WIBU about paid work responsibilities?

[stripytigerz]

I’m not quite sure what the answer is to this as I think probably neither of us are being that unreasonable.

I am early 40s and DH is early 50s. We have one DC, aged 5. I work in a stressful professional job 3 days a week. I do all the mental load of DC, and the majority of school runs etc. DH works FT hours also in a stressful environment. In addition, he picks up additional paid overtime. This means that he is rarely around in the evenings, leaving house and DC to me.

This did cause some resentment earlier on as I felt unsupported at home and I felt my career was suffering further as I couldn’t commit to out of hours BD etc, which is important in my profession. Equally, DH felt resentful as he felt he was shouldering the financial responsibility of the family. Just to note, I earn about 40% of our household income. If DH dropped the overtime, it would be more like 50/50.

The overtime money is definitely helpful but I do think we would manage day to day without it. We have not debt and decent savings. Some months we don’t save if we have particularly high outgoings but most months we can save £500 upwards. So, DH overtime is basically funding this. It then pays for holidays etc.

So I think that’s the context in a nutshell.

The issue is DH has been putting me under pressure to increase my working days for some time now, but fundamentally I don’t think I would cope with it. I have the usual struggle of high pressured, stressful job, mental load, peri etc. I genuinely feel constantly on the brink of burnout. It’s day to day keeping me head above water. I don’t believe that ultimately DH would share the mental load in a way that it would reset the balance. Also, there has to be a business need for me to increase my hours and I don’t believe my firm would agree to it at the moment anyway. DH dismisses this. It would also make things so much harder in school holidays etc.

Ultimately I am sure DH is tired too and would like to reduce his hours. However overtime has always been his choice and he gets antsy if he thinks it’s not available. He makes out I’m overworking him by refusing to increase my hours.

Discussions around this always seem to end in an argument and I’m not sure where to go from here.

I think you need to get into a better place mentally if you feel you are burning out working three days a week. Do you have a massive commute, any opportunities to WFH? Really when your child is at full time school you will have two days for you. Well take one off for cleaning and groceries but that would leave you free for you on one day and your husband doesn’t get that. So I can see his point, but I can see your point that you are nearly matching his wages only working three days a week. Are you and your husband happy. I genuinely could not imagine my husband wanting me to work more if we had enough money in the first place.

Thanks @Thingcanonlygetbetter

I take your point about getting in a better place mentally, but honestly I don’t really know where to start.

I acknowledge I have these “2 days” a week but in reality it’s 9am to 3pm, and those hours just fly by. By the time I get a shop and some chores done, it’s time to think about doing the school run. The rest of the time I am absolutely “on”. DC doesn’t much like sleep so bedtime can be really late. As I say, pretty much all childcare is down to me the rest of the time, including weekends.

I also to a bit of catch up work on one of those days off. This is another point of dispute because DH says I “may as well get paid” for this extra work. But it’s not how my industry works. I have my own workload and I just have to get it done. If I increase my hours, it won’t just pay me for this additional time that I’m already doing. My workload will increase, which means it will eat into my one day off which will then have a knock on effect on chores etc. when I was FT, I worked late and weekends. DH forgets this.

As I say, I don’t think it’s likely he’ll take enough off my plate to help me manage the increased workload.

There are problems between us but I don’t see a resolution to that either. I think we’re both feeling hard done by.

I am also seeing the GP about my peri symptoms but obviously there’s no quick or magic cure for this. My sleep has been terrible and my anxiety is through the roof, so not helping with my resilience

Just a hopefully bump

Id be inclined to demonstrate what equal hours and childcare look like.

"DH, I hear your concerns and I'm happy to sit down woth you and work out what anni crease in hours looks like. I think we need to carve out about an hour to discuss home and childcare responibilities and how we will manage that. Let me know when you'd like to do that."

Make him make an appointment to discuss. I'd bet my right arm he will make vague noises about it "not being that difficult and you don't need to be so formal". Which in reality means he has no interest beyond him working less hours and you doing more.

DH is right about the extra hours being unpaid though, you can't have it both ways.

He can demonstrate how he will ‘step up’ with the mental load and the childcare over the summer, in anticipation that you would increase your hours.

when he doesn’t then that’s the matter ended.

It sounds like you’d be less burnt out if you did paid work 5dpw and he did no O/T and half the child stuff. I’ve not been in your situation but I’ve worked part time and alongside PTers when FT, and it’s often more intense, busy mums (typically) fighting to be professionally respected/justify not working all the days. It would likely be better for your whole family if your husband stopped ducking out his fair share of parenting, especially now your child’s getting older (I do think little kids need their mums more & older kids need their dads more, but I think that’s a minority opinion. Anyway, you need more support from him in raising your shared child.)

Have you asked him what he intends to do with regard to his share of housework, childcare and mental load if you work more?

For example, he could be responsible for the laundry and 70% cooking while you are responsible for the other 30% cooking, food shop, cleaning and school runs?

See how he responds.

Thanks all. This is one of the main issues - I have said I need to see DH taking some of the load off me before I can commit to increasing my hours. DH says I need to be working more to allow him to reduce his hours before he can start sharing the load. We just go round in circles.

Ultimately, I don’t trust that he will. I fear I’ll still be juggling all the childcare mental load whilst doing even more in an already stressful job.

Can you trial some things before you commit - ie DH does the weekly shop on a weekend so its one thing off your list? Would test that he is being serious about sharing loads outside work.

if you do move to four days a week, could you use pre and after school so that you get a ‘proper day’.

Your husband sounds ridiculous. He wants you to up your hours so he can reduce his but he can do that by just not doing overtime. Yet he gets annoyed if there's no overtime. What does he actually want?
Think I'd just say if you want more time off stop doing overtime. There is no need for me to increase my hours as we can cope if we both just work our set hours. Remember if I am working you will have to do 50% of the housework and 50% childcare. Let's decide what days you are going to do pick up/bedtime/cook tea. He'll probably change his mind if he sees you are totally serious about splitting everything equally.
If you know he's not going to step up at home then don't do more hours.

9am - 3pm twice a week is a reasonably long time, although I get that some of it is taken up with unpaid work and I totally see what you mean about increasing contracted hours wouldn't mean you get paid for it.
Can't you do an online shop the night before, do your chores while waiting for the delivery and save yourself a few hours and a trip out?

That is always my first time saving change when my work gets v busy.

Ultimately though I think DH needs to drop overtime and perhaps you need to sit down and agree what will take the hit financially if he does. I don't think you should agree to work more if you're doing more at home already (and your PT role brings in as much as his FT one)

Why does childcare fall to you at the weekend? Is that when his overtime is? Or is he just opting out?

I do think it's sensible to arrange finances so you can save something - things tend to all happen at the same time and it's sensible to have enough money aside if you can so that you can get a new boiler and a car repair in the same month etc. So I can see why he feels that he needs overtime, however I can also see why you feel like he wouldn't step up at home, especially if he isn't stepping up when he could already.

I think I'd sit down and work out what things would look like if you went up to 4 days. What specific tasks would he take on? What mental load stuff would he organise (eg child hair cuts, meal planning). Agree to give it a 4-6 weeks trial where you work as though you were working 4 days and he takes on more in the home and then discuss how you both found it.

Also will an increase in wages let you outsource anything? Even a couple of hours clean every 2 weeks

Thanks @DrinkFeckArseBrick

He’ll usually pick up a short shift at the weekend. It’s nearly always Saturday morning to get it out of the way. I take DC to a sports club then anyway, and we usually get home at about the same time.

The rest of the weekend he’s doing “jobs”, but think a day pottering in the garden, 2hours plus washing his car. He will also do his exercise. He will do jobs that I would just outsource, like window cleaning and gutter cleaning but he refuses to pay for someone else to come in and do it. To be fair, he does do some jobs in the house. I would say I do the day-to-day jobs like washing, loading and unloading dishwasher, vacuuming, cleaning down kitchen, tidying toys etc.

Evenings, he has to sit down with the telly because “he works all week”. I do 100% of bedtimes. He has never put DCs washing away. I asked him to get a pair of socks and he didn’t know where they’re kept.

I also do all the cooking. Even if DH did the food shop, I’d have to give him a list so I would still have the mental load of it.

I have also tried just to move things over to him. I booked DC a haircut on an afternoon this holiday that DH is covering. DH has complained about it and has said he will book the next one (when there) to make sure it’s on my day off.

DH has also refused to take DC to a new club on the one night he does do school pick up. Says it has to be on my day.

No go too. DH won’t agree to the cost.

This is unacceptable.

So, he CLAIMS he wants to work fewer hours, and to do that, you will have to do MORE hours, but he's not willing to do even the bare minimum currently? So really, he wants to do fewer hours but with no shift in household earnings. Meanwhile, he consistently does not prioritise you or your family and spends his time working or pottering around or watching tv.

If I was more cynical, I'd wonder if he wants you earning more so that in a divorce he can justify getting more of the assets/ pay you less.

If he can't even take a child for a hair cut by himself, a hair cut booked by you in advance, I'm struggling to see how he think she's ever goign to be able to take on more of the mental and physical load.

He sounds like a waste of space to me. I suspect you'd feel a lot less burnt out as a single parent. At least thhen you wouldn't have expectations of help from him, nor would you have to manage him and his uselessness.

Your DH sounds like an arse TBF. Are you happy in this relationship?

I just don't know how men can get on like this and have any self respect. The utter selfishness of trying to squeeze more out of someone at capacity in order to get yet more time off when he already has evenings and a large chunk of the weekend to do whatever he wants.

Just say no, OP. You're maxed out and if he wants to take some of the load off you such that you feel less overwhelmed then great, you'll maybe reconsider at that point once you feel better.

Is he ready to do school runs and doctor’s appointments? Things like laundry and shopping are still flexible. Unless he is ready to reorganize his workdays around having a child, this discussion can’t go very far.

Of course you will! Your DH doesn'tvseem to even see there is an unpaid workload to be shared. Or care that you are worn out already working part-time. Frankly, his suggestion that you need to up your hours, when you're already at burn-out, before he will even consider doing more says it all about how he sees you.

Based on your latest updates, he sounds like a lazy dickhead