Should DH's job come ahead of mine because he earns more?

[OpalFruitsAreBetter]

Both DH and I work full-time with two primary age DC.

DH is the main bread-winner by far - he earns over 3x my salary plus share options etc. It's a demanding and often stressful job, but he is something of a workaholic and he is chasing a promotion.

I recently took new role at a 50% pay cut due to burnout, general unhappiness with my job and the fact neither of us had enough time to devote to DC as we both worked way in excess of our contracted hours. My new job has a much better work-life balance but it's still full-time and I have a team to manage, deadlines to meet etc.

Part of the 'deal' with DH in me taking a lower-paid job was that I'd be able to pick up more of the day-to-day work of managing school pick ups, running the house etc. But I feel like DH has started treating it as if I don't have a job at all and arranges his schedule with little consideration of what my commitments are. For instance, I always have to try to fit my office days around his and never the other way round.

This is starting to cause tension but his trump card is always that we can live without my salary but we can't live without his. Which is true. And my workplace is much more understanding of the demands of being a working parent, which is also true.

So do I just accept that my work has to fit around his?

YABU - he's keeping the mortgage paid so his career comes first
YANBU - just because I'm paid less doesn't mean my job doesn't count

I would also question why you applied for a job whereby you have to travel a round trip of 3 hours when you’re in the office. Especially when your last job was causing you to be so unwell - that’s just madness.
I know of a couple with school children in a similar situation whereby the H is paid a lot but fully WFH, the W is also paid a decent, but smaller salary and can sometimes WFH. Luckily, they live very near to school so whoever is WFH can do most school drop offs / pickups as it only takes 10 minutes. They have a wide support network that can pick up the slack if the children are ill / during school holidays etc which helps immensely. This is where 2 working parents manage better than those who have further to travel, have no support network and need regular childcare. It causes stress all round - if both workers have very demanding jobs it can be much worse. Something has to give in these situations. In your case, your children seem to spend a long time in childcare when you’re in the office, your relationship is affected due to disagreeing about who does what which likely the children pick up on. The only way forward is to both sit down and thrash out a solid plan, and stick to it.
In the situation you described, I would be telling DH that as he knew you were in the office, he needs to sort out the kids - end of conversation.

Why? The family income is £200k, more than enough to pay £2k pm on childcare.

Creative industries, advertising, in that world sure you couldn’t be constantly changing stuff due to family needs but it would be 100% acceptable to say ‘sorry Big Boss/important client I can’t do that meeting in person tomorrow I’ve got to be WFH for pickup, can we do zoom or Monday’. Especially once you’re towards the upper levels, if it’s occasional it’s not just acceptable it’s respected.

There was a thread on here once about men pretending their job had no flexibility in order to get out of stuff, and I think a lotttt of it is that.

People seem to think once anyone earns a six figure salary the household naturally has an infinite amount of money to throw at a problem

I mean yes, technically we could find £2k a month and used to when the children were nursery age.

But:

1. you can't just magic-up the ideal childcare because you have money to throw at the problem. Everyone I know who has needed more flexible childcare (after school nannies, au-pairs etc) has had significant difficulties finding and keeping it.

2. It would be a completely disproportionate expense given the extent of problem. Out of five working days I need to be in the office a minimum of 1 day per week, DH a minimum of 2 days per week. It shouldn't be impossible to resolve without spending £24k pa.

@OpalFruitsAreBetter My opinion on this hinges on what the nature of the emergency was that required DH's presence in the office at the last minute! There are some things I'd find reasonable and others not!

Perhaps also if it was something related to "keeping the job" vs "chasing the promotion". If he is on £150k already, in my experience promotions start to involve quite serious increases in money from that point - which could be very material for your family - so perhaps he is prioritising it - but maybe worth a discussion? Perhaps you'd support some last-minute things if he'd lose his job otherwise but not things that are "optional but would look good to the promo committee".

I would also question why you applied for a job whereby you have to travel a round trip of 3 hours when you’re in the office. Especially when your last job was causing you to be so unwell - that’s just madness.

It's a completely normal commute from Zone 5 to central London. Under an hour door to door in the morning but if I have to pick up the children I need to allow an extra 15mins to walk to the school from the station and leave a bit of time in hand for delays.

In the example you gave, if you said "ah ok, What's your plan for pick up then, cause I'm already going to be out?" What would he say?

His earning more shouldn’t be an excuse for him to leve everything to you, but it sounds like you agreed in advance to be more available, so I think you should honour that.

In my experience most corporate jobs provide as much flexibility as you are willing to demand. And women demand it whilst men do not. I suspect your DH absolutely could be more available if he wanted to be but he chooses not to.

@OpalFruitsAreBetter - my DH is very well paid and I’m a SAHM.

But if I already have a commitment he doesn’t just announce that he’s now going to be in the office so I have to change my plans, he tells me that he’s been asked to attend an in-person meeting but knows I have plans and asks if it’s possible.

I think that’s all you’re really asking for? That your husband respects that you also have plans and commitments and that the two of you need to make plans together, Ultimately you don’t work for him, he doesn’t get to just unilaterally decide how you’ll be spending your day.

Do you have a family calendar? When we first had kids I followed advice on here and set up a family calendar - whatever is on there first takes priority, and nothing is rearranged without a conversation!

This is the whole point of the thread really! He just expects me to flex because it's job top trumps. In summary the conversation went something like:

DH: "Ugh I've got to go into the office tomorrow"
Me: "Wait a minute...we just agreed on Monday that I'm going in tomorrow, remember we discussed you doing holiday club pick up?"
DH: "Oh, yeah..sigh...do you really need to go in tomorrow?"
Me: "Well I've told the team I'll be in, I'm supposed to be in."
DH: "Remind me again which of our jobs we can live without?"

@OpalFruitsAreBetter that makes him sound like a twat tbh. You might need to have a clear conversation - the fact that his job is more important doesn’t mean that it’s the ONLY thing that’s important.

Ask him how far he thinks his big man salary will go in supporting two households if you split owing to an escalation in his twatishness.

You’re being totally disingenuous though, it wouldn’t be 24k to allow for sufficient wrap around for your school aged children.
The majority of working parents have childcare to allow them to work, only being able to facilitate one parent working out of the home on any given day isn’t sustainable.

But in what situations would your plans trump his? Presumably the expectation would be if he had an important meeting and you had a coffee you'd be the one to compromise. When would he compromise for you?

Why would anyone pay 2k per month childcare to allow them to go to work and earn 2k?

When he asks if you really need to be in the office, that’s your cue to say yes and not make it sound like it’s optional. Tell him that it is essential (it is if you’ve agreed to a minimum number of office days and you’re not meeting that).

I do think that you’d have been better off finding a job closer to home though, given that you accepted you’d be sorting most of the childcare and didn’t need to get a specific salary from your new role. You could have always changed roles again when the kids were in secondary and able to get themselves home. There are plenty of full time homeworking roles now too, which would take the stress out of your situation. It may be worth looking into as the pay can still be pretty good and without commuting costs.

We do have school wraparound care 8-6pm which I think is pretty normal, but it's not enough for a full 9-5 office day when you factor in the commute.

The poor children..... Why bother having them. They just sound like an inconvenience to both you and your DH.

It’s still very easily solved, one of you goes in a bit earlier and leaves a bit earlier. It’s a much more productive strategy than all this ‘who’s more important’ rubbish.

What an arsehole. That only comes into play if it’s a job risking situation. He’s going to keep saying that to you to put you in your place. Prick

I am a teacher and DH has almost always outearned me as I've mostly been less than full time, although our base salaries are similar.

He has always fully understood that my job is the less flexible of the two and that working (sometimes very large) amounts of hours outside my official work days is unavoidable at some times of year.

I mean, I've just marked 100 mocks and done 69 UCAS references - strangely I don't suddenly have 30 extra hours in a 4 day week!

But he is not an arsehole and freely admits he could not hack a secondary school (he's a university lecturer). He just quietly gets on with shopping, cooking and schlepping grumpy tween to places. That's what a feminist looks like.

Ask your husband why the unpaid work you do on behalf of the family is of less value. Does he want to do it? I'm guessing no but he would still like to have happy, well cared for children and clean pants. Right?

Just seen your follow up post.

Ugh!

That is not OK. I'm sorry but I'd struggle to stay married to someone so disrespectful.

Er no, they sound like an inconvenience to the DH.

The OP took a 50% pay cut to be around for them more. That's a pretty big deal when you consider the pension implications, reduced salary growth and reduced viability of going it alone if it proves necessary.

I do think that you’d have been better off finding a job closer to home though, given that you accepted you’d be sorting most of the childcare and didn’t need to get a specific salary from your new role

I feel like people are falling into the same mindset as DH that because I don't earn as much I'm just faffing about for a bit of pin money.

I love my job, and by measures other than how much income I earn it's arguably more 'important' than DHs. All I want is recognition that it's got value and isn't trivial just because I'm not a high earner.

Maybe because a decent person working in financial services (to name the most likely industry employing Mr My Big Job) recognises that healthcare, education, retail etc need to exist for a liveable society?