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.

Fortunately he's not the boss of you so just tell him no. End of chat.

If he's resentful that he is putting more money in the pot then have a joint acct for the bills and household expenses and family holidays, split 50:50, and keep the rest of your salaries yourselves. He can then budget for his IronMan etc on his own dime instead of trying to fund his leisure through your labour.

If I were you I'd definitely start building up my own savings as I don't think a marriage like this has legs tbh. He sounds selfish and petty and shallow.

This all sounds like utter hell having to explain your decisions to someone else and having someone else telling you when to work. He sees you as a financial partner but doesn't seem to value the enjoyment you get out of life.

I am pretty poor really but I value time with my children more than anything, and time to decompress and have downtime because burnout can literally kill you.

Just say no thanks, you're happy spending time with the kids and on the house. Ignore his tantrum. He's not your boss.

OP, this is not looking good. Your husband has selfish motivations and wants a kind of lifestyle that he wants you to fund at the expense of the care for the house and the family, which he does not seem to care much about.

In the short term, I would tell him to fund his own hobbies. However, in the long term I can see his attitude creating resentment between you both. He wants to live like a bachelor with a sugar mommy, who also cooks, cleans and raises the children. Unless he changes his attitude, he'll be divorced in a few years.

He sounds selfish. Tell him you work more than enough at work and at home and if you are managing then why is he being so greedy. If he wants more money for himself he needs to earn more..... not you.

Another man who sees his wife as a work horse.
How much does he do around the house.
He sounds very selfish.

Yeah but has he factored in extra money spent on childcare?
Is he going to be doing 50% of the housework and life admin if you go back full time?
I did 3 days then 4 days and went back full time when youngest was 6, that time is precious and doesn’t last long.

How about a meet in the middle?
you work 5 days one week and 4 days the next. On your week of 4 days you do the house work, food prep etc. On the week you work full time, he does it.
I personally would stick with 4 days as your kids are still young.
Does your DH help with housework etc at the moment? It is a bit galling that he wants you to work more to fund his hobbies.

Have you thought about working four days across 5 shorter hour days (is that possible in your job?) That's often very efficient as you reduce childcare costs and don't end up sat around not at work when children are in school.

I don't think unreasonable to work 4 days though - show him the maths as well and factor in tax & travel costs & not needing wraparound on the 5th day, depending on your earnings the 5th day can be an "expensive" day and not cost your family budget much to drop.

Equally, how would you feel if he would also like to drop to 4? I think you have to ready to consider that.

More money to fund his extravagances? Sounds a bit off. That day you don’t work you’ll be doing housework, admin, organising, etc. If he proposes you work full time, is he offering to take on half of everything? And I mean everything - picking up kids, making meals for them, organising school bags, making doctors appointments? I bet the answer is no.

Well then he needs to get himself a job that pays better, doesn’t he?!

Is that all he does? Pick the kids up two days per week? If he wants you to work full time purely for his benefit then what do you get out of it but stress and spending your other two days on everything else he doesn't do?

Actually just tell him to fuck off.

It's great that you manage household chores in less time and have the whole family involved! However, this setup is not representative and not comparable.

My DH cleans 5-6 hrs each weekend, maybe he does a more thorough job? I do a weekly shop and I cannot get it done in under 2hrs, maybe my supermarket is further away? Maybe you can shop less as everyone is eating at work/school at least once a day.

My point is: it's great that you found a setup that works for you. But this is not possible for everyone else.

Go full time but you hire a cleaner x2 per week and your husband has to do the shopping and admin as gp appointments etc. I'm sure he will more than happy for you to work 4 days and do tge chores instead of him..

This.

I don't think he's really thought this through. Having one of you at home for that one day makes all the difference to overall logistics and quality of life for the whole family (him included). It just gives you the slack to get household stuff done without the weekends being full of that stuff and generally gives everyone more capacity in all senses!

I do 4 days with 3 kids. Having that one day off work to deal with all the other stuff makes a massive difference!

Hilarious.

He wants you to go full time so he can have LAVISH holidays and engage in expensive, time consuming hobbies ... presumably away from the family while you continue to do the grunt work.

Suspect none of his plans include taking on more of the drudgery, childcare, meal prepping, shopping at home that you currently cover because your schedule is set up to cover it at the moment.

' he would like to go rock climbing and participate in sport events such as Iron Man which are not cheap activities. '

It's all about him, so he needs to earn that extra money as surely he would be embarrassed if you were full time and earning so much more than him just so he can go and play.

and when will he find the time to play ?
will he be leaving you in the evenings and weekends so you can clean / garden and look after the children...

selfish child.

I would earn more money than my husband if I worked 5 days and I only work 3. I worked very hard to make sure this was in place before I had my children to ensure I could work part time whilst they were young. Like yourself, I plan on going back 4 days when youngest goes to school and like yourself I would like the day in the week to get all the housework, shopping etc done so weekends can be spent as a family. If my husband suggested I work 5 days for more money, I would tell him he would need to drop a day in order to get housework, shopping, ironing etc all done and I know he would rather be in work. He respects that running a household with two young children is not easy and whilst he does his share of washing, hoovering, dishes etc I do a larger percentage as I work 3 days.Money is not everything, and if you're comfortable than why upset the balance?

Ask him to lay out his plan for him doing his share of house work and childcare whilst training for an Ironman.

As someone who has kids significantly older than yours I would recommend holding firm on the 4 days. I work 4 days a week for the same reasons you are proposing and I love my day off for the cleaning and organising aspect. Luckily for me DH supports this and does his fair share too when his business allows him the time.

We had a similar discussion about this. Son a similar age. my husband and I earn enough to survive on working four days per week.

However, DH was more concerned about pension contributions and impact etc and I gave up trying to reason with him. Also, if I had only worked four days a week I just know DH would’ve expected me to do all of the household jobs, errands etc on that one mad day, and I’d rather share it out between us.

I am a bit old-fashioned and I think on a weekend it’s perfectly acceptable to do your jobs and children to play in the garden. Temptation is to get everything done while they aren’t there, and then spend two whole days entertaining children.
So in reality we just have the money now to pay a cleaner etc. and we have a jobs morning where we get it all done.

If you could possibly persuade him to both of you do four days a week that sounds great. I didn’t manage to persuade my husband.

Tell him that if he wants to do expensive hobbies and go on fancy holidays then he needs to earn more to fund them. Not expect you to work more, when you already earn more than him and you (quite reasonably, especially with young children) want the extra day at home to keep the household running smoothly.

Sounds like he needs to look for a promotion. Its not reasonable to ask you to work more than you have to, to fund his expensive hobbies

Your husband wants you to work 5 days a week so he can have more money to spend on expensive and time consuming sports like ironman and rock climbing. The reality is that if you do this your going to be left doing all the childcare every evening and Sat along with all the housework and admin. The extra money won't benefit you or the kid's and it will end up costing you more money with takeaways, childcare and the coast of a cleaner ect. You will end up physically and mentally exhausted and resent doing it all.

I have friends where both parents worked and being honest having one person doing a 3 or 4 day work week made life easier especially when the kids were in school. When the kids are in school they have holidays to be minded in, have sports, birthday parties ect. They will also have sick days that they need to be minded as well.
Wait until your kids are in school and say have music, sports ect and they are at activities 2 or 3 evenings and every Saturday.

In your situation I would tell him straight out that you are not working more than 4 days a week with 2 small kids. I start giving him a list of jobs to be done each evening. Let him sort out and do a few loads of laundry & ironing. Let him bring the 2 kids on a grocery shop.
Start to make plans with friends on a Saturday and leave him with the 2 kid's. Let him see what a parent of 2 small kids has to do to keep the show on the road so to speak.

I would set up a bank account where your salary goes into. Then put the cost of your share of the mortgage, bills, children care, money for the kids shoes, clothes and family food bills into a separate account. Let him do the same.
My feeling is that your already paying more than your share of the bills and all the kids clothes, shoes ect are coming from your account.

If he wants the money for these expensive hobbies let him change jobs for one with more money and tell him that you wont be left minding his kids every evening or all day on Saturday or Sunday either.

The reality is that he is a parent with 2 small kids who does not have the time or money to spend on these expensive hobbies.

How delusional of him. He wants you to work more so there’s more money for his holidays and hobbies? Who picks up the extra housework and childcare if you’re both working five days?

And he doesn’t want to change his own job to earn more to fund his hobbies either? Surely you realise his ‘suggestion’ is bonkers?