Husband insisting I work full time

Abbafan1972

£10 a day for lunch? That's seems excessive!

pjread

so I'm assuming you've been living on just his 17k for the best part of a year so although perhaps a struggle at times you can live on it, right? So PT or otherwise your finances will ramp up significantly?

is your new job local, or a trek? Is his? How many hours does each really take up? Add a 2hr commute and a tendancy to hang around for the "odd hour" of extra time to finish things off and suddenly a 35hr/week job can be taking 60.

If you can wander in and double his salary it sounds like he should cut down (or even drop) his job to take care of the house/little one. If my wife could earn double my salary I'd be more than happy to do the home thing, or to go part time (perhaps both of us)

Is work important to either of you, are you ambitious? Part time might stifle advancement opportunities if that's something you care about, just as an aside.

NoAngel

pjread wrote: »

so I'm assuming you've been living on just his 17k for the best part of a year so although perhaps a struggle at times you can live on it, right? So PT or otherwise your finances will ramp up significantly?

is your new job local, or a trek? Is his? How many hours does each really take up? Add a 2hr commute and a tendancy to hang around for the "odd hour" of extra time to finish things off and suddenly a 35hr/week job can be taking 60.

If you can wander in and double his salary it sounds like he should cut down (or even drop) his job to take care of the house/little one. If my wife could earn double my salary I'd be more than happy to do the home thing, or to go part time (perhaps both of us)

Is work important to either of you, are you ambitious? Part time might stifle advancement opportunities if that's something you care about, just as an aside.

My maternity pay has been good with a couple of months full pay and the rest working out at around 70% pay so I've been contributing that way for the last 8 months.

His job is very local but mine would involve daily travel (different location each day within a 30 mile radius). I also have to keep going until the job is done which I was told wold involve working into the evenings at times.

I feel that after studying so hard it would be a shame not to progress my career but at the same time I want a healthy work/family balance. However this job I've been offered isn't exactly great career wise, it's more as a stop gap before my perfect job comes up in the right area (jobs are limited in my field at the moment). The perfect job if/when it comes up would be more normal hours and less money but much better career wise.

rach_k

Give him a trial run of what it'll be like if you both work full time and things are split fairly in the house. Write a list of everything you do in the day that wouldn't be done by a child minder then insist you split everything equally for a month. (While you're still off, do what a child minder would do.) If he can cope with that and it still doing his fair share at the end of the month, tell him you'll do a three month trial of working full time while he continues doing half of the work.

If he doesn't like it/won't take on 50% of the home/child stuff, tell him you're happy to match his earnings. If he wants more money than that, he will have to get a second job because, after all, you will have two jobs - full time paid work and part time housemaid/child minder to him/main carer of your actual child.

pjread

[QUOTE=NoAngel;[URL="tel:65138655"]65138655[/URL]]I also have to keep going until the job is done which I was told wold involve working into the evenings at times.
[/QUOTE]
Do you know anyone in a similar position? Usually employers tend to sugar coat things a little, so I'd wonder if that translates as "the company ethos is 12 hour days, work hard/play hard, etc etc" and do a little digging before responding.

I once turned down an otherwise decent job offer because everyone looked stressed as I wandered in to 2nd interview, and they kept enthusiastically going on about "loads of paid overtime". Different people have different priorities, but personally I wouldn't want to get tied in to somewhere with that mindset and at the time my little ones were littler than they are now. (OH is a stay at home mum, but I felt my role was not just as a cashpoint machine! )

bugslet

NoAngel wrote: »

. He used to say that as his job is manual he is much more tired than me and therefore more entitled to just relax at home than me, whose job isn't manual labour.

I used to work long hours as a forklift driver/manual loader, 12-15 hour shifts 5 days a week, trust me it doesn't get more manual than that. I work pretty much office based now and get as tired doing that as I did doing a manual job, different type of tired IYKWIM, but still cream crackered.

It's an excuse on his part to be idle, I used to do most of the housework as my OH worked away all week and was home for barely 36 hours, so tell he to get his arris into gear and pull his weight.

Guest101

NoAngel wrote: »

Hi all. Just after a bit of advice and I need a bit of a moan!

I'm on maternity leave and my LO is 7 months old. I'm job hunting at the moment as my previous job came to a natural end at the end of a contract. I've been offered a job which is paying 35k (9k more than previous job!!) and there is the option of part time. I spoke to my DH about this as I'd quite like to do 3/4 days to have some extra time with LO. DH earns 17k so I'm the main earner.

He got really funny with me about wanting to go PT, saying that I should want to do FT, why don't I want to earn more money and we will just keep struggling financially. I explained that I didn't want to have LO to just put her in nursery if I don't HAVE to and as this job is so much more money I don't feel that I HAVE to do full time. He's going on about how he supported me through uni and now its my turn to earn the money (I had a part time weekend job, full time summer job and bags of student debt so I feel like I paid my own way!).

Anyone else had this pressure on them? The job is very demanding and its likely that LO would already be in bed before I got home. I do EVERYTHING at home (shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, sorting out LO). I can't realistically imagine that he will suddenly start doing a significant amount of this either. He used to say that as his job is manual he is much more tired than me and therefore more entitled to just relax at home than me, whose job isn't manual labour.

Sorry for the massive rant but am I being unreasonable wanting to do PT to spend more time with my baby? Please be honest x

Wow what a 'man', perhaps he should want to be the bread winner, or as others have said switch to PT and look after the home.

My ex partner wanted to work once kids were old enough, but I didn't insist on it. I did offer to swap roles if she wanted to go to work earlier. But it's like this for me:
If 1 works and other doesn't, then they should do housework
If both work, both share the housework

hazyjo

You do all the house stuff because that is how YOU have let it be. Why did you never say to him to take an equal share? Because of his 'manual job'?

We don't even have kids and my OH stays at home as my househusband. He does EVERYTHING as I work full time (no, not manual!).

As soon as I can afford to, and if possible at work, I will lose a day. I don't need kids for that. My BF is constantly saying I'm 'brave' for going out to work 5 days a week and that it's far too long a day/week for me. He would be over the moon if I could lose a day.

I have a 3 bed house, I'm happy, I can afford to go out, the BF rarely leaves the house and doesn't really cost me a lot(!) and I come home to a house where we're not BOTH stressed and then have to worry about the house.

There will always be things I'd like to buy or improve, but that's life. I look at the lawyers at work and tell them I wouldn't do their job for anything. They work through the night sometimes, at weekends, cancel holidays if necessary, work work work - and I think to myself, there's more to life...

This is a lovely little tale which I often remind myself of (various versions out there - just found this one first on google):

===========================

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.” The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied, “15 – 20 years.”

“But what then?” Asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”

“Millions – then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

clw1

In case it helps here is what worked for me / my family:

While on maternity I moved a new full job and my LO went to nursery full time. To make this work for us I worked 7.30-4 so didn't see much of my LO in the morning but got a few hours in the evening with him. Hubby worked 10-6.30 so he had a few hours play time / breakfast etc with LO in the morning before work. We also tried to do all the house stuff in the evenings after LO was in bed so we had weekends free for family stuff.

Financially this worked well for us as we used my wages to pay for childcare and the rest overpaid the mortgage and so 5yrs on we are mortgage free and in a much better position than we would have been if I had worked part time.

When I went back to work we also got a cleaner and had a chat about splitting the chores as I had done them all when on mat leave. For us it works that we each have seperate chores so I do food shopping / cooking / dishes / child organisation & hubby does the washing / ironing / bills. (we tried each doing a bit of everything but we argued about whose turn it was !)

Now we are 5 yrs on and I now do part time as my LO is at school and so childcare was harder to sort around school hours. It also means I am now able to do homework etc with him.

So I suppose what I am saying is that for us a few years of full time working really helped. You say you are in a 1 bed flat - might full time working for a few years now help to get you in a family home soon ??

Good luck sorting it all.

karren

Ive just gone full time after years of working part time, id try the part time and see how you go you can always up your hours when they are older,
my huband earns much less than me and we just cut our cloth according to our needs when children were small,
you will NEVER get their childhood back and the THINGS we think are important like sky etc in grander picture aren't so dig your heels in and say how you feel now or you will resent him in long run x