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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DH went to work when we're all sick

360 replies

yellowgecko · 12/10/2021 08:01

The baby (9 months) has had diarrhoea since Friday. DH reluctantly agreed to stay home with her Monday while I went to work. (It's my 2nd week back after mat leave and I said I would stay home if needed the other days.)

Just after dinner, I started vomiting. Between us we put DD and DS5 to bed. I tried to sleep on the sofa bed, but didn't really. DD kept waking up, DH popped in and out but I went in to her at 1am, she'd pooed. I then had D&V Confused

DS started being sick at 4.30. I cleaned him up, put him in bed with DH. Baby woke up at 5, managed to get her down for another hour. DS was sick again at breakfast so he can't go to school today.

DH was dressed for work. I said, you're not going in today? He got cross, said yes he should have gone in yesterday and I should have stayed home, especially as I'm sick today. I just burst into tears and said that kids get sick, it's not right to be cross about it.
He then said do you want me to stay and I said well yes I did! But just go cos you don't really want to be here. So he packed up and left.

YABU - he Should he have gone to work
YANBU - he should have stayed at home

I know being a martyr wasn't the right thing to do, I should have stuck to my guns. I just really wanted him to choose his sick family over work Sad

OP posts:
Ricekake · 14/10/2021 07:50

This is what compassionate leave is for

No it isn't?

londonrach · 14/10/2021 07:54

He not sick, of course he goes to work. You lucky his work allowed him one day off. Yabu. Hope you all better soon

Blueink · 14/10/2021 08:22

YABU

MindyStClaire · 14/10/2021 08:28

@PurpleOkapi

The cluelessness of some posters continues to astound me. You're being incredibly unreasonable to expect your husband to prioritise your feelings over the job that's paying for the roof over your and your children's heads. He's not choosing his job over his family. He's choosing his family's well-being by not allowing you to manipulate him into jeopardizing it with emotional blackmail like "You'd do it if you really loved me." A man who behaved that way would be called controlling and emotionally abusive, and rightly so.
She's not expecting him to prioritise her feelings over his job. She's expecting him to prioritise her health and the children's well-being. You can bet if he had a vomitting bug there's no way he would happily wave OP off to work while he looked after two small sick children. See, the plan for OP to work one day this week and him four before she became ill.

He is a parent, his children are too ill to go to school or childcare and their other parent is too ill to look after them. A good parent would be at home unless they genuinely couldn't be in that situation.

KarmaStar · 14/10/2021 09:08

I understand you wanting him to be there with you but the thing is he needs to show his employers he is reliable and committed.I think when you've been away from the work place for a while it's easy to focus on family and forget a little bit about the constraints of working.
Have a snuggle up sofa day and keep drinking lots of fluids,hope you all are much better very soon.

RightSaidPleb · 14/10/2021 09:08

@Ricekake

This is what compassionate leave is for

No it isn't?

Yes it is. Compassionate leave is also known as dependents leave.

A dependent can be spouse or child. If your child is sick you can use this leave to take child to the doctor, arrange care or if care isn't viable to look after them yourself

So many people don't realise this is an option. An emergency doesn't mean life and death but does mean you need to support your family

Obviously the key question here is how ill OP is. She obviously felt ill enough that she felt unable to look after the children and wanted her DH to stay at home to care for them.

Myself and DH have both used this leave this year as our son started nursery and got illness after illness.

MindyStClaire · 14/10/2021 09:26

@KarmaStar

I understand you wanting him to be there with you but the thing is he needs to show his employers he is reliable and committed.I think when you've been away from the work place for a while it's easy to focus on family and forget a little bit about the constraints of working. Have a snuggle up sofa day and keep drinking lots of fluids,hope you all are much better very soon.
I think this applies more to OP who is trying to get back into the swing of things than her DH who has has nine months of uninterrupted work.

Do you think her employers thought she was reliable and committed when the plan was for her to do four days of childcare this week and her DH one?

Shell4429 · 14/10/2021 12:26

@Tilltheend99

The reason he should have stayed home is because he is now going to give vomiting and diarrhoea to all his colleagues. If they knew what was going on at your house they wouldn’t want him in either. Honestly since Covid everyone seems to have forgotten that you can pass other illnesses on too. He’s the one being a martyr to his work. Hope you all feel better soon.
This ^^ I used to ring up work, tell them the nature of the illness among the kids and ask them if they wanted me to come in. They usually said no! Grin
sillysmiles · 14/10/2021 15:12

@londonrach

He not sick, of course he goes to work. You lucky his work allowed him one day off. Yabu. Hope you all better soon
His child was sick and he's lucky work allowed him one day off? But her work is allowing her 4 days off to look after sick children.

Why shouldn't he be equally caring for his sick children.

DrinkFeckArseBrick · 16/10/2021 10:32

"He not sick, of course he goes to work."

"he needs to show his employers he is reliable and committed"

Unless you've got a really shitty employer or manager, most managers accept that children get sick and parents have to share taking time off to look after them, or childcare falls through and parents have to share time off to look after them.

He has worked there for a long time and rarely taken a day off, it not like if he calls work and asks for emergency holiday or unpaid leave they are suddenly going to start questioning his commitment, unless he has an awful employer, which there is no suggestion.

The OP sounded like she was too ill to look after the children. You wouldnt expect a childminder or anyone else to try and carry on looking after young kids with d&v.

If he had asked and his employers had said no, or they were in an industry where this was frowned upon then fair enough. But I work in an office and a lot of my friends do in similar industries and all of us would just call their boss in the morning, explain, and the response would be 'ok, take it out your holiday, let us know when you expect to be back in, is there anything urgent that you need to pass over today?' As we all work hard, are committed and the company are aware that we only do it when we really have to and will try and manage the impact on our work as best we can eg make up time.

Similarly I don't work on one day a week. When I've been ill my husband has tried to arrange childcare and if he hasnt been able to has said 'well if you feel like you can't cope I'll just have to take the day off'. I don't think he has ever had to, I've always just about managed but knowing that there is some support really helps take the pressure off

I wonder what the responses would look like if the sexes were reversed

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