To think giving me one day a week actually isn’t ok?? Or AIBU?

[wpur]

DH works away in the week and on Saturdays he has to do ‘admin.’ He is high up in the NHS and prior to having dd he did always work Saturdays in his office room in our house. I wouldn’t see him pretty much all day.

Since having dd he had to relocate for work, this was not his fault and he has taken the best job he can. It is not possible for him to come home in the week, it’s too far and would be pointless anyway as dd is long in bed before he gets back. No point me relocating with him as I have all my family nearby and his contact is only fixed for 9 months… then the search will begin again for another job.

He has started coming home late Saturday night (after dd is in bed) and then staying all day Sunday until she has gone to bed. He relocated for work when she was 6 months and she’s now 17 months. I am sick of doing everything alone. He has said I can take the entire day on a Sunday to myself, either go out alone or we all go out as a family, or he will do entertain her all day while I am in the house doing my own thing etc.

I feel like this is unacceptable and he should be back late Friday night to help on Saturdays too. He says it is pointless as he can’t avoid the Saturday admin work and he would just have to do it when back at home and it would take him longer to get through it. He thinks giving me a day to myself a week is sufficient in the circumstances. AIBU? I am so fed up and angry that I genuinely don’t know if I’m being unreasonable.

I’m still struggling with the physical impossibility of 500 emails to respond to every evening, 250 of which are urgent. I just don’t think that you do yourself any favours by throwing out figures that are infeasible if you want to make a point about your funding and working conditions.

@Heather37231 @FarmGirl78

NHS consultants have contracts and job plans, divided into 'sessions', with each session being around half a day / 4 hours. Our basic pay is calculated based on how many sessions we're contracted for.

However, this doesn't take into account several other factors...

If I'm in the middle of treating someone, I'm not going to just down tools and walk out at 5pm. Emergency operations, interventions, assessments, etc can't just be postponed for clinicians' convenience. And it's often not possible to safely hand over to someone else - if there even is someone else that could take over.

If I've spent all day seeing patients and managing emergencies, I still need to get the necessary information to do my job effectively the next day. Whether I do that preparation the night before or get up early and do it in the morning, it's still needing to be done before my working day starts.

Another issue for OP's husband will be that he's not yet in a substantive post - he's a locum consultant. That means he doesn't have much job security and will rely on having a competitive CV and references if he wants to get a permanent post in the future. If he clocks in and out as per the minimum terms of his contract, that won't happen. There'll be patient complaints, colleagues won't feel he's a team player, he'll miss out on being able to do the additional work that's really crucial for career progression. If he wants to stay as a locum in less desirable vacancies, he could probably get away with doing the bare minimum. But if he wants better opportunities and potentially a substantive post in an area suitable for his family, then he needs to put in a lot of time and effort now.

Management structures are often not particularly supportive of reality-based job plans, requests for resources, etc. I'd say about 90% of consultants I know (including CDs) work way more hours than are in our job plans.

(Oh, if anyone's thinking "well, she can't be working that hard if she's on here now", I'm on leave today and thoroughly enjoying it).

OK, but how come you and @Psychonabike have such different takes on this? You are both within the system.

All day in bed on a Sunday until your daughter is asleep so what he sees her when exactly? Why did he even take this job? Do you work as well OP? Sounds like this arrangement is a complete disaster but I also think his commitment to his child is in the toilet.

It's a shit situation and lots of professionals work away and work very long hours

But....if he isn't commuting during the week, and isn't doing household/family stuff during the week, surely she should have time to do that admin in the evenings.
Otherwise how would ANYONE be able to do that job in a week?

No-one should be working 12 hour days/60 hour weeks but let's say he is....as alot do. 8am to 8pm.....then "admin" on top for another 6/8 hours? he either needs to point out its far too much and can't be done, or do those hours during the week working a 14 hour day.
Being sensible he should take the first option.

YANBU....you both may need to compromise income for wellbeing.

He certainly shouldn't be doing 8-10 hour days. Then going to the gym/pub/watching TV. Then having a saturday lie in, before doing 3-4hrs admin and coming home AFTER LO is in bed.

@Scirocco

You said

If I've spent all day seeing patients and managing emergencies, I still need to get the necessary information to do my job effectively the next day. Whether I do that preparation the night before or get up early and do it in the morning, it's still needing to be done before my working day starts.

On that basis, OP’s husband has to do the same during his weekday evenings. He can’t postpone to Saturday. Are you then saying that there is still an additional full day’s extra work every Saturday?

@Heather37231 possibly different specialities/subspecialties - there can be significant variations. We're also likely in different trusts/health boards - they may be lucky enough to be in one with good resources for their specialty and management with a supportive approach to staff retention and recruitment.

Quite possibly. If I extrapolate from my own job, I could easily have that amount of work to do. I work 'part-time' now as I like my DC and my DH and now that I've got a permanent post I can take that opportunity (while recognising the cost in terms of further career advancement).

What I do is get most of it done after DC's bedtime, then go in to work maybe 45 minutes 'early' to get the last bits done. Then I have 4 or 5 hours or so to do at the weekend.

Scaling that up, and factoring in that OP's husband also needs travel time and to have Sunday free for seeing his family, I can easily see him having 8 or 9 hours needing done on the Saturday. In fact, I know people doing very similar work patterns up and down the country.

So on that basis you do agree that the contractual structure is what @Psychonabike describes, but there is a range of possible real-life scenarios superimposed upon that. We have no way of knowing how much of his situation OP’s husband can change or challenge, so surely it’s worth her sitting down and getting this detail from him, to make sure he is not making his own situation worse through habitual behaviours/lack of efficiency/inability to accept that his life outside work has changed. Rather than someone who has never met him just saying that he must be doing everything he can and that’s just how the job is?

@Heather37231 it's definitely worth her discussing with him to see if they can find any options. I'd also suggest that she tell him that she can't go on like this, if she feels like she can't go on with the current arrangements. Resentment isn't good in any relationship, and relationships with children and high-pressure careers need (in my opinion) to have good communication and organisation. What I'm describing is pretty much the norm, though.

I know it's probably been mentioned but HIS time is every evening and a full nights sleep 6 nights a week! OP is on 24/7, if baby wakes in the night, it's all on her.

Lots of people arguing the toss about working hours - if he has to work every hour god sends inc a full day on a Saturday then he should be earning a very decent salary and you can use some to outsource labour - childcare, cleaner etc

If he's not paid well then you need to question whether this set up is right for your family. Him working away ALL week and 50% of EVERY weekend sounds exhausting for you and I'd be seriously considering whether or not his job is worth it all

She can’t outsource companionship and his just being present within the family, no matter how much he is earning. It seems that the lack of effort to be physically and emotionally close is her biggest issue.

There is a lot more to this situation than the OP has said in this thread. She posts about this every few months or so.

Probably, she's peed off. But it is what it is. She's free to leave him and find a 9-5 guy Monday to Friday. I never had that. But adapted.

If he's working 6 days a week then I don't think there's anything wrong with what he is doing. If he's swanning around on sat then that's a different matter. The fact is that it's just hard at that age. My DH and I have busy jobs and young kids and neither of us have any regular time for ourselves. It's just the way it goes.

He is not in corporate law, he has a real job, he is responsible for people's lives.

You made that “joke” about management consultants too and nobody laughed then either.

Give it a rest.

I am not joking, I am amazed people can compare a NHS consultant with such jobs as management consultants and corporate law. Do people genuinely see no difference? In effort, responsibility, consequences? Seriously?

It really doesn't help the perception that consultants have God complexes when this sort of thing is posted.

There are certain common issues, practices and themes that run through many different jobs. It’s perfectly possible to draw analogies without getting into some sort of superiority contest where only jobs that involve saving lives can be described as “proper jobs”. That’s just petty.

I also notice you had nothing constructive to add anyway, yet presumably you also work in the NHS as you would not deign to do any other sort of job. Why not share your experience then?

My ex did this. Opted out of family life. It wasnt for him.

I'm sorry, but as big a responsibility being a doctor is, it doesn't stop other jobs being "proper".

Anyone doing an honest day's work is doing a proper job. And we learned during the pandemic that MANY professions are remarkably undervalued....cleaner's, shop assistants etc.

What you mean is a "respectable profession" like many snobby upper middle class wannabes see them. Own it, you're a snob.

Oh and by the way, if we are going to get really picky about this @ORLt , the comparison with corporate law was that it involves very long hours but not as consistently long as the hours that OP’s DH is doing. You were suggesting that the reason for this is that he is doing a “proper job” where lives are at stake, so of course it’s more demanding.

Just think that through for a moment- shouldn’t the person making life or death decisions be getting more rest, for precisely that reason? I damn well would not want to be operated on or diagnosed by someone who had barely had any rest that week. Pilots, for example, have very strict rest requirements, because lives are also in their hands. Ditto lorry drivers.

Your “proper job” response is nut only rude, it doesn’t even make logical sense!

No, I do not work in the NHS, I am self-employed and I already shared my experience in one of the posts, where I say I would have loved to have been in OP shoes when my DC was born. And you got me wrong - I am not a snob, I equate the job of a surgeon to that of a nurse to that of a school cook, to that of a bus driver (responsible for many more people's lives during the shift). Those are the jobs I call 'real', i.e. impact on lives and health.

Is he the only earner? It’s hard to be objective without knowing that. If he is and he is working all this time to provide I don’t think you have an argument or should expect a full free day as that could be detrimental to his mental health. If you are also working and doing the childcare I think you do have an argument against this situation.