To refuse to look after the kids so thst DH can work on a Sunday?

[shootfromthehip]

My DH has a good job and as he has been promoted, he works more and more. He commutes to work and works on the train there and back. How comes home after the kids have gone to bed, leaves in the morning having seen then for half an hour over the breakfast table.

When he comes home at night he has his dinner and then gets his laptop out. He works until 11pm + every night except Fri and Sat. His contribution around the house is non existant and recently he has been insisting that he gets time at the weekends to work. This weekend I took the kids to a party on sat afternoon leaving him to suit himself and he then told me he was going to work all Sun.

I said 'No'. A couple of weekends ago I took the kids all day Sun to allow him to work but I'm determined to ensure that this doesn't become a habit. We live miles away from my friends and family and I don't drive so I can't just skip off out with DC. I am a SAHM and rarely get any time off or away from the kids and our family activities are usually dictated by DH.

I know that there will be worse situations out there and I will tell you honestly that I am not looking for lectures about how lucky I am- it's subjective. I would appreciate advise about how to handle this as yesterday was a horrid day in our house for me, DH and DC as DH went in a huff because he couldn't work. I know the guy is snowed under but there is an element of control here- he won't delegate. Any tips please because I just want to bury him under the patio at the mo. lol

[AbbeyA]

My mother passed her driving test after 6 tries-I am sure you can do it!
I wouldn't just focus on you and the DCs, you must change him before he gets even more entrenched! You can't spend the rest of your life in a way that you don't want!
Lock up the laptop before the holiday and really talk to him about what you both want out of life. If it is vastly different then work out compromise but don't take second place to the job.

[MuffinMclay]

Does he worry about money and job security etc? Perhaps he feels he has to work long hours to make himself stand out from others in the current economic climate? Maybe if he has just been promoted he hasn't quite got the hang of letting go and delegating yet, and is finding his feet a bit?

My dh just had a big promotion and seems to be struggling with these sort of issues.

The best thing you can do is learn to drive. I did it late in life (aged 30ish) and didn't realise just how important it was until I could do it. It gives you so much freedom and independence.

[AtheneNoctua]

Why don't hire in some help to make up for the share your DH is not doing? Personally I'd get an au pair and a cleaner. The cleaner can do all athe laundry and clean the house. The au pair can do a bit of babysitting and run errands (take shirts to the cleaners, pick up birthday party presents, buy the school uniforms, etc.)

So then your DH can work some of the ime on weekends. I would probably say okay, let's compromise here. You can work Saturday, but Sundays are designated family day.

And if you have a cleaner/au pair you won't resent him for having to do ALL the housework.

I am of course assuming that this very demanding job pays enough for you to afford these things.

Oh, and obviously, the au pair can look after the kids while you go to your driving lessons.

[EffiePerine]

teh holiday might be a good time to have a talk (NOT on the first day, obviously, maybe after a week or so when you've both relaxed a bit, or at the ne dif you think it will up the tension).

[shootfromthehip]

Thanks everyone, ican't afford the extra help as morgage and life just too expensive. Don't really know what DH is hiding from- think it is insecurity: his mother or the witch in law as I like to refer to her as, was constantly berating him for not being goood enough. He was treated as though he was stupid despite being the apple of her eye (?). I think now that he is so desparate to proove that he IS good enough at one thing that it is more important than anything else.

Can't really see how to break through that one? I know he loves me and the LO's and when around he is a good Dad and Husband he just seems to be getting nhis priorities all wrong

[EffiePerine]

Talk to him

Maybe get a babysitter and head out to dinner on your own? Then (after having fed him, timing is important here) broach the issue?

[AbbeyA]

I would talk to him about the job-perhaps he isn't coping if he is having to work all hours.He may be bottling a lot up and not talking about it.

[floaty]

I also struggle with this one,my dh is wedded to the Blackberry!What does your dh do ,I have to say that this is the norm for dh's job and therefore on the whole I have learnt to live with it.

I have found one way to get through to him is to tell him the childrens comments ,when ds2 was little he used to wave if you said "daddy",this did really stop him in his tracks.

We are going through a bit of a sticky patch at the moment based really on his working hours and I am afraid that i finally used the tears method and told him through the tears (and I meant it) that if things continued this way that one day he would come home to find that we had gone but that i presumed that as his priority was the client /work this would be OK with him.He is trying now I think I did shock him but equally i try to make the time he has with us happy because i know that he can't do an awful lot about the work.

I also would recommend t
learning to drive ,the key to survving in my opinion is to know that you can cope without him being there all the time.

[shootfromthehip]

Well thanks to everyone for their advise, however having never been one to listen to advise, had massive argument with DH last night re work. Well I say argument, it was more like me crying and telling him how horrid our life is and him sitting with his head in his hands. Great. The man is obviously done in and for that i am sympathetic but he is also utterly bullet-proof when it comes to taking the blame. He does not present me with any options regarding him working less, just wants to focus on how I am contributing to his stress/ preventing him working.

So it went really well . Obviously we are both knackered and this year had been a really difficult one but I don't know how to get him to see my point of view. Any ideas?

[Katisha]

You have to ask him bluntly - what is he working for?
If it's for you and the family, then its not working as it is.
If its for him, then does he actually need a family around if he can only see it as an impediment to work...
If it's for both he's got to work out a compromise.

[Earlybird]

Are his working hours significantly increased since the promotion? Presumably he got a significant pay rise with the promotion? If not, what good is the promotion to your family?

[solidgoldbrass]

If he is stressed and under pressure and terrified that if he doesn't work these ridiculous unhealthy hours (single people with no children who work at this level get sick and sometimes drop dead, let alone those who are trying to accomodate the needs of a family as well, it is seriously bad for a human being to work like this) then he's not going to listen to your distress because he can't see a way out of it. You have to present it as problems to solve: priority 1 is that you need some childfree/chores-free time, so tell him he needs to either schedule in some time where he is looking after the DC or there needs to be some money for some childcare. Right now you need to concentrate on helping yourself to feel better before you can help/change him: driving lessons are good, time for you to do stuff that is soleley about YOU not for the benefit of TheFamily is essential.
Point out to him the health risks of working like this longterm (hypertension, heart attack, anxiety disorders) and ask him when it's going to ease up, and if he really wants to spend the rest of his life like this - that's a way of addressing the issue without it sounding like 'waaah, pay attention to me' (I am NOT saying that you are whining, more that to a stressed person any requests for any time or attention feel like more demands and more pressure).

[shootfromthehip]

sgb your last statement hits the nail on the head- i think that DH sees me as another pressure. Oh and don't worry about offending me- I am whining. Just can't wait for this holiday. That is is I don't come back divorced!

[LadyMuck]

There are 2 issues here:-

a) your dh's working hours and time management; and
b) how you manage to communicate with your dh about this.

The second issue is actually the more critical of the two ime, and this is where you need to concentrate your energy. If you can get this right then you don't need to come up with a solution to the first issue - you will be able to resolve it together.

It sounds as if your dh is a bit of a hedgehog in dealing with conflict (are you familiar with hedgehog/rhinos?). In which case starting off as a rhino and being blunt and assertive is unlikely to be helpful.

I think that you are going to have to find a way in which to get time with your dh so that he can talk to you about his work, and about how he feels about it before you point out that it is unacceptable. But you need to give him a safe place to do so. If you just give him a list of your woes then he is just goign to continue to feel overwhelmed.

Whilst I totally sympathise with your situation from my own experience I would say that the process of how you deal with this and talk about it is actually going to be more important than getting a quick win.

[pointydog]

Learn to drive.

You need to speak to your dh about his long hours. Maybe he does need to work the occasional Sunday. Maybe he's not dealing with his owrkload effectively. If you complain about him ahving to work, nothing will be achieved.

When I work at the weekend I really resent the slightest moan about it. You need to try to talk about it sympathetically. And he needs to talk sympathetically about your situation too.

[expatinscotland]

she can't exactly learn to drive when he refuses to take care of the kids whilst she goes to driving lessons.

and she's already said they can't afford babysitting or househelp so she can get out of the house.

right now, you feel like a slave because you are, OP.

[pointydog]

I've just caught up. He sounds very stressed. Maybe you should start by gettin ghim to list the time he feels he needs to spend working. Try and accomodate that as much as possible for a couple of weeks and review it after that to see how you're both doing?

[expatinscotland]

you sound very stressed, too, OP.

[shootfromthehip]

Stressed may indeed be a slight understatement. Between the constant childcare issues and the DH who acts like he is living in his own Universe, I am more than a little exasperated. Hmmmph.

I like the hedgehog analogy. I am most definately a rhino ( after 4 yrs of losing baby weight I can't believe I just described myself as that!). Maybe I should just get a cardboard cutout of myself to hang about until Fri (when he finishes up work) as my conversations are not going down well and I can tackle this better with a cold beer in hand in Spain? Just don't know if the work-load will drop after the hols as he will have all the 'I've been off for two weeks and I need to catch up' work to do, etc etc. The communication bit needs to be sorted out. He just clams up all the time. How do I make the man talk without the use of thumb screws?

[LadyMuck]

Had missed the imminent holiday.

Well, here's the way in which I would approach it (dh also a hedgehog whilst I have huge charging rhino tendencies):-

I would try to accept that there is little that I can expect from dh from now until holiday time and try to plan on that basis. This isn't fair, but I know that once we get our relationship back onto an even keel then dh will try to make up for this, especially as he will appreciate that it was a huge effort on my part not to kick his head in whilst he was being so selfish and blinkered. I would try to draw in any necessary external help possible/practical in order to get away on holiday first.

There is every chance that once your dh is on holiday he will simply flop (and leave you to do everything). I would try to head this off with a "shall i cook and you wash up" or a "shall I get up with the kids today and then you do so tomorrow?". Don't start ranting and raving, but try to set some limits without getting into the big issue.

Personally I would wait until you had both wound down a bit, and preferably had a laugh or two, before getting into the deep talk. The tricky bit is whether you have sex in the meantime - again it can help ensure both of you have reconnected as people before you get the issue out in the open, but if you are still angry then it may just be too difficult.

Your dh may need the chance to think things through as well as talk them through. this is probably going to be more than one conversation, so I would set it up as a series of conversations:-
a) how is dh finding work?
b) how are you finding life?
c) how is dh's work impacting everyone else?

I'd probably try to leave a gap after a) and b) for both parties to absorb what the other said.

How to resolve? Well hopefully by this stage dh will have at least seen the situation from a new perspective. You may both have different thoughts on it.

I recognise that the above may come across as being in some way over-pandering. Your dh is being a selfish blinkered idiot. But there are times in life when it might be you being the idiot, and it can be reassuring to know that you are in a relationship where the person is more important than the issue. I'm not suggesting that the current situation goes on indefinitely at all - you are clearly very unhappy and stressed about it. But if you could get through the next couple of weeks it may help move things on at a faster pace. IME people are more likely to change if they have been given time to work out the problem they are in in their own time rather than being forced/nagged into a course of action when they haven't even fully acknowledged the problem.

Beer will help.

[Kimi]

Point out to him that noone on their death bed has ever said "I wish I had spent more time at the office"

[shootfromthehip]

Beer helps with most things.

My biggest problem is not getting the response that I want when I pour my heart out. I would appreciate a sensitive and considered response to my concerns rather than an overt fingers in ears 'la la la I can't hear you'.

He really is that childish! Of course there is nothing I like better at the moment than an utter display of childish inanity because I always really wanted 3 LO's and not 2! Ha.

I can let the next week roll away -i hope- relatively painlessly. Have enlisted mother to take DS on Sat(who really is a little shit at the mo- must be getting lessons off his dad ) but not sure how to get him there as DH doesn't want to take him (AAaargh). Am going to have to tackle that one or it won't happen! Oh no hear he comes must go.

[edam]

Don't have any fresh words of wisdom about your not-so-very dear h BUT if you do get the chance to have driving lessons, then you can do it, honest!

I was secretly scared of driving but am now having lessons with a really nice instructor (recommended by an MNer - thanks, Alibubbles!) and it is sooooo liberating.

[bloss]

Message withdrawn

[BetterOut]

I've also got a work-obsessed DH and find that when it gets out of hand, it's easier to start the conversation with "i'm worried about you. You seem to be under a lot of pressure at work and not getting as much time as I'm sure you'd like with DD". It's much less confrontational and starts the conversation off with him thinking that you're trying to help him. Obviously, the objective is a bit of time off for you but he's not to know that... More than one way to skin a cat.