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?

If he has school holidays off, then add up your working hours over the year, I suspect you may find you work more hours. Then ask him why he isn't getting a holiday job.

anotherbrewplease · 24/04/2022 12:07
At the risk of sounding somewhat aggressive - your 'D'H is a greedy arsehole. £4k a month!! That's plenty to live on - FGS

Im inclined to agree with this. They are living comfortably now and yet, when OP has not only got a promotion but is also increasing her hours from 25 to 30, which will considerably increase the family’s income, instead of congratulating her, he is moaning that it’s not enough!

Stick to your guns, OP; the flexibility that the 4 day week gives you will be invaluable. I have a feeling that your DH will be the first to moan about being put upon if you working a 5 day week means he has to do more.

Stick to your guns.

I agree with the poster who said to tell him to get his head out of his ass.

I imagine you will be the one covering sick days, medial/dental appointments generally, and your flexible employer lets you work with this via your 1 day not in each week?

Your DH is a fool for trying to mess with this and for prioritising a few extra pounds (which is all it will be) over you spending time with your children while they're young. He's in a school; he should know fucking better, frankly. i bet he's the first to complain about parents who don't do enough with their children.

Childhood is fleeting. it really is.

Your DH sounds like a work shy cunt if he's a teacher and these are the hours he's doing.

He can fuck off and get a better paying job if he wants to.

I’d be working out the number of hours/days off he gets vs the amount you get off and see where you are.

willing to bet he’s off more than you are…

how is the finance side of things, assuming you have a mortgage, is the cost of living impacting on your budgets?

would working more mean you have to pay for more wrap around care/ready meals/convenience things because you have less time?

does he do all the pickups/drop offs? Does he do all the kids cooking/homework help etc?

my ds is about to leave school, I work 3 days over 4 and earn enough to sustain myself, my oh is a high earner and I’m the first wife hes had who’s ever worked, so he is happy with me working as it takes pressure off him a bit.

im a lot older than you, doubtless, and I’ve been a hard up single parent in the past, so I know the value of the situation I am in. If your household can sustain this, and you’re busy enough to keep your brain going but not too busy to do stuff with and for the kids then that’s the perfect scenario

stick to your guns, do the maths and explain to him the importance of life/work balance and happy marriages…

I completely resent the thought that a woman isn’t needed in the house now she should just shuffle back off to work full time. It’s so ducking demenaning to treat women like commodities.

when my youngest went back to school a worked part time for ages still, 2 days off. We were comfortable, and I had raised kids for 8 years. The way I saw it, I deserved those 2 days a week off. And because my DH isn’t a selfish prick, he agreed.

Add up how many hours you work (30x 48 weeks a year) and how many he works (X x 39 weeks a year) and see what the actual gap is.

He sounds awful. I could see his point if you were struggling financially but you're not! And to make matters worse you're about to get a substantial pay rise and that's still not good enough for him.

He'd rather you were worked to the bone and barely see your kids than work 7 hours less per week.

I'd tell him to shove it.

Stick to your guns, OP.

I did work 3 days but was asked to work 5, which I do but on the basis that it’s classed as overtime and any child related stuff, hospital appointments (of which there have been many of late) could be factored in to my overtime days, therefore if I’m not in I don’t get paid OR I can swap days around still.

There have been far too many days to count where DS has needed to be picked up from school, even now in secondary school, if DS is ill one of us has to pick him up and 9/10 it falls to me.

That one day off could give you a great deal of flexibility as I imagine, with your DH being a teacher, it wouldn’t be as easy for him to collect/take to appointments etc and the majority would fall to you.

I’ve been extremely lucky having this arrangement with my employer, I’ve decreased the hours slightly on the extra days I work, again because I’m still contracted to only work 3 days, this gives me much more scope to ask for reduced hours rather than not working them at all.

So you think the OP and the OH should both work more? Currently he is part-time yes? Over a 44 week year (sort of average ish AL/ BH entitlement), he's only working 32 hours a week. At the moment he has no problem with his own part timeness, he wants his wife to work more than him.

My opinion is, If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sounds like the current system is working well for you all. You have adequate income and are managing fine financially. That day off is probably a bit of a pressure valve for you and if it's taken away, the pressure is likely to ramp up. The extra pressure and stress is likely to have an impact on all of you - you, your DH and your kids. And you may well end up resenting your DH for coercing you into increasing your hours. Resentment can eat away at a marriage. Having said all that, he hasn't accepted your arguments up to now and you say he's bringing it up constantly, so it seems to be a really big issue for him. He may well resent you for not upping your hours and generating more income. I'm not quite sure how you can resolve this without taking it to a marriage counsellor.

If he wants more money he could get a tutor job in the evenings.

If he wants 'fair' then he'll also need to get some work in the holidays so that you both do 'equal' hours and get the same holidays.

But I bet he doesn't want to make it that fair.

You’ve had lots of people telling you both parents should work full time but in my experience that’s rare if it’s avoidable. There’s a lot of extra work to do with children, does he realise that? Surely if he finishes at 3.30 he has to work in the evenings quite often? So he’ll rush home and then do homework, bath, bed, cook and then have work to do later 5 days a week?

I had to work long hours as a single mum to make ends meet and I'm still angry about all the precious time I missed with DS when he was small. I'll never get those years back. Tell him to sling his hook and stop being so selfish.

I've just done the maths:-

He works 40 hrs per week for 39 weeks of the year. Totalling 1560 hours

When you move to 30 hrs per week, assuming 48 weeks (deduct 4 for AL), you will work 1440 hours

So you will only be working 120 hours a year less than him. Or 10 hours a month.

Yet he wants you to work full time? If your ft is then 37.5 hours, your annual hours worked will be 240 hours a year more than him (double what the gap will be on 30 hrs).

He is being massively unreasonable as he is part time (aka full time term time only) himself.

Definitely don’t up your hours.

plus if your husband ever moves schools he’s in for a nasty shock workload wise.

I’ve never heard of a member of SLT getting home for 4pm every night.

Oh and ALL if the cooking usually falls to me, homework, school communication, sorting out uniform etc, and I don’t usually mind, but if DH was insisting I made my arrangement permanent then things would need to change.

I reduced my hours on one day to leave at 3pm, so that at least I was home earlier - 40 mile round trip each day!

So if you were to work a 4 day week that would amount to 52 extra days off every year which comes to just over 7 weeks holiday on top of I presume 4 weeks you already have. This means that you now have 11 weeks holiday compared to his 13 weeks. Sounds fair to me.

I think given his long holidays and shorter hours, he’s not working any more than you. So it’s fair for you to continue to work part time imo.

Given how early he finishes, is he going in earlier? Does he have to do work from home in the evenings? Very few people in senior leadership roles just clock out and 4:00 and are done until the next day.

Who is with the children in the morning?

Being home with the kids after school is usually about homework and getting dinner or the kids playing outside, it isn't really about quality time with the kids. just like mornings when you are getting everyone up and ready for school.

I think you present how you will spend your day at home in a way that benefits the family - are you going to do errands or clean or cook or how will you use those hours to show that it isn't just a day off per week for time for yourself while he works.

why Don’t you just tell him you’ll need a cleaner, nanny and chef if you go and work full time.

How easy will it be for him to take time off work with ill kids? Really push that he'd have to do half their doctors/dentists appts, and half of all sick days (many with zero notice). Is he actually able/willing to do that?

You really need a better argument because it's not about sending more time with the kids but having more time for yourself.

If it really is about the kids, then you need to change your weekends. Most of the time spent with kids during the week is after 6pm anyway. He can do the not so nice part, homework, cooking dinner, taking to activities and you do bath and night time reading and cuddles.

If its really about hsvi g more time do yourself, be honest and come up with a co promise of what extra you can do in the house to help him.

Why? If theyare financially stable, nearly 5k a month is more than financially stable to me. Why shouldn't the op work 30hrs 4 days till 6.30pm and have the other day to do what ever needs to be done and spend time with the chn? You'd hate me my chn are 5 and 9 and I work 3 days also in an educational setting so have holidays with them. Works for us we aren't lavish but enables us to be there for our chn. Why would I want then in before and afterschool care and not spend the time with them???