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?

I don't understand why everyone is focussing on the right hours a day comment.
I think the point is that you've got a manchild on your hands who prefers to spend time gaming rather than actively parenting. He needs to grow up and take some responsibility.

Eight hours a day, I mean

I think you're getting a hard time here. If you rewrote this thread but swapped studying for working I think you'd get a different response, and IMO the studying should be treated as work.
I do most weekday mornings as DH is doing his hobby, and all after school stuff until 6.30/7.30pm when DH gets home from work. I WOH but fairly locally, and find I only manage 5hrs of work a day. This often means I have to work one or more wkend days too to make up my hours/income, and still need to do a lot of housework at the wkend when not working. I'd be pretty hacked off if DH started moaning about needing to do childcare & housework at the weekend (as if I'm off enjoying 'me time'!). I also do not currently get equal leisure time ATM, which grinds on me, but he is pulling his weight when he's here and it isn't forever, so I let it go.

How long is your DH OOH? I think a discussion is due, as circumstances have changed and you are no longer a SAHP. When DCs are younger hobby time has to be sacrificed, as work/study/basic housekeeping and DIY are non-negotiables. There are only so many hours in a day, and presumably he will see a benefit from the studying once you've qualified. That isn't to say no hobby time at all, but it's less and has to be squeezed around the other commitments (hence my DH going out cycling at 6am, as this causes the least disruption).

I'm also eye rolling at the 'just get up later so you're better rested' comments. Have you ever had younger DCs? That's not how they work! Some may naturally sleep later, but many do not. Once the DCs are up, you're up.

In summary:

1) He needs to step up.

2) You need to use your time more effectively

Exactly this.

Case in point: DH could have easily called the insurance company during his holiday and quite evidently needs to do more. But there's no way the OP genuinely takes up several hours a week calling the insurance company, buying winter clothes, chasing supermarket deliveries. Along with the several hours getting ready in the morning, it's just listing things for the sake of sounding busy.

Plenty of people study, work and have children. Life admin isn't some huge task that nobody can manage. Having the school day free to study is a huge chunk of time.

If you rewrote this thread but swapped studying for working I think you'd get a different response, and IMO the studying should be treated as work
If someone said I work from home, have children at school and the whole school day free to do my working hours, I also work in the evenings and want some of the weekends to do extra work then people would probably say exactly the same thing:

1. Her DH needs to do more, and he can do more whilst still having time for a hobby
2. OP needs to manage her time better if she is apparently struggling to get her work done in the 5 school days and several evenings she's got.

The thing with studying is it can, and will, take up as much time as you let it. There is no point where you'll have read everything about a subject, but it is easy to keep going because it's interesting and then want a free pass because it's studying. Studying with children means having a strategy that doesn't allow it to creep into all areas of life.

That’s an insane amount of work for a masters.

He does need to step up with some of the life admin stuff, personally I wouldn’t resent him gaming at night as long as he got up early etc. Dungeons and dragons from what I gather (Big Bang) is quite a sociable game and maybe he needs that after the last year.

If you rewrote this thread but swapped studying for working I think you'd get a different response, and IMO the studying should be treated as work

OP is spending significantly more time on studying than she would in most full time jobs. That's why people are making the comments about using her time more efficiently.

OP's DH is a teacher. I've never yet met a teacher who didn't work considerable hours in weekends and evenings as well, and yet that's glossed over in here.

The DC are of an age where they (presumably) reliably sleep but are still in bed at a sensible time. So if DH chooses to game in the evening, this is hardly impacting on anything.

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.

Honestly - how often does any of that happen? You're listing jobs that happen maybe once or twice a year and acting like they take up hours of your time every single week.

I agree that your DH needs to step up but I also think you're in a hugely privileged position. Your DH works in a school so he's home most evenings, weekends and school holidays. Your children are school age so you have five school days a week to study on your own, in silence, at home.

That's a huge amount of time. It shouldn't be taking you eight hours each day to do housework and childcare for two school aged kids. If it does, either your DH is utterly hopeless and lazy or you need to work on your time management.

I suspect it's a bit of both.

The issue here is that it doesn't sound like you've had a proper conversation with DH about how things will change when you start studying and you're still in SAHM routine.

You need to agree a compromise depending what works for your family, either he pitches in 50/50 on household chores/admin and some of the evening parenting duties, or if you both prefer for you to do more during the week, then you accept that study needs to be done partly during the weekend. After all many households where both parents work end up fitting home and child stuff around working, and sometimes work spills into evenings and weekends, that's just normal life and so studying isn't really any different.

Oh and accept that studying means you either have to sacrifice some of the time with your children, or some of your previous downtime. Again, perfectly normal in a working household that chores get done once kids are in bed. I'd rather study in the daytime (like when most people work) when you have peace and a chunk of time, and the admin and chores get done at night.

Sorry if I sounded harsh in my previous post.

It occurred to me that you've been away from work/study for 8 years, and it takes a while to get back in that mindset.

When I did my masters (while literally never not once having a 6 hour period free to study it, let alone 5 of them a week, but I digress) I had to re-learn how to study. Remember what works for me, how to lodge information in my brain so it sticks, how to manage time, what to focus on and when to stop. It's genuinely a skill that we develop over our academic lives, and it's easy to forget.

Have you had a chance to connect (even remotely) with other mature aged students in your course? They can be great to swap tips with. They would all be balancing the course with work, kids and life.

My best tip is to Study First. When you get in the door, and you are fresh as you're likely to be that day, ignore the breakfast dishes and sit down and study. Ignore the mess, don't worry about your walk- you don't need brain power to do those things and can do them when you are tired. So study first when your brain is at its best and leave the rest for later in the day.

No collapsing at your desk at night, there's really not much point studying when you're that tired, you'll do a bad job and you won't learn well.

At the moment my husband is studying. He will have his final exam next month and we have a fairly even work load. I work full time, have 4 kids and a part time course I'm doing myself. He works full time mon-fri, though less hours than me. He drops the younger 3 to breakfast club whilst I go to work and then he goes himself. I pick up the kids after school, run around to various activities a few times a week, sort dinner and go back to work when he gets home at 5.30. He does the bedtime, I get home about 2 hours after that and wash up from dinner, prep lunches for the next day and take myself off to bed with my uni books whilst he studies. Friday night is his hobby night, but the kids go with him. Big housework jobs get done at the weekends by all of us, kids included, takes around 2 hours on a Saturday. Then he studies, I bake stuff for the school week ahead, do the laundry and iron uniforms. Saturday night is games night with the kids, Sunday is usually quite a relaxed day. He makes dinner 3 nights a week and does a pancake breakfast for the boys one weekend morning. Life admin is Monday, as we'll as work admin as I run a small company, unless something immediate comes up as Mondays I work out the house half days. The hard part is getting the routine organised, but once you've got one you'll find it a lot less stressful.

UserTwice but is she studying significantly more than FT work? It sounds like she manages 4hrs during the day plus another 2 in the evening (she's asleep at her desk by 10pm). That's only 30hrs Mon-Fri, and won't be particularly efficient as it's broken chunks rather than long stretches. She would need to do 10hrs to make it up to FT hours at the wkend, and it isn't unreasonable if she needs a few more to make up for the stop/starting during the week and whilst readjusting to studying. My short working days makes me much less efficient as every time I stop I have to clear up, and then set everything back up again before I can restart, not to mention get my head back into it. It's a PITA and I would love to not need to work wkends as well as Mon-Fri, but someone has to fit their hours around the kids so thems the breaks.

@SkankingMopoke she said she returns to the house alone after dropping the children off at school at 9am. She leaves to collect them at 3pm, later on the days they have swimming.

That's 6 hours (at least, noting it's more when they are swimming) uninterrupted study time five days a week.

Most undergraduate students have part time work while they study 'full time'.

Most post graduate students have a career and/or a family. 'full time' study rarely means 40 hours of straight study a week.

Almost everyone is juggling.

Based on OP's posts she says she routinely studies 9.15-3 (with a 20 minute walk) and then 8-10 every weekday. So that's 8 hours a day.
And recently she's been working entire weekends as well.

I actually think short working days can be more efficient - if you work for hours at a time you are inevitably less fresh by the end.

All the people I know (me included) who studied at PG level were working as well-I was working virtually full time! I would have killed for 9-3 every day in which to study.

I think expectations need to be looked at.

When does the course finish, @cedartree2?

I hope that it means getting a good pay rise at the end-that will help with motivation!!

@UserTwice

Based on OP's posts she says she routinely studies 9.15-3 (with a 20 minute walk) and then 8-10 every weekday. So that's 8 hours a day. And recently she's been working entire weekends as well. I actually think short working days can be more efficient - if you work for hours at a time you are inevitably less fresh by the end.

In the 9-3 time she also says that she does the dishwasher, pops on laundry etc.. I bet that all up, this eats a fair bit of time. I think the real issue in the week is that her DH is not doing anything to share the load, which is unfair, but also that she's either very inefficient or way too hands on with school age children (2.5 hours to get two older primary DCs ready in the morning, including jobs like 'reminding DD about piano practice', is a bit mad).

@FeelinHappy

I don't think the problem is the games nights,. My husband has games night too. On those evenings he is always on a mission to get all the Stuff done (washing up, kids' bedtimes etc) before he starts playing. I basically just enjoy having the TV remote to myself those evenings. He goes out of his way to make sure games night works for me too. I do tend to get up with the kids the next morning but similarly other nights he will do that and treat me to a lie in.

It sounds to me that you (plural) can find time for all your study and all his gaming but it'll need a big re-jig of the day to day chores and admin. Figure out what tasks to drop and what tasks (Eg cooking) can be squeezed into less time. Have 10 mins a day when you all pitch in - one child sweeps the floor, another unpacks the DW, you dust the living room, husband cleans loo and sink - bang, 60 mins' housework achieved in 10.

Designate 2 nights a week to super-quick easy meals. I find batch cooking takes ages, it's usually stuff that needs to be chopped and cooked for a while even if it reheats without much effort. I prefer meals that you can genuinely cook in 15 mins flat - pasta carbonara with salad, pasta and pesto with fried mushrooms and fresh tomatoes, stir fry from one of the mixed veg packs. Chicken ramen made with precooked chicken. A couple of these a week plus pizza night and you significantly reduce the cooking load over a week. Actively squeeze the chores into a smaller window and get your dH to pull his weight more in the morning and evening chore slots.

Great post,

I don’t think it’s about haranguing the OP about how long things take her and fitting more and more in... I suspect she has done what a lot of us do when we stop work to look after children for however long, and take on all the home/life admin stuff, and never hand it back when life/work gets busier again.

I think you need to strategise with DH. Be realistic about how much time your course needs, his work obviously, chores, kids clubs/activities (are you taxi-ing kids to too many of these?), life admin/mental load, bath/bed/reading with kids, family time together and hobbies for both of you - try to share it fairly based on the amount of time each of you have, make having some proper time off for both of you as a goal at the weekend.

Find ways to save time on less important things... drop ironing, get a cleaner, quicker food, whatever. Have a deadline to get a certain amount done before his gaming for example so the evening doesn’t drag on. It’s amazing what you can get done when you blitz it together. Also, is your workload constant or are there assignments/revision times when it ramps up? Can you build in allowances for this (ie allocate some weekends to work at times you know you will have to study a lot, but not every weekend)

Does he value and support your study or treat it like a hobby or an afterthought, expect that you will magically qualify in a new career without any hard work behind the scenes? Maybe you also need a frank discussion about you doing this for the family and without his support, it will be time and effort wasted. If his gaming is important, he needs to help you elsewhere to manage everything.

@UserTwice

Based on OP's posts she says she routinely studies 9.15-3 (with a 20 minute walk) and then 8-10 every weekday. So that's 8 hours a day. And recently she's been working entire weekends as well. I actually think short working days can be more efficient - if you work for hours at a time you are inevitably less fresh by the end.

Actually this doesn’t allow her to have any break at all for lunch, or to do routine things like washing, tidying, food shopping etc. Even if pp dispute how much time she does spend on those things, it’s definitely a bit of time So it’s not 6 hours a day to study

when you factor in that she just doesn’t appear at home or at the school gates, there will be odd days when the house is particularly messy or there are other things to do
Plus breaks
She probably has 4 hours to study a day - 20 hours week
And another 10 in the evenings
So that’s 30 hours studying

Any course I’ve done has advised at least 35 hours a week

Op is doing all the childcare and the household chores through the week. She has no down time for herself.

Dh does have several nights a week free.
She has asked dh for help in some of the household maintenance and he has complained.

She’s also stated she isn’t spending whole weekends, just that she’s needed a few hours at the weekend when it’s been a particularly busy period on her course

I do think op could probably rush through more chores in that morning period, and probably have a bit more time to study
But realistically if I was having days as long and relentless I would probably not be functioning at my most efficient
And if I was doing all of that whilst DH was off with lots of leisure time, complaining about having to look after his own house and his own kids, I’d be feeling pretty resentful too.’

There’s such a race to the bottom on this thread, if you managed to get through Pgr with a lazy husband who did nothing, and you had children and it was super easy for you, great. It’s not unreasonable for other people to feel different

Actually she lists no housework while the children are at school - the dishwasher and laundry is part of the 2.5 hours in the morning. I don't know how anyone can argue 6-7 hours x 5 days per week isn't enough for studying. I did my Master's while working full time, as do most people.

Are you doing all of that 4-8 childcare yourself? Does DH do bedtimes or cool supper several times a week?

If he can't cope with you needing space to study, then things are going to be really hard when you go back to work. Your studying takes precedence over his games, absolutely.

I did my Master's while working full time, as do most people

Exactly. With kids as well. Even if it’s not exactly 6 hours a day to study because of putting a load of washing on etc, it’s still a massive chunk of time with no work commitments to think of. Something isn’t working-they Ned l sit down together and work out what it is.

It's just as much his home, and they're just as much his kids.

He wouldn't be 'helping' you, he'd be doing what he should do as a grown man living in a house with a family.

This attitude of his needs sorting out. Have a conversation with him about it. A serious one.

F

There’s such a race to the bottom on this thread

I really don't think that's the case here, though I agree that it is often the case on here.

OP has more time alone to study than many people - she has school-aged children who are out of the house Monday-Friday and a husband who is also out at work all week. If you take out the time needed to do the school run and a lunch break, she has about 4.5 hours alone each day to do whatever she wants. That's 22 hours each week, plus evenings once her DC are in bed. That's a lot of time.

I agree that her husband needs to step up and do more in the mornings and evenings, but during the day she has plenty of time to get a bit of housework done (it really doesn't take hours to put some laundry on and wash the breakfast dishes) and study.

There's really no need for her to get up at 6am and fall asleep at her desk every night at 10pm.

Your studying takes precedence over his games, absolutely.
Why?
She has 5 days a week when the children are at school, plus evenings to study. Plenty of people study masters degrees whilst working and family life.
The idea that the household has to revolve around one person doing a course which will expand to fit as much time as they allow it to is ludicrous, especially when the list of business includes reminding DC to do their piano, calling up a missing supermarket order, etc.

The DH could do more and there's clearly a discussion to he had about allocation of housework, but the OP has a substantial amount of time available to study at the moment