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?

This doesn't seem fair to your husband at all. He sounds desperate/ stressed. Me and my husband have 3 kids (one with asd and 1 age 2) and both work longer hours. Full time and 3-4 days a week. If my husband decided he didn't want to work as many hours it would really make things trickier for us with pensions etc long-term and scupper our retirement. We thought about this a lot as decided to have our 3rd child in our 40s and make sure we can still retire in 60s. Find out his reasons. Are you okay national insurance-wise to get a state pension? If you've been to uni, you might not have enough years and enough private pensions between you to pay off the mortgage/ uni fees etc before you retire.

Write a proposed jobs list for both of you if you are full time, with all the childcare/home things he will have to take on, plus days off when kids are ill. Tell him that if he signs up to that, you'll consider increasing your hours. Make sure he gets 50% of the work.

I would love to still be PT and spend more time with my DD however FT gave us extra income, financial security for my future and dislodged the financial strength my partner held.
I went FT when my DD was 6, however not only is your younger 18 months, you also have 3 children. Even if financially it really helped our home, going back to FT nearly destroyed our relationship. We are just coming out the other side just over 3 years later.

I suggest you trial it this year without actually increasing your hours. That looks like him submitting a flexible working request, doing 50% of the school runs (mix to suit your FT hours), extracurriculars, cooking, meal planning, shopping, cleaning, washing, life admin, homework support, buying things the kids need as they need, school holiday cover (both time off flexed and booking holiday clubs). Be out when he’s done the school run after school, returning after FT job hours, not be available in holidays etc as you’ll be working.

Write down every single thing you do. Then divide equally. If you do between now and the other side of the 6 weeks holidays and everything generally works with him pulling 50%, then he has an argument. However if your household is like mine, he won’t see everything that gets done and the shift to both working FT will be far harder than a bit of extra money.

Unfortunately if these posts are showing what these conversations are like then yes, I think you’re unreasonable. You work 2 days a week in term time? So way less than that across the year. And you can’t see any sort of compromise to help your family financially after 10 years of this? That’s a very long run and maybe he’s tired of that stress or maybe he’d like to retire one day. Has he been paying your pension this whole time? Are you mortgage free?

like many I don’t particularly want to work full time but I do. And if I just decided one day I didn’t feel like it anymore that would be a major conversation with my husband, not a unilateral decision.

@OneTipsyRubyDreamer Just a thought, if you were single and had no children to take care of, what would you do for an income? Would you work FT in that instance? Would your MH issues qualify you for benefits? I'm just interested to know what the crunch point is.

Guess what most of us 'dont want' to work more days or hours.

But why should one person work five full days a week and the other work two days of seven ?

Weirdly we both work full time here, we are all still alive and well, nobody suffers, the house gets cleaned, washing gets done and we fit in school and childcare routines.

Everyone saying there’s no more to it than ‘just do it’ or ‘just have a conversation’ are missing the facts that there are reasons why OP is saying no and one of those is that her H won’t have a conversation about how the household stuff will get done. Suggests he thinks the housework and childcare fairies will rock up to take over what she does as unpaid work. If the mental health issues she’s mentioned include burnout or anxiety I completely support her not going full time until that discussion happens. Burnout is awful and so destructive long term as it permanently undermines your resilience and capacity to deal with stress, and working FT plus continuing to be responsible for managing three kids and the domestic load is essentially taking on two or three full time jobs. Plus some SEN parents have a heap of misery to deal with there, too.

Two days is very little. Better to share the financial burden. We both worked full time once our children were at school and it’s enabled a high standard of living and decent savings. How are you saving for old age/building up a pension in two days work?

Like fuck would I work full time and my partner doesn’t just because she can’t be arsed

“Abusive” 😂

FFS. He just wants her to pull her weight.

I work two or three short days a week. One child just started at primary school. I do all pick ups and drop offs, family admin, all housework / washing, dogs, small DIY projects. The balance of jobs and financial responsibilities needs to be agreed between you - I think be wary of his ignorance.. I suspect he thinks you can both work full time and you can also carry on fitting in the rest of the jobs. Make a list of all house related responsibilities that you are currently doing and say right which are you going to do? You’ve got to pick 50% and I’ll take 50%. If I worked full time and we had no parent ‘very available’, I would also probably get a cleaner and look to streamline as much as possible like shopping delivered etc etc. I know so many women who are burnt out from working full time and doing everything at home.

I work PT and have two kids, one with SEN. Bet she and I aren't lazy fuckers.

Anyone with an SEN child isn't lazy.

I find it hilarious that her DH is feeling overburdened being the only one working FT when if she does go back to work FT he will also have a whole bunch of other jobs in the home to do which he currently doesn't do and probably has no clue these jobs even exist. If I could work FT and come home to a nice meal, clean house and kids all taken care of I'd kiss the ground my wife walked on, not tell her she's lazy.

All while he's funded this to date.... he's probably absolutely wrecked and OP sounds like the kind of person who is spending beyond her means and spending his money as she's gone and saved all her "wages". I'd say there's a lot more too this that dripfeed OP isn't telling us.

I don’t think soap sounds lazy at all. If she knows that her husband is going to do no childcare, no shopping, cooking cleaning or household management then she knows if she works full time she’ll spend every weekday evening frazzled. Drop kids off, work, pick kids up, cook, get kids to bed, then clean up the cooking, do any housework / laundry etc, buy an online shop, then there’s all the nonsense such as booking holidays, buying insurance, sourcing kids birthday presents etc etc.

Yes many mothers work full time, but if looks like in working full time OP will get no downtime whatsoever when the money isn’t needed. I can see why she’s reluctant.

Bet you would that for time with your kids though.

Could you suggest a compromise?

Take on an extra day for now and review how it's going in six months.

The cost of childcare if you have an 18 month old is a solid reason for not going full time.

How much do your other kids SEN factor into the equation, and what is the situation with your mental health?

I'm not unsympathetic but you do sound very stubborn (as does he tbf) - I'm sure most of us would rather work part-time but sadly that's not necessarily realistic.

so they would split the work 50/50 as a trial, but the husband would have to fit his around a full time job, whereas OP would fit hers around watching old eps of Homes Under the Hsmmer? Yes, I don’t think it would last long!

That's a bit of a reach: they have their own savings as well as joint ones. One thing no one has considered is how much p/h she earns. I'd not assume it's minimum wage. If she were dead and he had to pay someone to do all that she does now for the kids he'd be a lot worse off than he is now. Weird how a child minder / nursery worker works, a cook works, a cleaner works but a woman who does all these jobs in the home, doesn't work and is lazy to boot.

You need to have a conversation and find out why he feels you need to work more, I unfortunately had to give up my job due to our youngest Sen needs and unable to attend school, therefore needing home educating.
I did the evening/weekend thing for 5 years and he finally couldn't cope anymore. (His words) But it's a decision we had to make together. I miss work and would love to work, but ATM my child comes first. We survive, yes we aren't jetting off on holiday every year, but let's face it - my youngest wouldn't be able to cope with that anyways.
What I'm trying to say is my DH didn't really realise how hard it could get, until he had to. It was a wake up call :) it took him a while to finally admit it tho, but as my child gets older the harder it's all become.
Maybe, leave him to it for a weekend and see how he feels after.

Plenty of us don't really want to work more you know what there are bills to be paid!!
You can't just unilaterally decide you refuse to work more hours. You seem to think its completely impossible for you both to work full time, many many families up and down the country manage it?

There is an enormous difference between the cognitive load of having a FT job and being the primary breadwinner all that comes with that vs time spent ‘doing work’ in the home.

I don’t know any FT working parent who gets to chill out and do nothing when they’re at home as they still have to parent and do stuff. I am that FT working parent breadwinner and manage to do admin whilst watching the TV.

Whilst there is not enough detail provided to judge, the COL crisis must mean that what was ‘fine’ 10 years ago with one child to support is now pretty tight financially with 3. I think @OneTipsyRubyDreamer is unreasonable not to have regularly reviewed the arrangement but at the same time her DH needs to think about how the practicalities would work. I worked 20 hours when my kids were small and now more like full time although the additional hours are very variable - it puts a strain on the juggle to make sure everything else is covered which is only possible because DC are older and DH has some flexibility. We have oldest at uni, others likely to go and want to retire early so pensions need topping up. It’s the total inability on both sides to discuss what will work for the family unit that doesn’t bode well!

Not to mention taking on more of the domestic stuff, as OP won't have the time to do it if she goes full time.

If OP works an additional 21 hours a week, her DH should pick up 10.5 hours of housework, cooking, shopping, laundry etc. And any extra commuting time should be added to that!