My lovely DH is in a grump. Our current family routine means that we (DH, me, 2x tween-teen DDs) are eating our evening meals separately three times a week. DH is upset that he "comes home to a house which is dirty and cold, no-one is home and the washing-up is not done so he can't make his tea." He has also commented that I am pushing him out of family life with this routine and my inflexibility.
Some facts:
DH works M-F 9-5 office job based a ten minute drive away. However he is usually not home until after 6pm.
I work from home Mon-Thu 8-4. I used to work M-F 9-3 when DDs were younger to fit around school hours. When DDs were very young (and I was in a previous role) I worked three days a week term-time only.
We are both qualified professionals, albeit in different fields, and have always had around the same FTE salary, although my take-home pay has been less in the years when I was more part-time.
DDs do a lot of sport. Three times a week, the kids and I eat at around 5pm. We all leave the house around 6pm and are home again by 9pm. The kids can't get themselves to training due to where DH and I have chosen to live, so I drive them there and back. In the 2 hours or so that they are training, I do the supermarket shop (twice a week), do my own sport with a club (twice a week), and go for a run with a friend (once a week). We have had this routine for the last 12 months, since younger DD moved to the same training schedule as older DD. Prior to this, I would drop older DD, return home for about 30 minutes (when I would see DH if he was home), drop younger DD and then do the supermarket shop (twice a week)/run with a friend (once a week) before returning home with both kids at 9pm.
DH plays one of his sports in a club on one of our 5pm tea evenings. His training session runs from 7-9pm and he arrives home after us that night. He sometimes has matches (home and away) on other nights of the week too, but not that frequently.
We have an old, large house that is hard to get/keep warm.
Some more objective viewpoints:
I do 99.99% of the food shopping, preparation of evening meals and clearing up. I also generally make breakfast (as we have the kind of breakfasts where it is more efficient to do it once for everyone, rather than a 'help yourself to cereal and toast' kind of breakfast) and am usually up 30 mins-1h before DH to fit in household chores before work.
I have always cooked meals for all the family and we have always tried to eat together. When the kids were very little, we would have tea relatively late (after 6pm ish) compared to friends so that we could all eat together. The other four days of the week, we eat later than 5pm so that we can all eat together as a family. On the three days of the week when DDs and I leave at 6pm, I leave DH's meal in the pan(s) to warm up, or he might have to quickly cook something slightly different to go with what has already been made due to dietary requirements/preferences across the family (e.g. he might have to cook some gluten-free noodles to add to the stir-fried meat and veg that we have already made, and eaten our share of, with wheat noodles). As time is tight, I don't generally have time to ensure every kitchen item is washed and put away before leaving the house at 6pm, but I do try to ensure that the kitchen is tidy enough to be functional. Some less-often used items that don't go through the dishwasher may sit next to the kitchen sink for a few days before being washed up by hand. Dishwasher is put on at least daily by me.
I do most of the other general housework (cleaning, laundry, putting bins out, looking after the animals) and life admin (utilities etc, school admin, sport admin for kids).
DH is very handy practically and does a lot of things that are outside my skill set. He does a lot of car, bike and house maintenance/improvements that most people would pay for. He mows the (very large) lawn in the warmer months, washes the cars and, periodically, the outsides of the windows. He does most of the heavy gardening. He does occasionally run the hoover round or wash up.
DDs make their own packed lunches, sort their own food for lunch if they are at home (weekend, holidays), get themselves to school and back, and keep their own bedrooms clean(ish!). They are both mature and independent (they keep on top of homework, take the right things to school on the right days, get their kit together for training and events and sort it out afterwards, put their dirty laundry in their laundry bin and collect and put away their clean laundry). On a quiet day at home, they may help with jobs around the house.
So, AIBU for making tea at 5pm three nights a week to accommodate our DDs' hobbies, and then using their training time to do the supermarket shop and do my own exercise?
And, more kindly, what do you think we (individually or as a family) could change to make my DH less miserable?
(Sporadic poster here; have namechanged for this.)