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?

Then you wouldn't have the foggiest idea what OPs life is like with SEN children and why she might struggle to work more than she is.

You haven't given us enough information to come to a view!

• how old are the DCs
• what's your financial situation
• who does the bulk of the household chores and childcare now
• what would the impact on the DCs be if both of you worked FT

Have you actually asked him his reasons? You're supposed to be a team and if you do the bulk of the household chores and childcare now, they will have to be apportioned out fairly if you both work FT. You say you really don't want to work FT, so you need to make a case for it including that you will pick up the bulk of the household chores to compensate.

A lot of this stuff has already been mentioned in their posts

Eh? Childcare takes up all the time you are looking after the child surely. If an 18 month old wakes at 7 and goes to bed at 7 thats a 12 hour day. Yes you can do housework and other chores around naps/quiet play etc. But how many hours do you think looking after children should take? If it takes less than 30 hours a week to look after a child are they just floating in a sort of stasis the rest of the time?
Again, I paid for childcare for my littlest and I paid for every hour she was in nursery.

I think a lot of people in that situation are probably struggling financially.

We only have one DC, he's autistic. DH does most of the running around with him, for example he's currently only attending school for an hour a day, so DH drives him, waits the hour, then drives him home. DH also works, sometimes until the early hours, for not very much money - he's essentially self employed and it gives him the flexibility he needs. He also gets Carers Allowance.

I was working not far off full time at home but was made redundant. I'm now working part time, on lower pay and have to be in the office so have travel costs. I do most of the housework most of the time, DH does more when he's between jobs. Pretty much all my wages go into paying bills and food, DH chips in when he gets paid (it can be months between payments). Financially things are difficult.

That's how we manage things. Neither of us insist the other does more, we work together to make things work around DS needs.

Thank you for taking the time to respond: it's appreciated.

I've just re-read all of OP's posts and she's really pulling the wool over everyone's eyes here.
It's interesting to notice that the age difference between her 3 children means that she had a child, stayed at home with the child until it went to school, and then had another child. Stayed at home until that child started school, and then had another child. So she has now been at home, looking after only 1 child during school hours, for coming up to 12 years. If she stays at home until her 3rd child is at school, it will be about 15 years of staying at home looking after 1 child, while her husband works full time and OP fits in just a little bit of work now, which I imagine she sees as a nice hobby.
She has repeatedly said that she doesn't want to work full time because she DOESN'T WANT TO and needs the time to do the housework. She's only mentioned children being SN (not detail whatever - is this all the children? Why no mention of it before?) when challenged. She doesn't know what the family finances are like - just feels that they're not in financial difficulty day to day. She shows no sign whatever of thinking about the future, including the advisability of having some savings and a pension and being able to help the children financially when they go to university, etc. She takes no responsibility and leaves all those concerns to her husband. Fundamentally, she's not slaving away at childcare. She's spending most of her time with one child, a child she wanted to have and presumably enjoys spending time with. No doubt lots of coffees with friends etc is involved. I'm not surprised she doesn't want to go back to work, but I imagine that the husband is feeling very badly taken advantage of.

She did say he wanted her to go full time. 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.
With an 18mth old and a child with SEN it is entirely reasonable to only work ten hours a week. The costs of the necessary childcare will almost certainly wipe out most of the extra income.

A fair sprinkling of "presumably" and "I imagine" in your post. You have no evidence of which child has SEN, no evidence of OPs health and no way of backing up your conjecture.

@Tadpolesinponds How do you know that fertility issues aren't the reason for the gap? It is actually a nice gap in which all the children get decent one to one attention with mum whilst the others are at school.

There is a whiff of jealousy in many posts.

I've read all of OP's posts and can see no mention of her having bad health? Does that stop her from working? Doesn't seem to? She also only mentioned SEN (she didn't specify how serious the supposed SEN is or how many children have SEN) until several posts in. Up till then she repeated several times that she just didn't WANT to work more days and that she needed to maintain the house (presumably this means vacuuming and throwing some clothes in the washing machine? - you know, the stuff everyone else does after they get home from their full time job). She gives the very strong impression that she likes her relatively relaxed lifestyle (because looking after 1 child and doing a few hours' work a week is a relaxed lifestyle compared with commuting and working full time with all the responsibility for making the real money). She's certainly strung it out for as long as possible, hasn't she? I wonder how she managed to have the 3 children at such useful intervals, maximising her time at home?

Having another child when the current youngest goes to school is beneficial surely? Means each time the youngest gets proper one to one time with the SAHP during the day, or at least with the mother during maternity leave. Then by the time the toddler years come for the new child, the previous youngest child is 4-5, a bit more self sufficient and out of the tantrums stage themselves. So even evenings, mornings and weekends when they're not at school are easier. Makes much more sense than trying to look after a baby with a toddler round your ankles 24/7.

It's a rather unusual age gap, with the 3rd child being 10 years younger than the 1st child, and does make you wonder whether it's designed to avoid work for as long as possible. Having a 3rd child is a typical way of doing that, too. I get a really strong impression that the OP is lazy rather than anything else. Other posters are doing everything they can think of to justify her not wanting to work. The truth is that she simply doesn't WANT to work, She's said that herself, repeatedly. I'm not a man, but I do sympathise with them over the amount of gaslighting that goes on on Mumsnet over how incredibly hard work it is to look after a child (yes, in this case it's only one child most of the time, and I'm assuming that the OP wanted the child and likes the child, so you could surely argue that she's actually having a nice time rather than slaving over horrible childcare) and to do some housework. If you like children, wanted your children and they're average children or better (not the type who screams all the time), then staying at home with your child is like one long holiday, frankly.

OneTipsyRubyDreamer · 20/01/2026 22:48
I don’t work in a school. I work in PR but my employer agreed to me working 2 days a week school hours term time only after my first MAT leave. My employer would happily let me work full time 5 days a week from 9-5 and that’s what DH wants me to do but I haven’t asked my employer about that because I don’t think it’s manageable for me with childcare and everything I do at home and also because of my children’s SEN and my mental health amongst a few other reasons.

There you go.

As the mother of a child with cerebal palsy and two children with autism, I can tell you that the first to suffer with a child with SEN is sleep, the second is mental health.

So you carry on judging, I will carry on being emapthetic and sympathetic.

It took her a long time to come up with the SEN pretext - and we don't know what she means by that. Could be anything or more likely nothing. Anyway, the first 2 children are at school all day. I'm guessing that mental health means that she enjoys being at home. If she's unable to work due to mental health or finds it very difficult due to mental health she would have mentioned that at the outset. Instead, she told us repeatedly that she simply doesn't WANT to work. How would she feel if her husband said the same thing and resigned from his job? People are giving her huge leeway because the understanding among lots of women on here is that staying at home with even one child is incredibly hard work and men need to be made to understand that. If anyone tells the truth then she's letting the side down.

Again, I'm talking about women with average children.

"pretext"? Interesting. So the implication is that the OP is lying. I wonder why your mind went that way when she made it clear from the start that she didnt want to share details.

I didnt share my sons disability online until he was old enough (18) to consent and only then on here. Age gaps. My eldest is 21 years older than my youngest. Why? Secondary infertiity (its a thing, google it) and me feeling able to have another child when already a mother to a child with SEN and then just life.

You sound like you resent anyone who doesnt have to live the life you do, which you presumably are not happy with. I imagine that you would love to work PT or not at all (see what I did there?).

Which the OP doesnt have, so what is your point exactly?

You mean the childcare costs from the funded 30h that would come free from a term time nursery?
Or the childcare cost of the SEN child who's in school?

Don't forget many SEN children can't use after school clubs.

Depending on your children's needs, there may not be after school childcare avaliable. My kids aren't allowed in the after school club because they can't staff enough for their needs and because my ASD child just lies on the classroom floor and refuses to go.
Sounds as if if just thinks every day is a jolly for you and doesn't see the invisible labour. If you are ok money wise why do you need to work more ?

Also funded hours are TTO, holiday clubs are non existent for SEND kids and most run school hours only (where I live anyway). Do you claim DLA OP ?

What would you do for childcare in school holidays if you are both full time?
The youngest dc is 18months, that's still very young to go to nursery full time.

I work 2 days per week too, term time only and my dh full time. I have worked these hours for 13 years.
I also have 3dc although all are at school.
My dh is fine with this set up as he understands that he would have to do all school pick ups, share of house work etc if I worked full time.

I know this is a couple of days old. But I've just seen it.

I would write down everything that you do for a week, including how long it takes.

Then sit down to discuss you going full time, and how everything would be split, so that you are both doing 50/50. And once you have agreed the split, ask him for a trial run of doing his 50% just to make sure that it would work.

See how he feels after that...

Not all children with SEN are the same and OP has not explained how much of her time is spent dealing with her child's SEN (in fact she didn't even mention it in her OP, and you'd think if a key justification for not wanting to work more hours was the extra appointments, greater illness, lack of sleep etc due to dealing with a child's SEN, that it would be an obvious thing to say rather than "I don't want to work more hours"). Many children with SEN are happily settled in mainstream school and there is a not a huge amount of extra "work" for the parent.

If she'd led with her child's SEN being a key motivator, as opposed to it being an afterthought, I think she would have got some different answers.