DH insisting I change my working hours

[OneTipsyRubyDreamer]

We have 3 DC. DH works full time 5 days a week. I work part time 2 days a week school
hours. DH has wanted me to move from part time to full time for years but now he’s suddenly started saying he “insists” that I need to ask my employer if I can go full time. I don’t want to go full time though. DH won’t stop going on about it and says he wants proof that I’ve asked my employer if I can go full time. I haven’t asked my employer about going full time because I don’t want to go full time but DH won’t take no for an answer though and he is putting a lot of pressure on me over it. He says things like “a lot of parents work full time so there’s no reason you can’t” but I don’t want to work full time! He can’t seem to understand the fact that I just don’t want to work full time and that I want to keep my current working hours for 2 days a week. AIBU?

Plenty of couples work full time and manage without someone in a part time role

Yes but that happens one of three ways.

1. they both pull their weight equally
2. one parent (lets face it, usually the mother) does the vast majority of the house and child work and Mr Big Job refuses to pull his weight
3. they outsource all household work

IME its usually 2, followed by a divorce and a man who cant understand why his wife left him.

Plenty of women work FT and do the lion's share of everything else at home too because their DH can't or won't do their share. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

With both agreeing. I’d honestly consider divorcing my wife if she decided unilaterally that she was working 2 days per week and I was going to have to be breadwinner for a family of 5. I’d have one less person to support

Whatever happens, OP, you can't do it on your own.

I've never been fortunate enough to have children of my own, but at one point I was working full time, caring for three disabled adults, doing the life admin for two households, - that included organising all the presents etc for family members on both sides, organising medication, liaising with family members on both sides for meet-ups and so on - doing all the housework for one household...

Even when I was only caring for 2 adults in one household, doing that whilst working full-time was exhausting. You don't want to find yourself in the position of doing all the household admin for yourself, your husband and three children as well as working. (Yes, there are people who do that when they have to, but that shouldn't be the case when you have an able-bodied husband.)

You are missing the issue that is he is demanding she work full time, but will not engage in any sort of conversation about how everything else will be covered.

So that sounds to me like he is expecting her to do the lions share at home, work full time AND not get fired from that job as she has to cover all of the their SEN kids appointments, sickness etc.

She isnt saying that she wont work FT but that she doesnt want to right now on the basis that he is refusing to discuss sharing the load. I dont blame her.

I don’t think you should be forced into full time. Different when the children are in full time education, then fair enough you can work more.

Perhaps we could all try that. 'I don't want to'
My DH would say stuff that you lazy sod, get to work. And he would be right.
I wold say the same if he said 'I don't want to work'.

Rather than just saying no, sit down and do a spread sheet covering all the changes. How will you cover school runs, holiday child care, who will cover when dc are sick and so on.
Will your extra salary cover extra child care costs and holiday clubs. How will the domestic load be split?
It is important to pay into your pension and build up your savings.
You need to have a proper conversation.

Of course you’re being unreasonable. He’s right plenty of parents work full time.

maybe he doesn’t want to work full time. Maybe he’s fed up of supporting you sat at home.

He won’t have a conversation about it? Refuses to discuss it?
Well, if that be the case- as do you. In whatever manner he shut downs conversation and discussion upon the matter- you do that too.
Thats the impasse he’s forcing, meet it. Match the energy he’s bringing as the young ones say.

Just realised I missed a lot due to not refreshing. The thread has moved on.

Well, sounds like he's just money hungry then and I absolutely 100% guarantee he would still expect you to do nearly all parenting and housework after forcing you back to full time work.

Three kids and a household is a huge task, it's great you are working part time to ease any financial strain and keep yourself in the workforce as you will need it in the future.

Do you make sure you have a nest egg that he does not know about squirrelled away as it's pretty likely you will divorce at some point what with his constant bossing and needling and total disinterest in you prioritising caring for his children when young. It's incredibly common and expected practice for mothers of young kids to work part time.

He's either hiding some big financial problem or he cares a lot, lot more about cold hard cash than you and your three kids.

So ten hours a week. Hardly worth bothering at all IMO.

OMG the theories on here lol

So he cant sit down and have a conversation , doesnt make him hiding debt How is it controlling to say I need you to go back to full time work? The op hasn't been able to verbalise her reasons other then " I dont want to "

As for the sharing of chores and child care, who is to say that that won't naturally change? When I had a breakdown , DH carried me financially for 2 years, so I did take on the chores . Now we both work the same hours, we share the chores - its been a natural progression So OP is doing the lions share now , but is that always automatically going to be the case going forwards ?

Not all men are complete bastards

My husband did this. Turns out he wanted me to be self supporting for when he left. I.e. less for him to pay....should i be eligible for maintenance. Beware.

Ooh, you must be really wealthy if you can just chuck away two hundred quid a week, which would be an average pay for 10 hours a week. Even a hundred quid a week is too much for most normal people to be happy to simply dismiss. Glad you're doing so well financially.

Might explain why the sharing of the chores conversation isn't happening.

Oof. Sorry he did this to you. And yep, that makes sense.

No it isn’t. 10hrs x 52 wks x £12.21 = £6349 gross.

So definitely not "hardly worth bothering about then". Quite a sizable chunk of cash to go towards the house and family.

But certainly, if you have a spare £6349 you can not bother about, I'll send you my bank details.

So OP is doing the lions share now , but is that always automatically going to be the case going forwards ? @suki1964

Statistically there's a high likelihood she will. The fact he's swerving the question would also indicate he has no intention of doing his share of the domestic load.

Yes, I’m comfortable financially thanks. However my current situation is the result of working full-time, including nights, weekends and public holidays without any breaks in service since 1975. Not fannying about doing ten hours a week.

The ages of your kids is spaced so that as one goes off to primary there's a new baby to look after. Was that something you both wanted and planned?

Well he needs to answer them! To me it does sound like you’re hardly working at all and could increase to at least 3 days maybe. But he needs to help out more at home.

I can kind of see his point, you’re probably not contributing much financially and probably don’t have a great pension, so he’s going to have to work longer to support you which isn’t very fair.

What do you do with your days off? Are you busy all 3 days with work around the house? If so he’ll have to do his share of that if you go full time, and he needs to accept that his life won’t be as easy. But if you have some leisure time to yourself I think you should consider working during that time, it’s only fair.

As an aside, would your employer allow you to work more hours but just during term-time when your youngest is at school? That’s what I did and it was great, and it meant I got more holiday.