AIBU: How much time does your husband/Other Half spend at home?

[user1499359004]

My husband has recently moved jobs.
He leaves at 7.30am and is hardly ever home before 8.30pm
We have two young kids 4 & 3
Now, his job is providing us with a good standard of living I do appreciate that BUT equally I feel resentful because he is hardly here. At the weekends he does spend all his time unless he has something planned with his many hobbies.

Am I just ungrateful?
His answers is it wont be forever but by the time he has more time at home, our kids will be big and I wont need him half as much...

Kind of just wondering is this the norm in most household

I'm surprised and a bit sad at the number of people who think that the main breadwinner (all men from what I can make out) being out of the house for 12 hours a day - often PLUS some work at home is normal, and something they just live with.

How can any "standard of living" - which I assume means big house? Two cars? be worth not seeing your DP most of the day and more importantly the children not seeing him? When do you have time to enjoy your money (together)?

I'm due my first baby in a few weeks and my fiancé is out from 8am until 4.45 normally, 11.30 to 8.15 when he does a late. We're not well off but are comfortable and I think that's worth far more than more money.

YY I agree @NinaMarieP but MN is generally a very middle-class demographic so answers are going to be skewed.

It's not normal in my eyes and I certainly wouldn't get in a relationship with someone who wanted a "career" that involved 12 hour days, evenings working form home and endless checking of e-mails/fielding work calls. I'd rather he was around to help with the kids, do the housework and spend time with his family everyday.

But each to their own, at the end of the day.

For us it's just what we have got used to, nina

We have a small terraced house and one car, and I am the main breadwinner, despite working 47 hours fewer than DH per week. He is in a minimum wage job. I am trying to get promoted so he can cut his hours - I have the greater earning potential.

My husband is the sole earner in our household and he is out at work from 7am until 5pm Monday - Friday (which includes an hour commute each way). He hates working so many hours and wishes he could work less and spend more time at home with me and our children but we have a mortgage to pay and food to put on the table.
We spend most of our time together at the weekend.

We're not well off nina but we made the decision years ago that DH would be the breadwinner and i would be a sahp. I think being out for 10 hours every day is a long day but judging by the responses on this thread it isn't too bad.

Didn't mean to sound judgemental btw, if it works for you then as they say each to their own.

I just know I couldn't live like that!

Ninamarie - my husband does his job because he finds it rewarding and enjoys it more than he would other jobs. It's nothing to do with money. I don't get a lot of say.

Similar to the farmers wifeys here! Leaves the house by 8am (earlier in summer) and back around 10:30-11pm all year round! Aims to come home around 5pm for food, but straight back out again!
We also like to keep Sundays free to time together/do our hobbies without affecting work!
Not sure how/If this will change when we have DC.

DP has his own agricultural contracting business so the hours vary massively. One thing is for sure tho, having more than one day off a week is unheard of and honestly, one whole day off is quite unlikely too. On Tuesday he started at 5am and didn't get home til 2am and yesterday he started at 6:30am and didn't get home til 4:30am. It's nuts but he loves what he does and we don't yet have children so I'd rather he worked his arse off now to build it as much as possible so as to buy us some slack when we do have kids (pipe dream I fear)
It can be tough. In the last three weeks, the longest I have spent with him was a morning at market and now an evening in the tractor. Other than that, ships in the night.

It doesn't work for is Nina but the alternative is for me to work so that DH can work less hours and that would work even less than the current set up. Or DH could work less and we could be more reliant on benefits but that isn't something we want to do either.
We have a disabled child so we need a car and a bigger house than we would otherwise need for the necessary adaptations. We certainly don't live extravagantly.

Also Nina, by DP loves his job and I also work anywhere between 7an-7pm including overnight stays - it currently works for us. Like I've said there, I do wonder how it will change with dc

nina my husband's job is in his blood and I knew that when we met. The money is crap. We live in a tumbledown cottage and scrimp on a lot of things.

But he lives for it. If I asked him too, he'd dump his quad bike and wellies for a regular office job where he could be home at 5:30. But he'd be miserable.

And actually we make similar money in hourly terms. I work 4pm-midnight at the local pub. But his boss pays the rent on our cottage so in that sense he earns more.

Well when our kids were very young my business was in a huge boom. I could be out of the house 14-15 hours a day, travel to the far east at short notice for a week. 1st overseas holiday with a 10 month old i spend 4-5 hours every day on phone/laptop for work. It was shit but basically I made enough money in that time that we'll never be homeless. So definitely worth it

My husband works 6 days a week, leaves at 7 and he isn't home yet then he has to walk the dogs ! ( they're with him all day so I can't do it for him)
It's not very nice and I do complain sometimes but I'm a Sahm and unfortunately he's self employed and has to do it to earn the money x

I don't think those hours are the norm at all. My DP is out the house 6:30-4:30 5 days a week. He's lucky to have those hours though. Before the kids came along he worked 8:30-5:30 which I guess is more standard. I don't really think it matters though. If you're not happy that's what matters, I wouldn't be either but you would obviously have to sacrifice the extra money. My dad has worked 12 hour days with an hours commute each way for years and often worked away for weeks. For some people it is normal.

My DH works 8.30am-5.00pm Mon-Fri in the public sector. I work 9am-4pm Mon-Fri also public sector but different bases. We live 10 minutes from our workplaces.

We don't really have outside hobbies and 9/10 spend all our out of work time and weekends together with the DC. We do equal amounts of housework, child care etc. It works for us, house is pretty much always clean because we halve the time it takes by doing it together and come 7pm we can all just relax.

We're not well paid (public sector!) but it's enough and I wouldn't want either of us to do any more hours. We used to work at the same base and even would have lunch together a few days a week!

Sounds pretty suffocating now I read it back it isn't, i promise! We are just pretty good friends as well as spouses

It is a long day, OP. My DH commutes for at least 90 minutes each way on top of a normal working day which is considerably more than most people outside of London, and he's still at home more than your DH. Leaves 7.15am back 6.30 pm. I think your situation must be hard because you can't eat together as a family in the evenings. The mornings don't bother me: I just get the kids ready for school on my own.

We both work full time. Mon - Fri. DH works 9-5, and I work 8-4, both with an hours commute. Works perfectly for us as we split nursery drop off and pick up, and both of us help get the children up in the morning and play with them, do bath and bed on a night. A good work like balance, with respectable wages in middle/senior management positions. I consider us very lucky.

DP leaves at 8am, back usually between 6-6.30pm. It's rare that he's not home to give the baby a bath and put him to bed. Weekends are family time (Saturday mornings are his time with DS).

When I return to work from my maternity leave, I'll be doing 7-3 on a Monday and Tuesday, and 4-10pm on a Thursday so he'll be finishing work earlier on a Thursday to pick him up from my mum's.

Dh and I both work ridiculous hours in low paid jobs, we're both away from the house 12 hours a day, five days a week. Different times and different days of course so we rarely see each other anymore. It's kind of sad but at least there's no resentment as we both know the other one works just as hard and feels just as guilty about not being able to be more available to dc.

My dh is unemployed at the moment due to disability, so 24/7 at home, which has its ups and downsides.

I wish he could work for his own sake, but I'd miss him like hell if he had some of these long schedules, that wouldn't feel like living at all to me!

We are both out of the house 8:30-6:30 on an average day. Those are short hour for our industry (law) and we make up for it by dealing with emails or doing additional work in the evenings and weekends. I also have business travel and work events on top (I'm posting this from the airport and won't get home until around midnight tonight).

Leaves 6:30, back about 7:30. Travels at least 5 nights per month. He's in banking so his hours are really not that bad all things considered. I work - leave 7:45, back by 6 most days.

DH leaves with DD at 8:15, drops her at school, then on to work and is home by 4:30/5pm. He is lucky to be only working a mile away right now. He is on call one night a week and one weekend a month but that's from home and rarely gets called out. I feel very lucky as he earns well too!

We don't see each other from 7.45-6.30 ish as I leave at the earlier time and he gets in at the latter