I need to think about my behaviour apparently

[AuroraFloyd]

I'm getting really stressed out over this. I have a dissertation due by the end of August. Dh has been supportive of my studying for the last 6 years however recently it's impossible to get him to give me a break from the kids so I can study.

He started a new job a year ago. It's physically demanding shift work so I understand that he is tired. But whenever I try to go and study (therefore leaving him with the kids) he tries to sabotage it! He has never had an issue taking on his fair share before but suddenly the demands of his job make him too tired to do it anymore?

Most recently: He worked until midnight last night, went to bed at 2am (woke me up in the process and I couldn't get back to sleep after that!). I asked him to get up at 8.15am to take older dc to school because I had a dentist appointment at 9am and couldn't have got there in time had I done the school run (he was aware of this). He had a massive go at me for waking him up.

I got back from the dentist and the toddler is in front of the tv while dh slept on the sofa. I was supposed to be studying today but I told him to go to bed and catch up on sleep as I can't study if he isn't actually looking after the kids - they just come to find me rather than try and wake him.

I woke him at 1pm as I really needed to get on with my work. He had another massive go at me and went and lay on the couch again. I went upstairs to start work and he followed me up to "tell me off" (that's what it felt like) about not taking toddler to the toilet today. (Context: Toddler is in nappies and is not ready to be potty trained. Dh has decided to take toddler to the toilet every hour anyway. Toddler can not and does not ask to go to the toilet = not ready ime). He is annoyed I won't spend all day arguing with toddler about going to the toilet.

I told dh I didn't want to argue as he was just being hurtful (said I - the sahm - was "uninvolved" with the children!) And when I shut the door to my study he told me to "think about my behaviour".

Wtaf?

I think he sounds knackered and you need to finish your dissertation. You'll have to have a talk and write a timetable for July and August. Ensure he gets the opportunity to have 8 hours sleep, and you need to leave the house to study at parent's house, cafe etc. It will all pass.

shadenfreude thank fuck you said that. With all of the sympathy for the DH and calling the OP a SAHM and not recognising the sheer hard work that goes into a dissertation I was begining to think MN had been abducted by aliens.

I agree with pp that you need to cut him some slack. Shift work is hard! No two ways about it. My dad did shift work throughout my childhood and took early retirement as it was killing him. If he hadn't had enough sleep he was irritable, loud, he'd fall asleep at random times, thankfully never while driving! And God have mercy on anyone who dared to wake him when he was asleep after a late or night shift. It messed with his health too, he gained a lot of weight.
We had a schedule, it worked. His late shifts ended at 11pm, he'd be back by 12, and somehow managed to get up to take us to school and mum to work. Night shifts, no chance, mum took us to school. Same with earlies. We worked our lives around his shifts to make sure he had enough sleep (aside from events, school plays, etc, the usual). I make it sound like he was the boss of the house and we had to tiptoe around him. We didn't, mum was the boss, there was no tiptoeing, we were considerate of his shift work (insofar as was possible for two young children who wanted to play with their dad!) and his needs, as he was considerate of ours.
It sounds like you all need to organise your time better. Work out some kind of schedule that works for you both if you can.

It sounds like OP wants him to do 100% of the WOH work and 50% of the SAH work too. That isn't a fair split.

It sounds like you all need to organise your time better

OP has no problems organising her time - what she has a problem with is getting any time to organise! Her DH won't LET her work out a schedule - he seems to agree to watch the kids and then changes his mind because he's "tired" (OP never gets tired, obviously).

I've worked shifts, too - and yes, it is exhausting. But so is writing a dissertation, and becoming familiar enough with your material to do well in a Viva.

Plenty of people (most of them women) work shifts AND run a home, and do it for years on end. The OP is asking for a finite amount of time - I think it was 8 weeks - so that she can finish the degree that has taken her SIX years to complete.

SIX YEARS!

How many of us would want to throw away six years of bloody hard work for the sake of a few weeks? I wouldn't.

As Adora10 has pointed out - he had several hours sleep, got up for a couple of hours and then went back to bed until the afternoon. He's not being deprived of sleep altogether.

Spartacus has validly queried whether he could be jealous and resentful and I agree. I've also seen this - and it's not necessarily a deliberate thing. Some men, are outwardly supportive (and really believe themselves to be so), but inwardly just can't bear the thought that their wives/partners will get better qualifications or appear more intelligent and educated than they are. They don't have realise they're doing it half the time.

As an example: A friend of mine had a stroke in her forties. Her DH (who was admittedly a selfish arsehole of the first order) would make fun of her attempts to speak ("just a joke - had we no sense of humour") but despite that (and the fact that he, their two sons, and her father immediately expected her to go straight back to all of her housewifely duties as soon as she came out of hospital) she made great progress - she was very determined.

She decided to take an OU course in English Literature. She worked like a Trojan at it. She was the slowest in the class, and only just passing the modules, but she was doing it. Half way through hr second year, her H (having read her work) decided that he would like to get a degree through the OU as well. He decided to do . . . ENGLISH LITERATURE!

He then proceeded to get much higher marks than she had achieved, criticised her work content and grammar, and not to put too fine a point on it, made her feel like shit. She dropped out of her course. A few months later he, being "far too busy" also decided not to go any further with it.

The git.

Thank you, someone else that sees sense here; it's not about him working shifts and being tired; it's his shit treatment of his partner imo.

The man went to sleep at 2am and got up at 1pm and everyone's shouting give him a break, eh nah, he's had plenty sleep.

I think the two of you have big communication issues.

SorrelSoup's suggestion, is a good one

@user1493630944
Sure you're not OP's DP??
Shift finished at midnight? Still get a good 6 hour's sleep in there, more than I get most nights...
OP teacher training?? How's the DP going to cope when you're working, bringing a ton of work home and juggling DCs?

OP, does your DP working different shift patterns? Eg, one week earlies, one week latest, one week nights, or is it permanent late shifts? If it's permanent late shifts, then sure, 6 hours may well be enough sleep and he should have adapted by now.

However, changing shift patterns can really mess up your body clock so even if you do have six hours sleep one night, you can still feel jetlagged because your body is trying used to a new time to go to sleep, and just as it's settling, you're changing shifts again. It's unsettling.

When I was studying I left the house at the agreed time. Staying in the house was no good, even with a very supportive DH.

If I stayed I would always get interrupted. My children would want to talk to me or show me things. Telling them not to interrupt me made life harder for DH taking care of them. Also, the noise was disruptive to me.

It was better for everyone if I went out.

I often went to a coffee shop. Some pubs in the day time can be good too if you find a quiet corner and buy the odd diet coke. In the summer I have gone to places with picnic benches (at non-busy times) and worked there. I sometimes even just sat in the car (not so good for writing but OK for reading).

Sometimes he took them out for the day / morning but I didn't feel I could demand that as well as knowing how it can be hassle and expensive.

Thank god for some recent posts.

It sounds like OP wants him to do 100% of the WOH work and 50% of the SAH work too. That isn't a fair split

Yes it is for 5 weeks to that that dissertation done as that'll be a large proportion of her grade after years of work. She's already accommodated his work and it's reasonable to expect the same in return in the short term.

My dh managed to see that when I was studying. Doesn't take a genius to understand it.

As I said in a previous post, wouldn't surprise me if he then gets shitty about her working as a teacher in September so she can't be as flexible to continue accomodating his needs as he has to step up with the kids. Time will tell.