.

Two
If you have six hours in an empty house five times a week, to me, that is a luxurious amount of study time. I do think you need to look at your efficiencies if you're unable to complete your lessons and assignments in that time. A lot of people work and do their masters units out of hours.

But also, that 9am-3pm period needs to be viewed as the equivalent of a work day, and your household needs to adjust to that. Don't do chores or life admin during that time.

Your DH is used to be married to a SAHW. Now he is married to a student, and he needs to realise what that means.

Household tasks should be shared during the week so that you BOTH have free time on the weekends.

He needs nights where dinner is his responsibility, days where packing the school bag is his responsibility, certain life admin things become his job (ie all the insurance stuff).

One job and one University course between two adults with school aged children really isn't an insurmountable workload.

I suggest you look at your time and see how you can save it. Can you walk to school with the children or swim yourself while they are in swimming lessons? (saving you from needing the 20m walk for exercise during the day). Can you download lectures and listen to them on the drive to and from school? If that all sounds like a mad juggle- welcome to studying with kids.

In summary:

1. He needs to step up.

2. You need to use your time more effectively

@DifferentHair

Two If you have six hours in an empty house five times a week, to me, that is a luxurious amount of study time. I do think you need to look at your efficiencies if you're unable to complete your lessons and assignments in that time. A lot of people work and do their masters units out of hours.

But also, that 9am-3pm period needs to be viewed as the equivalent of a work day, and your household needs to adjust to that. Don't do chores or life admin during that time.

Your DH is used to be married to a SAHW. Now he is married to a student, and he needs to realise what that means.

Household tasks should be shared during the week so that you BOTH have free time on the weekends.

He needs nights where dinner is his responsibility, days where packing the school bag is his responsibility, certain life admin things become his job (ie all the insurance stuff).

One job and one University course between two adults with school aged children really isn't an insurmountable workload.

I suggest you look at your time and see how you can save it. Can you walk to school with the children or swim yourself while they are in swimming lessons? (saving you from needing the 20m walk for exercise during the day). Can you download lectures and listen to them on the drive to and from school? If that all sounds like a mad juggle- welcome to studying with kids.

In summary:

1. He needs to step up.

2. You need to use your time more effectively

This. You should have huge amounts of time in the week to study-if you’re not getting it finished, you need to look at how you are organising your time.

Weekends and evenings should be 50/50.