To expect OH to put my job first ?

[greyA]

Bit of back story, husband has been in his job 23 years, hasn’t really moved up that much and is still in junior management - has had opportunities to progress but has always said he doesn’t want them. He earns around 38k. I was a career changer and in 3 years have gone from earning 20k to 80k. I work in a fast paced industry ( tech ) and whilst I do wfh and have reasonable flexibility, I take my job very seriously and I absolutely love it. Currently we split things as equally as possible however I still pay around £500 more than OH each month ( I buy all food and pay a couple of extra bills ) ( I also do the bulk of the housework, shopping and cooking but that’s for another post ) I am currently expecting and previously we discussed OH taking some time off to look after baby so I could return to work after about 3 months and the plan was he’d be around and I’d do as much flexi working as I could ( possibly going down to a 4 day week or working some of my hours in the evenings) OH has now said he doesn’t want to do that and seems to think it’s perfectly feasible for me to wfh and take care of the baby. The fact is he doesn’t earn enough to cover all our bills but I do so AIBU expecting him to step up and either be home and care for the baby or earn more so I can stay home and do it myself ?

I'd be so annoyed if I were you.
It's very clear you need your wages to sustain your current life
He agreed to stay at home which is the logical financial situation
Do you get OMP from your current job or have you not been there long enough.
Could you look into shared parental leave
That may be an option for the first 6m and then look at childcare, nanny, childminder or nursery but you need to put your name down now as waiting lists can be very long. Also I'm the lower earner out of me and my partner and as such when baby is sick and needs to be at home and not in childcare it's me that has to take a day unpaid and again financially it should be your husband as he earns less.

It may not sound fair but you've built the life you have with the financial obligations you have and he directly benefits from your work

And your husband is a plank if he thinks you can look after a baby and work at the same time, and if I was your employer I'd discipline you and revoke your wfh rights.

Have you actually sat down together and said OK as I will only get MA/SMP/OMP and your wages are X this is how much we have to live on etc etc

Also please make sure you are up to date with relevant employment law, pregnancy rights etc in regards to your job if you do take mat leave, every mother is entitled to have up to a year and go back to their job so please know your rights and what is legal for an employer to do/not do

Well if nothing else this thread is an excellent example of why the endless “it just made sense for me to stop work when the baby came because my OH earned more than me” responses on threads about why more women stop work when kids arrive are absolute bollocks - apparently it doesn’t make sense for the lower earner to stop work when they’re male! Instead the higher earning OP needs to stop earning and burn through her savings so that her OH can contribute less to both the domestic and the financial load.

OP YANBU. Your OH needs to pull his head out of his arse and get with the real world. He can earn more, or he can step up on child and domestic care. Either/or choice.

This.

Have you actually sat down together and said OK as I will only get MA/SMP/OMP and your wages are X this is how much we have to live on etc etc

This is a very good idea.

Spell out the facts, say this is what we will have coming in, this is what our outgoings will be, how do you propose to plug the gap?

He is not allowed to propose anything which involves either you looking after a baby and trying to WFH at the same time, or you trying to build up savings before you go on mat leave and then burn through them while he continues to contribute his measly 650 quid a month and fritter the rest away on God knows what.

@greyA start looking for a nanny/home help. You earn most so you need to carefully balance how much each of you pay. Tbh my DH and I would have tge same disposable income and the rest would be in the shared account where all bills were paid from. It's the fairest way to manage money where everything is shared (ie in a marriage). Your nanny/home help can do some light domestic chores too. Wfh as much as you can to be u is being well cared for. You could even employ an apprentice to do this and enable someone to gain a qualification whilst working.

Good luck, I appreciate your situ, you can't afford not to work but your DH doesn't see it as his job to cover childcare, wtf.

Seriously OP, I would be considering life as a single parent, and tell him that this is what you're thinking - see if that wakes him up.

I went back to work full time at 3 months and my DS went to nursery. I'm also the higher earner and work in tech.

If he doesn't want to be a SAHP or take an extended paternity leave, you can't force him so you're option would be childcare from 3 months or taking the more typical maternity leave of 6-9 months.

With how you describe your husband, there's absolutely no way I'd be going part time just in case you decide to end the marriage.

Yes, I think in a situation like this where the OP is already paying more than her partner even proportionally to their income, the only way to ensure she doesn't get shafted even more is to insist that all income goes into a joint account from which all bills including childcare are paid, and that they each get a little spending money each month. Otherwise he will continue to spend money on crap and she'll be footing the entire childcare bill.

@greyA remember that marriage benefits the poorer partner. You are on a trajectory to being a very high earner. Your husband appears to be some sort of immature man child. When you eventually tire of him, he will take half your wealth and pension (that he’s done nothing to contribute to - he won’t be giving up his career or running to house to enable you to earn). Think very seriously of getting out now and protecting yourself and your child financially

This
Read this
Think about it
How early are you in the pregnancy? early enough to have choices?

Not read the full thread but you're making your precious baby out to be a massive burden.

If this is your first once he or she is born you might feel horrified at leaving them at 3 months old.

Why have you mated with a man who leaves all the housework and domestic work to you? That was a big clue that that he would expect the same with childcare. It’s unsurprising that he’s now refusing to put his money where his mouth is wrt childcare.

Babies are precious but they are also a burden. They are a huge financial and emotional burden.

The best situation to bring a precious baby into is one where you are in a stable, equal relationship with another adult who is willing to contribute half the effort required to take care of them. If you're the one going through pregnancy and childbirth and postpartum, potentially breastfeeding, having to take at least a short time off work, your partner needs to be contributing more than half the effort in other ways, e.g. earning, housework, nappies etc.

The next best situation to bring a precious baby into is one where your partner isn't quite contributing enough but still, all things considered, makes your life easier and more pleasant than if they weren't in it.

The next best situation after that to bring a precious baby into is one where you are completely on your own and you know that, but you can do things your own way and you aren't having to support another adult.

The worst situation to bring a precious baby into is one where you are in a relationship with another adult who makes your life harder, not easier.

The OP certainly isn't in the first situation, so she needs to take a good hard look at this relationship and decide whether she's in the second best situation or the worst situation. If her partner is making things harder rather than easier she should bin him off and go it alone.

And yes, she may well not want to leave her baby at three months old, but she might not have the choice. Her partner isn't stepping up, and someone needs to pay the bills.

The OP certainly isn't in the first situation, so she needs to take a good hard look at this relationship and decide whether she's in the second best situation or the worst situation. If her partner is making things harder rather than easier she should bin him off and go it alone.

I agree.

That's something Arlie Hochschild picked up on in her study. The reasons why higher earning women spent more time on domestic work and childcare than their lower earning husbands make interesting reading.

Anyway OP, leaving larger questions aside, I can't help wondering if your partner has just been telling you things you wanted to hear.

This.

in what world is it ok for your partner to refuse to take parental leave and send a 3 month old to childcare when you don’t need to.

OP you’re obviously not going to
leave this guy so you need to sit down with him and have serious talk about the division of Labour and if he really won’t contribute in any way to the household other than £650 pm, then you’ve got bigger problems.

Very few of my friends who are high earners took a full year off, OP. Nor did I. I know you said you want that because "everyone else seems to," but it's not actually that common for women in senior positions, at least that I know. Just to reassure you a bit. By 9 months postpartum, everyone in my circle had gone back apart from one and she is a SAHM.

As others have said there's unfortunately zero chance of you successfully working from home with a baby. Maybe in the very early days when they nap all the time (and even then, the times when they're hungry and need changing will be totally out of your control, so if they start crying for milk or fill their nappy while you're in the middle of a meeting, you're stuck). Then from three/four-ish months onwards baby will want constant interaction and stimulation (plus all the feeding and changes)....

I'm surprised at how many people are arguing that just because your husband is a lower earner he shouldn't be the one staying at home if you guys decide against childcare. I'm assuming you have mortgage bills to pay and other outgoings that are based on having a much higher household income than his alone could provide while you're off.

Anyway, in terms of solutions, if you don't want baby in full time nursery in the first year, could you speak to your employer about the feasibility of 3 days a week, say, so baby is only in childcare for those 3 days and gets the other 4 days of the week (so still the majority!) with you. Would that work at all?

Could you offset what dh would lose If he dropped his salary to a nanny who has the baby in the home with you while you are wfh so you have what dh would have provided but he is in work?

I don't think anyone should be forced to take a longer maternity/paternity leave than they want. Man or woman.

It certainly wouldn't be good for the baby to have someone at home with them who doesn't want to be there.

I can't believe people are suggesting the OP should contribute more financially (note she is already contributing 6k more a year as she stated) while she does the majority of the domestic work and is also pregnant. That's like reverse feminism.

You're not wrong about it not being in the baby's interests to be looked after by someone who doesn't want to do that.

But do you think the OP's other half should be forced to do anything he doesn't want? Because it sounds like he doesn't want to do equal childcare, he doesn't want to pull his weight around the house, he doesn't want to get a better paid job, and he doesn't want to facilitate the OP's career.

So she doesn't get to decide that she doesn't want to do these things. She has to do all the things he doesn't want to do, because if she doesn't, no one will.

He should absolutely pull his weight around the house, OP shouldn't be working FT and doing everything around the house too.

OP can decide if she wishes to take a more average maternity leave as opposed to a shorter one
OP can decide to stop doing everything around the house, especially things that may benefit him
OP can decide if she should even stay married at all because I don't think I would in her position

But she can't make him stay at home with the baby.

She can't decide to take a longer maternity leave if she literally can't afford it though, that's the point. And she can't really decide to stop doing everything around the house, because there will soon be a baby living there and it needs to be at least a reasonably clean, safe, habitable environment.

She can decide to get rid of him though, which I would be seriously contemplating in her position.

Can she not afford it? She was previously talking about going part time so I assumed going back at 3 months was a choice because I work in the same industry and went back FT at 3 months too because as OP says, it is fast paced but it was completely by choice.

OP can do the basics to keep things reasonably clean and safe of course but she certainly doesn't have to cook for him or wash his clothes.

Well she says they can't afford to pay the bills on his salary alone. I assume the three months is based on how long she can stay off before she drops down to SMP and they can no longer afford to make ends meet.

I agree she should stop cooking and washing for him, but I think once you get to the point where you are making dinner just for yourself and not your partner because they are a lazy cocklodger, your relationship is over, isn't it? My husband and I sometimes just sort out our dinner separately by each eating different leftovers from the fridge, or sometimes I might just make myself some pasta because he's not hungry or he wants something else, but I can't imagine either of us just deciding to cook separately because we're so pissed off with the other person.