OH wants me to leave PT job to work FT....

[GreenLemonHedgehog]

My OH wants me to leave my part time job, it doesn't pay that well although it's term time. I do 3 days pw tutoring. Start at 9 and finish at 2.30. This gives me enough time to collect the kids/school run morning and afternoon. We have 4 children, they are at primary school.

My 2 days off; one day is spent on washing, housework, errands. The other day is spent volunteering for a SEND organisation. I advise parents on the phone, help with the EHCP process and other things. I plan to move into a local authority role in a year's time, which has scope for progression as kids get older, better salary and flexible/home working with liklihood of term time working. (I had an interview recently for this very job, it went really well but they needed a little more experience and asked me to keep in touch.)

OH and I agreed this was a good plan and both happy with it. Now he's exploding,
telling me to leave my job and just get a better paid job anywhere else, doing anything. He feels weighed down as the breadwinner and wants more from me financially. He's told me he expects me to bring in 2k pm to lift the burden. I'm no where near that. I have an 8y gap in employment due to children and had a rough time with my MH during that time. I've just started dipping back in and now feel completely responsible for his satisfaction with life and money.

I've explained I'm trying to help as much as I can, and my wage goes into the pot. I've explained we need to think about school runs, him wanting me to just go and find anything else will mean unlikehood of term time working, or hours not compatible with school, who will care for the children? 4 is a lot. The school run wrap around care but it is expensive, £400 pm for 4 children.

I want to contribute more but I'm struggling with his expectations, which I feel are quite demanding and unrealistic. It's caused a huge argument and he is now passively aggressively sending me jobs to apply for.

He says I'm not doing enough to contribute financially, I feel like he only sees money as worth and can't see anything else. He works very hard, long hours/early mornings, I know he is feeling burnt out. We've gone through finances and cut backs.

I feel like I'm juggling a lot already. I get the feeling he resents me, feeling I have the 'easy ride,' which I don't feel is fair at all.

When I try to explain my feelings or respond to his views, I'm dismissed and 'talking boll***s.'

AIBU???

You've given birth to and are raising 4 children, and still go to work, and he is whinging about being the main breadwinner??

Leave this man or at least tell him to get the fuck over himself

Tell him to get off his fat ass and get a better job to earn the extra money!

Cheeky git. How dare he!

What's his plan for the school run and school holidays then? Presumably you're expected to work FT as well as juggling all the child admin, I don't see he's offering to take any of that off your plate. Oh and he'll need to do a lot more stuff round the house, cooking, laundry etc

Assuming you can find a FT job just like that at a snap of your fingers.

Stupid man.

I'd be surprised if the wraparound care for 4 kids is only £400 a month, for a start.

But is there something else going on with OHs job? That hes now this frantic about it all?

He is also majorly downplaying how much you do too with all the housework, school runs etc.

Personally I'd be totalling up all the cost of you returning full time and not just the wraparound care either, weekly cleaner, weekly ironing service, supermarket delivery, then don't forget school holidays camps, those cost a bomb!!

YANBU....I think you have an excellent plan (and huge well done for all that you do). I'm assuming that once you go FT (and bringing in over £2K a month), he will step up to doing (as well as his FT job):
-50% of the housework/cooking/taking on the mental load. Or paying for a cleaner/housekeeper to do all this.
-50% of the childcare (including HIM taking time off from work for when children are sick/off school etc).
-Paying for childcare to cover what you would have done.....?

Or is he expecting you to do everything you're currently doing (and believe me, he doesn't know he's bloody born, because you're making a bloody HUGE contribution to the family!) AND an FT job?

£400pcm for 4 kids isn't bad going at all - but I'm sure it would probably be a lot more than that. I have two DC (now 12 and 18) but I was shelling out a damned sight more than that back in the day. I don't even want to think what the cost for 4 DC would be!!

So to pay for the extra after school club, you’ll need to earn at least £2400 after tax , NI, pension etc. Good luck with that! I assume Billy Big Bollocks is going to step up and help with all the household chores, childcare and mental load too. No? Then tell him he is the one talking bollocks and to fuck right off!!!

Change the conversation.

Ask.him what he's taking on of the shit you do now. It has to be realistic. If he wants you to bring in coin then he needs to take some of the heavy lifting.

Tell him to write it down what he's willing to add to his workload and then you'll have another chat. Until then he can be quiet about it.

He really isn't looking at the bigger picture.

How on earth does he think that is going to work with four primary-school age children? I think you are doing really well to manage the commitments you already have, and your medium term plan for increasing your earnings sounds practical and realistic. I can sympathise with him feeling the pressure as the primary breadwinner, but he is being incredibly unfair to put the blame for it at your door, and completely delusional about the practicalities.

Do you actually need the extra money? If you’re on the breadline then it’s understandable that he’s stressed, although his “plan” is a terrible one and his approach is awful.

Is his job at risk?

I think having one breadwinner and a sahp/part timer only works if both are happy with it. He's clearly not, maybe he'd like to go part time but can't, any shift in working also needs to come with a shift in household responsibilities though.
2k a month is nmw 40 hours a week.

I’m sure you’ve worked it out but 5 days a week of breakfast club and after school club would cost more than £400pm just for one child at my son’s school.

I think there's a half way solution. I dont think you really need a day off for housework, and I think there should be an agreed limit on how much longer you spend another day volunteering, however potentially helpful it might be to your career.

The pressure of being the main breadwinner can be horrible too

What a bellend- ask him how he is going to manage his 50% of all the house/kids stuff and what nights he will be cooking your tea and washing the clothes- will he have packed lunches and and drop offs/pick ups covered half the week too while you work full time? School holiday cover? I would ask him if he really expects you to work full time and carry on everything else with 4 kids? how does he see his life changing- probably not at all.

Also, like other PP have suggested, what about totting up average hourly rates for cleaner/housekeeper, nanny etc....what would it cost him to have all that covered (and during holidays too) for 4 DC? A five figure amount each year easily. He has no idea how bloody lucky he is to have you doing what you're currently doing. He should be thankful, respectful and appreciative for what you do. I'm the breadwinner (always have been), working FT, and I would have given anything for the set-up you guys have when I was married. When I was with XH, I still had to pay for childcare AND juggle housework etc etc.

FWIW, I'm one of four siblings. My parents are sadly not with us anymore. DF had a high flying job, my DM was an SAHM. My Dad never let any of us forget just how important Mum's work/contribution to the family was - without her being there, he wouldn't have been able to advance in his career like he did, and we wouldn't have the lovely happy home we had. I always remember him telling us that.

To be fair, my DH does more than half the house work, more than half the school runs and more than half the cooking. So this idea that men can't pull their weight domestically isn't true.

So is he going to spend one of his weekend days doing the housework that OP can no longer do due to her new job?

Yeah, that's what DH and I do . Well we get the 4 kids to all do their bit too. It feels a lot more balanced in our relationship when we are both sharing the job of earning and both sharing the housework etc

I feel for him. Everyone on MN seems to hate men, hate husbands, but tbh it’s stressful and high pressure being the bread winner. It’s stressful in a different way. I do think a rejig could help you both. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you take on any old full time job though, but considering increasing your hours or doing something higher paid could help. In a way, he’s supporting your career choices while working away at his job, and doesn’t have much choice, this could really affect someone’s mental health.

Is he alright? Are there redundancies at his work place? Is his job super stressful? Does he hate it? Men’s mental health is important as well and is often overlooked.

I am a therapist.

Hmm - if he was initially on board with the longer term plan but is now ‘exploding’ and demanding that you earn a very specific amount, I would say that something is happening with his employment that you’re not yet privy to. Is this a possibility?

@WindsurfingDreams (cool name by the way, I used to teach windsurfing!), you're right, and I know there are many guys out there who do pull their weight with housework, child care etc. My DB and DSIL both do (and both work FT hours, compressed into 4 day weeks), plenty of the guys I know certainly do as well. I just didn't notice OP's OH had included these practicalities and logistics in his idea for OP to get back to FT work. She was saying all the things she does (childcare, housework etc), but not what he does (bar him working FT). I perhaps assumed wrongly, that he works FT and she does all the childcare etc.

I think OP has a really good long term plan re: building her career/job prospects. I don't get why, if this was something her OH agreed on, that he's suddenly pulling the rug from under her.

This is what I think too. It’s a bit of a luxury in this climate (unless you’re very well off) to have a day off for housework and for volunteering. I don’t know anyone who does that…

Whether it's right or wrong, OP has said that her OH is finding being the main breadwinner too stressful. It sounds as if he is nearing breakdown.
Op, in the circumstances, it doesn't sound as if you can continue to work a day week for free, and have another day for chores as well as working school hours only.
If you tutor, can you up your hours? My SiL tutors, and the demand is biggest evenings and weekends. I know you are volunteering to get experience for a job you hope you'll get next year, but if you need to earn more you're going to have to find a way. Maybe volunteer for half a day only, maybe work on the day you currently allocate for chores. It's doable, if not ideal.
The alternative appears to be that OH had a breakdown , can't work, or that he leaves. If you are not married, then you are in a vulnerable position financially anyway.

If you’re both working FT and both getting 4-5 weeks annual leave and taking it separately (so never have a family holiday with both parents and neither of you can use annual leave for a stag do/hen do/holiday/day off with friends etc) then you are still going to have between 3-5 weeks a year of FT childcare needed for FOUR children.

If you have one annual fortnight family vacation, you’ll then need 5-7 weeks childcare. A cheap day’s childcare would be £30, so £120 per day for 4, or £600 a week, but it’s more likely to be nearer £800. So to cover JUST the school holidays, with both of you using all your annual leave to cover the others, you’d need a net income of £4k-£6k. That’s two to three months of your salary gone already.

Add in the wrap around care and I really can’t see how you’d be any better off financially. Is your OH not very good with maths?