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?

This! Sounds like his hours are less than yours over the year!

That is a very good point!

I work 32 hours over 4 days. Some weeks I do an extra clinic either in an evening, a Saturday, or on my midweek day off to cover a colleague, so average at more like 35 hours. However, having that day in the week to get shit done is invaluable and my DCs are 12,14 and 15!

Why doesn’t he get a better paying job if it’s so important to him?

Absolutely stick to your guns with this. If you are bullied into going full time there is a danger resentment will sink in. I work 3 days since the second child came along, we now have 1 in high school and 1 in primary. I will not go back full time until the youngest is in high school. More money would be nice but the family balance is more important. You can't get back those years. My DH supports this because he knows how miserable it made me working full time for 8 years with our eldest. I was too exhausted to enjoy weekends and there was too much to be done to enjoy my own children. Hats off to any mums working full time.

Is he willing to take on 50% of the taking time off work for inset days, kids ill etc? flexibility is very useful.

What about days off with sick children? As a teacher, that can be really hard so having someone flexible enough to be able to swap days is very valuable. My husband covered all sick days on my working days when our children were in primary school as he had flexitime and could up his hours when I was at home. Even now our youngest is in year7, I hate leaving him at home when he is ill. I think your husband is being very unfair and shortsighted.

At 30 hours a week year round, you are working no less than all the full time/term time only staff at his school, based upon a 36 hour working week. He's only doing 0.8 himself over the year.

Legally, you're regarded as working fulltime on an average of 30 hours a week.

He's talking nonsense because he doesn't understand what fulltime actually is in respect of the law and the contracts that support staff are held to.

Of course, if he's absolutely certain that he can get time off for various appointments despite being so busy and important, he's absolutely free to take days off for it, rather than expect you to be responsible for every single one, using your holiday entitlement to do so.

What is his motive for you going full time?
There doesn’t sound like a financial need -+ although you said he’s money focused. Who manages the finances? Is it equal - you know your outgoings and incoming finances I assume so know what’s left each month.
I think you need to stick to your guns -= don’t let him bully you - why should you work full time if you don’t need to and to suit him.
Hes got an easy job compared to other teachers - yours maybe more demanding - he’s not being kind and considerate to you is he.

What would he do with the extra money?
Stick to your guns - it’s non negotiable. See how he handles this.

@KRoo22
He then dropped the bombshell this week that he thinks I should back to 4 days. He has not been happy about having to do his share of the emergency childcare at all. I am extremely frustrated by it all.

Please tell us you're staying full-time? That sounds incredibly stressful.

To the poster who asked…

Our financial set up is that we have a joint account and we each have a personal account.

Our monthly wages go into our joint account and then a set amount is transferred to his personal account and the same amount is transferred to my account. Every monthly expenditure, be it house or child related, comes out of our joint account.

Our money has always been fairly shared and he has never once suggested I should have less ‘personal spends money’ just because I earn less than him.

OP works 4 days a week = 208 days
Say she gets 4 weeks holiday, she is working 192 days a year

He works 5 days a week = 365 days
He gets 13 weeks holiday, he is working 195 days a year

There's barely anything in it OP.

Keep the day off! It comes in so handy. I do 34 hours over 4 days. It’s lovely having a day where I can actually take my own kids to school, hear all about their day as we’re walking out of school ( they’ve usually “forgot” by the time I finish work) and I use my “free” hours in the day to do chores and life Amin so weekends are free for actual quality time and not errands. My oh doesn’t care and my take home pay is only about £110 less after tax.

Next time he raises it suggest he gets a full-time job with normal holidays for the extra pay and see if he fancies that.

It sounds perfect. I think he's the problem.

Doesn't he already have to cook meals and do homework and reading and bath times 4 evenings a week on his own?

I was ready to say YaBU but you will be working 30 hours a week, I think 4 days is enough. He gets all the holidays off!

It seems you and your DH needs to sit down and talk it out. I understand he would like more disposable income and you would like more time. I don't understand why he would begrudge the little time you can have with your DC given he has so much time.

If you set it out in black and white the total number of hours/ days worked per year and he still wants you to work an extra day- you have a serious DH problem

Doesn't he already have to cook meals and do homework and reading and bath times 4 evenings a week on his own?

At the moment he does it three nights a week. If I do go full time it will then have to increase to five nights because of the way my employers will want me to use my extended hours.

I think when children are all school aged or older, surely the default has to be full time work unless both partners agree that one is happy to support the other to work less.

I don't think it's fair to expect one partner shoulder the greater financial burden without them agreeing to that.

I think you have a great set up as you are, the flexibility to change your day off as required for sick kids etc is wonderful.

He gets all the holidays and early finishes, he's very lucky.

I think he is BU, not you.

Your husbands school
sounds amazing. My school are amazing at reducing workload. There’s no way our SLT are home by 4pm though.

Does he start work very early?

YANBU 4 days a week sounds perfect. Definitely keep your hours.

He’s bringing in more money and working more hours, and your the one feeling resentful???

YANBU. 30 hours is only 5 hours off full time. You say you are financially comfortable and you could run errands on your day off (dentist, doctors, food shop, cleaning) and completely enjoy your weekends. Keep to your guns! You work to live - not the other way around!

^^This OP you need to point out this info

Ps £4k a month take home being "comfortable" really depends where you live.

If you're in the more expensive south east, £4k a month could be really quite tight for a family of four with rising prices. Where I live a family on that income would scrape by, certainly wouldnt be affording treats, extra curricular stuff etc.