To work 3 days a week to the detriment of DH

[PinkBalloona]

Sorry for recently posting about this - reposting to receive balanced replies after listening to DH’s perspective.

I’m currently on a one year career break(to care for my children) from a part time role that I enjoy.

DH has now said he cannot/will not accommodate my shifts when it’s time to go back to work.

His reasoning -
I work one week on and one week off - DH is home when I work to look after the children. On his week off all his hours are crammed into one week so he ends up working 6-7 long days in a row which he says he cannot physically manage anymore and it makes him feel ill on his days off.

He wants me to drop my hours down but my job is contracted a set amount of hours/fixed days and times. I cannot pick and choose my hours and after requesting a long time ago it was suggested that I redeploy elsewhere or give up my job.

I now feel like I’ve essentially walked into a trap by taking a year off as he’s now not going to cover my shifts going back. I also don’t even know if 2 days per week jobs exist?? I enjoy working and having my own money.

AIBU? Am I not thinking of DH’s needs? His job is physically demanding and he said he sometimes ended up working 60/70 hours to accommodate my shifts?

What are everyone’s opinions please? Thank you

I really think you must do 50-50, so you both can work enough to support yourself/kids in 2 households.
If he doesn't want week on/week off then you need to have set days (half the week each) and work on the others. Can you change your working patter to 3 days a week, 2 days the next? (Or even 3 days per week and have childcare on the 1 day each fortnight?)
You will need set days. For the kids.
Once separated, it will not be possible (or SHOULDN'T be) for him to expect you to cover his shifts in different days each week.... so he might need to go back to working them all in 1 week as before, of his job won't give him set days.....

Why should he? His job is perfectly fine if he doesn't have to organise it around OP's shifts.

any job where he works 60-70 hours over 7 days is going to be hard going.

It isn't, because they are separating and they have a child who can't be in a childcare setting so if he is going to look after the child 50% of the time he can't work the week he has his child. They both basically have to work one week on/one week off like they have been doing but he will have to work part time rather than full time (like OP) so he isn't working so many hours the weeks he is working.

Honestly I think you’re being unreasonable. I think you need to think of his mental health and get something works better for the family as a whole

He might have family who can help or a boss that’s willing to just let him work a couple of hours less every other week and catch up the other week. Flexi work.

This x 1000.

YABVVU

Well, this is odd. I just started reading "The Black Arrow" for the first time since about 1975.

Asking him to work 72 hours in 7 days is absolutely unreasonable and I don’t understand how he’s done it so long without an actual health breakdown

The two of you need to figure out some way to make your working lives a team as this is wild

He doesn't have to do anything other than make sure their child is cared for appropriately durin the time he is responsible for them.

Same way as OP doesn't have to either.

If you were expecting your DH to work 6 12hr shifts in 1 week then no wonder it was making him ill that was so so so unreasonable!!
No job is worth that.
That's over 70hrs worked in a week. And he was then expected to spend the following week caring for a child so disabled no childcare is suitable?!

I must admit I am confused as to why a child with SEN who is managing full time school cannot go to childcare.

I think it’s their older child who is in school, the younger is disabled.

Yes, that’s what I mean. Cramming two full time weeks into one is too much for him so he will have to reduce his hours to make it work. It’s not up to OP to facilitate that though and sacrifice her job. Especially since they are separating. He can do what he wants on his childfree weeks, so can she.

Unbelievable drip feed so:
They are separating. Op is essentially part time, 3 days a week. However, Op likes working 6 days on and a week off, doing her fortnightly hours in one week.

To facilitate this the op wants her husband to continue to compress his full time hours so he does 2 weeks hours in one week, working 70 hours in 6 days, then covering child care the week the op works.

However, whilst one child is disabled, they are both in full time education...so during term time there is no need of day time child care.

So op wants the husband to flog himself to facilitate the lifestyle she wants and makes it sound like he's not being supportive!

If you're separating and you're both expecting to be properly involved in parenting your children, you both need to be looking at more regular hours, don't you?

Him saying he won't accommodate your shift pattern seems fairly reasonable because it's not a regular pattern that most other jobs would well around. But equally, his job doesn't seem to be one that you could easily develop a career around and it's not reasonable for him to get to insist he can work as he pleases and you have to accommodate him.

Hard to insist, though. A court won't force a parent to take their child at particular times if they refuse to.

What do you both do? Are their jobs in your sectors (or that would use your skills) where you could reasonably easily have set days that would be complimentary?

Schools have to provide the resources a child needs, like extra staff, free of charge during the school day. But finding childcare providers who will do so is not as easy.

I think it’s probably best to decide how you are going to split custody of the children/ what days you will have them and then look for a job.

No, he doesn't have to reduce his hours. He can find childcare like most of the rest of the working population, or he can work flexible hours if his company allows.

I appreciate finding childcare is harder for a child with additional needs, but it's not impossible.

No-one is 'just' a mum. Women who do unpaid care work in the home for children, elders and working men are holding the economy together. I suggest we all take the day off and see how the rest of the country copes without us!

I think both are in school. But what a school provides is difficult to get with private childcare.

Because OP drip fed that information along with one child being disabled. Mind, if their finances are unequal it's probably one reason for the separation.

You are being beyond unreasonable and utterly selfish. Use childcare like the rest of us

No you've misunderstood.

He has a full time job but in order to cover childcare for the week she works, he has to cram 2 weeks of FT work into one week - which IS 70+ hours.

When you say "how much he works when he doesn't have the kids is up to him" 😂😂He cannot just tell his employer he's not going to do any work for 2 weeks per month 😂

Is it the work stress situation that has brought your marriage to this point? Or is there something else going on? If you were able to find an alternative solution, would it be salvageable? Or have you both got so entrenched in your opposing positions that there is no way back? It sounds like he has put up with a pretty untenable situation for a long time and cannot face going back to it, while you sound like you want everything your way.

Did you miss the part where OP said that they are separating? Joint account isn't usually an option in that case 😂