Dh wants me to work more, but won’t take any time off work or be flexible

[ThatTaylorSwiftsongstuckinmyhead]

Suspect this may be a problem for some others too and feeling angry that being a woman is being expected to do everything

Bit of background

Worked full time all my life in fairly demanding career. Had Dc later in life due to infertility. Was fortunate to be able to step back from work and be with Dd at home until 4/5. From age four onwards, I worked part time around Dd’s hours. I’ve always done drop offs, pick ups, Drs, dentists, school, homework, housework (do have a cleaner every fortnight) all cooking, food shop, bills.
Dd is now in school full time and i’m being asked to do more jobs (self employed) with great pay. These aren’t always set hours or that predictable and a great job could come up last minute.
I’m fortunate that i’m still able to do drop off and pick up and Dd finishes school at 3.15.
The work (and money) is coming in more now, which i’m really enjoying-in both the sense of feeling fulfilled in my work and bringing in more money myself and being able to book little holidays and extra things for Dd-horseriding, piano lessons and so on.
I’ve been asked to do a last minute, well paid job. Just one of the days is over the Easter holidays, I’ve luckily always been able to be off for the holidays and not needed to organise childcare.
I told Dh about this job and how they asked for the Thursday and good Friday. I said to him the Good Friday would be ok as he’d be off, but they need the Thursday too. He looked at me as if to say ‘Why are you telling me?’ I said to him, so what do we do as the whole job (two weeks) is amazing pay but they need me on these dates so I can’t miss this day as may not get taken on for the job. He seemed surprised and said ‘Well I can’t take it off! I’m needed at work and can’t just take time off!’
Bearing in mind I would earn almost double he does for working this day.
He always seems to have a underlying resentment at me not working more or working full time, but then how can I if everything is left for me to organise a job around in respect to Dd?

Am I in the wrong here?

This is a familiar scenario, men/husbands - are happy for you to progress & earn more but just dont diary rates their routine of ask them to do more. A mother has to be flexible, a father doesn't. A mother does the worn before being asked, a father has to be asked. A mother will assume xyz falls on her, unless told otherwise - a dad will assume it isnt for him to do, unless told otherwise. You get my gist. Modern marriages, modern parenting is not fair.

Welcome to the joy of "you need to contribute more financially" and are still expected to do all of the childcare and mental load work. I have lived this way for the past 4 years, and am tired and resentful. I know there are apparently many posters on here who would just leave in this situation, but it would massively affect the kids standards of living, and in order to survive i would have to do this anyway, so its gaining nothing! So I continue to work myself half to death, quietly building my business and putting money into my pension, so when the kids dont need taking care of anymore i can do as i please in regards to hours and hobbies whilst husband will still be doing his set hours every week.

Husbands who don't love their wives but see them merely as workhorses to be used until they drop.

I know of a few of these people and it only really came to light when the husbands needed caring for due to life changing illnesses, and their wives refused to be involved in their care, now that they had finally retired.
They had worked full-time and reared the children singlehandedly and not divorced their selfish golf loving husbands.

They drew the line at caring duties and refused to do it. One woman used back issues as an excuse, but either way he was going to a care facility.
They were quiet happy to sell up the family home and trade down. They weren't prepared to sacrifice their remaining years looking after them.
I think some women are finally waking up to the fact they can say No.

It's annoying. But seriously. Put her in holiday club. Do the job. Use the money for yourself, he doesn't get to share

Most people use childcare for school age kids? Eg they'd book a camp/holiday club day for the Thursday.

And surely you must know that of course working parents do indeed drop kids to breakfast club or nursery from 7.30am?!

Find some childcare, keep the money out of the family pot. Do something nice just you and Dd? He can whistle if he wants to dictate how this money is spent!

Why have you married a caveman, OP?

Errr annual leave?!

Sometimes there are instances when a day is nigh on impossible for either parents to cover due to work responsibilities, and alternatives DO need to be found. If that's the case here then YABU. However, if its just the case that he doesnt think it's anything to do with him at all and you are asking him to "do you a favour" then YANBU.

In families where both parents are working, this usually means both parents juggling the school holidays, alongside paid childcare/holiday clubs and family and friends helping out. This is standard.

Is there any way your dd can have a playmate that day or day with grandparents? It sounds like you should say yes to the job but you need a serious chat with your partner about being a team and future childcare arrangements.

"He’s always said" - when talking/thinking about other people. He hasn't actually considered joint custody, not really. As soon as he did, and considered how custody would 'interfere' with his image of himself as indispensable-at-work - he'll say he wants something different.

I wonder if "He’s always said" because he knows he's being unreasonable and he knows the thought of him depriving you of 50% of your daughter's life keeps you under his thumb, facilitating the life of Mr Indispensable.

I feel like there is 2 separate issues here.

I don’t know many places of work where they’d let you book a day off so close because the other parent had to work. You find child care. It’s different if a child is sick or an emergency of course.

But then there is obviously an underlying problem with you working/not working. A deep conversation is needed.

He’s talking nonsense. My boss is an Executive Board Director and took a day off mid-week to do something for one of his kids because his wife was working. The company will not collapse because your DH isn’t there for one day (promise).

The point is, he won’t have even asked

In many jobs you can't just book time off easily and especially not the school holidays. I woudn't be able to get time off next Easter, let alone in a couple of weeks time. However, your husband does need to engage in a sensible discussion about splitting childcare to enable both of you to pursue your careers. In the future he will need to think ahead and book time off to look after your DD.

I wouldn’t ask because I know it would be a no

Well, you have a highly unreasonable employer, but I suspect you know that.

In some jobs though, the needs of the service dictate that there have to be a minimum number of staff at work on any day for the service to function. That was the case where I worked, in the public sector. It was very stressful if people went sick for example if people were already on annual leave. Customers always complained if we were short staffed and they couldn't get an immediate answer on the phone, for example, which made an already stressful situation worse.
So yes, I can understand why sometimes the answer is no, and it's pointless to ask.

I get that sometimes there are stringent rules, and this is needed in lots of industries. But then if that was the case, the OPs DH needs to learn to communicate. He simply could have said "I won't be able to request leave but there is already X number of people off and with it being school holidays the team are maxed out on annual leave - I would have needed to requets it X weeks ago. I wonder how else we could work it out?"

It shouldn't be just up to the OP to figure out the childcare.

It’s unreasonable to not give everyone who asks for the day before a bank holiday off?

Come on. Surely you know that’s ridiculous.

We have a minimum staffing level, and therefore a maximum annual leave allowance at any given time, certain quotas per team etc.

It’d be a no in my workplace as well, because the opportunity to get Easter holidays in has long passed.

I known literal brain surgeons who were on call and anaesthetists have to drop everything but outside of that I doubt there’s much that couldn’t be rearranged for 24 hours.

But the question could be asked, I’ve swapped with colleagues in emergency circumstances because I’m just not an arse and I remember what it was like when I was raising young children myself

Depends if you think this is an emergency or not, I’m guessing the husband doesn’t - certainly not his emergency anyway.

You must be a genuinely lovely colleague. My staff do swap with each other, but not around bank holidays.

I don’t know many people that would give up a 5 day weekend because of someone else’s childcare issues.

Really! No, it's often not possible in certain jobs. The service just would not run. Can you really not think of any situation where if too many people were off then things would not grind to a halt? No one can be on 2 places at once or do 2 things at once. That's what would have been the case in my job.

what sort of role is he in? School teacher or uniformed services very different to some office roles ?

Your post reads as if he isn’t even prepared to ask whether his day off can be accommodated.
, that he is happy to leave it all to you.

Is that correct or has he already had a really serious effort to arrange cover? If he is that senior, what would happen if he were unexpectedly unwell and unable to work? Accidents happen, surely there is a plan in place. You just need him to accept some responsibility

sigh

If you both need to work the day then arrange holiday club/chilcare. Problem solved :)