Husband keeps pushing for me to go back to work full time.

[PaddlingLikeADuck]

As our family situation currently stands my husband works full time and I work 25 hours over 3 days. I dropped to 25 hours after our second son was born but I always worked full time before that.

Our two children are now aged 8 and 4. The 4 year old is due to start school this year.

Our current take home pay per month (jointly) is just under £4k which I consider to be a comfortable amount and and one we can have a nice lifestyle with.

In August I am getting a promotion and increasing my hours up to 30 hours a week and so our monthly bring home pay will increase further so up to just under £5k a month.

As it stands, my plan is for me to work 4 days a week (8 hour days) and have one day off in the middle of the week. My husband however is being really pushy about me working full time as opposed to “just working 30 hours.”

I said it will really help us with me having one day off a week because if anything untoward comes up, one of the children takes ill, appointments come up, school assemblies etc I have the option to change my days to accommodate this. I’m very lucky to have a job where I can be very flexible with my days.

I said I will still be doing 30 hours a week so it’s hardly like I will be a lady of leisure at home whilst the children are at school and whilst he works.

As it stands, he is home by 4pm most days whereas my work days means I’m not home until 6.30pm, if not a little later. This would mean that me working 5 days a week will result in me hardly getting any time in the evening with the children whereas my husband would spend every evening with them from 4pm onwards.

He also works in a school so he gets all the holidays off which again means he gets lots of quality time with them that I don’t. And one day a weekend they go out together for about 6 hours for a sport related event, so that’s more time that I’m not with them.

I said that I just want to be able to spend at least one day in the week to see my children, and to be able to collect them from school and have some quality time with them, as opposed to not getting home until an hour before their bedtime every night.

He’s just keeps pushing it though.

I said I don’t understand why, for the sake of me working 7.5 hours less than full time, he would begrudge me wanting to spend more time with the children.

I get it that if I financially hard to work full time for our family situation to be manageable then I would, but I don’t and we manage perfectly fine already, never mind after my upcoming promotion and increase in hours.

My husband is very money focused though and instead of thinking about how comfortable we already are, and will be even more come August, he just keeps saying “but think how much more money we would have if you went full time.”

His priority is money whereas mine just isn’t, especially when the children are so young.

He brings it up all the time and it usually ends up in a mini argument where we just go round in circles.

AIBU about this?

Tbh I think if you are paying the same into the household as he is, then he's being unfair.

But if you're paying less and you being about to be PT relies on him paying more (and continuing to work FT himself), then I think it's fair enough for him to want you to be full time too.

If youre getting a promotion soon i dont know what the problem will be with regards to money

If youre getting a promotion soon i dont know what the problem will be with regards to money

Because a promotion with full time pay is more money than a promotion at part time pay.

Thats ultimately what it comes down to.

I have no idea where this drive for money is coming from. We aren’t a materialistic family at all, we never have been, we’ve never been too fussed about our incomes or lifestyle, we don’t buy expensive things but not do we crave for them etc and so I’m just taken aback by his reasonings.

Exactly this… you don’t get to look forward to the next ‘big’ holiday, as you’d be lucky to ever have more than 2 weeks off at a time. I haven’t had 6 weeks ‘off’ since I finished GCSE’s! It is relentless.

Sorry I quoted the wrong poster, should have been the one who said a non term time 5 day a week job is relentless. It is.

I can't understand how anyone can comfortably work ft, care for children, cook healthy meals, menu plan, do food shopping, keep a clean and tidy house, walk dogs, exercise, keep appointments and the million more things that you have to do to properly care for a family and a home. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that some of this can be achieved, but not to a high standard, and not without causing said Superwoman to be frazzled and stressed. You don't live to work, you work to live. Life is too short to be chasing your tail all the time.

What are his plans to cover child illness, school assemblies, sports day etc?

Does he host friends coming over after school or take to brownies etc? OK so these aren't compulsory, but they are nice for the child to do unless it's impossible

Just re-posting this for the people insisting that he is working every evening, weekend and through the holidays. Some teachers do, I know, but he is not in that type of school or job.

I’m not totally convinced he does nothing outside of school, to be honest. At the very least, he’ll have directed hours of staff meetings and so on.

I am 100% with the OP here, and as I’ve said, I think she’s being manoeuvred out of the family. But I also do not buy for a second that he finishes at 330 every single day.

Op - here’s an interesting sum for you:-

30 hours per week * 45.5 weeks per year (assuming you get 5 weeks holiday so add on the bank holidays and that makes 7 weeks) = 1,365 hours per year.

35 hours per week (you said he works 7:30 - 3:30 - does he get a lunch hour?) * 39 weeks per year = 1,365 hours per year.

Good post.

OP, protect yourself.

I would be suspicious of a man that supposedly loved you pushing this.

This old woman is suspicious of his long term motives.

I hope I am wrong.

If this is new behaviour could he just be worried about the cost of living increases and feeling under pressure about being the one on the higher wage? I know I am and we are theoretically pretty comfortable.

I haven’t RTFT but I have read OP’s updates. OP, YANBU at all. If he leaves work at 3.30 and you don’t finish until 6.30, that’s already 12 hours more a week than you do than him anyway, even doing 4 days a week! If he’s so fussed about extra money, he could take on some tutoring which is excellent money in all the spare time he has. Honestly, this makes me very cross on your behalf. You have done the hard work in the early years, work hard to support your family (as he does). He is already getting way more down time than you. One day off a week is hardly like you’re doing yoga and going for lunch while he works all the hours under the sun.

Be firm and stick to your guns. Yes, teaching is demanding, but it sounds like your husband is one of the lucky ones.

I normally roll my eyes when the "be suspicious" replies begin but reading what you have just said regarding material things etc, I would be very blunt with him about the money situation. Could he secretly have debt? I would check your house etc is secure and that there isn't something odd going on financially!

Would it even work out as more money once you took into account the increased outgoings? Aside from tax/pension, IME two FT parents means you inevitably spend more on convenience/outsourcing things like food, cleaning and household admin because you’re tired and time-poor. Plus if you’re no longer available for short-notice childcare when the kids are off sick, and he’s a teacher, you’ll need emergency childcare? Honestly it’s likely any marginal increase in income would get eaten up very quickly.

I have RFTF, thanks, and it frustrates the hell out of me when people decide to twist the facts to suit their own prejudices.

If you read the thread you would see that OP saying her OH does not work outside of his paid hours. So you'd understand that it is wrong to accuse me of twisting the facts. THE OP SAID THIS FFS

The OP clearly states at the beginning of her first post that her husband works full time. The fact that you choose to see teaching and related jobs as part time simply because of how the work is patterned is irrelevant, because you're simply wrong, and tbh your arrogance in stating 'teaching is a part-time job' is pretty breathtaking.

Your post is hugely unpleasant. His hours are 32 hours a week on average. She said FT as she was referencing the full number of hours his job allows. He can't 'up a day' for example. That does not mean he works effectively FT hours over the whole of the year. FT teaching role does not mean FT hours as conceptualised in other jobs. It's breathtaking for you to take massive offence at someone suggesting that a 32 hour a week job average or term time only contract is PT.

I'm going to ask you again: do you, or does anyone you're close to, have any personal experience of the realities of teaching?

You can ask me as many times as you want and in as patronising a tone as you can muster. It's a completely irrelevant question as it does not pertain to the issue at hand but yes I have friends who have experienced the realities of teaching. One found the job very full on and was working much more than the set hours. One said the job was easy and that the idea that all teachers work really long hours is nonsense. First was secondary teacher, second was primary. I don't know enough teachers to know whether that was co-oincidence or whether that is a genuine pattern. Completely beside the point though as I was responding to what the OP said. If she said my OH is working 50 hours every week just to keep his head above water my response would have been different. But she didn't, did she? His job may be full on during the hour he is at work but many jobs are so that's not a pressure specific to teaching and would therefore be irrelevant. The question is how many hours the OH is working not how stressful the hours he works is.

What if her husband feels the same way?

Point out to him that out of that extra 7.5 hours almost 3 of them would be paid in tax and national insurance. Then another day of I'm guessing after school club until he can collect them. Time you factor these things in its not alot of take home pay your missing out on. Surely he can see the kids have te with mum is more valuable.

I wish I could say more about what type of working environment DH is in, but genuinely he does finish at 3.30 every day and work outside of school hours is extremely minimal. As I said, he probably brings work home to mark about once every 6-8 weeks and in terms of meetings he has one a month with the Head and two other SLTs and they do that for an hour on a Saturday morning. Even he will admit he gets paid a lot to not do much. He does miss various aspects of working in a ‘normal school’ but he says the family friendly hours this job affords him, as well as the low amount of workload outside of school hours, is what makes it worthwhile.

In terms of finances we are in a very comfortable decision.We have various accounts set aside to put savings in for different reasons: holiday funds, emergency house funds (I.e in case the boiler packs in), children’s funds and also general savings. Between these accounts we probably put away £1750 month. And on top of that we have what I consider to be quite generous amounts of ‘personal spends’ each month. And every month we usually have money left over before the next pay day and so whatever we do still have left, we share it out to our more into our savings accounts.

Like I said, we don’t live a lavish lifestyle but we don’t need to worry about money. I have full access to all our accounts so I know everything is as it should be.

Anyhow, I’m off to get ready for work, to have an easy day in my part time role….where I’m lucky if I even find time to have a wee, let alone eat. I will have to remind him of that too when he’s next enjoying a lunch break 😊

So he has one Saturday a month where he doesn’t do the sport with the boys?

I don’t believe this. I’m not saying you’re lying, before I get deleted for troll hunting. I’m saying he is. Unless you’ve changed the details and he isn’t a teacher but does some other education based role, there is no way this is real.

I can totally believe minimal work outside of school hours but not the rest.

So he has one Saturday a month where he doesn’t do the sport with the boys? I don’t believe this. I’m not saying you’re lying, before I get deleted for troll hunting. I’m saying he is. Unless you’ve changed the details and he isn’t a teacher but does some other education based role, there is no way this is real.

What? He does sport every Saturday with the boys. And what is he lying about??

I wish I could say more about what type of working environment DH is in,

Hmmm, well, you can. You could say he works in eg a private school, boarding school or a PRU.

OP said:

My husband works in a school and is part of the senior leadership team and alongside that he does the pastoral care and some teaching.

I take that to mean teaching is not the main part of his job. He's more management. Think deputy headteacher or subject leader.

He could be in some sort of SEN provision so small group teaching at ad hoc times of day, the pastoral type stuff while the students are attending other lessons.