Returning to work after 6 years — dh says I shouldn’t stay overnight

[TheDoom]

I’ve just started my first job in 6 years after being a sahm and I’ve got a meeting coming up which means I’d need to stay overnight. dh thinks I should tell them I can’t do it because of dd and has called me selfish for even considering it.

The meeting starts at 8am and it’s about 2 hours away so if I don’t stay I’d have to leave at about 4.30am. Work have booked rooms for people who need them and tbh I think it makes much more sense for me to stay than get up in the middle of the night and drive there half asleep.

The problem is dd is 19 months and I’ve never spent a night away from her. She’s still breastfed but she’ll take a bottle and she’s fine with dh during the day. She is a bit of a nightmare at bedtime though and she’s very attached to me. dh says he doesn’t see why I need to put her through a night of screaming just because I want to go to a work meeting.

I do feel guilty about it, obviously. I’ve been at home for 6 years and before this I’ve basically done everything with the kids. ds1 is 6, ds2 is 4 and then dd. I did school/nursery stuff, appointments, meals, laundry etc while dh worked. He earns more than I did so it worked for us and I wasn’t sitting at home resenting him or anything.

But now I’ve got this job and I actually want to do well at it. This is the first proper thing I’ve done work wise since having the kids and I don’t really want to start off by saying I can’t stay overnight because my toddler might not settle for dh.

dh keeps saying I’m being selfish and that if I cared about dd I’d just drive down at 4.30. I think one night should be manageable for him even if bedtime is shit. It’s not like I’m leaving her for a week.

Would you stay overnight or am I being unreasonable?

You need to stay. What would he do?

I went to the US for a work trip when DC was around 18 months old, DH managed.
He also made sure his work schedule enabled me going.

if im selfish for not doing one single night with my third child dh, what do you call a
dad who has never done so much as a single night? She’s 19 months, she has her dad, if anything this makes we wish not that I didn’t have to stay overnight, but that I’d asked you to be more active supporting her sleep long ago. Or even that you’d thought of that yourself but that would never happen when you could just think not my problem, I have a wife for that. I have a job now and I’m going to do it, and I wouldn’t get too vocal if I were you about having 3 children and refusing to do a night solo for the first time with the 3rd child 19 months. Hopefully some rebalance in our relationship makes you a more active dad.

The OP’s DH isn’t objecting on the grounds that it will affect his working day the next day though.

Wow. What a prick. You are not selfish. You have stayed at home for 6y.
tell him to MTFU and parent his children for 1 night and morning

and do not get everything ready for him. Waltz off and leave them to it.

your DH needs to give his head a wobble

Fwiw I bf for 8 years. 4 + 4
i left both kids for the purposes of work and for pleasure
and I often worked late too

DH and kids managed just fine. They had to.

and yes. If I had an early start that required me to leave home before 7am and my boss was offering me a hotel room for the night instead, I would take it with both hands and enjoy it.

enjoy!!! And congratulations on getting back into the workplace and regaining some independence.

if your DH doesn’t like it then your marriage is going one way. So see this as part of getting your ducks in a row.

Just agreeing with most others here. Your husband is being selfish and you should stay away if you want to. It definitely sounds best for you.

If you did choose to drive (which it sounds like you’d prefer not to), I personally much prefer night driving to early morning and would definitely go at 9pm rather than early hours. If you went in the morning, you wouldn’t need to go at 4:30 - 5:30 would still leave a perfectly generous margin. But you should stay! Husband can and should manage and should do more bedtimes going forwards.

I just normally do it so it’s become the default.

You need to make him do alternate nights. Starting now.

It doesnt need to be perfectly 50/50 but this nonsense of 'only yooooouuuu can put the child to bed. They cry with me ... im not good at it' rhetoric needs knocking on the head.

You need to tell your husband to grow up. He needs to start pulling his weight with his children and that means doing the evening routine and putting them to bed.
The reality of work is that you can't turn down overnight trips at the start of a new job. Your trying to build up a good impression and show flexibility so that in time you can ask for odd day or few hours off if you're kids say have a school concert or your parents need help.
Also as your kids get older the expenses rise and you need to build up savings for this period of expense.
In order for your new job to go well you need support from home and a husband who willing to step up and parent his children when you have to travel for work. For years I feel that you were doing everything at home and making his life easier so now it his turn to step up and help you out.

I know and that’s why I said it was a different perspective and not about DH not wanting to do bedtime.

what I meant by that was if it does not work for your family to stay overnight then your employer should be reasonable about that with three young children. Her husband’s reasoning for not wanting to bedtime is because her little one gets upset and breastfeeds during the night. He doesn’t want the little one to be upset - obviously this also makes his life harder too and doesn’t want to deal with that.

when I was trying to get at was if the poster doesn’t want to go she could explain the situation to her employer

The OP does want to go though. It’s her husband who doesn’t want to go. If she gives in on this one with her DH, where will it end?

So to make his life easier you should make your life harder and take a nice dollop of guilt with it?

Nope nope tell him he has 2 weeks to get more involved in the bedtime routine so HE doesn't make it harder for dd than it has to be.

Oh and make it clear for him that this is not negotiatable and you expect him to be supportive of your job now and going forward.

On night, with a nearly 2 year old (and the other kids) - he'll be fine. The two year old will cope.

You will need to tear the plaster off and do overnights at some point.

The only hesitation I have is whether you're the kind of person that can put it out of your mind and get on with your meeting, or whether you'll be dwelling on it, and secondarily, if he's the type to try and sabotage you with late-night calls/early morning texts designed to send you off kilter.

Put it this way, even my ex, who barely sees the kids any more due to extreme self-centred laziness managed to deal with the children for one day overnight when I had to go to the UK for my parents. And had to deal with leaving a screaming toddler at the childminders when I went back to work and we all survived (and he doesn't seem to have held it against me permanently)

she hasn’t said she wants to go she says that she wants to make a good impression in her new job and thinks going will do this. I’ve just read back on all her posts.

Your DH is a first class arsehole and needs to grow a spine and look after his child.

You are just starting work after a long time and should keep on their good side.

He also needs to look after her himself in case of emergencies.

With DC1 I had to leave for a night to attend a family funeral.

With DC2 I had to leave for a night in ambulance to a&e. So glad I wasn’t having to worry about whether my DH would cope without me.

@TheDoomdo you want to go?

This! He sounds like a right selfish arse.

He should be supporting you every inch of the way. He should be saying go, leave with with me.

the baby isn’t a new born or even pre weaning. She’s nearly 2. It’s one night.

is he worried you will enjoy yourself ?
progress at work to be more important than him?
or perhaps he is just fretting that he will have to deal with 3 kids alone. Poor chap.

I hope you have evidence of this convo in writing if you ever divorce as he has you in court demanding 5050!
he is clearly useless and unfair to call you selfish. But he is having a panic about the changing rolls - he thought he’d got himself off the hook for stuff like this as you always do the boring hard bits with the kids.

i think you should do a trial run tonight and go out to dinner with a friend to prove to him he can do it!

I think also to help build up the poor man’s confidence you should have a weekly evening yoga class, a book club and Friday or Saturday evening out with friends at least fortnightly. This will stop him feeling incompetent ☺️

Time for DH to step up and grow up. I suggest he does a few bedtimes before you go away. That way both he and DD can get used to it.

Your husband has a cheek calling you selfish when he's the one not wanting to spend one whole evening with his kids!

Useless men are so unattractive.

There's no way my DH would do this to me. He should learn to get his kids to bed! I know it's not easy especially with multiple but it's hardly every night is it!

Can you get out of house for bedtime before you go? I've found with my DC they are more likely to settle for someone else if they know I'm not there, so it may go better than you think anyway.

Oh and it may be worth taking a pump if you have one for comfort! After one overnight I was keener for DD to feed than she was!

Husband needs to grow up, do his bit and look after his own daughter for one night, whislt you stay on the hotel