Am I expecting too much from DH

[sunshinepenguin]

DH and I have two primary age DC.

When our eldest was born we worked similar hours and earned similar amounts and it felt very equal. Over time this has changed and I now work part time and only earn a third of what he earns. This was a joint decision, if anything it was me who was keen to work less as I wanted to be at home more for the children.

However I’m now feeling like it’s become so unbalanced that I’m starting to resent him and I can’t work out if this is justified or my expectations are unfair given he earns so much more than me.

He admits he is a workaholic and always has been. He WFH two days a week, on those days I barely see him as he’s on calls literally all day. Rarely if ever does pick up or drop off. The remaining three days he works on site and stays in a hotel and therefore we don’t see him. He claims not to be happy at his job and says he doesn’t like staying away as it’s boring, he doesn’t sleep well, misses us etc.

He does no cleaning or laundry. He will sometimes make dinner but I have to do the food shop and plan all the meals. He is quite good at driving the kids to their activities at weekends, although I have to book everything and keep track of timings, payments, party invites. He is also fine with staying at home with the kids whilst I go to an exercise class at the weekend or on evenings when he’s home. So it’s not that he does nothing at all but it feels very unbalanced.

This week is our daughter’s birthday and he’s working away. She’s turning 7 so an age where birthdays really matter and he’s done virtually nothing. I have bought and wrapped every present. Written the card from both of us. He won’t be here so I will decorate the house and sort out the cake and birthday tea. His mum has a big birthday coming up and I’ve bought all the presents and cards for that too as I felt sorry for her as I wasn’t sure DH would remember otherwise.

He never plans anything for us to do, never has ideas for days out, never says “I’ll take the day off and we’ll go for lunch while the kids are at school”. He just doesn’t feel very present in our lives. He’s always tired and always stressed about work. I’m taking our eldest to the GP today and not sure he even knows as we seem to live such separate lives.

I feel very sad about this and not sure where to go from here. Ten years ago I felt we were a team and now I just feel we are both so alone and I’m not sure how things can continue. I don’t know if I am being unreasonable to expect more from him when he earns so much more from me and I don’t know if it’s partly my fault for allowing this situation to develop.

Exactly. I smell a rat.

Jesus you have the patience of a saint.

I initially was thinking yab a bit u but hes just zoned out of family life so in many respects yanbu at all.

Are the kids even that interested in him given he is never there?
Also the hotels!?!?!
My dh and i would not DREAM of staying overnight for a 1-2 hour commute.
We'd do 1-1.5 each way 3 days per week.... if needed we block time leave at 4 and do an hour or 2 from home.
Is he def not having some kind of affair / is there something else going on?

You've painted yourself into a corner with the low salary job so id try and make it work

I thonk you need to ask if he is really living th life he wants. Because you arent and the kids aren't and you want some middle ground .. id involve a marriage counsellor if needed. Bizarrely men seems to onpy realise what knows they are being when thry have to say it out loud to someone else.

I think it's fair that if you work less, you do more of the housework/mental load/life admin stuff

More of it but not all of it.

I’d only say someone should do all of it if they weren’t working at all.

An HOUR commute?? An HOUR and he stays overnight three times? And doesn’t video call the kids or pitch in with housework that can viably be done from a distance (I.e. meal planning and online shop) while he’s away?

Are you sure he doesn’t have a second family?

In contrast, my DH and I both worked long hours in London, but we moved to the suburbs for the schools. We purchased a flat in town so we could take it in turns to sleep in London and have a short commute 1-2 nights a week and sometimes the person home on a Friday would bring the kids into London and we’d make a weekend of it.

That lasted less than a year, because neither of us liked being away from each other and our DC that regularly.

We sold the flat and sucked up the commute because loving each other, and our children, meant that we wanted to be together.

Having been in your H’s situation, I find his distant attitude for three consecutive days of the week every week very bizarre. What is occupying his evenings? Or should I say who?

This is a fair analysis.

buying/writing/planning the birthday… yes I can see that should be on your list as you are at home. However… turning up- that’s on him.

And she is doing almost all the childcare and an equal share of chores. What part is unfair in your mind?

He only has an hour commute, so he doesn’t need to stay in a hotel, especially if he says it’s boring I very much doubt it but he can’t even be bothered to video call you and the children?! My dad had different sites that he worked on and sometimes he did months and months of 2-3 hours each way and always came home to my mum and my two siblings!
He sounds exhausting and I think you both need to sit down and try to find a way going forward.

He's a single man with all the convenience of a family.
Poor children.
Staying away 3 nights a week to avoid a commute that millions do?
Unbelievable.

As for being his skivvy with his family?
Madness.
Why are you doing stuff for his family.
You are part of the problem.

If you want to remain married do, but I would be upping my hours, get my career back on track, pay for all the help you can to make it work for you.

No laundry, shopping or cooking for him.
Let him pay someone to do it.
You are a convenient appendage to his life, as are your children.
Awful selfish loser.

Thank you for all your replies, I have read all of them and it is helpful to get some outside perspectives.

You’re all totally right of course about the commute / hotels. Bizarrely it had never occurred to me that this is actually quite a mad situation to have got ourselves into. It started because when he initially worked there he was doing very long hours on a project so it made sense to stay overnight and then it somehow just became the norm.

As I was driving to work this morning I realised I actually have a longer commute than he does in a way because I have to drop the kids off on the way so it takes me longer than an hour 🤦‍♀️

We definitely need to have a conversation about this.

I know I’m one in a long line of women on here who’s said this and I could have course be proved wrong but I really don’t think he’s having an affair. I think he’s just in love with his job.

I don't think you're being unreasonable but I don't agree with the poster that said you can't expect him to know you want or need help. These are the absolute fundamentals of relationships, partnerships and families and he knows. Of course he does. They all do.

The idea he just can't be expected to know how to participate in his own life is daft. You can talk to him and try to sort it out but the chances of anything changing are slim as he's now got comfortable with not doing very much at home unless he's led by the nose.

I’m amazed he is still able to claim hotel expense with a not that unreasonable commute and if no longer working on the initial project

Nobody should ever do all of it. The idea that someone is at home doing everything 24/7 because the other person is in an office 9-5 is ridiculous. It's even more ridiculous when you consider that means doing it all for another adult while they sit on their arse.

Interesting update OP.

So, bearing in mind you actually have the longer commute, if you told your DH “on your WFH days I’m going to stay in a hotel because the hour + commute for me each way is exhausting” do you think he’d say “yep, that makes sense, I’ll take on the school runs and the homework and cooking and cleaning and washing on top of my own job while you’re away”

Or would he say “don’t be ridiculous”

I’d put money on it being “do t be ridiculous” which makes his decision to stay away even crazier.

Hmmm.
Cherchez la femme..

1. he's away half the week.
2. he's checked out of family life
3. he won't move "work commitments"

Sorry, but I think there's another agenda on his mind.

One hour is not a long commute at all! I'm surprised work is even willing to pay that. DP is only allowed a hotel from work when his commute is over 2 hours. But he still doesn't. He's only taken a hotel for the training courses which are nearer 4hrs away.

I'm presuming he only takes the two middle nights but still, taking 2 nights off every week when you have young kids is a piss take quite frankly. You work 3 days he works 5. So he does 5/8ths of the outside work. So he should be doing 3/8th (more than quarter, less than half) of the home work. And he should be doing half of all the special occasions. He should be buying his daughter and m presents, and you. He should be planning dates and showing the people he loves THAT he loves them. Doesn't matter how much you work, those things don't stop being important.

It's not like he's such a high earner that you're living in luxury.

I wonder who would do the cooking and cleaning for him if he didn’t have a wife? I’m sure he’d manage to shop, eat and run a vacuum over the place even though he has a big important job. Apparently he managed to do so when OP was working full time, why should his contribution stop entirely simply because OP dropped some hours?

It is not at all unreasonable to expect an adult to pull their weight in keeping a household going, to be a parent, even if they are the major wage earner.

This ^
by the way you know he never says no at work because he is worried about consequences- he wants to look good and worried to loose his job but he is not worried about losing you or he thinks you will stay with him whatever.

So your daughters birthday. Is he actually working away away. Or is he an hour away and not willing to drive home to see his daughter on her birthday.

I don't really get this attitude, @firstofallimadelight presumably is caring for a pre-school aged child all day and she has also said she cares for her dad - that is hard work and tbh often harder and more emotionally draining than working in an office all day.

Just because one person works in a traditional full-time job doesn't mean they should get a pass from helping to maintain their own home?! Everyone who lives in a home should help maintain it, no matter what.

She is not sat at home with her feet up, she's working too and certainly caring for a young child can be far longer hours than your average 9-5 at times.

I think some of what you say is being unreasonable. You hardly see him when he works from home as he is on calls all day? Yes, because he is working. He doesn’t know you’re taking the child to the GP? Well, have you mentioned it? I presume he is present enough to notice if she is acutely unwell. I don’t think not taking time off for the birthday is unreasonable at all because won’t the child be at school all day anyway?

In general, as the part-time worker (and I assume with a shorter commute so out of the house fewer hours even on the days that you do work) you should expect to do more than him in the house and with the kids.

BUT. As everyone else has said, staying in a hotel because of a one hour commute is ridiculous. One hour is the norm for most people. My morning commute is one hour including school drop-off. When DD was at nursery it was 90 minutes in the morning including drop-off (I eventually left that job when an office move meant that another 15 minutes would have been added). Admittedly slightly quicker at the other end of the day, but I’ve worked with people who have far longer commutes than that.

I agree you should show/discuss your original post with him, OP. As it's the checking out of what should be your shared life that seems to bother you, rather than just his thoughtlessness. (And it is thoughtless for him to never consider organising something special for you or the children on your birthdays.)

Him staying in a hotel 3 nights a week is ridiculous. It takes an hour to get anywhere in London! So unless you live right next to the office, most people's commute is at least an hour. I used to live in the SE and work in the West Midlands two days a week, every week, for a year. It wasn't possible to stay in a hotel. I can't say I'd be in a hurry to do it again, but commutes come with the job sometimes. If he finds travelling that much of an issue, he really needs to either move closer to work or find another job.

I guess, then, he's having an affair with his job, but gaslighting you by telling you that he hates his job

🤣

What an idiot 🙄

I drive an hour each way and then a 10hr shift so he could easily drive home

or even if he stayed the middle night

so drive tue am and pm. Drive wed am. Stay wed night. drive home Thur eve. Drive fri am and pm

to not video call in evenings to you or dc is crap

Well aside from the bonkers 1 hour commute being long enough to justify a hotel you need to have a proper conversation with him. There's a chance he just doesn't realise or appreciate quite how you feel or how imbalanced this all is and laying it out in front of him will be the catalyst for change.

Unfortunately, what is more likely, is the realisation that he does know but doesn't care, thinks his job is more important because he earns more and you need to work around that. I'd be reminding him that if something doesn't change you will end up leaving (as frankly it would probably be easier) and then he'll have solo parenting to juggle with his busy life. I would seriously consider increasing your work hours and telling your husband what needs to change and NOT picking up after him if he forgets to cook on his turn or calls to say he can't get the kids from school - this is where you say tough shit yes you do and he figures it out.

And however convinced you are there's no-one else, I'd be keeping a closer eye finding a good excuse to turn up unannounced one day . An old pal of mine discovered her husband had been having a 3 year affair whilst he was working in London in the week and she was at home raising their 3 kids. Never suspected in a million years absolutely not 'the type' and she & we all thought he was a really decent husband and father.

@Mapletree1985

Agree completely.