To be fuming that DH has spent the whole day on his laptop?

[MamaOnTheCoast]

DH has spent the whole day on his laptop “working” in his home office and he hasn’t even seen me and the DC all day! He was up at 5am (the kids woke up at 6am) and he is still in his home office “working” now so we haven’t seen him all day! He even refused Christmas dinner as he said he was “too busy working”. DH does a senior office based job and he wasn’t meant to be working at all over Christmas but he is saying he apparently has to work today “because it’s urgent”! It’s Christmas Day and we haven’t seen him all day and DH can’t see the problem with this! The kids are really upset about it too! AIBU to be livid with DH over this? DH literally doesn’t see the problem but I’m fuming and the kids are upset too!

Thank you, and yeah they are.
Evidently his issues were bigger than merely the Christmas gift he got his mother, because when we were all grown and gone and it was just my parents at home, my dad took his life with a firearm that none of us knew he had.
After that initial shock and our bereavement, we’re all doing great.
Nobody sits in the living room and drinks all day at least.
Glass half full, you know? lol
Thank you, @YourMintTraybake❤️

Right. Security professionals can stop for long enough to say a single sentence to their partner. I'm fairly certain even spies, who work from home in a room their wife and kids can enter any time, are allowed to eat at their desk.

And again the fact that this has come as such a shock to OP is the biggest indicator that this is not a usual part of his job.

Has he even come out for food and drink?

How the hell are you approved to foster 4 children with a husband so unkind and disengaged from family life? This is absurd. You (both) are not providing the home and family these children deserve are you? Do you have a supervising social worker? I would be raising this in supervision if I found this out - if your children tell their social worker about their Christmas there will be some difficult questions to answer. This is just not ok.

Thsts a bit of a drip feed. Did he want to foster children or was that just you? It doesn't sound like he is very invested in them.

He's a spy AND a foster carer? Not possible

Sounds like an excuse not to join in with all the Christmas busyness and watching family crap on telly

Even people who work in intelligence have lunch breaks.

Truthfully my ex could have been this way, he is a workaholic and thought he had a job that was a big job that trumped everything. We were secondary or even thirdly to everything. Hes still like this.

I doubt it's his workload, job, an affair or anything like that, its similar to men disappearing to the pub on a Sunday as many used to do, they find family life tedious and want to get away

Affair or gambling.

Yeah I do know who tells emergency services where to go, here it’s from a rostered call centre with clear shifts not a teams meeting in a bedroom, because actually in jobs that matter you don’t leave Christmas Day to chance. Is it different where you are?

If he is not normally like this, my bet is that he has made a huge mistake at work and is trying to put it right before it gets worse or someone notices. His job may be at risk (or worse).

I would try not to make an issue of it now, distract the children as much as you can and deal with him on another day.

Gaming, porn, talking to another woman… No way does he have a workTeams call on Christmas Day.

Sounds like he’s not on board with the fostering.

Don't people get paid to foster children?
If so - he his not doing the basic necessary for Xmas is he?
Poor little ones.

My Dad did this two years in a row when I was growing up. He wasn’t that senior - he just didn’t want to participate in any family time, which wasn’t unusual because he did fuck all anyway.

He was having an affair anyway. He left when I was 17 and I’m 40 now and probably seen him 7 times in the interim period. He’s never met his grandchildren (9 and 2.5). He doesn’t give a shit.

This would absolutely be the death knell of any marriage for me.

I thought gambling. Got himself into a mess.

How are you this morning OP?

So I have googled and yes fosterers are paid about £1000+ a week - so he is not earning this money at Christmas. The money paid is for welfare of children fostered. So fraud on his part? Very bad show. He doesn't care about the children at all.

He finds his work easier and more interesting than playing with kids and cooking xmas dinner. He’s pretending

Anything that urgent involving security/intelligence etc would be at a security level which cannot be done at home.

He's not working. Porn, gambling, something else. But not work. What a twat.

It’s really hard to say whether YABU without knowing what he does for a living. If he’s a sales manager then clearly he doesn’t need to be working. If he’s runs IT for an airline, or works for a bank undergoing a cyber attack, or manages NHS rotas, then potentially it is urgent, but without knowing, it’s impossible to say.

No colleague would be surprised a call was disturbed on Christmas day. I'd literally have leaned over his shoulder and waved and said hi, sorry to disturb but it's christmas day obviously!!! Will this take long??

Same. It would open up such a massive can of worms.
It’s his behaviour, contempt, lies, the potential impact on already traumatised children, and Christ knows what else.
I’m not sure I could forgive him but get past it.