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.

I think the stand out here is that your DH shows very little love or care for you. He knows that you are breaking. He just doesn't care enough to help you.

I agree with PP who said it may be time to talk about separation. If that doesn't jolt him into action, then you have your answer. You are just there to facilitate him. He doesn't care how bad it is for you.

I bet he hasn’t.

YANBU I am in a similar situation however only have one dc. Its exhausting. I used to do 22 hours over 3 days but now do it over 4 to accommodate school runs.

It is so difficult to fit in all the house work, life admin, meet child's needs and then have any actual relaxing time for myself.

DP has a good job with good hours but volunteers for a sports club which is 3 nights a week with stuff on top. It causes a lot of resentment. I don't know the answer. Hope things get better soon.

3 nights a week?! That's not on. I'm not surprised you're resentful.

I need to hear this sometimes! It's become such a norm to us that he sees no issue with it whatsoever. Also suspect he doesn't feel like it's something he does for himself but it absolutely is. The couple or hours at the club 3 times a week isn't even the half of it tbh lot of admin around it in the background. But sorry, don't mean to derail the thread. Just wanted to say I sympathise. It's hard. I am drained and firefighting most of the time.

Also my dc does not have diagnosed SEN but we suspect there are things at play and school have discussed it with us too.

I wouldn't usually suggest tit-for-tat type things but I do wonder what would happen if you decided to go out 3 nights a week (on 3 of the 4 nights he's not out!) for the next 2 weeks. Leave him to do bedtime and chores in the evening. Anything that doesn't get done because you're out just doesn't get done. I mean, you'll probably still want to make sure you and DC have clean clothes, but I wouldn't be doing his laundry.

Would you give it a go?

Due to my dc and how they are it just wouldn't work. DP never does any of these things and wouldn't do them the way DC is used to. It would be absolute chaos and although still tempting to try dc is very young and at school and needs sleep.

Funnily enough mothers day DP stepped u0 and did the bare minimum of jobs. Hoovered. Washed up. Did a load of washing / drying and I could tell come the night he was shattered and fed up. Would think that would be enough to realise.

Bloody hell. If he doesn't even do the basics of parenting and housework why are you even with him?! LTB time, methinks. Sorry but what else is there to do?!

I notice the OP hasn’t returned to respond to the comments from people with NHS experience.

The husband isn’t doing his colleagues any favours. When staff give in and do the unpaid overtime it makes life harder for colleagues who are unwilling or unable to.

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever of DH being able to make changes at work. - that is simply not true, he may believe it, he may have made you believe it, it's not true. He needs to decide where his priorities lie - with you and the children or with work. People can get into a "must work like this, no one else can do it, if I don't do it everything will fail" it is seldom true and, if it is that needs to be surfaced. He has raised it, bosses don't care, he is one person he can't be propping up the entire department, it's a story he is telling himself.

@EnglishHamlet is your husband clinical? Aka nurse/medic.
And does he work every day?

Just I'm the nurse in my relationship..... I work 13 hours and out the house 13-14 hours some days due to patient needs (I can't just leave a patients home and say....sorry your ambulance is delayed...or sorry your so unwell...I'm finished). I work 30 hours so that's 2.5 days. I go 2 day per week without seeing our daughter awake.

But even at full time that's 3 days per week with a top up shift every 4 weeks.

This goes round and round my head regularly , I'd sure have a lot less to do if there was one less person to run around after. However I'm so knackered at the moment I can't see the wood for the trees. Currently dealing with my own issues and I'm sure in time things will become clearer and more doable.

Of course you aren’t being unreasonable to struggle on those hours - I have two young DC and I find it almost impossible to keep on top of the house, laundry, food, life admin, homework etc. You either need to do less hours or hire more help to
make it work IMO

HOWEVER you have a DH problem. I’m not speaking from an uninformed position, I work in an NHS England role (management/policy role, not a clinical role although I am a registered clinician) in an under resourced team (don’t think there is any other kind in the NHS!). I earn 60k (I only say this for context as one person’s ‘medium salary’ is very different from another’s). I work on a team with people on about 30k-120k.

The NHS is a bottomless pit which will ask
and ask and ask until there is nothing more to. It’s a bad mental space to get into to think you are solely individually responsible for patient safety and one that is all too easy to get into. It’s a fast track to burn out which I have seen far too often. I could work 23 hours a day if I wanted to do my job well. I don’t because I value my mental health and my young family. I would strongly strongly recommend your husband makes an appointment with his line manager, occupational health and potentially with a therapist to discuss his relationship with work.

I would also add that about 50% of my team work standard 9-5. Inevitably about 20% can be a bit too relaxed whereas 30% work like you describe your DH doing.

In my experience doing what your DH does compared to the ‘normal’ hours has absolutely nothing to do with the importance of their role or their individual workload and absolutely everything to do with habit, confidence, capacity to set boundaries and prioritisation.

What’s your working pattern? You say you do 4 days but also that you go straight to work from
school drop off and straight back again in the afternoon. Most primary schools are 7:5 hours a day so that would be 26 hours over 4 days. Perhaps you have a longish commute, in which case can you swap to a home-based role or move jobs to something nearer to the school / home? I think the answer is not to reduce your hours necessarily, but to change your working pattern. I do 24 hours a week over 3 days, and use a mix of wraparound care and a reciprocal agreement with a friend, for my primary school child. My children have no additional needs, but do a lot of high level sports training so we are out at training every night but one during the week, and both days at weekends are competitions / matches sometimes in other countries or often 100s of miles away from home. I am still in active treatment for cancer too, and we live on a small holding with lots of animals, so we are a busy family. Although it’s a pain doing the longer days, it’s worth it to get 2 days ‘off’ a week. I do all my cleaning and errands within school hours on those two days, and I also usually find time to go for a run or a swim those days too. Then on working days I just do maintenance chores, make very simple meals, and try to do one load of washing and putting away as well as sorting out the animals morning and evening. My husband works full time and long hours but he gets stuck in with chores around the kids sports commitments at the weekends. I’d love to work fewer hours but we need the money so that’s how we make it work for us.

If your husband could reduce his overtime to a more reasonable level, say an hour or so a day, what would actually happen? He could say quite openly that he can't stay late every night, and that he usually can't finish his day’s workload in the available time, so perhaps his managers could prioritise? Pass on the responsibility...

if the hours are too much, they are too much, only you can know this. You must choose what is best for you, it is not unreasonable.
can you reduce or rationalise the hours?
Can you look for support elsewhere? Family,friends,who can collect from school give the children their tea once or twice a week to give you a few hours. Prepare a meal for all of you. After school club? Breakfast club?

Do your kids have an EHCP? Can you request a social care needs assessment to see if they can give you direct payments to employ a PA for respite to help out with the children or one of them on an evening - to take them out to an activity and help out them to bed? Do you claim DLA for them? You could argue on the form that they need additional support and could even use it to pay for a cleaner or housekeeper.

I work for the NHS and if they say no paid overtime then he should at least get time owing ....if he keeps working overtime without any input eg union ,HR or without being paid it will keep happening ,keep getting worse ...NHS managers are the biggest piss takers for laying down the law without understanding what's happening behind the scenes

Can you hire help once or twice a week?

I speak as a retired NHS clinician and manager and have been there. The NHS won't change while people do what your husband does. He wiil go under and you will go under and NOTHING WILL CHANGE. I retired around 16 years ago and even then I was having conversations with my staff about not doing unpaid overtime or building up lieu time. If you are calling him a middle earner then I doubt he is on one of the high level contracts where its in the contract that you stay until the job is done. @herewegoroundthebastardbush is absolutely right. You won't want to hear it but that's the truth.

PS...and you won't want to hear this either. Sometimes the long unpaid hours is kind of an addiction....the need to be needed and to feel good because "I have to do my job" I am not saying its always the case but you know your partner......

No you are not working too many hours but you are doing too much at home given you are not a single parent. If you need the money then either you need a higher paid job you can work less hours or…

I appreciate the position your DH is in, but he’s being a martyr and needs to start prioritising home. He needs to push back by not doing it. Actions are more effective than words.

He starts by cutting back an hour each day until - unless it’s literally to resuscitate someone and save a life - he’s leaving absolute maximum one hour of his finishing time.

I would be questioning how much you are being bought off by his very important job and convenience of coming home when everything has been completed by you. The NHS is a huge organisation and it won’t crash down if he leaves earlier.

Off topic but ‘high functioning’ or not if the school aren’t meeting your SEN child’s needs, they ought to be! Please seek independent advice, don’t take the Headmaster’s word on this.

To add, OP it’s going to start by you sharing how you feel and putting in boundaries with him about what he needs to do and when he comes home.