Is this as big a deal as I think it is?

[RealhousewifeofEngland]

My husband says not and is reflecting on to me, which he has a habit of doing. I’m starting to think he is a gaslighting narcissist but then he would say I’m doing the same to him.
Before I start I have to say he has form for similar behaviours. I find him selfish, he says I’m unfair and inflexible.

So the situation is that we have two children. One in nursery and one in school.

He does the nursery pick up 3 days a week and one school pick up. The nursery pickup is a bit of a pain and involves a drive, the school run is a short walk. The reason he does the nursery run more often is because he can get the train to/from work from nearby and has more frequent trains. I have a long walk the other end if I use that particular station and there are fewer trains on my route.
My husband can comfortably finish work at his usual time and get back with plenty of time to collect from nursery and then drive to the school and collect from there if I’m not around ( most days I am and do the school pick up). For me to collect both children I really need to prearrange leaving work early. I can’t drop everything and go early when I fancy ( he can).

Anyway earlier this week he text me ( text not called) 30 minutes before I finished work to ask if I could get both kids so he could go out. I said no as he knew it would be very difficult for me to collect both children in time due to the distance between nursery and school. It would be very stressful with no room for any train delays etc ( common!). There would be a very real chance that I wouldn’t make it to the school before the wraparound club finished.

My husband knows this! He knows I can’t leave early to accommodate him. Despite me reminding him of all of this he keeps coming back asking me to “be flexible” and then started trying to guilt trip me by saying an ex colleague was in a bad way and “needed” him. This was a particular slap in the face to me,as the reason he cited for wanting to be there for this guy was something my husband did not support me through when it happened to me!

Anyway this is longer than I anticipated sorry! Upshot is despite me saying no he went out and I had to rush to get both kids. I made it just in the nick of time. I’m furious with him but he doesn’t think he has done anything wrong. Says he expects to be afforded the same flexibility he affords the rest of us. I often ask him to rearrange things to accommodate work things I have on, or things the kids have on. Always with notice never last minute.

To add that he goes out a lot so it’s not that it was a rare opportunity for him. I don’t even believe it was really about supporting a friend ( he hasn’t seen the guy in months if not longer and is not really a friend) but more about his desire to get drunk.

He was in the wrong. Start making serious plans to leave. It's not worth staying in this relationship.

He's being a shit and you know it

Make your plans, you'll be happier on your own

Why couldn’t he have picked them up and waited til you had got home and then gone out?

Because the opportunity for going out was in the city he works in and not our home town.

I don’t have anybody else who can help with pickups. We have no family near and friends have their own jobs and kids to juggle.

@Shoxfordian

Yes, when he was told that it was unlikely that op would make it in time he decided that the risk of his children being left at their respective places was worth it

You have your set up for a reason. You're both working and I know exactly how hard it is to negotiate and organise that balance of working and making sure the childcare is all sorted and someone can pick the kids up. So you agreed he picks up the kids three days, you do two and you pretty much do all the drop offs minus one day. Pretty fair. He then contacts you half an hour before he is meant to do what he usually does and asks you do it. You say no because realistically, you actually can't. If he was the type that let you know his plans a couple of days in advance, I feel you wouldn't be so angry but it's the fact that he doesn't respect your position and thinks you can just drop what you're doing that is really getting you? But you never expect him to drop what he is doing. You have probably worked pretty hard on this schedule, worked it all out and got it all agreed and he just defaults when it suits? Totally not on. He has two other days and the whole weekend for plans or he could even give you advance warning so that you can finish a little early or something but to leave your work early at a moments notice? He can't seriously expect you to do that

No you are not being unreasonable. It is shit being treated as a back stop. The words he should be using are sorry and thank you. The fact that he's telling you that your experience counts for nothing is not a good sign.

It's not sharing if you take the best half of something then pass the bit you don't want to someone else. It's not asking if no isn't an acceptable answer.

He does 3 nursery drop off and pick ups and one school run and pick up ( same day as one of the nursery runs).
I do 4 school drop off and picks ups and one nursery drop/ collect. I only work 4 days. So he has two days with no childcare restrictions at all. I have one. I arrange all of my social life in advance around the one day I don’t have any collection. He arranges his social life around his two days. However, invariably on the day he isn’t scheduled to go out he will pull a last minute “quick drink”. Which means he won’t be home until kids are in bed, or even later.

He complains that he has the worst deal with the nursery run. It’s a 5-10 min drive then he has to drive and park up and then another 5 min walk to the station. His train runs every 15 minutes and drops him literally at a station opposite his office. The train frequency means he arrives at the nursery in the evenings around 5.40. For me I can only get one train every half an hour so if I miss it it’s a disaster. I then have a 15 min walk to my office the other end. My evening train gets me to the nursery at 6.15. It closes at 6.30 ( sometimes 6) as does afterschool.

So I think it makes absolute sense for him to do nursery drop and collection as often as he does. He thinks it entitles him to “leeway” . Funnily enough when both children were in nursery and I did all nursery runs every single day I didn’t receive a medal.

How about finding a childminder who would do pick ups?

Oh and yeah to have him try and manipulate me into agreeing by using someone’s alleged terrible experience was the ultimate slap in the face. Did he really expect me to say “oh yes darling rush off and leave me and the children in a shit position so that you can be there for this ex colleague. After all I know how much support is needed at such a time as I could have used some when I was in the same position and you chose to go out on a works night out instead”.

Dick!

A childminder wouldn’t work as I want to keep my youngest in nursery. It’s not that close to our house so we would still need to collect from the other side of town.
In any case I don’t really see why I should have to pay someone to do what we can do between us perfectly well if he stick to his side?

I haven't RTFT but the idea up thread that you can court order someone to step up as a parent is naive. Court orders are possibly useful if contact is withheld, but you cannot enforce a lazy parent to have contact/behave differently

And yes this IS a big deal

The colleague sounds like a woman.