To think DH is wrong and this isn't the norm for most families?

[jobstressfedup]

I'm at the end of my tether with DH's job at the moment. It's just not family friendly at all. He works long shifts (often 6am-6pm), nights, and every other weekend. Some shifts even include a 9pm finish. My job is a relatively "normal" 9-5, 4 days a week. Therefore our weekends are all we have as a family.

The hardest part of this is the absence every other weekend. For example this weekend he's worked 6am-6pm both Saturday and Sunday. It's my day off today and he's back working 8-5. I look after our toddler by myself when he's working (no family support nearby). I've told him this is starting to get to me now, and I'd like him to consider a more family friendly job where we get every weekend together not just every other. Some months he will even opt to do overtime on one of his weekends off, meaning we only get one weekend a month.

When I discussed this with DH he said "most jobs" will likely involve an element of weekend or early morning / late evening working and that this is norm for "most families". I disagree and think most families probably have at least their weekends together.

Who's correct?

I was think fire, paramedic?

No I don’t think ‘most jobs’ involve weekend work. I’m thinking of all the families I know with children at home and not one of them has a parent doing weekend work. I feel for you not having family time at weekends and yanbu.

@jobstressfedup I think you would be surprised how many people work shift patterns which include at least some working weekends. Even with office jobs, the more senior you are, the more time you may have to spend at weekends/evenings working - or travelling for meetings etc and staying overnight for a night or two.

Also - once your daughter is at school, you will find that there is likely ever increasing needs to take her to various clubs, swimming, etc at weekends. All kinds of extra-curricular things. You won't have the entire weekend to just do things as a family as you are hoping.

If your husband works a lot of nightshifts he will be getting a higher rate of pay for those hours than he would get working during the day. Plus the overtime will also pay extra. If you can only 'just' find the £200 which might be needed if you switched your non-working day to the same as his one, then you do both clearly need the money he is bringing in, by the looks of it?

You do need to build in some time once or twice a month, depending on his shifts, to have ''date night time'. If you have no babysitter, you could build in time for you both to just chill, have a takeaway/whatever you both like doing but at home once your daughter is in bed? That is vital to keep your relationship strong

I know how hard it is, but by the time your daughter is at school it will be much easier. Toddlers are horrendously hard work, and they do start to grow up.

YABU
Lots of jobs are not conducive to family life and not 9-5 Mon to Friday.
Doctors for example,

Normal for some, not for others. DH and I didn’t have any days off that coincided for years apart from a family holiday once every three years. We just worked opposite shifts/days and I pulled a LOT of overtime. Essentially, we wanted to save on care costs for the kids in order to get ahead while we could so a deliberate act on our parts, not forced on us. Closest family several hours away but still doable with kids (fucking hard and I ran in zero sleep for years, but doable). I also knew a fair few people that deliberately worked weekend shifts as it was convenient as it saved on care costs during the week and their spouse was home on weekends to look after the kids.

Adding up all the people in my close family who work longer than 8 - 5, Mon to Friday, I come up with at least half working some type of over time and/or flexible work that involves part of one or two weekends per month.
The feilds of work with long hours are medical - varied, small business, banking, engineering, animal care, computer programming, hospitality. The most regular hours in our family are in teaching and drafting but that still means some long days.

which makes me feel he's putting himself and his career ahead of our family
For most men this is the default Modus operandi

Thy sounds really tough! My DH works every other weekend (just one day) and works very long hours Monday-Friday. It can be really difficult with young children. I hope your DH will listen and look at any potential options.

normal for me, DH is working every other weekend due to shift pattern. we have one DC. I found it hard when DC was young and i’d gone back to work, but i’ve settled into a routine and it isn’t so bad now. Just means we have to enjoy the weekends we do have. His shift actually works well for holidays as 1 weeks leave results in 3 weeks off so we do get the time back in other ways. He could leave but similar job roles doesn’t pay as much, would involve weekends anyway or night shifts. He’s in the engineering sector

You could work full time and then he does no overtime which would bring in more than him doing overtime. All the time you do have would then be family time

Agree. If you have the higher earning potential you should be prioritising your job.

OP I think you know UABU.

He's pointed out to you that he cannot earn the same money elsewhere as he doesn't have the skills and qualifications to get a 9-5 job, as you call it.

The job market is really hard at the moment and even though it's not great for family life there are some sacrifices some families are having to make.

It depends. If the overtime is essential
to housing and feeding child then fine. If it’s not, then why do all that extra work instead of spending finite time with your young family. I doubt OP would be posting if it’s literally a case of he works that hard or they can’t get by.

If you outearn him on paper, why don’t you look at increasing your hours and agree that when that kicks in he won’t take OT. Try that for a while to give him a chance to decompress his currently hectic schedule a bit and get into the swing of a bit more family time. If that seems beneficial to everyone perhaps that’s enough of a change. If not talk again and perhaps he will have more capacity, with you shouldering more out of the house work, to consider looking for other work/moving up to a management position in his field or something.

In many fields it’s really not that easy just to walk into a new job, and looking for work while doing intense hours is extremely demanding on one’s mental energy and wellbeing.

I think you’re not unreasonable to want to build a life in which you are all less burnet out and have more time together, but you’re unreasonable to expect him to facilitate this - you may also need to compromise your ideal work/life balance if spending more time as a family is important to you.

My DPs job is shifts, he gets one weekend off a month. He’ll work a week of lates (midnight finish) a week of earlies (4am start) a week of semi lates (8/9pm finish) and a week of splits (start at 6am, home for a few hours at lunch time and finish at 6pm.)

Not family friendly but we make the most of his one weekend off a month and also he loves his job. It also means that apart from the splits week he can always do either school drop off or pick up all week.

OP as you’re the bigger earner for FTE hours, is the no option for him to reduce his hours and for you to go full time? I know this might not be ideal but it seems you’re not really enjoying your day off (and I say that lightly as I know it’s not a day off with a toddler!) so wouldn’t it make sense for him to reduce hours and you to up yours?

Life has got v hard for people and a lot of people are forced to rely on the state.it doesn't make them spongers.

Mind you, is there any guarantee that if he worked Monday to Friday 9-5, that he would actually step up and do stuff in the home and help with the kids??? A lot of women would tell you otherwise!

I think he may be right. Any other job in his industry/sector with his quals/skills will either require weekends.....or be paid significantly less.

Where I work weekend working attracts a 10% salary lift....but evenings do not.
And so managers often end up taking home less than the teams that work for them as they don't do shifts or overtime.

If he likes the job and its well paid ,it may not be the best but EOW is not the worst either! I would not push it too far and maybe make the most of the weekends you have together

Me increasing to full time won't match what his overtime brings home anyway. It's an option of course, but it only gives us an extra £450 ish a month if I increase by one day. After we've then paid the extra nursery day (£240 pm), we are left with around £210 extra a month. His overtime typically triples this.

People focussing on the overtime are also somewhat missing the point. Even without overtime he's contracted to work EOW anyway, which significantly eats into our family time.

Non Working Day

Yes he's contracted to work at least EOW, no getting out of that. He gets one set mid week day off, when he looks after our toddler. I look after her a different mid week day (my NWD), so we have opposite days off with her (to keep nursery costs as low as possible)

I'm really sorry you're feeling so burnt out - but you come across as wanting nothing to change other than your husband changing his job. You don't want to combine days off because you lose money. You don't want to go FT so he can stop doing OT because you lose money.

Personally I think you need to accept one of these compromises as many other families do, especially when their children are little. We had basically nothing to spend on 'family days out' when our kids were toddlers - you need to cut your cloth IMO.