Can I have your honest opinion on this situation please!

[Mrsgrapesauce]

I work 30 hours so I am at home all day WFH.
DH works 5 hours 3 evenings a week.

I have put DS into nursery 6 hours a day 4 days a week and DH doesn’t agree with me says it’s wrong and selfish and that DS is to young.

I have told DH now the kids are at school and nursery he needs to be looking at going into full time work or working more hours.

His argument is that he wants to be at home and be here for the kids if they need him.

My work is very flexible so I can up and leave if I need to.

I want to take some of the stress of my self paying all bills holidays days out ect.

aibu?

Between the two of you it reads as though you are only working 45hours a week which is only just over one FTE role.

It comes down to what your income is and outgoings are and whether or not you can afford to have neither of you working full time AND put your DS in nursery.

Your DH either needs to do more childcare, or do more paid work. At the moment it sound as though he is doing neither.

So he's using the cover of being a SAHD to be an idle sod.

If DS is in nursery two days a week what does he do during the day then?

What you've basically got yourself is a cocklodger who does the school runs. I don't blame you for putting DS in nursery, that will be much better for him. Next you need to decide where to put DH. I suggest the bin.

He sounds lazy and like it’s all about what he wants (not to go food shopping, to ‘be there to see the kids’) and not about what’s best for the family.

If he's not going to bed til 11pm, that's on both of you, not just him surely?

Does your child have additional needs? Sounds like it and that changes everything imo.

He’s got it good at the moment and it sounds as though he’s trying to come up with reasons to keep it that way. If I were the major breadwinner, even working from home, I would expect the major part of the childminding and housework to be done by the SAHP, not having the kids running round while he sleeps and the house a mess.

Sorry but this would be a deal breaker for me. He’s not pulling his weight, either with the kids or with a job. Ultimatum time. Kids are in school and nursery, done deal and you expect him to get a proper job and start contributing instead of leaving all the heavy lifting in the relationship to you. You’re definitely not being unreasonable to insist on this. At all.

If you're working 6 hours a day Monday to Friday (from home).. why does your DH 'have to get the dinner on'? Why can't you divvy up the chores between you?

If the sexes were reversed here, people would be having a field day with you.

I was in a similar situation for years.
of you are choosing to be a SAHP then for goodness sake commit to it and do it properly. My then DH never did. Every time I got a promotion/got more money/took on more work he did less. After a decade or more I’d had enough. I was exhausted, I was taking all the responsibility and the kids felt like they had one parent. We ended up divorced, me with the kids, an amazing career and less stress frankly as I had no more resentment.

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Deleted as I didn't see the ops updates...browser didn't refresh.

He’s bone idle lazy. Falling asleep when the kids are home while you’re working? Please pull your head out the sand, he either ships up or ships out - you don’t need another areas to wipe when you’ve got little ones.

I sympathise with DH not wanting to go out to work. I never wanted to - I had better things to do. That said, DH needs to be working more hours if he is not working at home as a parent/housekeeper. To this end, a discussion about nursery for DS was needed, as was a discussion about the need of all children (not just your DS) needing structure and order i.e. breakfast/lunch/dinner always at same time, bedtime (except special occasions) and the routine round it at the same time, in same order, etc. Also, whoever is working fewer hours does the shopping, washing, ironing and most of the cooking - but not onerously so, other DP should be helping out on a predictable basis.
You both need to review your working hours, what you are doing with the DC, and what your expectations of work outside the home (or working at another job other than childcare/housekeeping whilst at home) are, in the very near future. Long conversation, I suspect.

He’s a lazy fuxker. Shape up or ship out!

Make list of ALL the tasks that make the family function, and put your or his name against them as it currently stands.

I wonder if the scales will drop from your eyes now. He is not a good dad. He’s lazy and greedy.

Why shouldn’t he ? He works 15 hours a week over three evenings a week. OP works double that over five days and is the major breadwinner. Bone idle is bone idle, whatever sex you are.

Not lazy, but how you're stretching the non-work, non-school runs tasks into a full week is beyond me. Unless you're doing a full on house renovation and spending 6+ hours a day on physical labour?

Most of us do those tasks in a half day.

I would come downstairs in between meetings and DS was messing around and he’s curled up in a ball on the sofa

@Mrsgrapesauce you think that's a good Dad? I give up.......what exactly about that is a 'good Dad'? Have some standards.

It depends,

If he was just lazing at home when the children were in school and nursery yes... but it sounds like he thinks the youngest should be at home (being looked after by him) which is not an "easy" or lazy job. It depends on the age of the child who is "right". If the kid was 6 months and the H wants to be a SAHP full time and is good at it then that would be the best outcome. If the child is 3 1/2 and needs the interaction with other kids then going to nursery part time at least would be good, and the DP could start to look at other jobs. But just sticking the child in a nursery 4 days a week with no consultation with the SAHP and telling them to just get a job now isn't right.

He can argue all he likes, he hasn't got a leg to stand on because he's NOT there when the kids need him! He's either asleep or fannying around by the sounds of it.

I'd perhaps call his bluff and say ok, I'll take Jimmy out of nursery as long as you commit to the following:
You need to be out of the house for the majority of the day. So groups, library, for a walk etc in the morning, back for lunch and then leave again in the afternoon. I cannot have a toddler rampaging around the house all day whilst trying to work. So you either have him out of the house for the majority of the day OR he goes to nursery.

Say we'll see how it goes for a month. If you stick to it then great, you can 'be around for the kids' and I'll work and if he doesn't stick to it put him back in nursery.

I think we all know how this will pan out.

Sorry - I missed the updates. Yes, if you came down once and he was curled up while the son ran around then that would be fine. Likewise sometimes there are days when nothing really gets done. But if this was every day and the toddler wasn't being looked after properly, it would annoy me.

He’s not there for your kids, though, is he.

See he is a good dad

If he was a really good stay at home dad I wouldn’t even have put DS in nursery. But he was rubbish!

Do you see the contradiction here? If he’s only good at asking them how their days were, or he’s only good at doing the easy bits that don’t require any actual effort, then he is NOT a good dad. He’s actually a pretty rubbish dad and I think it might be time for you to stop pretending he isn’t. Would you consider yourself a good mum if you only did what he did?

I think he’s protesting so much because he’s quite happy with only doing five hours work and laying on the sofa the rest of the time. Are you happy to pay for him to do the bare minimum while you do all the work?

Have I understood correctly?
OP works 30 hours employed and is the main earner
OP does food shop, most cooking, most cleaning, most bedtimes/ child care outside of work hours.

DP works 15 hours employed
DP doesn’t organise his time well enough to both mind his son and also keep the household running smoothly, instead fails to parent in the day, doesn’t provide much domestic labour, provides minimal child care/parenting.

DP doesn’t wish to do more domestic work or employed work. He likes the way it was when he could sleep on the sofa all day while his partner fielded the child he was failing to care for, and picked up all the domestic tasks that he also wasn’t doing while he was sleeping.

Is that a fair summary?

But falling asleep while supposedly caring for the kid? Every day? Yes, demanding children are challenging and managing can be a struggle, but leaving them to roam around while you have a nap isn’t even safe, let alone attempting to be the best parent you can be!

See he is a good dad

I'm sorry OP, but I can't see much to back up this statement in any of your posts.

Hm. When I was working similar hours to your DH, I did all of the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and laundry. On the days that DC wasn’t in preschool, I took them to a playgroup—there was always at least one running every day in town, either at a school, village hall, or church. I certainly wasn’t taking naps on the sofa!

Sounds like you have a serious DH problem.

It sounds like he was home with DH and OP unilaterally decided to change his stay at home parenting role.

Sleeping whilst in charge of a toddler? Sorry OP but that IS lazy. He needs to either be decent and watch his son properly, or accept that the child is better off at preschool.

Preschool isn't just childcare, it's access to early education, friendships and stimulation. I agree your son's better off there.