To be fuming DH is working AGAIN!

[SENSummer]

I’m going to caveat this by saying I’ve got a fever atm and more irritable than usual.

We have two small children one of whom is severely disabled and high needs. There’s no childcare for him. Please don’t suggest how I could gain childcare trust me we have been down every single route multiple times, including a SS. I was forced out of work due to lack of childcare something I neither wanted nor have enjoyed.

I’ve not been able to take up any hobbies, sports or classes that require my physical presence somewhere as DH has an all consuming job, he rarely finishes on time, rota is constantly changing and is basically just not in any way reliable childcare. Fine. He’s worked all my birthdays and mother’s days the last 3 years, he’s worked all last Christmas. I’m not precious about it and I’ve got on with it.

Anyways, I took up a hobby I could do quietly from home whilst still being on call for everyone else’s needs. Once a year there is a competition locally and I’ve entered it every year since having the kids. I do quite well and my rosettes go on the wall in the kitchen, they give me my self worth through the year. They’re the only thing I really achieve ‘for me’.

DH told me months ago he was working the entire weekend of the competition this year. I asked him to find a way around it, swap shifts…etc he cannot take holiday during that section of his rota. He said he would. Today he’s told me he’s not been able to and is unlikely now to be able to. I’m gutted and full blown sulking like an actual child. I just keep thinking about getting through another year without the little bit of pride seeing those rosettes brings me in the lowest moments.

She didnt make assumptions, she asked a question because "He sounds like a lot of guys I work with".

So the men you know are actually nothing like the OP's husband. So what is your point in mentioning them?

The OP and her husband had an agreement that they would have kids and then the focus would be on her career. Except that once the kids arrived, extra needs or not, it suddenly isnt happening. She suggesting both going PT and he said no. So he dangled the carrot but after kids, she got the stick. He could take 5 years out so she can go back, but he wont. I rather suspect that the "I wont ever give up my job" didnt happen until she was trapped by motherhood, because according to the Op, he was making all the right noises up until then. Maybe life as a full time parent to a disabled child looked too much like hard work (it is, ask me how I know...)

He knows that she cant force him to step back on his career so she can go back to work, she cant even get one day a fucking year to her only hobby. He is a selfish prick.

I'm not enjoying your pretzel logic at all @Caligirl80 or your attempts to turn this all round onto the OP. You're simply making things up because you're all about the menz

"He cares too much about his career and he would choose it over us, that has been made clear in the past."

This is your core problem. You are not in the same lifeboat. You and your child are in one lifeboat, and he is in a separate, much nicer and more secure lifeboat. It's difficult to solve this because his willingness to leave you in a separate, lesser lifeboat, or abandon you altogether, makes the power imbalance in your marriage untenable.

I don't see a way out of this but the only thing that comes to mind is a postnup. If you wait until divorce, it's always too late, the partner who kept their career holds all the power and may be overtly willing to hurt you by ensuring you walk away with the least possible financial security. But, if there is still a semblance of love on his part, then if you put it forward to him that you sacrificing your career allows him to have his career (autonomy, income, financial security, freedom from constant childcare), but that he has an equal obligation as you to care for his child, and also has an obligation in marriage not to treat you like the family slave, and therefore he should sign a postnup that ensures if things go south in the marriage you will benefit equally from the fruits of your JOINT labor (him, working for pay, you giving up work to care for the child you BOTH created). Then maybe he'll sign it while he still considers the marriage viable.

Or, asking for a postnup could push the marriage over the edge.

But not asking for it, won't make the foundation of the marriage stronger, it will just mean you're not forcing the flaws into the open.

Thank you.
This is exactly it, I often say to DH ‘without the kids 80% of your current life would look exactly the same. You’d still have the same career and be doing the same things. My life has been completely derailed and whilst I appreciate that this wasn’t directly your doing (although he was the driving force behind having kids when we did as he’s older than me), you cannot void me of my right to feel resentful that I’m the one who has had to sacrifice everything I had pre kids to serve the needs of the family now’

From the OP as you clearly have not read it:
There’s no childcare for him. Please don’t suggest how I could gain childcare trust me we have been down every single route multiple times, including a SS.

Do you think respite grows on trees and you can just 'get it'?

I just do not believe that there was no way he could not have worked that one day! He wont have even attempted it. His career is the only priority.

when he is home does he do solo care of the children?

To answer a few questions (apologies I’m not responding individually);

• He has tried. I will give him that he’s looked for swaps for the shift. He works for the NHS that’s all I’ll say at the risk of being too outing. So there isn’t a ‘boss’ he can give ultimatums to there’s just an admin team who sort holidays and he can’t take holidays during certain section's.
• ‘well didn’t you know that when you married?’ Not really, DH has extremely poor communication skills (we are a somewhat neurospicy household outside of DS) pre children I had never really needed DH to request leave so didn’t comprehend periods in which he couldn’t. I was busy with a full time job, study and active social life I didn’t need much at all from DH and he certainly never volunteered the information. After having DS, when DH started to push to have a second rather quickly, I did raise concerns about my ability to cope given his working and that I was worried I would end up unable to return to work after a second maternity leave almost back to back. He talked about going part time and using nursery. We didn’t know about DS’s disability or needs then.
• Aside from being resolutely focused on his career (something I both loathe and admire in equal measure tbh) DH is very good hearted. I don’t worry he will leave me (although I know many women don’t and are still left), he is as resolute in his home life as his career and he’s just not built that way. He could be beyond miserable and still wouldn’t leave that’s how he’s wired. I just really don’t like knowing what a diminished situation I would be in if he did. I feel I’ve become such a stereo type of a dependant stay at home parent despite not wanting this and for me, because of DS, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. There’s no ‘I’ll get back to it once he’s at school’ because he is at a specialist school and it’s still no wrap around, no holiday care, constantly on call for them ringing me- happens more than a typical child. Lots of medical appointments and admin. The medical appointments, due to hospital/school location (different cities) rule out an entire day. If DH had some flexibility to support it would still be challenging but without that it would be impossible for me to work like this.

I think (without sounding too ‘poor me’) I just feel rather hoodwinked by it all. This isn’t what I signed up for.

Obviously no one could have seen DS’s disability and level of need coming but I equally didn’t realise just how consuming and inflexible DH’s career was until it was too late. It’s not that I was unwilling to sacrifice substantially for having children because I fully expected that but the level to which my life has been decimated and I’ve been left with nothing of my own is extreme. I suspect that is part and parcel of having a high needs SEN child but it’s amplified by simultaneously having a DH with this level of demanding career and a second child in a small age gap.

I feel often as though I’m just not a person anymore and all I can have is what I can fit around meeting everyone else’s needs. I do crack on with it I’m not moping around every day I’m pretty proactive but when I’m poorly and hit a low point I do find myself just wallowing a bit.

@SENSummer recognising your situation is healthy. It’s not wallowing and is in fact like an early warning system!

Your situation is shit and it’s unfair but….

-possible lifelines for your health and well being, going forward-

you need some time when you are prioritised and looked after. Are you making sure that when DH is at home, you get some time and space for you? Whether it’s going to a cafe, a knitting group or lay-by with good book and a nice view.

There will be times in the future when you have more options. Is there anything you can do now to ready yourself for that? You are learning new skills now anyway, just not the ones you had in mind. Start thinking about how you prepare for a more flexible future.

(Your DH sounds very like mine. He did improve a little with age. He also accepts that his career and choices drove our life to this point, so I get to call the shots in retirement).

Hang in there. It’s all you can see at the moment, but the world does open up a bit in time. 💐

You've not read the rest of the thread then? 🫣

I know you said you had been down the childcare route but I don’t get why you don’t pay for some help

yes I get it’s a huge cost / but there are sen nannies about. I look after a severely autistic non verbal 6/7yr and give respite to the mum who is a single parent

the comp is important for you

I get dh can’t take time off due to job/nhs but equally what would happen if you had an accident and in hospital for a few days or he had a serious case of s&d - he would have to have the day even 48hrs off

i am assuming you have no family support. Lots of people don’t due to distance or maybe parents /siblings don’t exist

ie there no way a Fri Jed could come and help you for the day

I would be there in a flash to help support a friend

yes I get your ds has huge special needs but there are options out there

does dh work shifts hence you can’t get a part time evening /weekend job to get you out /give you some own money

others have said about going and taking ds with you - again is there a friend who can come or pay for a day nanny to come and support /extra pair of hands

this competition is important to you @SENSummer and if it’s on same time roughly a year what usually happens or does dh usually have his kids and you go

OP said in her very first post "there’s no childcare for him. Please don’t suggest how I could gain childcare trust me we have been down every single route multiple times, including a SS"

There's is nothing for you 'to get', just believe OP.

Blondeshavemorefun

and what would you do if the child had rescue medication and 999 protocol ? you'd not be trained for that and then what happens if the inexperience of a sen nanny puts the Childs life at risk

we don't know why or what type of scenarios could be the cause - we just have to take thew or of the op and realise that there is a reason childcare isn't appropriate for some reason

It won't help immediately but you should tell your local councillor about this. You need a service that should be provided and isn't being - that's their job to sort out things like this.
Email your MP as well, it's their job to listen to issues like this and try to help.

Oh yeah, because parents can totally manage unsupported for 8 or 9 years!

It's shit.

So sorry about your weekend, it sucks.

Sounds like DH doesn't care that much or else he'd make sure you had other options to do stuff out of the house.

@SENSummer So there isn’t a ‘boss’ he can give ultimatums to there’s just an admin team who sort holidays and he can’t take holidays during certain section's. absolutely no idea what he does in the NHS but having worked there for many years, I never, ever came across a period which NOBODY was allowed to have annual leave!! that is just unbelievable! even consultant surgeons taken annual leave when they want, right down to the porters and kitchen staff, who are all just as important for the running of the nhs!

Oh it sounds so hard for you. I’d be upset too if I just had to give up my career.

Absolutely this- there are so many families in the same or similar situation and there is just not the support out there. These are the real stories behind the "oh but they get a motability car" and it is shit, your life changes overnight and it feels like you have no control over it.

Yes but really family life shd work around work not the other way round
There should be some equality for Men in Work. To be a Father is TO BE A FATHER
I want to see the law changed whereas more men can finish earlier because of Child care Duties
It’s a man’s/Husbands duty just as much as ‘Women’ these days
We don’t get a Fancy name
yet men have great jobs+ incomes to call them Managers or co ordinators, or Leaders
We are in the 21st Century, things arent the same as our Grandparents generation nor shd they be

OP, what would happen if your OH fell over and broke his arm. How would his job find cover? Is it just the standard no (because they actually can't be bothered) or would everything literally grind to a halt?
Because all issues aside, his workplace don't seem to be looking after him very well, in terms of life balance etc.
Or is it that he loves being in work and doesn't try too hard to get cover?

OP, what would happen if your OH fell over and broke his arm. How would his job find cover? Is it just the standard no (because they actually can't be bothered) or would everything literally grind to a halt?
Because all issues aside, his workplace don't seem to be looking after him very well, in terms of life balance etc.
Or is it that he loves being in work and doesn't try too hard to get cover?

What’s the hobby you’re good at? Can you turn it into a hobby job? Crafting on Etsy etc.? I think some self employment would be really good for your mental health.

I don’t think your husband could do anything else really. Assuming he’s a doctor and has tried and failed to request or swap the day off.

I think it’s also important for you to try to build a childcare option. A TA at the school who does occasional babysitting? A parent of one of DS’s classmates who has similar characteristics and you might also help out one day. Do neither of you have any friends or family at all that you could start to introduce your DS to for occasional childcare help? Maybe too early for this years competition but you need to find a solution to feel less trapped.

Wow.

OP have SS offered you a Carers Assessment? You could ask for a carer once a week after explaining the impact on you of 24/7 of caring for your child?

So sorry you're going through this. I hope you have some little hobby or daily activity you can do at home while you care for your child, to give you some kind of personal satisfaction. Sending love.