Teacher married to non teacher

[Darknessinlight]

I don’t know if anyone else is in this boat or is married to a teacher and are not a teacher themselves.

DH doesn’t really understand my job. I don’t expect him to but I don’t think he gets that I do need time to work in the evenings or weekends (try not to do both.)

I don’t know if anyone knows what I mean!

Surely the problem is not that teachers have to work some evenings and weekends, the problem is that the OPs partner is too stupid to understand this and doesn't give her the space she needs.

Get a cleaner.

Get him on some of the drop offs and pickups.

If he won't agree to this, sit him down with a timetable of your week and ask him where he expects you to put the hours you need to work into.

I'm a teacher married to a non teacher. I'm in work for 7am most days and leave by 4. I don't work every evening now and don't do holidays or weekends (apart from the odd emergency).

during school holidays I am a housewife and end up doing EVERYTHING.

Does your DH do a much greater share in term-time to reflect your greater contribution in the holidays?

Again, I’d approach this on a logic hours-across-the-year basis. Make him justify logically why you should do more in the holidays if he’s not doing more in term time.

Gosh, you definitely need a conversation. Not sure why he's doing nothing in school holidays if you're doing all childcare then.

What are his parents like? We struggled a bit with fair division of labour to begin with as children of two very traditional couples (SAHM, dad earns most/all the money). We didn't have role models for what we were trying to do and tbh MIL was pretty unhelpful (it's been nearly 20 years now and she still seems to believe lecturers get a half term! Every time she's surprised he's working). She also had to be trained out of long chatty phone calls on weekday evenings.

You also teach maths, @Hercisback IIRC. I am in no way claiming that this is no work at all but the marking load is completely different to teaching English. You might as well compare zebras to ponies.

Cleaners cost a LOT! And won’t do a lot of the stuff that needs doing. I’m actually dropping a couple of days next year so that will help hugely.

Sorry @Phineyj i missed that. I don’t think anyone is intentionally being lazy or even traditional (his mum was a SAHM but in an era when this was more the norm, or if mums did work it tended to be the sort of cosy part time receptionist / admin / dinner lady roles) but I’m there, I do stuff, he gets used to that … Like I say dropping the days wilL help I think.

Right I know you said you weren't looking for a disagreement but the planning load in maths is much higher. The English marking load I accept is more. However writing English assessments, compared to Maths is two different things. Every maths lesson has to be planned to tackle previous lessons misconceptions. We also need a full set of 3 mock papers every series to get an accurate grade, whereas English can do one paper and extrapolate.
Our English staff accept that we work about equal in terms of hours. Just that the hours are distributed more on marking for them and planning for us.

My post was intended to point out that the early mornings give me work time where you have to drop off. This time I don't have to do in the evening. You need those hours from somewhere and your DP needs to accept they come from the evening.

My cleaner is £30 every two weeks. Yes it's a luxury I know we are lucky to afford, however it is worth it for the time cost to me. What she does in 2 hours in an empty house is worth 5 hours of my weekend time with the kids around.

Dropping to 3 days will really help. You only have half a term to get through.

Sure and that’s why I said it’s comparing ponies to zebras. Both fabulous animals but while they may look superficially similar, they aren’t.

'I'm there, I do it' is exactly the kind of thing that leads to women doing more especially once DC arrive. I'm not having a go -- I also work part time because when I tried working full time DH absolutely didn't step up and do the kind of things I would have done if I hadn't been working 6.5 days a week (that school was open Saturday mornings shudder). He did the stuff he normally does (food shopping, cooking, some childcare) but nothing additional. So we didn't have clean clothes, the house fell apart and we had a competitive tiredness row every Saturday at 3pm.

So I thought, what the hell, if he won't take on anything extra, I refuse to work full time because I've essentially got a part time job already.

Regarding cleaning, I've always felt if we earn more per hour than the cleaner, it's worth it.

My DH didn’t understand the holidays. Notably that those were the only ones we could take so needed to make the most of them. The summer holiday is the real perk of the job but it was a good few years before he realised I needed to actually do something fun with the time. He was freelance and booked jobs in August and was put out when I booked myself a holiday without him.

Sure and that’s why I said it’s comparing ponies to zebras. Both fabulous animals but while they may look superficially similar, they aren’t.

But the point is overall the hours are the same. Not really sure why you're so upset by this fact. English has a high marking load, maths has a high planning load.

You need to be working probably 50hrs a week, you work school hours in school so you need to work evenings and weekends. I work 7-4 in the week so I don't do as many evenings and weekends.

@Phineyj I agree re cleaner. It's a false economy for me to spend loads of time cleaning now. Cleaner keeps on top of the basics and between DH and holidays the rest gets done.

I’m there, I do stuff, he gets used to that … Like I say dropping the days wilL help I think.

It’ll help in the sense you won’t need to urgently get him to step up in the way you need to when you’re FT. It won’t help in the sense that when you go PT you’ll be there more of the time, so do more of the stuff, so he’ll do even less and expect to do even less.

Which is potentially a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

I’d try to afford the cleaner before dropping too many hours at work. Presumably it’ll be more expensive than a cleaner. Obviously you’ll have more time with DC, and a bit less childcare, so that’s on the plus side. Just be wary of the longer term status quo effect.

No one’s upset Herc.

@lightisnotwhite i hear that. It feels like surviving from one holiday to another only to spend the holiday catching up with stuff you haven’t done in term time only to realise you haven’t had a holiday at all!

Neither my husband or I are teachers.

We both bring work home with us!

Oh my heavens - this thread is now about which type of teaching is harder and has the most hours😂😂😂.

I'm a teacher, I trained more recently so it wasn't always like this, but I actually have more time than I did in my previous career. I think a lot of non teachers don't understand the workload.

@Mellowyellow222 Bit ridiculous really isn't it. I post offering advice and possible solutions and get told to pretty much do one, you're a maths teacher, you can't understand how hard it is for us English teachers.

I work FT with 2 kids under 6. I know how relentless teaching it. Your partner needs to accept you will be working in the evenings. Sit down with him and talk.

I have not and more to the point would not say that some types of teaching are harder. They aren’t. But just the same, you cannot mark A level Lit essays in school time. I realise you think you are being helpful Herc but if someone saying ‘actually, that doesn’t work here’ gets you this huffy, why bother? And can you really not see ‘Get a cleaner’ is abrupt and a bit rude?

I learned a long time ago teachers have more than their fair share of martyrs. The quote below from @Darknessinlight said it all for me. Schemes aren't good enough, shared plans aren't good enough, lessons already on the system aren't good enough.

If the OP wants to waste their time reinventing the wheel constantly, don't moan about it on MN trying to poorly disguise it as the long suffering partner having an issue. You've got choices to make OP, and bottom line is you're choosing work over life

The thing with shared planning is that it depends on the person you’re planning with producing things to a high quality. We have lessons on the system but they aren’t really usable. We also have extremely strange schemes of work for KS3, but that’s probably a different rant.

I don't mark in school time. I mark in the 7-8am time when I get the early. You clearly don't have this so do it in the evenings. That is what you need to explain to your DP. That most teachers don't just do 8-3 in school. You have to because of drop offs and pick ups. So you need the time elsewhere. Nowhere have I suggested you can mark A level essays in school. Neither can I plan everything I need in 3hrs PPA a week. Apologies that you seem to have spectacularly missed the point of my post.

Get a cleaner isn't rude. It's a suggestion of something I do that helps.

What are you actually looking for from these posts?

Your DP needs to understand your job and view your working hours on a yearly, rather than daily basis.
You shouldn't be doing everything in the holidays.
There are ways you can pay for extra help in the short term to reduce the burden.

I'm a teacher married to a non teacher. I'm in work for 7am most days and leave by 4. I don't work every evening now and don't do holidays or weekends (apart from the odd emergency).

To be clear here, it was this I was responding to, Herc. I simply could not do absolutely everything I am required to do - marking, planning - in those hours. This doesn’t mean I think English is harder than maths (you do realise you were agreeing vehemently with someone who was pretty unpleasant about all teachers? Someone I ignored purposefully for that very reason?) but it is simply a fact. I wouldn’t bother getting huffy about a simple fact.

Herc, if you can’t understand what I’m looking for (I’ve already had it) maybe just leave the thread. I’m not looking to argue and it’s really frustrating that you’re determined to be so pushy about it.

I don't do everything in those hours. I still work 3 evenings a week on average.

But 7-8am every day is 5 hours a week you don't have.

I also don't engage in work chat and do as much as physically possible in the time available.

I've no idea of the posting history of the person I agreed with. Taken at face value I agree with their post.

Sorry end of half term prickliness about work is not helping and I can see why you may read my replies as hostile. I get fed up with comments from non maths teachers about how easy our 'lack of marking' is, when it really isn't. You hit a nerve somewhere.

I hope you can sort something out for these last few weeks and doing 3 days from September makes things easier for you.