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?

He's clearly not a maths teacher.

Set him this problem.

36 hours/Full time in Freddie's current job is £32k.

Freddie has been offered a new job, where he will work 30 hours, have a day off, have greater opportunities for progression and will not lose money for emergency childcare, for £40k minus 20%.

Calculate what the salary would be in the new job.

Which job should Freddie take?

His pay rise may take him into 40% tax band. May not be a pay rise at all. ..

Of course it’s a day off

i imagine you will still take on most of the chores and the mental load so tell him to jog on

But weekends wouldn’t be quality time if the OP didn’t have that one day at home doing the cleaning, shopping and laundry etc. during the week, that would be done on a weekend

Definitely stick to your guns on 30hrs

Sorry OP but your husband is being a complete and utter arse! If he is so money driven then he should find a job working school holidays at holiday clubs to make more money. Or the other option for him to get more money is to get a job where he works a normal day, not home by 4pm and a job where he doesn’t get 14 weeks leave a year. Expecting you to be home at 6:30 four days a week and only seeing your kids one weekend day is beyond unreasonable. I’d be fuming. He sounds very selfish and very unthinking of your feelings and your kids. They’re so young, not teenagers.

Your working days means you get home 2.5 hours later than your OH. Over four days that’s 10 hours more per week that you are out of the house away from the kids more than he is in the evenings.
I hope he has seen sense, your kids will grow up fast and the extra money won’t buy that back.

So in the conversation for 12 months from now, I think you should focus not on the effect for you of going full time (because obviously he doesn't care), but rather on the effect for him. Set your boundaries and stick to them. Maybe something like:

"If I take on more hours, we will certainly have more money. After tax, transport and other on-costs, the net increase in take home pay will be £A.

I want you to be aware of my expectations around what a move to me working full time will mean for you. I expect you will contribute more to the household by way of housework and childcare, as I will be working much longer paid hours than you across the year. Also, there are likely to be some additional expenses for the family for termtime emergency care in particular, as I won't be available to do all emergency childcare.

The following information might assist you to assess the impact for you of my moving to full time work. In the last 12 months I have relevantly spent my one day a week away from work as follows:

1. X days taking care of sick children. It is reasonable to expect the children will be ill for approximately the same number of days per year going forward. If I go full time, my expectation is that you will cover half of these days (ie Y days per year). Otherwise, the cost for emergency childcare will be approximately $Z.

1. XX hours per week doing household chores (excluding evening childcare) on my day at home. My expectation is that you will do at least half of these hours each week if I go full time.

Due to the full time shift pattern in my job, in addition to the additional housework, you will have to deal with the children from 3.30pm to 6.30pm 5 nights per week for 46 weeks per year including during term time. If you cannot do so then we will need emergency care at $Z per evening.

I will also be arranging to have quality time with the children on the one day a week that I have with them (assume Sunday). I will be completing minimal household chores on Sundays. I expect that either you will do the bulk of the chores that I currently complete on Sundays, or we will employ someone to do these chores at an estimated cost of $x per week.

I expect that a step up by me to full time working hours will result in both of us doing similar total hours of paid plus unpaid work/childcare over the course of a year, and this will mean you doing your fair share. I don't want you to be surprised at the effect this will have on you as it will mean a lot more work for you."

Bet he doesn't go for it.

Tell him you aren't going to argue about this and you will not be working full time end of

Your DH sounds a bit of a twat tbh. I think the majority of men would understand that fewer working hours for a mum with children is a bonus for the whole family. Instead of waiting until the next time he brings it up, I would arrange a quiet sit down at the dining table and tell him exactly how you feel. He is totally unreasonable.

pinkpantherpink ‘Friend chose money over time with her children. As a non parent myself I couldn't reconcile with that myself’. Does your friend know you think and have said this about her? Do you judge her H for working? Money is quite useful for parents, for things like housing and food!

Have you investigated the pension impact of your current status (having been PT for some time) and options now?

The salary differential between you is large, in his favour. Your H seems unusual in earning over £50k for short hours.

You mention that your H doesn’t share, choose to engage with some of the parenting and admin work of DC (‘mental load’) that you ‘value’. That’s poor. Don’t think it’s helpful that you seek to be regarding this additional work you do as something you SHOULD and want to do, while he doesn’t. You work more hours than he does! That kind of stuff also increases significantly as DC get older.

So we’ve had another talk about it this morning and things have now reached a truce.

I used points from this thread regarding how much holiday he gets and how if his working hours were spread over 52 weeks as opposed to the 39 weeks then he wouldn’t be classed as working full time each week.

I also mentioned the time spent travelling to work each day as he can get to work in about 15 minutes where is takes me 40 minutes so that is another factor that will lead me to be out the house for longer hours than him too.

I also said my job is much more stressful than his (which he knows anyway) and that being full time with more frequent and longer days will take a big toll on me.

if I went full time, taking into account travelling time I would be out the house about 11 hours a day, 5 days a week.

I told him it was just too much.

I ended up getting quite tearful which was down to thought of increasing my work load so much, but also because it’s been an argument we’ve been having for so long.

When he saw how upset I was I think it triggers him that it wasn’t a case of me simply just “not wanting to work full time” but that I had genuine concerns and worries about it.

He then seemed to feel quite bad as he’s not usually one for backing down during disagreements but he came and gave me a big cuddle and said that if I felt so strongly about it then he would never make me work full time if that’s not what I wanted.

So yes, we seem to now come to the same conclusion. I’m seeing my matron today regarding my working hours and I’m going to say I will do 30 in the knowledge I now have my husband’s support.

Thank you to everyone for your comments, they certainly enable me to give a more structured and thought through argument and it’s led to us putting to bed a long running disagreement, so thank you.

Really? 2/7 days when you know come well
op will be running around like a blue arsed fly cleaning etc ? It’s crap for kids like much of this working culture is; regardless of why everybody has to do it.

nah that’s a shit deal

OP I really think one day off to be with your kids in the week ideal

You can do all the full time in the world when they’re at secondary

Oops sorry op that’s great, glad
youve come to an agreement

Glad you’ve come to an agreement (sort of). Sorry you had to cry and be vulnerable and upset before he took any notice of you. It doesn’t sound like a very equal partnership.

Blooming heck - I’d tell him I was sticking to the 25 hours as before - kids need their Mums too and you need some time - he is too money orientated! But that’s just my opinion !

I am glad you have - but it still concerns me that he actually still doesnt get all the stuff that you need to do around work.

We discussed increasing my hours and that was front and centre - at the moment my 21 hour a week job allows me to do all of that kind of stuff - both kids have norovirus at the moment - it is me that takes on looking after them when he continues to work because of this.

It just seems he still doesnt actually get it - what you working full time would mean for the family

Thanks for update (always nice when poster comes back) glad it’s agreed.

A very good outcome and I'm pleased that, even though the anxiety pushed you to tears, he was finally able to see what you working full-time would mean to your home life.

There always has to be balance. He has that balance; maybe now, you can find yours.

I’m totally with you! I have a 5 and 8 year old and I went back to work last May after seven years as a stay at home mum, but only 21 hours a week. My husband and I both agreed that it was a good balance, allowing me to take up my career again but also having plenty of time with the girls. I have just changed jobs and am dropping down to 18 hours per week, but even then he has been supportive of me. I think you are more than entitled to a four day week given the holidays he gets from school. Ask him to think about all the holidays he gets and try to match that up with the one day off a week you would have. He still gets way more time with the kids. If he’s that worried about the extra money he could get a holiday job! 😂

Sorry - didn’t see your latest update - my bad! Happy you got it sorted out.

I think your DH is BU, you're pretty much full time with 30 hours, agree with others that he's envious that his job doesn't allow to work a 4 day week