How much time do you & dp spend together?

[Charl94]

Hi all, I am wondering if I am being unreasonable about the amount of time me and dp spend together and how much time you all spend with yours?

my dp works 7 days a week. The ONLY time he will take days off is at Christmas, the dc’s birthdays and the very rare time we go on a little getaway (usually once a year). For example, we went away as a family (still in the uk) a few months ago which was Monday-Friday. He was straight back to work at 6am on Saturday. He is self-employed and gets to schedule clients/dictate his hours etc.

this is how his week usually looks:

-Monday starts 6am home 2pm
sometimes will have the evening off/recently has been scheduling clients in the evening again
-Tuesday starts 6am home 1/2pm back to work again at 5pm then home at 10:30pm
-Wednesday same as Tuesday
-Thursday has the morning off, doesn’t start work till 4pm home 10:30pm
-Friday starts 6am home 2pm off for the evening
-Saturday & Sunday starts 8am back home 8pm-ish

Now, baring in mind he begins getting ready for work 1.5hr before he starts. On the days when he has a break in the middle of the day, he comes home and naps to catch up on his sleep until his evening shift.

We are a member of a family leisure club so on Monday (if he’s not working) and Friday evenings we take the dc, they go into a club and we either go gym/spa and then take the dc into swimming after. This totals 2.5hrs. We then head home and although he will sit on the couch and may put a movie on, he will be on his phone the ENTIRE time. This happens every single time. He feels like he’s spending time with me but in reality he’s just ‘there’ and I’m just there. Usually at the other end of the couch while he’s on his phone then we go to bed.

when it comes to the weekends, I take the dc to their clubs and spend time with them but I am always alone. It’s so lonely especially when I see other families out together enjoying their weekends. He will then come home around 8pmish on the weekend, maybe put on a show on tv but stays on his phone playing games/texting etc the entire time.

I feel so lonely, I understand he works a lot and that he wants to unwind when he’s home but he is still a parent and I still deserve some sort of attention as his partner, someone to talk to etc. I snapped at him tonight after the dc are in bed, he out a movie on but has been on his phone playing a game for hours he then got annoyed at me and told me I’m stressing him out and left me to go to bed.

am I being unreasonable to think we should spend more time together? How often do you spend with your dp? I don’t want to asd stress to his life, I’m aware he works hard which is why I back off and don’t disturb him. I raise the dc, take care of the home etc.

That sounds awful, no wonder you feel lonely.

We spend way more time together than would suit most people. DH has a fully remote job and I run my own business from home with some weekend work away from home and we have a child in school and a baby. We’re together most of the time which works for us.

No one needs to work 7 days a week, that’s a choice. How well can he know his children?

Doesn't sound like a relationship at all. Just 2 people sharing the bills. We often do things as a family, do plenty as a 2, and also do stuff separately if we wish.

Too much at the moment. He works from home. Won't go to the office and so apart from my days at work we are together. I feel claustrophobic and I need some time away from him. And by that I mean time in my own home in peace and quiet without him hanging around. I'm surrounded by people and noise constantly. I can go out and see friends but I crave alone time.

I'm starting to resent him and finding him more and more boring as he's never out the house.

I would struggle in that situation with taking care of the dc so much on my own. DH and I spend pretty much the whole weekend together, we've made a decision not to do extracurriculars at weekends so we can do family days out all together. Spending that time together is really important for us for sharing parenting and bonding. Mon-Fri DH leaves for work at 8.15am so he helps with dc in the morning and is at home at 5.30pm and he rarely works once he's at home, so we spend the evening together although some of it is separate as we take one dc each for bed/bath time.

After the dc are in bed I admit I do the sitting on the sofa with him while I'm on my phone and he watches TV. It's my way to unwind and I'm not interested in his TV programmes. But we'll often have a pause and a chat.

I do think some people with their own business are very driven and have to work long hours to build it up. And it can pay off very well financially, so it's their contribution to family life. DH is lucky that his work is well paid but doesn't need long hours outside of office hours, bit it would be needed in other industries.

The issue here is the number of days he works, across the year.

I mean, if I were working that much, I think any time I weren't working, I would just be mindlessly sitting in front of TV or on phone too. I wouldn't have energy for anything else.

Why does he work that much ? Does he need to to make ends meet ?
Could he work less if you worked more ? (not sure how much you do work)

I think that is what you (both) need to sort out, rather than following some fantasy of "family time" for the odd hours he does have when he isn't working.

Obviously people work different shift patterns and not everyone works Mon - Fri then has weekends off, but everybody has some pattern of time of a few times a month.

This is me! I feel so claustrophobic, fed up saying where in going every time I leave the house. I've tried saying how I need my space over and over but it doesn't make any difference. It's hard, isn't it?

It's just us two at home, so pretty much all the time. It's how we both feel happy though, I spend a lot of time with his family too.

No he doesn’t need to work that much. He has openly told me he could cut down to 1/2days a week if he wanted as he has saved so much.

He is obsessed with being financially secure and he just wants to work & save as much as possible… which seems to be no end at the moment. Fair enough it’s for the benefit of the dc and our future, to have a life that we never had growing up etc.

I work part time from home. I am trying to find a new full time role and maybe that will mean he doesn’t work as much? I believe he would still work this amount even if I was working full time though

I honestly felt like I was being over the top, nagging etc and that this was normal?

in terms of dc he will collect them from school (with me) on Mondays and Fridays and we take them to their club and then take them swimming after (on a Friday). During the day when they come home from school, he will be napping in bed and when he wakes to get ready he will see them around the house, talk to them whilst he gets dressed etc then he’s off to work and they’re in bed when he gets back. If he is home in the evening and the kids are still awake (the weekend for example when they stay up later) he has been putting a movie on and sitting on the couch with them, although he will be on his phone.

other than that, he spends time with them when we do our once a year getaway. On their birthday we will go somewhere, for Xmas he took 2 weeks off and we went out everyday with the kids. It seems to be that he will dedicate these ‘week’ holiday or Xmas periods and then think he doesn’t have to play an active parent role on a daily basis. He basically just does all the fun stuff with them.

for us, we may go to the gym/spa together at the club on a Monday or Friday evening and on my birthday this year he took me out on a date. That’s honestly about it. I feel like I am being ungrateful as he works hard. When I mentioned to him that he will put a movie on but just be on his phone the whole time he responded (it’s the little things that matter)… basically meaning I should be greatful he’s sitting there with me anyway

We probably spend more time together than many people. Dh is self employed & works from a home office + shared working space.
I work full time but v close to his shared space.
We travel in & out to work together every day & also mostly drop teens along the way too

Weekends we spend together too. Although it's easy for dh to slip into home working over the weekend. This was becoming an every weekend thing so we spoke about it & now unless he has a big deadline we don't work from Friday evening to Monday morning.

We loll in bed in the morning with coffee & chat on Saturdays. Catch up on housework or DIY. Cook something nice & have a glass of wine. Sometimes we'll watch separate things in separate rooms as we might be following different series.

Other times we follow things together so settle down for an episode of two of that.

We have an active social life so regularly meet friends for dinner or theater etc & I travel a lot with work. So if its been a busy few weeks of socialising/ travel we love to just nest in & have a quiet weekend.

I think your dh is working too much but also 'filling time' with work & has lost the ability to switch off & gain a balance. I think it's v common in self employed people as they don't have the same structures in place as in a salaried position

I found talking seriously about the impact its having was helpful.

Our dc are late teens now so far more independent of us but we still factor in meals together a minimum amount of times a week & we go out for dinner as a family once a month.