I'm trying not to dripfeed, so sorry for the length of this.
My husband and I have been married for 7 years. Both of us were in professional jobs at the time (for what it's worth) but he is 4 years older than me and I took a gap year, so he had several years more experience and had been promoted a few times/earned more than me, about 50% more at that stage.
Just before we got married he was offered a job abroad. We decided we would go for a year on the basis that if either of us hated it, we would come home.
As I was giving my job up anyway to move abroad (with no job to go to and having to look at a specialty change due to the country we were going to live in) we decided it was the right time to try for a baby. We fell pregnant within a few months, and so I didn't look for a job.
We lived abroad for 4 years in total and we had two children while we were abroad. We had them close together as going back to work was going to be a struggle for me given I was having to change specialty, and so we decided to use the time sensibly.
Being abroad gave my husband a fairly impressive CV and he was then offered a big promotion back in the UK. We were looking to come back anyway and this was a great opportunity. I was ready to go back to work and we had decided to return to the UK before our eldest needed to start school, so we would be settled and in the right catchment for school allocation etc.
6 months after we moved home I was offered a job 4 days per week. It was back on the same full time salary as I had been on before I left, which I wasn't expecting.
Given our jobs and the travel surrounding them (his much more than mine), and the need to be flexible, we hired a nanny as otherwise all the nursery/after school clubs pick up and drop offs were down to me, which essentially meant I couldn't do my job properly. Overtime is necessary and can often be short notice.
The nanny obviously costs more than nursery/after school care. So her salary and my travel cost essentially wipe out the additional household income we have from me working.
DH has been vocally very supportive about me going back to work, even if nothing is being added to the family pot after childcare etc. All our finances are completely shared and I have access to all of it, do the budgeting etc.
I then got pregnant again. So I worked just over a year at the new job and then went on maternity leave. I have returned to work 3 days a week to try and get a work life balance.
Unfortunately it appears that during the time I have been out of work we have fallen into a bit of a 1950's style relationship and now I'm struggling to readdress the balance now I'm back at work.
Obviously when I was not working I took on the majority of the household logistics. We have always had a cleaner, and when we were abroad, he did 50% of all childcare and household chores etc.
Now that we are back in the UK and his job is much more demanding/high flying, I feel that he is beginning to consider his career as more important than mine, and that I have more responsibility for the childcare aspects.
His promotions in the last few years mean that he earns 4x what I earn, and he has access to potentially a very large bonus each year. This has enabled us to buy a lovely house in a great school catchment area close to his work. I commute about 40 minutes to the nearest city to work.
If he lost his job, my salary would not pay the mortgage, never mind the bills etc associated with it.
On that basis I accept that the childcare logistics fall to me, because we have to protect his job over mine. So if the kids are sick/nanny is sick I'm the one who will be taking the day off. However, we have a nanny precisely so that we don't need to take time off when the kids are sick, as our nanny is at home with our youngest anyway, so can have the sick child at home.
On my two days off a week I sort out the kids for school, run errands, do the shopping, do baby classes with our youngest, take them to the doctors/dentists/health visitor/, have playdates with friends, do homework, after school activities, do washing etc. I barely get time to sit down until my Dh gets home from work.
My DH works away at least one night a week and goes away for one working week about every 6 weeks. Obviously I'm then on my own for bedtime for three children under 6 and then for the end of day tidying up, resetting for the morning prep etc.
I have found maternity leave this time extremely difficult and wanted to go back to work early. Despite this we had a discussion and decided that it would be better for our youngest that she had the whole first year with me, as our elder two had done.
I cannot express how relieved I am to be back at work. I love love love it.
It's taken a bit of time for me to realize it but I am resentful of the fact that he gets to go to work everyday and essentially abdicate responsibility for his children to me, and I have to work my career around what is supposed to be best for our children.
Any chance of me getting promoted is limited while I'm working 3 days a week and often having to duck out of the door at 5pm to get home. I don't even know when I would find the time to take on the additional responsibilities.
We discussed my return to work and I told DH that I would need to routinely work late one day a week so that I could keep on top of my work and do my job properly. So one day a week I stay late, eat dinner at work and then go to the gym on my way home (later than I would like) so that I'm only absent at bedtime one day a week routinely.
So this week I worked late and when I got home at nearly 9pm, DH was only just getting our two older children to bed because our youngest hadn't wanted to go to bed. Apparently he didn't think about giving the baby calpol (teething at the moment) or keeping the baby up while he did bedtime for the older two (which I have often had to do on the days he is away).
He was seriously hacked off when I got home. He has barely ever been left to fly solo since our third child was born. she was going to bed at 6pm, so if I'm going out I tend to put her to bed before going out. I've been away for 3-4 nights tops since she was born. Always at the weekends, and none of them have been sick or difficult while I've been away.
He was acting like he is the only one who has ever had to deal with difficult children, and I just laughed and said welcome to my world!
He has made a few jokes about the washing being "my job", and doesn't understand why I don't find it funny.
Tonight he was home from work but suggested that I needed to put all three kids to bed, because he had done it the night before. When he has been away for 4 nights, I don't make him do the following 4 nights for all 3 of them. Although clearly I will be doing now, if that is how he sees it.
Other than this, we get on really well. He is constantly cleaning up after us all, playing with the kids, taking them out. He is an active participant in our marriage and our family.
This feels like we have just fallen into a 1950's rut and it's something I want to tackle.
I'm not good with confrontation, and usually end up crying! ;-) So one of the ways we have found of working around difficult issues is that I send him an email setting out how I feel, and then he processes it and then we sit down and have a conversation and come to a compromise.
So I want to sit down and tackle this by a well written email. I need help to write it in a way that sets out how I feel and how I want to deal with it, without turning it into world war 3.
I have come to realize that being a SAHM was not the right thing for me. I've ended up on anti-depressants and having therapy (I also have a very complicated childhood/relationship with my parents that also needs addressing).
I'm not sure that working part time is going to be enough for me, especially if I'm going to feel like the kids are somehow more my responsibility than his.
I'm thinking of doing 3 days a week until our baby turns 2, then upping it to 4 days (I can do the 4th day from home). Potentially upping it to 5 days a week once our youngest goes to school. Again I can probably do the 5th day from home at a push.
So any advice or help on phrasing this? I'm struggling for the right words at the moment.
Thanks