Husband wants me to work full-time

[Lovelifesmile]

My husband and I have two children (aged 4 and 2). I currently work the equivalent of 3 days a week doing shift work and my husband works full-time at 5 days per week. I would like to work the equivalent of 4 days per week when my youngest child goes to school. My husband wants me to go full-time. My husbands income is £2700 per month. My income part-time 3 days per week is £2200 and if I worked 4 days per week I would earn £2900. We are comfortable financially as we are currently, and would be very comfortable with me going 4 days per week. I want to use the 'day off' per week to do the food shop, house cleaning, washing, gardening maintenance and food prep. My values are that I want to earn enough money to be comfortable, but also have time to do the housework, appointments, school admin and help with homework to free up our weekends to go out and not to household chores on the weekend. It appears my husband values money the most. If I was full time I would take home £3400 per month so it's a difference of £500 per month. I am more than happy for him to also drop to 4 days per week to spend more time with the children if he wants to, but he doesn't wish to do this.

I need more money to do my very expensive hobby 🤔 yeah I'll just get the wife to work herself into the ground, win win on my part 🥳

This.

It really isn't an achievement to work five days a week when you are in a position to choose not to.

If he is allowed to prioritise his wellbeing over maximising his earnings then so are you.

This x 100! He's happy in his flexible, low stress, low (-er than you) pay, but wants YOU to work more so that you earn more so that HE can have more stuff?!

Yep during the week I'm still doing washings, organising school uniforms, lunches, making dinners, cleaning up after said dinners, picking up after my daughter and potentially her friends etc. There is always, always something needing done. Even on the weeks I keep on top of general cleaning in a small sense, I get the to weekend and the bedding and towels still need done, the floors need properly cleaned, the fridge needs cleaned, the toilets need cleaned. I don't have any issue with people who don't live this way - I do have an issue with people pretending they don't know where cleaning comes from or why it needs done.

As many have pointed out he wants you to work more hours to fund his personal activities.

Even if it was for family activities he wanted the extra money , considering you’ll already be earning more than him even at 4 days and have a good intentions behind not working a fifth day , it’s UR for him to insist this.

He should find a higher paid job if it bothers him. I mean he says he likes working in his job which is fine but you like working 3/4 days! Why you should you have to change your planned schedule but he doesn’t feel he has to change his job when he’s the one with the issue?

He sounds very selfish OP!

I agree and I do work 5 days a week. I think an achievement is anything you want it to be in terms of what works for you. If being in a position to work part time is what you want, and you can do that, then that is an achievement. If managing a home and a successful full time career is what you want, and you can do that, then that’s an achievement. If you or your partner want to be a stay at home parent and you’ve organised your lives to do so, then that’s an achievement. We’re all different and value different things.

This, a thousand times this. I don't know what share of housework, 'house admin'/mental load and childcare your husband does. If if it currently falls mostly to you, he wants his cake and be able to eat it, plus seconds!

Any considerations to change working hours etc would need a serious chat re: expections and a solid commitment.

Can I suggest that if he wants to go rock climbing and doing Iron Man stuff ( including the training, not just the events) he sits down and works on the following thoughts.

how will he be able to increase HIS income to pay for the expensive things he wants to do rather than paying for them through your labour

who will be looking after the children when he trots off to do them

when do you get the equivalent time to do the things you want to do and who will pay for them

who will be looking after the children when you trot off to do them

i think stick with 4 days.. I think he’s being very unreasonable unless he is offering to do 40% of the household chores???? I doubt it!! Be very careful. Make sure you aren’t being taken advantage of…

This with a million bells on.
‘Dont let him benefit from your free labour’ - nails it.

Your DC are only 4 and 2? (Practically babies still?!) And your DH is nagging you to work full time? What an absolute arse he is. 100% guarantee you will still be doing all the domestic chores, life admin, childcare duties, cooking, food shopping, and general housework.

He sounds grabby, mean-spiritied, and wholly unsupportive. If he wants to fork out on expensive hobbies, he can get a better paid job to fund them. And who will be looking after the children when he's farting about doing his 'hobbies?' Oh yeah, YOU!

I think you should stay at 3 days work a week tbh, because any extra money you earn will go on childcare, extra tax, N.I., uni fees (if you went to uni,) and pension.

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with such a mean-spirited unsupportive man though @Lovelifesmile ?

ok so you need to change your discussions to one about money and how much discretionary spending you each get.

So if he wants to climb rocks and get all sweaty on the Iron Man - how is he gonig to fund that without using family money? You need to ring fence family holidays.

And if he still insists you go full time (to fund his activities) what is the quid pro quo for you?

So he wants you to work more so that he can do expensive activities and spend less time with his wife and children? That would be a no from me. If it was, say, saving for a house deposit or building saving to support your children later on it's different. If he wants boys activities he gets a better paid job himself.

That's pretty much what I said. And if I was the OP, I would be asking myself what this man actually brings to my life. From her posts, it seems to be nothing.

This is ridiculous - if he wants nicer holidays and to do activities such as iron man……he needs to earn more money! Not coming crying to you and asking you to work more, you have two kids!

"he would like more money to build more savings, go on a few lavish holidays a year and he would like to go rock climbing and participate in sport events such as Iron Man which are not cheap activities. "

His wanting you to go to full time is not to meet financial or other goals for the family as a whole, it's so he can take expensive holidays and rock climbing and take up expensive hobbies. Those are for him and take him away from his family, so would actually be to the detriment of the family. I don't see an extra $6000 a year funding savings, multiple lavish holidays, rock climbing, and Ironmans.

Training for Ironmans is like having a strenuous, physical part time job. The training is grueling, expensive, and time consuming, more so than a marathon. His diet would be more expensive. He needs an expensive bike or two. There's the entry fees. The events aren't local for the most part so there's time off for travel and event, plus the expenses of travel.

You would possibly have to pay for childcare to cover his absences.

He wants to live like a single man and check out of the family off your hard work.

I wouldn't do that. You do shift work and that's really hard with kids thataren't even in school yet.

You will already be contributing more than half if you go four days a week. Seems quite reasonable to me, given he wfh and therefore has some flexibility as well.

My friend has done a few iron mans, the training involves a minimum of 16 hours a week. How the actual fuck is he going to fit in 16 hours of training (plus travel to the gym/pool) every week whilst working full time and being a father and doing his half of the household chores?

Hes not! Hes expecting you to work full time and do all the parenting and household chores so that he can devote his free time to training for an Ironman!

My friend is child free and her husband still complains about the training when she’s got a competition coming up. I trained for a marathon (our children were teens at the time) and just that put a strain on the family during that hard training weeks (for a marathon only about 6 weeks is really tough)

He really needs to earn a higher salary, have a bit of ambition. Lots of roles allow you to work from home at least two days a week. He sounds complacent and lazy.

How much time does he spend a week doing housework, kid wrangling etc?

Best to point out to him that if you go full time he'll be spending a minimum of one day out of every weekend doing house stuff. And that's cooking, cleaning, laundry, not just taking the kids for a swim or walking around the park with them.

He can attempt a bit of career progression then can’t he?

You can earn more than him working four days a week but he wants you to work five to fund his hobbies?
He doesn't want to get a higher earning job because he's got a cushy number?

Tell him where to go OP. He's a cheeky fucker!

Err no, doing iron man alone will be a LOT of training. DH did triathlon when the kids where younger, it took a lot of time just to do the training, DD did it as well and at 8, she was doing, 3 sessions of swimming a week, 2 cycling sessions and 2 lots of running. He as an adult and would need to do more.

So he would expect you to do all the housework and work 5 days a week. Then you'll have to do a lot of extra looking after the kids so he can do his training and that doesn't include him doing climbing as well. Just no, tell him you'll be doing 4 days a week as it's a good work life balance and unless he wants to get another job that pays more then he can jog on.

So none of it will be for the betterment of the family? Kmdt 😒.

I hope you're strong enough to not be bulldozed into spending less time at home so he can be on more jollies; all while keeping the drudge work.

He’s your husband, not your boss. Four days means you out earn your husband so he doesn’t get a say. I hope he does enough around the house.
Tell him if he needs cash, he needs to find a higher paying job as you earn more than him pro rata.
He's pretty critical considering you will be earning more, cheeky, critical man.