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.

Do you need to decide yet? Your youngest is a way off school age.

Absolutely not. You never get these early years back with your children and having worked full time throughout the first 10 years of mine, looking back I regret it. Always stressed, never enough time.

When you increase your days, make sure it’s a Saturday you’re doing and he will then be responsible for looking after his children.

I can guarantee he will find that difficult after a full week of work. When you bring up him looking after the children on a Sunday as well (in order to meet your full 5 day working week) he will suddenly realise how difficult life is and you should only be working 4 days.

He clearly expects you to work mon-fri and then look after the children all weekend, as well as you fitting in household chores etc.

So he wants you to earn more money to enable him to spend more time away from you & his children doing his manly activities?

Er, no.

Ah I see! So the extra money you earn will go on his pursuits

that would be a big fat no

Doing an Iron Man is a hugely costly in terms of time for the required amount of training and money. Entry fees are extremely expensive and so is the travel to them, and the associated equipment and training preparation is expensive too - bikes etc. My husband and I both very into this kind of thing but I would never agree to work more to pay for this for him.

You’ll end up spending your whole weekend doing all the household chores and childcare whilst he is training especially if he is doing a full IronMan not a 70.3. It’ll be even worse if he joins a club - my husband was getting lots of pressure yesterday from his club about not going on a training ride today despite me being due to give birth in three weeks and we currently have no kitchen, a wayward builder and our house is chaos!

Edited as accidentally posted too early!

Tell him if you go full time he’ll have to spend his weekends food shopping and cleaning the house and looking after the kids with you. No time for rock climbing or training for iron mans.

I would write a list of all the things you would do in the extra day if you were not working full-time, and make it clear that if you do work full-time he will be expected to pick up half of these things, to be done in his evenings or weekends.

Ask him what he plans to do about the extra day per week of childcare/school pickup, what will happen in school holidays or if children are ill etc.

If he says he is truly happy to take on all this extra load (which would mean less time for his hobbies, and of course you would expect him to give you an equal amount of child-free time) and you believe him, fair enough. But I bet he wouldn’t.

None of this is for a few years is it? Plenty of time for things to change.

When youngest does start school could you do the 4 days that you want with an agreement to review after a year or two?

In that time both of you might change your minds.

I think it’s hard to see how these things will work until you have dc in school.

Men who want their wives to work FT nearly always expect them to also do the bulk of the childcare/household/mental load too. Ask him how much he plans on taking on.

I once had a similar conversation with my husband when my kids were little about working as an agency nurse, nights on the weekend. The gist was that from Friday tea time to last thing on a Sunday he would be responsible for the kids and I would be totally unavailable. It was a brief conversation!

We talked about me working full time again recently in a different context. He's been made redundant. I'm happy to do it but I made it clear that every other single family/home task would need to be taken on by him.

Will he be doing half of everything domestic then?
And youll each get the same amount of time to do your own things?

You'll work full time, he'll work full time and everything will be fair and equal?

Or youll up your hours, still do more around the house and he'll use the extra money to do his own thing while leaving you to do his share of house and kids while he does all his fun stuff?

He's taking the piss.

Id be saying my 4 days will bring in more than your 5 days so no, I won't be going full time so that you can spend the money on something that means I'll have to do extra work because you won't fucking be around.

Only one child to be fair and primary school age but both work full time in busy jobs and the only thing we outsource is the gardener, we manage everything else comfortably and have plenty of time as a family and for hobbies etc. We are very much a team though and everything is split.

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.

If you work 5 days a week, so that he can naff off alone all weekend to train for hobbies that you are funding, who is going to do all the housework? You, whilst you simultaneously look after the kids?

Sorry, but your husband sounds like a selfish arse.

If he wants to do expensive hobbies, he needs to earn more.

I can't see that there is anything he's proposing now that will benefit you! You work longer hours so that he can absent himself from the family, leaving you with weekends alone doing the housework.

I'd understand him wanting to income boost to benefit the family but it seems he wants you to earn more to benefit himself. If he wants to do activities solely for himself tell him to find extra hours and earn more himself rather than pushing you to earn more for him. Remind him that whilst you're working part time the kids and the housework are being left mostly to you and would he do his fair share if you were to do extra hours?I bet he wouldn't considering he seems to want you to earn more to give himself some extra activities and have an excuse to not help more with the kids and housework

You sound like your planning for the health and welfare of the whole family, he sounds as tho he’s planning for himself only.

The family time expended on doing the proposed IM will grate eventually given you’ll be picking up childcare and housekeeping in his absence, so look after your mental health above all else.

Selfish arse, tell him to get a better paying job,to buy in help, given it appears his commitment to daily life isn’t 50/50

The extra money is not worth that extra day in my opinion. That’s a lot of jobs taking up family time.

I think your plan is good.
What would childcare for the fifth day each week cost if you were to go full time?How are the chores going to be split if you work full time? If you are both working full time then they should be split equally.

He earns less then you pro rata. If he wants more money he needs to find a better pair job. Or enjoy the lifestyle you have already as a family.

This! What a bloody joke!!!

Tell him he needs to write down when he will be doing an additional four hours of household jobs each week, half of the 8 hour day you have for housework etc. Exactly what jobs will he be taking on? Like hell would I have worked a fifth day so my DH could do hobbies.

Not your “D”H at all. Taking and dropping off HIS children when he WFH does not make him a martyr: it’s called parenting. Will you be doing a similar time consuming event including training to balance his “me” time? Thought not!

Suggest that once he’s used a working day per week to shop / do chores, he can commence his IM training … Selfish prick!

May I ask what job you do, @Lovelifesmile ? Just out of nosiness. You earn well for 3 days a week imho!

But you are not being unreasonable to only want to do 4 days instead of 5. I’m guessing you’d still do all the household chores even if you did work full time, so you would be better off having a day off paid work per week to get it done.

So who would do all of the cleaning, cooking, food shop, admin etc then? It would be you. Absolutely not.

So its pure luxuries he wants extra cash for really (iron man training also takes so much time it would be better for the family for you to have a day off or you'll be trying to do everything on a weekend when he's off training with kids in tow, whereas doing chores on Fridays for example.leaves you to focus on kids, and at such a special and fleeting time of their life when so young. You have good jobs, you can always flex up later if you want. His reasons aren't good enough in my opinion, expensive hobbies and luxurious holidays don't trump a balance in family life.

I'm taken aback that anyone would take a £500 a month pay cut, in order to do a load of unpaid household chores!!!!