When one spouse has a "big" job

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s also no point in being married to them. I’m not sure why you think only one spouse could or should move to protect themselves when divorce is looming.

what? are you trying to create some false equivalency here? OP's DH is trying to sabotage her attempt to enter the workforce by refusing to care for their baby and threatening to get full custody and divorce. that's abusive, not a "move to protect." A non-abusive spouse would not block her move towards financial independence, **especially** if divorce is already a possibility. He'd see it as a responsible thing to do on all sides.

I guess that’s the difference.

My spouse taking a job which barely covered childcare and affected the high income job that had been supporting the family would be a move away from financial independence, not towards it.

Wtf are you talking about. Forbidding your wife to work or making threats so she won't is abusive, full stop.

[Anonymous]

I don’t disagree. So do what’s smartest financially- divorce him and then get the job when it’s actually best for her and for her child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s also no point in being married to them. I’m not sure why you think only one spouse could or should move to protect themselves when divorce is looming.

what? are you trying to create some false equivalency here? OP's DH is trying to sabotage her attempt to enter the workforce by refusing to care for their baby and threatening to get full custody and divorce. that's abusive, not a "move to protect." A non-abusive spouse would not block her move towards financial independence, **especially** if divorce is already a possibility. He'd see it as a responsible thing to do on all sides.

I guess that’s the difference.

My spouse taking a job which barely covered childcare and affected the high income job that had been supporting the family would be a move away from financial independence, not towards it.

Wtf are you talking about. Forbidding your wife to work or making threats so she won't is abusive, full stop.

So what would you call unilaterally deciding to work, costing the household $$$, and putting the (former) sole breadwinner's job at risk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you signed over custody to him how on earth would he manage to get his kid to daycare and back regularly? You know, since he's "on call" at all times.

Is he a transplant surgeon? My husband is a law partner and he has come in late, left early, and had two little girls twirling in his office on occasion.

OP here, happy to hear this. My DH is also in law, so good to know he actually can rearrange his schedule to accommodate kids.

Depends on the type of lawyer you are.

My DH is in Biglaw, and while he has *some* flexibility in his work schedule, if a client sets up a call at the last minute, it is almost impossible for him to say no and still be successful - the clients are paying $$$ per hour, and part of what they are paying for is constant access to their legal team.

We ALWAYS have backup plans if I am counting on DH to do pick-up/drop-off with the kids, since DH has had those moments where a client wants something ASAP. I could rely on him on weekends to watch the kids for a few hours, but he works a lot of hours on weekends, too.

I have another sibling who is a litigator in NYC, and he disappears for about 6 weeks around trial time a few times a year. No flexibility at all with that timing.

I think your DH is being difficult and awful when he talks to you, but (at least in my experience) Biglaw lawyers do not have a lot of flexibility to plan their life around family-time on a regular basis if they want to be successful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you signed over custody to him how on earth would he manage to get his kid to daycare and back regularly? You know, since he's "on call" at all times.

Is he a transplant surgeon? My husband is a law partner and he has come in late, left early, and had two little girls twirling in his office on occasion.

OP here, happy to hear this. My DH is also in law, so good to know he actually can rearrange his schedule to accommodate kids.

Depends on the type of lawyer you are.

My DH is in Biglaw, and while he has *some* flexibility in his work schedule, if a client sets up a call at the last minute, it is almost impossible for him to say no and still be successful - the clients are paying $$$ per hour, and part of what they are paying for is constant access to their legal team.

We ALWAYS have backup plans if I am counting on DH to do pick-up/drop-off with the kids, since DH has had those moments where a client wants something ASAP. I could rely on him on weekends to watch the kids for a few hours, but he works a lot of hours on weekends, too.

I have another sibling who is a litigator in NYC, and he disappears for about 6 weeks around trial time a few times a year. No flexibility at all with that timing.

I think your DH is being difficult and awful when he talks to you, but (at least in my experience) Biglaw lawyers do not have a lot of flexibility to plan their life around family-time on a regular basis if they want to be successful.

OK, but what a BigLaw lawyer of any type may need, due to demanding number of hours worked, is that he himself does not provide childcare. Frankly, anyone working in Big Law can afford to hire enough childcare asisstance to allow tge wife to go back to work. It's not fair to be a parent who says both, "I can't do childcare" and "I won't pay for any childcare in my absence."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s also no point in being married to them. I’m not sure why you think only one spouse could or should move to protect themselves when divorce is looming.

what? are you trying to create some false equivalency here? OP's DH is trying to sabotage her attempt to enter the workforce by refusing to care for their baby and threatening to get full custody and divorce. that's abusive, not a "move to protect." A non-abusive spouse would not block her move towards financial independence, **especially** if divorce is already a possibility. He'd see it as a responsible thing to do on all sides.

I guess that’s the difference.

My spouse taking a job which barely covered childcare and affected the high income job that had been supporting the family would be a move away from financial independence, not towards it.

Wtf are you talking about. Forbidding your wife to work or making threats so she won't is abusive, full stop.

So what would you call unilaterally deciding to work, costing the household $$$, and putting the (former) sole breadwinner's job at risk?

Doesn't matter. She owns her labor. We have words for situations where people don't own their own labor. (Plus, none of what you're saying meets the facts. The DH is being overly dramatic and not even trying to come to a compromise.)

[Anonymous]

Words like "parent"? Because that word would mean, to me, that the wellbeing and needs of the child come first. Taking a job which necessitates daycare and threatening the breadwinners income all IN THE MIDST OF choosing to divorce is a lot. It would be hard for me to justify that being in my kids best interest.

Initiate the divorce now, take the time to transition your child to daycare/deal with emotional fallout from divorce, and then once custody and alimony and child support are hammered out, get the RIGHT job for your new circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Words like "parent"? Because that word would mean, to me, that the wellbeing and needs of the child come first. Taking a job which necessitates daycare and threatening the breadwinners income all IN THE MIDST OF choosing to divorce is a lot. It would be hard for me to justify that being in my kids best interest.

Initiate the divorce now, take the time to transition your child to daycare/deal with emotional fallout from divorce, and then once custody and alimony and child support are hammered out, get the RIGHT job for your new circumstances.

Where do you possibly get that this guy legitimately thinks his job is being "threatened" by his wife working? That's a really bizarre assertion to make, and I cannot really picture any set of facts where it's true. Childcare can be paid for; it's not rocket science -- thousands of DC "big job" couples do it every day. One man does not have the right to unilaterally declare that his wife's unpaid labor must serve the child's best interests, while he gets to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Words like "parent"? Because that word would mean, to me, that the wellbeing and needs of the child come first. Taking a job which necessitates daycare and threatening the breadwinners income all IN THE MIDST OF choosing to divorce is a lot. It would be hard for me to justify that being in my kids best interest.

Initiate the divorce now, take the time to transition your child to daycare/deal with emotional fallout from divorce, and then once custody and alimony and child support are hammered out, get the RIGHT job for your new circumstances.

Where do you possibly get that this guy legitimately thinks his job is being "threatened" by his wife working? That's a really bizarre assertion to make, and I cannot really picture any set of facts where it's true. Childcare can be paid for; it's not rocket science -- thousands of DC "big job" couples do it every day. One man does not have the right to unilaterally declare that his wife's unpaid labor must serve the child's best interests, while he gets to work.

Yes, they do. However, you continue to overlook the fact that this is not a situation of two "big jobs", and the child hasn't been in daycare to date. I'm assuming that the woman (OP) did not unilaterally decide to stay at home, so I'm not sure why she now has the power to unilaterally decide to work, even when not in anyone else best interest. Its not about him "getting" to work, its about the fact that this couple CHOSE to make his income the sole income for the family. He has been the only breadwinner for who knows how long. To change things up is fine, but its inane to believe that the decision to have a SAHP should be a unilateral one but the decision for one spouse to change that agreement should be entirely up to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Words like "parent"? Because that word would mean, to me, that the wellbeing and needs of the child come first. Taking a job which necessitates daycare and threatening the breadwinners income all IN THE MIDST OF choosing to divorce is a lot. It would be hard for me to justify that being in my kids best interest.

Initiate the divorce now, take the time to transition your child to daycare/deal with emotional fallout from divorce, and then once custody and alimony and child support are hammered out, get the RIGHT job for your new circumstances.

Where do you possibly get that this guy legitimately thinks his job is being "threatened" by his wife working? That's a really bizarre assertion to make, and I cannot really picture any set of facts where it's true. Childcare can be paid for; it's not rocket science -- thousands of DC "big job" couples do it every day. One man does not have the right to unilaterally declare that his wife's unpaid labor must serve the child's best interests, while he gets to work.

The only way that that bolded is true is if she was forced to be a SAHM against her will. You make it sound like "getting" to support two adults and children is a big treat.

[Anonymous]

It seems from the responses that the spouse with the 'big job' almost always tends to be the husband. I have a question for the PPs here, do you think that guys who don't want to share in childrearing duties are inherently chauvinistic or think it's 'women's work'? There's just no good reason to dump all the responsibilities on the wife just cos she's the mother. So I wonder what the DHs of these beleaguered women must be thinking to justify this to themselves.

[Anonymous]

Have there been posters who said that their husband doesn’t share in childcare?

We share- but I do more because he works. He does more in terms of income generation. We don’t have to do everything the same to do it well. He gets the same time with the kids that a working mother would get, minus the errands and whatnot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems from the responses that the spouse with the 'big job' almost always tends to be the husband. I have a question for the PPs here, do you think that guys who don't want to share in childrearing duties are inherently chauvinistic or think it's 'women's work'? There's just no good reason to dump all the responsibilities on the wife just cos she's the mother. So I wonder what the DHs of these beleaguered women must be thinking to justify this to themselves.

This is not OT, but I can tell you in my case that my DH doesn't realize he's doing anything...so there's nothing to justify. We are both highly-educated, thought I've got more prestigious credentials. Maybe because of that, I've often had more opportunities. So now I've ended up in a really flexible, well-paying job...that I don't like much. DH now also outearns me by quite a bit (I earn about a third of our HHI). Because of my flexibility, I'm able to take care of many household and child-related things that he "can't". And half the time he doesn't realize how much gets dumped on me. He's quite hands-on when he's around, but he just doesn't appreciate how different the expectations are on us and how they hold me back. I would like to change jobs, but it would be very helpful to be able to attend more networking events etc to do so. But I have 100% to figure out childcare etc to attend them, since he is completely unpredictable when he comes home or has to travel etc. I try to schedule things in advance and get him to commit to being around, but I have to remind him and pester him etc. It's just not his priority. And that's just one example.

He considers himself a very involved parent. And in some ways he is. But it's like the work he doesn't see doesn't count. I don't think he's ever thought about the fact that there is dinner on the table (and I'm usually in the midst of feeding two kids) when he comes home. He doesn't think about how it got there in a meaningful way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s also no point in being married to them. I’m not sure why you think only one spouse could or should move to protect themselves when divorce is looming.

what? are you trying to create some false equivalency here? OP's DH is trying to sabotage her attempt to enter the workforce by refusing to care for their baby and threatening to get full custody and divorce. that's abusive, not a "move to protect." A non-abusive spouse would not block her move towards financial independence, **especially** if divorce is already a possibility. He'd see it as a responsible thing to do on all sides.

I guess that’s the difference.

My spouse taking a job which barely covered childcare and affected the high income job that had been supporting the family would be a move away from financial independence, not towards it.

Wtf are you talking about. Forbidding your wife to work or making threats so she won't is abusive, full stop.

So what would you call unilaterally deciding to work, costing the household $$$, and putting the (former) sole breadwinner's job at risk?

I think you are being dramatic, if you literally can't do your "big job" (putting your job at risk) without someone else doing 100% of every other aspect of your adult life, then you aren't as good at life/that job/whatever. Also, if its necessary that someone else handle it all, why is it necessary that it be the spouse? You can outsource anything.

[Anonymous]

Who said anything about 100% of their life? It’s the drop off. He can’t be relied to do that.