DH & childcare

[Made2Worry]

Aibu? Here goes something that has been messing with my head for a while i wilm try keep as short as poss,

I work & DH is self employed ( music gigs, freelance music teaching in schools, after school clubs etc. His work is not permanent and is as and when. Mine is permanent and its my money that pays the bills & pretty much all the basics. When he works he earns good money so his money tends to be our good times, nice things, treats and some help towards bills etc but is NOT guaranteed from one month to the next. We have one DS who has just started lower school. My working hours start from 6.30 pm and our routine is as follows I drop DS to school, clean house prepare dinner DH picks DS up from school we eat, read, chill etc I then leave for work at 6pm DH then does bath and bed time.

Here's the problem DH is part of a pool team Monday & Tuesday evening which I either have to get a sitter for or listen to him sulking that he couldn't go. He has now started up a charity and he has calls left right and centre for work, very last minute that falls withen my work hours from schools after school clubs etc.(mostly unpaid work) which leaves me fighting for child care, I get this is his dream and passion but I feel like from Monday to Friday it is a constant fight and juggle just to be able to go to work. I have suggested I quit my job he can pay all the bills instead and I'll sit my hobbiless bum at home. He thinks I'm being totally unreasonable and that I should accommodate all his very last minute plans and book holiday/ get sitters which by the way we pretty much have noone to babysit its a real struggle to get DM over for a few hours of an evening.

Am I being a selfish dream stopper or am I right to think untill he is earning a wage good enough to pay the bills then my work comes first? We can't rely on his as and when wages and he refuses to get a 9-5.

👏👏

Is the unpaid work for exposure? That is an easy trap for creatives to fall into.

I do understand the idea of a loss leader or trial session, but it needs to be time or effort limited and clearly lead onto paid work. Otherwise he might as well busk at the local shops - that’s ‘exposure’ and at least he might cover his petrol! Or just play for pleasure and accept that this is his gift to the world.

For all of woman-kind please pick yourself off the floor and stop being a doormat. If you let men do this to you they think they can do it to all of us.

Men who sponge off women and whine and moan when they don't get everything handed to them on a plate are repulsive 😣

One or other of you needs a daytime job, to allow the other person to have an after-school/evening job.

Honestly, this was a predictable issue from before you had kids, because a lot of his work is either evening (gigs), late afternoons (after school clubs) and so on.
Two evening-hours jobs are t compatible with family life with children.

That said, I’m not sure why he can’t build up a more stable income stream from teaching lessons in school-time, which should be regular term time work.

You need to get regular childcare for the hours he intends to work, and then you need to work out as a family how that gets paid for. And then anything ‘on top of’ that comes in at the last minute you need to leave him to sort out.

He can’t act like he can do what he likes. This would be a dealbreaker for me, honestly.

@Made2Worry
Did you come to any conclusions?