Husband decided to keep kids home today without talking to me

[Anonymous]

Op here. This is a pattern of him constantly keeping kids home without discussing it with me and telling the kids first. Any sniffle, cough etc he wants them home. He then expects me to not do my job and watch them and play fast and loose with WFH (when I only transitioned to WFH under extreme pressure from him). He thinks WFH means I should play fast and loose with my workday, that it’s fine for me to not be working during core business hours or picking kids up early every day because I WFH. I’m not comfortable with that. This is not just one day but a pattern of him expecting me to do this.

[Anonymous]

Your husband is an a$$. Unless he can provide childcare all day (which it sounds like he can't), we should not have made a unilateral decision. If he wanted to spend the morning with the kids, he could have done so and then planned to drop them at daycare by late morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am increasingly feeling like my DH of 10 years has become more controlling and is emotionally and verbally abusive since we have had kids. An example would be this morning, the kids were both supposed to go to school but MoCo called a snow day. Elder child could go to the aftercare program that is open all day. Younger child who had a small cold and was home yesterday could go to preschool that opened at 10. DH decides they are staying home without discussing the decision with me, when I wanted to send them both in. (We both WFH but he hates child care because of bad experiences he had as a kid of a single mom who was always in care so he constantly wants to minimize the hours they are in care, even if it impacts our working hours.)

I get upset at him because he tells the kids they are staying home without even talking to me. I explain I have a lot of work to do that I’m behind on and he yells at me, slams a door, tells me I am being a baby because we all have work to do and when the kids stay home he is the one watching them anyway, and that I’m not a team player because my Excel spreadsheet is more important than my family, etc. Does all this in front of our kids. When I ask him when his meetings are today so I can cover for him, he refuses to answer. He storms around the house angrily, is now not speaking to me, and just loaded the kids up in the car for an errand and is refusing to talk to me.

This isn’t normal, right? Are there husbands out there who would discuss the childcare decision of the day with their wife and not unilaterally make a decision without taking their partner’s opinion into consideration? It’s not normal to yell, slam doors, and fight in front of kids, right? I’m not a bad mom for wanting to be a responsible employee, and do my job, and use the child care I pay for, right?

And yes, I have asked him for years to do therapy (he says either the problem is me and I need to go alone and that will fix our problems or he says he will go but not if I lie the whole time about our relationship and force him to defend himself to a therapist).

Is it possible that you are becoming increasingly controlling and dismissive of what he or kids need or want?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. This is a pattern of him constantly keeping kids home without discussing it with me and telling the kids first. Any sniffle, cough etc he wants them home. He then expects me to not do my job and watch them and play fast and loose with WFH (when I only transitioned to WFH under extreme pressure from him). He thinks WFH means I should play fast and loose with my workday, that it’s fine for me to not be working during core business hours or picking kids up early every day because I WFH. I’m not comfortable with that. This is not just one day but a pattern of him expecting me to do this.

I just posted that your DH is an a$$, and given this info, I think you need to transition back to work in the office, and tell him that you are being required to return to office. He wants you to work full time and be a full time caretaker, which is impossible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. He didn’t take the day off. He cancelled one meeting but has another one this afternoon. He will expect me to jump in on childcare the moment he gets back and will tell me how much time I got to work (a whopping 2 hours) because of all he did this morning and how I don’t get to complain because he “gave me time.” He acts like I am a bad person for wanting to send the kids to care when I took time off last week for sick kids and to accommodate his work travel and late arrival at school.

Can you drop them off late when he hands them over to you? It is incredibly disrespectful and dismissive of him to make this decision unilaterally.

[Anonymous]

Both OP and her husband sound bad in this situation. And we're just getting OP's side of the story.

[Anonymous]

Each of you made a decision on your preference.
Neither of you discussed it with the other in advance.
Both of you need to work on that.

[Anonymous]

Your husband does not like childcare and apparently has good reason. You need to start with that, seems like you are blowing it off.

[Anonymous]

It would never occur to me to ask DH’s opinion about keeping kids home. I’m a SAHM and once or twice a year kept my kids home from morning preschool just because I felt like it. Now that they’re older, I decide when they’re sick enough to stay home or other acceptable (to me) reasons to miss school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's the point in both parents WFH if kid's can't stay home on a day they have cold or if schools are closed?

Jobs are mainly there to support lives and make them easier and happier. Not to proof your efficiency to employer as a responsible employee. No employer will remember that, your kids most certainly will.

I agree, but my spouse would not make a unilateral decision without me unless he was calling off work and taking care of kids 100%. Normally we have a quick kitchen discussion without the kids to say “crap! It’s a snow day or Billy just threw up / feels warm. What’s your day look like? What hours can you cover / what meetings can’t be skipped?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect many years of not seeing eye-to-eye are playing into your husband's and your tendencies to poor communication and poor conflict management.

He is correct in the childcare decision (icy roads, younger kid has a cold, parental care at home may be better than daycare). He should have looped you into the decision-making but clearly knows you wouldn't have agreed and it would have led to an argument. He can't win, because you're going to argue regardless and accuse him of being controlling and abusive.

You're coming across as the gaslighting one, in the way you dismiss his opinions, his decision-making and accuse him of behaviors that really aren't obvious in the situation you describe.

Maybe the reality is different and you left out a lot of relevant information, but as it stands right now, my sympathies are with your husband.

This. Your husband’s response to get angry and stomp around isn’t okay. But you aren’t listening to him and expressing empathy for his experience.

I would totally keep the kids home on a snow day is my work schedule allowed. And it wouldn’t cross my mind to discuss with my husband first. But we have a shared history of being respectful of each other’s time and being able to effectively communicate about these issues.

This is much bigger than a snow day for you. You aren’t allowing him to have opinions about something important to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would never occur to me to ask DH’s opinion about keeping kids home. I’m a SAHM and once or twice a year kept my kids home from morning preschool just because I felt like it. Now that they’re older, I decide when they’re sick enough to stay home or other acceptable (to me) reasons to miss school.

The difference here is that you also are taking on the responsibility for caring for them. It sounds like op’s dh is keeping the kids home, but expects op to be responsible for caring for them while he works. That’s not okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. This is a pattern of him constantly keeping kids home without discussing it with me and telling the kids first. Any sniffle, cough etc he wants them home. He then expects me to not do my job and watch them and play fast and loose with WFH (when I only transitioned to WFH under extreme pressure from him). He thinks WFH means I should play fast and loose with my workday, that it’s fine for me to not be working during core business hours or picking kids up early every day because I WFH. I’m not comfortable with that. This is not just one day but a pattern of him expecting me to do this.

This is the issue. He wants you to act like a SAHP when you are not one. This is the core issue and what you two need to address.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. This is a pattern of him constantly keeping kids home without discussing it with me and telling the kids first. Any sniffle, cough etc he wants them home. He then expects me to not do my job and watch them and play fast and loose with WFH (when I only transitioned to WFH under extreme pressure from him). He thinks WFH means I should play fast and loose with my workday, that it’s fine for me to not be working during core business hours or picking kids up early every day because I WFH. I’m not comfortable with that. This is not just one day but a pattern of him expecting me to do this.

Tell us about the pressure he placed on you to wfh. How did that go? What was his reasoning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not normal not to discuss but I’d also be annoyed with a spouse that wasn’t inclined to keep the kids around whenever possible.

"Whenever possible??"