How do I survive young kids with husband who works all the time?

[Theresa88]

I have a nine month old and 3.5 year old. Husband works around the clock (until midnight every night) and when he's not working on the weekends i do most of the childcare. I do everything for the kids- every nursery drop off and pick up (3.5 year old in nursery 4 days a week), feed them every time, bedtime by myself most nights etc.
I'm utterly burnt out. how do I survive? im on maternity leave and I'll be going back to work two days a week when the youngest is 15 months old. We have no family support because we moved away from our hometown for husbands job.

I put up with a lot, but I wouldn’t put up with that. Honestly - is it possible for you to move back in with parents or even parents in law for six months? Tell him he can come and see you at weekends if he has time.

He may as well be single at this point,and your kids deserve more than a frazzled, sad, burnt out single mum.

I think you need to sit down with your husband and get on the same page about what you’re both picturing for your lives. If he’s working every hour under the sun but not for the life you want you’re just going to resent him and you’ll be on a path to almost certain unhappiness and divorce.

DH and I live a slightly unconventional family life, but the key is we discussed it and agreed the end goal was what we both wanted and set some boundaries and expectations on how we’d make it work.

Have you ever sat down to practically talk about what you both want? For yourselves, and your kids.

Have you considered moving back to your home town? He doesnt seem very present as a parent anyway.

If your home town is cheaper and has support you coukd live there and he could rent a little studio flat near work and just visit when he can.

Unfortunately the vast majority of my friends are back in my hometown. The city we have moved to for husbands job is hard to make friends in and most mums are working full time anyway.
I have hope it will become easier when we move back to our hometown in a few years and I have more of a support system around.

Honestly that is the plan in a few years when the kids are a bit older and he has reached a certain level at work. We're not quite there yet.

Have you tried making a Facebook post on your city group asking about mum groups or other mums in the same situation? Maybe try peanut?

I’m confused. You say he’s always worked these hours. Was this discussed prior to TTC? What was his stance then?

Oh love, you need to move back! This sound so lonely.

@Fearfulsaints this is a great suggestion.

Break the rent, you move home and your dh rents a studio or a room in a house share. If he’s working all hours then it’s irrelevant- he just needs a place to rest his head that has a bed, desk, etc. he can come home to you at the weekend and do all his laundry/ dry cleaning. If there’s six months before you can break the lease then you still move back home, you just stay with relatives until you can get out of the lease.

Respectfully you just have to get on with it and accept what it is if you’re husband wants to stay in his job and if you want the level of his income. I was in a similar situation. Two under 2 years old and my husband worked reallllly long hours. No family to help me. I think because I had no choice I just did it. Maybe employ a help ?

Sorry for grammatical errors !

Why cant you do it now out of interest? What are you both gaining out of being in the same location at the moment. You can hardly see each other.

If you wait till he is senior and presumably more flexible, the children will be older and you wont be so tired so you won't feel the same need for support.

DH worked long hours when dcs were young but he always did 50/50 at weekends, although that is spent together as family time so that I got a decent amount of time with DH too (rather than leaving him with dcs and going off to do my own thing).
I also worked 2 days but had both dcs in nursery/school 5 days so I had time to myself during the week to deal with errands, chores and appointments. We had a cleaner to help with cleaning once a week but there are still things you just need to deal with yourself and you can't really do them with 2 young dcs in tow.
We had a bigger age gap which made it more manageable as the eldest was fairly independent, and they did lots of extracurriculars and sports after school (run by the school, so I got a longer day before pickup and didn't have to take them to different places with younger dc coming along).

What are “investment expenses”, is that a way of saying he is putting his money into stocks and shares as savings, rather than towards the family when it is needed most?

if he earns good money he needs to use some of that to help the family. it is needed NOW not in the future. if not, then he needs to start saying no to his boss like a woman would have to so he can pull his weight with parenting.

at the moment he doesn’t pull his weight at all. Worse than that, he’s taken you away from your family to live in a high cost area with no help from anybody.

I suspected it might be law.

My question now is: is it worth it?

Can you downgrade / downsize any lifestyle decisions that release the hamster wheel and free up more cash for buying you and your family some time (eg childcare / cleaners / gardeners etc ??

Personally I couldn’t and wouldn’t choose to sacrifice my children’s childhood just to have investment expenses (not even sure what that is!) and rent in an expensive area. But ultimately whilst you make those choices then this is what you are left with.

Please make sure you are financially protected in case you decide to split later, given he is furthering his career at your expense. That vulnerability would worry me. Good luck x

Slightly different set up here as I did it with one child. And once Covid hit, DH was at home and not needing to commute any more which helped.

At the time, I was very strict with routine. Child‘s eating time influences their nap times, so he ate at specific times of the day. Nap time and bedtime were sacred.

We went out to lunch once a week (there are lots of lunchtime offers here and lunch is the main meal of the day). I also started turning up at pensioners‘ events - there were always people around who would genuinely enjoy holding baby/toddler for a few minutes and having a quick play.

Getting outside helped a lot, too.

From age 3.5 we started family time out. Anyone at home would go into their rooms and occupy themselves- we started with 20 minutes on the Gro Clock and quickly worked up to 1 hour. DS can still occupy himself well now.

Every weekend I took half a day off and went out so DH had to cope.

Think outside of the box as to what you can outsource and what value that would bring you. Cleaner? Roomba vacuum? Someone to jump in for a few hours like a Mother‘s Help?

Good luck!

Reading your responses, it seems you are prepared to accept giving up all your own happiness to make sure your husband gets absolutely everything his way. Up to you I guess, but I will be using this thread to once again make sure my daughters have financial independence so that they are not trapped, and that they understand they are equal to men.

Basic needs come before property investments.

You release equity from property to buy in extra help.

But also work is a choice at that level. I know plenty of solicitors who do the school run and are home on weekends. My Dh is not a solicitor, but he is self employed and he probably earns what your Dh does. He rarely works at the weekend, does half the school runs, did bathtime with ours every night from their first baths until they didn’t need him.

Working all the time and being ‘too busy’ is a choice. If he wants to be present for his children, he needs to work smarter not more. The kids won’t grow up remembering the big holidays, they’ll remember he wasn’t there when they learned to ride a bike.

What are the investment expenses? Do you own a property in your hometown?

A healthier balance would be to get some help in and invest a little less. We manage our own investments and had a cleaner for years. DH had a job with huge responsibility and many extra hours working at home. I had no desire to reach his level, we met when we were junior staff. I would have been an awful manager as I have zero tolerance of poor behaviour and performance plus I need free time. We are now in our fifties and have both scaled back. The years with small children are the hardest, it passes.

Is he “working” or skiving off parenting?

I’m very cynical of the seeming high proportion of MN Dads who work sooooo many hours they can do bugger all round the house

I don't know why men like this bother having children if they are going to have zero input into raising them. And why the women allow it as well knowing they will be dumped on.

Well yes maybe I have but now what the fk do you suggest I do with two very young children?!

glad to hear you are smugly planning on using my difficult situation as a lesson for your daughters who will of course be much more clever than me to end up in such a situation.

Yes several

What I would suggest you do is start putting your foot down. No, he doesn’t get to unilaterally decide where the household income goes. No, he doesn’t get to unilaterally decide where you live whilst simultaneously offering you zero support. It makes sense for you to move back to your home town now. Before the kids have started school. When you actually need support and he is giving you nothing. You are renting, you have money to invest. Invest now in a property in your home town.