What is your view?

[choiceschoicesxtwo]

Here is the situation.

Partner A
Works 4 days per week. Earns £29,000 per year.
Pays for petrol, tax and MOT, food shop, and DC classes (swimming, and another hobby).

Partner B works 3.5 days per week. Earns £49,000 per year.
Pays for mortgage, bills, holidays, meals out, vet bills, clothes and any days out.
If we need a new car, partner B pays.

Partner B has expressed they want to reduce their working days to 3 days per week to spend more time with DC.

Partner A would like to reduce their working days to 3 days per week and has asked partner 2 to increase their work by an additional half day instead due to them earning more which will compensate for partner A reducing their days.

Partner B working half day equals the same amount as partner A working a full day.

Views or advice?

Confused ? You have two partners ?!

Can you both work 3.5 days so you both get equal time off? Shouldn't just be based around who earns what.

Don't be obtuse, obviously two people in a relationship discussing relative contributions.
OP, people on the internet can't be useful here, you can only thrash this out together, you are a team.

"Partner A would like to reduce their working days to 3 days per week and has asked partner 2 to increase their work by an additional half day /half instead, due to them earning more which will compensate for partner A reducing their days".

Partner A needs to increase their earning potential /cut their outgoings to enable them to continue in the 3 days they desire. Partner A and B can work whatever hrs hrs they like, as long as they can afford it. Partner B is not being unreasonable. Partner A needs to earn more money to make a 3 days working week financially viable for them and become generally more self sufficient.

Partner A wants to work 3 days for the next year and then is willing to work 3.5 days per week after that but doesn't want to do this now.

Both partner A & B want to work less hours, but partner A already works more hours. If partner A & B are not married and never likely to be, then partner A needs to consider how dropping hours would affect their pension which is already likely to be less than B's. Partner B is in a better position all round but wants to make their life even easier.

Who does the most DC care and home tasks currently? Would either partner be doing more of that if they dropped hours, so the other could do less? It's not just about jobs, who grafts the most in the home?

Partner A already is contributing less; lowering that again is not fair to B.

I'm perplexed that A thinks it's ok to ask even more from B, since B is already providing the majority of support for the household.

The expenses need to be split more fairly, with A taking responsibility for part of cars, mortgage, vet bills, etc.

You need to put all your joint expenses (mortgage, household bills, holidays, vet bills, dc expenses) so they are coming out of one pot. Work out how much you would need to pay into that pot if you paid for those expenses proportionate to your incomes. Then work out how you can move those numbers around to make it so everyone can work the hours that suit them. It's quite a luxury to have both adults in a household being able to only work part-time, so I think you have done quite well here. It may be, if you can't adjust working hours, that you think about working more flexibly or re-balancing tasks at home so the partner who has had less time at home with dc so far, gets more of that time.

If both want the same amount of time with the child, then that should be facilitated. So both work 3.5 days (or both work 4 days).

Stop seeing your life as a summative equation? You've taken all the feelings out. If one of you has a very high stress job and the other relishes their work, it changes things completely. Look at things jointly, not individually. It's a relationship: relate to one another.

How old are the kids and who provides the most care?

This is only a financial perspective. Does partner A do more of the home making and child care, cooking? What is the children's view?
It would be less stressful on the family for partner A to work 3 days per week then increase to 3.5 the following year.
They should work out a way for partner B to spend more time with DC in their 3 days off. ie Partner A do more chores/ cooking so Partner B is free to childcare some more. Once Partner A is back at work 3.5 days then discuss both working the same hours, if you can afford to.

If both people want to reduce hours, then they have to decide if they’re happy as a unit to have less money overall. Since neither are happy to increase their hours, they can’t say that they other person should increase to make up for their losses. They can only decrease if they are both happy to accept the money reduction. If only one person can reduce it should probably be A, so that both are working 3.5 days (without knowing about what they do with free time).

As the money is not shared, I think Partner A is being unfair.

Sounds like B is already contributing a lot more financially. B could work 1/2 a day less and still contribute more than A.

Sounds like A is wanting B to work more just so that A can work less and contribute less.

Unless there is an uneven split of patenting or housework etc i think A is BU

This will only work if you see it as joint finances and joint childcare and other responsibilities. B isn’t worth more than A as a person because they earn more. It needs to be a team effort.

My solution would be that you both work the same hours, either with B increasing to 4 or A reducing to 3.5, otherwise there will be a lot of resentment. Why not both do 4 and use the extra money to pay for some help around the house so that you actually have more time to spend with the children when you’re not working? And share all the dull stuff 50/50, rather than person earring less doing more of it (if that is the case).

doesn’t sound like you’re on the same page at all at the moment.

Earning more isn't a reason why B should be working more days. But it's also not a reason for doing less around the house (if that is happening).

See, I think B is already making an outsized financial contribution. Why shouldn't B be able to reduce their income, and A make up that shortfall? Until it's 50/50 it's not really fair on B to continue working more hours because A simply wants to work fewer. What is A bringing to the table?

A is unreasonable. If you both want to reduce hours, you accept having less money and make lifestyle changes. It's not fair to ask B to work more than they want to and have more time away from the children so A can contribute less

Partner A sounds like they resent that Partner B works less hours.

Partner B shouldn't have to work more, earning more because of jealousy. It is up to Partner A to pull their weight/fair share and either get a better paid job or do something to up their earning potential.

Partner B is doing enough and paying enough. Partner A should respect that.

It all comes down to a lot more than is listed here. Contributions to the family unit aren’t solely about what is earnt. What does each person plan to do with their time off - and what would each person actually do with g their time off? Also, how much do they need the money? How readily can they increase their earnings? Some jobs pay less than others, it may not be possible for someone to increase earnings without a lot of retraining for example. Or they could just find a new job. Depends very much on what they do. Frankly, they should each be seeking to understand each others perspectives, sympathise with each others views, value each other’s contributions and work out what would be best for the family from all sides.