Husband wants me to earn £1k per week

[MariaMackee]

DH and I both work for ourselves but have very different jobs. He owns a business and works long hours as you’d expect being a business owner.

I work part time providing a specialist service to clients (nothing untoward) and am paid by the hour. I currently bring home about £750 per week.

Because he works long hours I do the majority of the household chores which includes all laundry, food shopping and cooking. He does all the recycling, bins and maintains the garden. We also have two teenagers who are pretty good and self sufficient.

We are reasonably comfortable financially, but DH says we need to make as much money as possible so we can retire earlier and not have worry about money. I see his point but I am happy as I am and would have to do at least 5 more hours a week to make £1k.

It’s causing a bit of friction and I feel pressured, he says another 5 hours is not much, but I already feel exhausted with running the home and quite like having some time to myself.

AIBU or should I increase my hours to keep the peace?

You're thinking of making the (massive) jump to 20 hours a week and you think that you're now entitled to a cleaner or some relief from the household chores?

That's lazy and unfair of you. You barely do anything as it is.

The purpose of life isn't to toil until we drop .

wow how the other half live!

"The purpose of life isn't to toil until we drop"

It clearly is the plan she has for her husband, while she swans around with a feather duster

@KingdomScrolls

He has fibromyalgia, so has good reason to want to retire at a reasonable age, he is working hard to build a business not only for you but so your children have options for the future as they may well be limited by other factors. You work very part time and have no young children to raise. Some people both work full time and have small children and still do their own housework. You have a charmed life, I'm not sure working an extra 5 hours a week to a total of 20 would be detrimental to your quality of life. If it's that stressful outsource some of the cleaning or get your sons to pull their weight

OP hasn't suggested he can't retire in 5 years. She saying she doesn't want to retire in 5 years, and especially not if it means having a less good time now.

Some people do work full time, have small children and do their own housework, but that isn't the situation that the OP or her DH are in or ever have been. Her DH has been able to pursue his dream of building a business without the interruptions and compromises required by having to also raise children and keep a house, and he has dictated that they can't outsource the cleaning. OP doesn't have to change her lifestyle to the one her DH wants her to follow just because he wants it. She gets to pursue her dreams too.

If you’re only working 15 hours a week, another 5 doesn’t sound much, even taking into account household chores and cooking.

If you earn £50 an hour but are working fewer hours in order to clean the house, why don’t you just get a cleaner for 5 hours a week. Same end result, same hours worked (plus cleaning is more physically arduous) £210 better off.

@IgglePiggleHater

I'm not sure choice is the right word, he is trying to set up his/his wifes/his children's future, aren't men meant to provide for their families? I've seen that shouted on here enough.
Do we know that he started working so much when the kids came along anyway, and if he did, what his motivation was?
I know this is mumsnet and all men are the devil incarnate, but some men actually work harder when the kids come to provide for their families, not to get away from their chores and kids.

Unless the job is something easy like working in Tescos or just answering phone calls all day, I think it's unfair to call a job "just one thing to concentrate on". Some jobs are pretty much all day every day jobs. I need to do work on my days off, as does my husband. We both also work different time zones, so can have a meeting at 6 am but also at 9 pm that same day.
I would much rather have a bunch of kids to deal with than have this job but we work for our and our child/future children's futures. We wouldn't be setting anyone's future up having 9-5 25k a year jobs.

And the husband with fibromyalgia has just been chilling then for all those years he's been working his arse off? 🤨 unbelievable.

If the tables were turned and it was the husband saying he was happy with his 15h a week 9 months a year job, he would be called a useless pig and the poor wife would have so much sympathy. Don't even bother denying it 🙄

Only on MN would someone with £350k in savings and earning £50ph be told they’ll have nothing to live on without a pension 🙄

@Toffeesausage. They have plenty. There's no pressing need to feather their nest further. If the OP's husband wanted to take a step backwards and work less himself, they could choose that option (subject to him doing his share of the chores). There's no need for him to treat the OP as a cash cow to fund his early retirement.

More like "lazy mare" than "cash cow".

You’re already taking in £3k net on your own. That’s above average for full time work. He’s clearly being entirely unreasonable, my husband doesn’t even expect me to work (I do) let alone bring in a certain amount of money.

I suggest he is a dick. And a greedy one at that.

She does most of the household chores and brings in an excellent part-time income. What's lazy about that?

Fifteen hours a week? I spend less time than that plucking chin hairs. I can't believe anyone with two teens would baulk at working 20 hours a week

Hmm. I've only read a few pages plus the OPs posts so apologies if I'm repeating stuff that others have said.

I gather the OP earns roughly £50 / hour for the work she does. However, does that take account of preparation and planning time? I could imagine that when you're working 15 hours with people, that you bill for, you are also spending quite a bit of additional time thinking about what you will be doing next, what else you need to get ready. Plus there will be admin time as well. I am also self-employed and work to a slightly lower hourly rate, currently not many hours in a week (and also mainly term-time). Now I can in principle increase my hours, but I think 25 hours a week would be the absolute maximum I can envisage coping with. The intensity of that face to face time is not sustainable as a 9-5 (at least for normal people!).

My other comment, I do think that you and your husband should sit down and have a discussion about where you see yourselves in the future. He's got a vision of retiring early - what does his ideal life in retirement look like? What does he want to do while he's younger, what might he expect to be doing when he's older? Are these ideas realistic, what funding do they actually need, and how do they fit with your needs both before and after you choose to finish working?

I can envisage discovering that he thinks retiring is the thing to do but has little idea what he wants to do; OR, that there are things he wants to do that you could be doing together already around current commitments, or that certainly don't require you to retire to do. At the very least, getting these ideas out in the open will make a lot more sense of what should or shouldn't change!

OP earns/takes home/has in her bank £750 a WEEK from her job. I earn just over £1000 a month working 21 hours! Why should she increase to 20 hours when she is already out earning probably the vast majority of everyone on this thread?!

Life is for living. If DH wants to retire then that's up to him but OP shouldn't feel pressured to work more for the sake of it just so more money can go into the savings pot that's already got hundreds of thousands in it.

@CinnamonJellyBeans

"The purpose of life isn't to toil until we drop"

It clearly is the plan she has for her husband, while she swans around with a feather duster

OP doesn't have any plans for her DH to keep working. Her plans are for her to keep working, just not at an increased rate.

God help you. 750 pw, i would have dreamt of doing that well when my x was being an arsehole

Ps i mean ur in a good position

It clearly is the plan she has for her husband, while she swans around with a feather duster

Sure, a woman working part time and paying half of everything, whilst also doing all housework, is swanning around. A man who works full time, pays half, has his own pension, does not do any housework and wants OP to contribute more financially whilst he plans early retirement, is what? The boss?

Is this some sort of wanker thread where men all give their 2pence worth and try desperately to demean women?

Tell your husband to fuck off... if he wants to retire early he can ... and op can just merrily go on her way doing what the hell she likes 😀😀😀😀😀

There’s a lot of jealousy on this thread. OP has done very well. She has a very well paid part time job with balance in her life. She does all the drudgery why should she work more hours just because her ‘DH’ demands it. She earns more than most people do full time.
I bet she did all the childcare and running around after the kids for years too.

I’d be questioning whether I actually wanted to spend my retirement with him.
Do what you want OP, you sound like you have a great balance.

Your DH sounds like a saint.

61 years old

He suffers from fibromyalgia and sleep deprivation.

He works every day bar Christmas Day.

He can’t retire or even slow down, because he’s trying to get his son trained up and get the business in a position to hand over.

Given you are much younger and you have the skills to do so, do you not feel the need to contribute more if that would ease things for him?

It would be different if you would be happy for him to work the same hours as you do. But it sounds like that wouldn’t work out, either financially or for your son’s welfare, so you’re happy for him to keep on working himself to the ground?

@Delatron. I agree 100%.

There are many people working full time who earn less than the OP. She's worked out her life to suit herself (and her family, for whom she does the domestic drudgery). She's not an employee to be bossed around by her husband-boss.

If you can get 250 from 5 hours you arent doing many hours to get the 750.

You could easily notch it up quite a bit, on your hourly rate you'd be far better off getting a cleaner/housekeeper and working full time hours (35 a week).

@BoxHedge

Your DH sounds like a saint.

61 years old

He suffers from fibromyalgia and sleep deprivation.

He works every day bar Christmas Day.

He can’t retire or even slow down, because he’s trying to get his son trained up and get the business in a position to hand over.

Given you are much younger and you have the skills to do so, do you not feel the need to contribute more if that would ease things for him?

It would be different if you would be happy for him to work the same hours as you do. But it sounds like that wouldn’t work out, either financially or for your son’s welfare, so you’re happy for him to keep on working himself to the ground?

What could the OP do to ease things? She already does all the housework (which he dictates she can't outsource, whatever her hours). She spent years being the primary carer to a difficult child and defiant teen. She can't run his business for him (and it wouldn't be a reasonable thing to insist on even if she could).

Her DH isn't asking her to work more hours so he can retire in 5 years. He's asking her to work more hours because he wants her to retire (or at least cut right back) with him, which she doesn't want to do. She'd rather keep working at her current pace for longer than ramp up now and slow down in 5 years. That's not him being a saint, it's him trying to be controlling.

Why should she up it a notch just because her husband says so!

He should be grateful. She earns more in a week than many earn in a month and does all the housework shit so he can purely focus on his job. How lovely for him. He never even cooks.