To feel 22 hours a week at work is too much?

[EnglishHamlet]

I have 2 DC both in primary school.
1 has diagnosed SEN which requires a lot of input from me, the other has undiagnosed stuff going on which causes a lot of behaviour, mental and emotional input from me.
They both attend primary school full/normal days. They'd actually both benefit emotionally from a reduced timetable but Head Teacher says they don't fit the criteria for that as they're both high functioning. Anyway that's another story.
I work 22 hours a week during school hours.
It really feels like too much. I'm under constant strain and pressure. It's really full on at home and it's really full on at work.
I keep trying to do my best, keep thinking I'm lucky to work 22 hours and not full time hours.
DH works ridiculously long hours. He gets home hours later than his contracted time to finish due to immense workload which is never going to improve.
So I do everything re looking after the DC and everything at home too re domestic stuff.
By the time DH gets home they're fast asleep in bed, I've done all homework with DC, taken them to the park, cooked dinner, bathed them, read stories to them, settled them to sleep, then after their bedtime I've done the housework and tidied up everywhere by myself, put laundry away etc., and this is after having got up at 6am to get DC ready for school, breakfast, packed lunches, taken them to school then gone straight to work straight after drrop off to do a highly demanding job whilst DC are at school then finish and go straight to school to pick DC up. By the time DH walks in at 9pm I'm absolutely frazzled. He walks in and I haven't stopped since 6am. I have 1 day off a week and spend it sorting things out at home, laundry, cleaning, life admin, etc.
Can't reduce hours as we need the money. All the late evenings DH does are unpaid, he gets his salary (middle earner) and is expected to do the job no matter how long that takes, his workload is colossal.
So AIBU to feel like 22 hours a week of work is too much? I feel like I'm being such a princess even asking this question. But I'm burning out!!!
Edited for typos.

22 IS too much if you're struggling, but then you say you need the money so you're stuck anyway.
The issue is you are doing it all as a single parent but one who has the washing, cooking and emotional/physical requirements of another random adult on top.

From a practical point of view, have you gone through his salary, yours, deductions, bills and tried to find some saving? Do you get CB, DLA for the kids? Can you free up cash for a cleaner or is there a ope to drop your hours to the threshold for carers?

But the issue is, do they even know who their Dad is? Is he able to care for them alone? Does it bother him his kids are strangers? I get being so burnt out he lacks the capacity to find a new job or fight for better terms at this one but SOMETHING has to change, or break. And if it's you, the whole pack collapses

Could you wfh at all?

It’s very tiring working school hours when you have to squeeze work in to the school day then rush home for the after school shift.

I also echo pp who suggest working the same 22 hours over more full days and putting dc in after school care on those days (if possible).

I also think a lot of men actually secretly prefer staying at work a bit later, and then coming in when bathtime is done / kids are in bed / house is tidy.

I also agree with this. So much easier to stay at work and opt out of the home drudgery. How nice to just work a few extra hours and then come home to everything having been done for you.

I’m a single mum of 3 children (one has significant SEN) and I work 22 hours a week. I’ve found it easier to work one long day (with a nanny after school) and 3 short days then have Fridays off - is that an option for you? Also I have a cleaner fortnightly and someone who helps with ironing / putting washing away. I feel your pain though!

This.

Plus - working such long hours - isn't your DH in theory adding to "patient safety" concerns?

Your question only asks for validation for feeling overwhelmed. It doesn't seek solutions. I think anyone would feel overwhelmed and like 22hrs a week in a full on job was too much on top of everything else.

But you also say you risk burning out. If that happens, you won't be able to manage all of this anymore. So you need to get ahead of that happening. Do you want suggestions or are you just going to wait until you break under the pressure and can't function at all?

As usual a husband issue - he needs to change his job

Martyring yourself for the NHS is completely counterproductive as well. The more you do unpaid, the more they expect it and no action is ever taken to make proper improvements, because lack of staff isn’t really seen as an issue since the work gets done. They take massive advantage of their workers, gaslight them into believing it’s for the greater good (patient safety) and the workload isn’t that bad, why can’t you get it done in normal working hours ect…..and the martyrs let them and then moan to others about how much they do unpaid and blah blah blah. Just stop doing it! I finally have.

YADNBU. My kids are 17 and 11 (neither have anu SEN or other issues whatsoever). I work fewer hours than you do and would not be able to cope with upping my hours.

Is there any scope for reducing your hours at all?

I think 22 hours a week is a delightful easy life tbh, it sounds like you actually need more money so why on earth would you even consider reducing? But then I work at least 40 and always have . ( and yes Mn , one of my kids also has ASD and ADHD and I was a single parent for 5 years and no don’t have a cleaner or a nanny!)

The thing about the NHS is it never stops, there’s always someone else needing to be seen/admin/whatever. At some point in the evening your husband does actually decide to stop and go home, despite the fact there will be work to be done, so he needs to accept he is working too much and work to bring that forward to a far more reasonable time. About 90 minutes before he leaves, he needs to figure out what he won’t get done and escalate to his managers, fill in an incident form if necessary and leave on time.

It’s that simple. I’m assuming he’s not an actual medic or nurse as you don’t mention shifts.

He will not be disciplined for leaving on time. He’s got himself into a never ending spiral, but he just needs to make peace with the fact that it will never all be done and that’s it. Leave. See your kids. That’s the point.

Good for you 🙄
If you have a child with ASD, and ADHD you will also know that they are both huge spectrums and just because you can cope working full time doesn't mean everyone can
I gave up.work when my autistic child was three ,and he's nearly 14 but cognitively around 2/ 3 years of age completely non verbal ,very challenging etc etc ,in a special school ,there is no way I could work.

Well you’re saying you can’t cut back so focus on how you can make it work. How are you doing chores until 9 if you are all out all day? Leave the house tidy and when you get back it’s still tidy? Stick the TV for 30mins for the kids whilst you make tea. Whilst tea is cooking you do homework with them. Then dinner showers/baths and into PJs back downstairs for 30mins sofa time together - you can use this time to quickly put dishes away after dinner and do any little jobs you need. Then up to bed 7.15 they are sleep by 7.30. Once you come down after bedtime everything is done so you can just chill

Of course YANBU to feel like 22 hours at work is too much when you also have 100% of the housework and childcare on top of that. You compare it to working full time before DC, but that is entirely self-explanatory.

I agree with what so many PP have said about your husband, so won’t repeat it. The suggestion to have one day a week when your husband commits to being home by 6 and does the whole evening routine is a great one, my husband and I have a similar agreement and it really gives me a lot of breathing space. I do sometimes use my “free” evening to catch up on work, but that makes the rest of my work week calmer.

However, can we look a bit more closely at your job? I have a few questions:

1. is it a career job, and the same one you had before children?
2. Do you enjoy it and get intellectual satisfaction from it?
3. what is the source of the pressure- managers, targets, your own personal high standards, lazy colleagues, external factors like difficult patients or clients?
4. Is it term-time only? Others have assumed this but I don’t think you said that.
5. Does it have scope to WFH?
6. When you finish at 3pm, or whenever your contracted finish time is, do you feel in control and are you able to switch off completely for the day?
7. Do you ever end up catching up on your non working day or at weekends?
8. Is there potential for progression?

Can either or both children do any after-school clubs to allow you to work a longer day or just catch your breath?

I had very little choice. It’s doable when you don’t have choice!

you’re lucky to have had the choice.

I'm a single parent and I cut my hours at work I do 3 school hour shifts. I work EOW most of the time but that's my agency job!. Yes OP it is too much for you.

Bonus for you, you have 2 incomes. Can you shave any bills down OP?

@Youcannotbeseriousreally is your child non verbal?

I think the husband is getting a hard time here when actually it is incredibly difficult working within the NHS right now, it’s easy to say he should just leave at x time etc but actually the reality is the vast majority of NHS staff at the moment are working beyond their hours, and I wonder how many of the posters here saying he should just go home regardless would still be saying that if he was the one taking care of them/their parent/child/family member. All I’m saying is it is so much easier said than done to “just leave on time”, when you have multiple patients relying on you, when your colleagues and managers are all in the same boat working overtime, it’s incredibly difficult to just walk out.

You do have a choice ,disabled children are entitled to DLA ,and then there is carers allowance, universal credit etc it's choice many parents of disabled children have to make who else would care for my child ,there won't be any child minders etc wanting to look after a a teenager with the cognitive ability of a toddler ,I wouldn't say I'm lucky having a child with complex needs.

You’ve jumped on me because you just didn’t agree and now you want to hold me to account in proving your life is harder and you are justified in quitting.

no ta, not getting involved.

What about taking a compromise approach and carving out one set day a week when he absolutely has to be out of the building by 5:30 pm? Surely that must be do-able? (He isn’t patient-facing/clinical by the sound of it. Not a total solution but every little helps.

Thanks but I don’t want a life determined by benefits.

Bluntly speaking 22 hours working with kids at primary school age would be a very good balance for most people.

It's sounds like you're putting yourself under too much pressure on the house work side of things though: mine slips during the week and I catch up at weekends

Nobodies jumped on you ,just pointing out that autism and other spectrum conditions are just that spectrums ,you might be able to cope with your child, s disabilities and working full time ,but just because you can doesn't mean everyone can

@Mrsttcno1 you make a fair point - But also dh is doing this EVERY day and he isn’t giving the OP any choice in the matter, so she is bearing the brunt of his dedication perhaps more than he is, because he has a “full service” lifestyle with his meals made and his home cleaned and his clothes laundered - frankly OP might be better off without him (other than financially) as he appears to be rather a dead weight in the household. When two married people have children they don’t plan to have all these problems, but they should face them together. It rather sounds like this dh has opted out and is just exploiting his dw’s goodwill.

I think the OP needs to candidly explain to her dh that even if he can keep up the pace of 14 hour days, it is only because SHE is facilitating it and she is no longer going to do so. He needs to trim his hours at least somewhat within reason: come home and do kids bedtime twice a week then he can stay up as late as he likes doing admin; do the weekly shopping and the batch cooking every other weekend … whatever.