WIBU? Parent A vs Parent B

[DoingItAllDayLong]

Parent A has a hobby which takes them out of the house 2-3 afternoons per week and 2 evenings per week.

The afternoons do not affect family life as Parent A is usually back on time for the DC finishing school.

The two evenings per week are not an issue as Parent B also gets some time out once per week or fortnight depending on plans.

On the two evenings per week, Parent B picks up the slack for dinner, baths , bedtime etc as well as walking the dogs. The same happens on the one evening Parent B goes out.

Parent A is really enjoying the hobby and now wants to do this four evenings per week as well as two afternoons per week.

Parent B thinks this is unreasonable.

The DC are junior school age but one has additional needs and needs lots of support and attention so evenings tend to be chaotic. It also means that Parent B would need to pick up the slack for the majority of the week. Parent B is also chronically unwell.

Parent A thinks Parent B is being unreasonable.

WIBU?

Parent A is unreasonable - but in a way it might have been better to be upfront and say that you are B as it is worded in a way that is biased to parent B. Sounds very clear though that B is being taken for granted!

Personally, I think taking time out of family life 2 evenings a week every week is already probably unreasonable until the other parent has equal time (2 evenings a week). If you then are both doing your own things 4 evenings out of 7, it doesn't leave a lot of time for family life in general - or you as a couple. Especially if you also have friends and family you want to see, in addition to hobbies.

I had a friend who had a similar set up with her (now ex) h. He did an activity 3 nights a week, so she also equally did her activity 3 nights a week. It meant they only ever were together with each other and their children 1 night a week. Eventually it just put to much distance between them. His 'activity' eventually stopped being football and started being the ow and they are now divorced.

I think if your partner is only working part-time, I would expect the bulk of leisure activities to take place in non-family time hours. It's why I go for a run at lunchtime, so that I am not shafting dh for dinner and bedtime every evening. On occasion that's fine, but for 6 activities a week, I'd expect it to come out of personal time rather than family time wherever possible.

Parent A is massively unreasonable. Parent B is a saint already.

Do your children do tennis and football every day? Could he do baths/ food/ homework etc before he goes? How long is he at fencing for?

Parent B should talk to parent A. However why would B communicate with A. MN is like Emmerdale where no calls the police except on MN no one discusses issues with the other person

If I were parent B I’d piss parent A off by getting a hobby and not return home until the kids were in bed. But I am petty

Parent A needs to stop taking the piss and also - how on earth does he, as a ‘part time freelance worker’ manage to support a whole family? I imagine you’re currently looking for work, sorry to hear of your redundancy, but I’d say he needs to get his head out of his arse work more to support his family. If only he was as invested in doing that rather than pissing about at his hobby, honestly you must be livid as I’m annoyed reading it!

Once you do start working again it will be very difficult to extract him from the extra sessions, so the load you have taken on during a slack period in your life will not be re-balanced..

What is his plan for when you go back to work? At the moment it feels like his leisure time is being funded by your redundancy pot as he's getting all the benefits of you not working.

If you have a health condition that impacts daily life, how can you carry on doing all the chores while working? Do you plan to work full time? If so, is he planning how his freelance work will fit around DC appointments? Or is he planning on you doing everything?

I think so many people are missing the point..... Ignoring the OP and partner having equal downtime.... What about quality family time? I'd never dream of leaving my daughter for 4 evenings a week!!! What is the point of being in a family if you don't spend time as a family??

A is unreasonable

A is very unreasonable. It is already unreasonable that B doesn’t get equal time to themselves and it shouldn’t have to be a hobby, since B has a chronic illness it could be just time for a rest or a long nap.

The majority of the replies here are balanced and constructive

I’ve showed DH this thread and he’s agreed he hasn’t thought it through properly . We’ve come to an agreement that the extra sessions he wants to do will be done when he finishes work but before the DC finish school.

Usually during this time I’m doing treatment for my medical condition so it will make no difference to me or us.

DH is slightly embarrassed by being called a selfish arse but has taken it in good spirit

Although, he did wonder (as did I) how one particular poster managed to come to the conclusion that we were both “lazy and entitled…” … sometimes MN is a different world

@Eskarina1 this situation is (hopefully) temporary for both of us. DH freelances but work in his industry dried up during lockdown. It is slowly recovering and when it hits peak again, he will be back to working full time.

I will only return to work very part time as it’s impossible for me to hold down a full time job with my medical condition.

At that point everything will change again and DH is aware that his leisure time will be cut again in favour of work.

I wasn't really going to comment but I feel as if I should say, I'm glad you've had a chat now and he's seen the extra toll the added evenings would have taken on you.

Sometimes the criticism here can be quite loud so just wanted you to know I thought you sounded entirely reasonable. Good luck with the job search!

@DoingItAllDayLong.

Yah. Doing what I suggested :)

Yay.
A partner who listens (to MN )

That’s a good outcome @@DoingItAllDayLong