When one spouse has a "big" job

[Anonymous]

I'm a SAHM with a marriage that has slowly been circling the drain, so my #1 priority the last few weeks has been to get a job, which I have finally done. It's not the best job in the world- I'll make just enough to cover daycare and gas to/from work, but it's doing something I love and there is opportunity for advancement, and it's about the best I can do right now. If I accept, I'll start in November.

DH knew I was applying and resisted, but I guess thought I wouldn't actually get an offer. He's not happy. He has a "big" job which he claims requires him to be on-call 24/7. My new job is early mornings- before daycare is open- the occasional evening, and about half of weekends. DH has stated that because of his job, he can not do daycare drop-offs even though he doesn't go in until 8, sick days, or watch our child on evenings/weekends because he may get called in. He never actually has been called in, but supposedly the potential exists. I don't know how much is true, but I do know many other people in his position at work somehow manage to have families, so I suspect most of this pressure he has brought on himself. He is pretty upset over this, so much that he skipped dinner (which I have never seen him do). He also stated that he never would have taken this job had he known I was going to go back to work. He has graciously (sarcasm) offered me a divorce as long as I sign over all custody to him, and barring that, he wants to live separate lives where I do my thing and he does his. Yes, he has a penchant for being dramatic, hence why we are headed towards divorce anyway.

Am I unreasonable in expecting him to pick up some kid duties? How do other people manage when one spouse has a job that is "more important"?

[Anonymous]

Your DH sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a SAHM with a marriage that has slowly been circling the drain, so my #1 priority the last few weeks has been to get a job, which I have finally done. It's not the best job in the world- I'll make just enough to cover daycare and gas to/from work, but it's doing something I love and there is opportunity for advancement, and it's about the best I can do right now. If I accept, I'll start in November.

DH knew I was applying and resisted, but I guess thought I wouldn't actually get an offer. He's not happy. He has a "big" job which he claims requires him to be on-call 24/7. My new job is early mornings- before daycare is open- the occasional evening, and about half of weekends. DH has stated that because of his job, he can not do daycare drop-offs even though he doesn't go in until 8, sick days, or watch our child on evenings/weekends because he may get called in. He never actually has been called in, but supposedly the potential exists. I don't know how much is true, but I do know many other people in his position at work somehow manage to have families, so I suspect most of this pressure he has brought on himself. He is pretty upset over this, so much that he skipped dinner (which I have never seen him do). He also stated that he never would have taken this job had he known I was going to go back to work. He has graciously (sarcasm) offered me a divorce as long as I sign over all custody to him, and barring that, he wants to live separate lives where I do my thing and he does his. Yes, he has a penchant for being dramatic, hence why we are headed towards divorce anyway.

Am I unreasonable in expecting him to pick up some kid duties? How do other people manage when one spouse has a job that is "more important"?

This is not your problem. Your problem is that he's unwilling to try to make it work.

[Anonymous]

Of course it's not unreasonable to expect him to pick up kid duties, but as you know, your DH is not reasonable.

My DH similarly would fight me on doing kid work needed to support my job, like sick days and drop offs. But our economic situation was different - he knew that we needed my salary to pay our bills. So when push came to shove, he realized he needed to share in drop-offs ... although I still had a hell of a time convincing him to cover sick days. Those days he would only do if I made a huge fuss about it.

For drop offs, I pretty much just informed him that I would be leaving at x time and he would have to drop off that day. If I had asked him, I'm sure he would have refused. So I just informed him.

Your DH however, has shot out of the gate being obstructionist, and because your schedule does not overlap with daycare, you'd be depending on him to be able to do your job. I'm sorry to say that I don't know if that will work. I was able to do my job because it pretty much overlapped with daycare/nanny share hours. If I had been depending on DH to do childcare on weekends and evenings and mornings, I'm not sure it would have worked.

Are there possibilities in your field where you can have a more regular 9-5? Can you do a nanny with more flexible hours instead of daycare? Can you find a daycare with nontraditional hours?

[Anonymous]

Your DH sucks, and yes, let him get a divorce. He will quickly discover that he will NOT get full time custody, and will have to fork over some of that $$ from his big job to you to help raise the children. Oh, and guess what else? When he has custody, he'll need to drop the kids off a daycare AND pick them up AND feed them. Good luck to him with that.

[Anonymous]

Of course you are being reasonable. Calmly inform him that, since he doesn't think his work hours allow him to participate in child care coverage, you will hire a nanny/ babysitter who can provide coverage.

If he has a big job, there should be enough salary to cover that.

Do not let him talk you into, well that should come out of your salary only. A baby is made from the DNA of two people. His salary and your salary together are marital assets of both of you, and can be used to cover childcare. In divorce, he will find that he has to cover childcare costs in proportion to his income v yours, which may well be more than the 50/50 split of assets in a divorce.

If he doesn't think his current job is a good fit for two working parents, that is a different issue; he is free to look for another job that he feels is a better fit. when he finds one that allows him to do more childcare, you can let the babysitter go.

[Anonymous]

If he can't cover drop off or the occasional evening, how would he manage with full custody?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a SAHM with a marriage that has slowly been circling the drain, so my #1 priority the last few weeks has been to get a job, which I have finally done. It's not the best job in the world- I'll make just enough to cover daycare and gas to/from work, but it's doing something I love and there is opportunity for advancement, and it's about the best I can do right now. If I accept, I'll start in November.

DH knew I was applying and resisted, but I guess thought I wouldn't actually get an offer. He's not happy. He has a "big" job which he claims requires him to be on-call 24/7. My new job is early mornings- before daycare is open- the occasional evening, and about half of weekends. DH has stated that because of his job, he can not do daycare drop-offs even though he doesn't go in until 8, sick days, or watch our child on evenings/weekends because he may get called in. He never actually has been called in, but supposedly the potential exists. I don't know how much is true, but I do know many other people in his position at work somehow manage to have families, so I suspect most of this pressure he has brought on himself. He is pretty upset over this, so much that he skipped dinner (which I have never seen him do). He also stated that he never would have taken this job had he known I was going to go back to work. He has graciously (sarcasm) offered me a divorce as long as I sign over all custody to him, and barring that, he wants to live separate lives where I do my thing and he does his. Yes, he has a penchant for being dramatic, hence why we are headed towards divorce anyway.

Am I unreasonable in expecting him to pick up some kid duties? How do other people manage when one spouse has a job that is "more important"?

I'm a pretty firm believer that both parents need to be on the same page about major lifestyle changes like this and ended up divorced from my first husband because he had an attitude similar to your husband's. Having one parent stay home only works for as long as both people are happy with that arrangement. If he needed you to go back to work for whatever reason (money, the psychology of not being to sole breadwinner for the family, etc.), it would be unreasonable for you to continue to stay home. If you needed to go back to work for whatever reason (money, not wanting to be the sole caregiver for the family, etc.), it would be unreasonable for him to prevent you from doing so.

People accept jobs based on current circumstances only to have those circumstances change without notice all the time. He doesn't get to dictate exactly how your life will work for the rest of forever. If he isn't able to care for his children because his work schedule prevents it, then at this point, his option is to hire help in the morning to get the kids to daycare while you are at work. That is the only option and it sounds like it is the option he will need to exercise if you divorce him anyway, since he is not able to cover those times, according to him.

In your situation, I would respond calmly by saying that you need to go back to work for yourself, that you and he discussed it, and that while he is welcome to have an opinion, he doesn't get to tell you that you cannot return to work. The children are his as well as yours, and regardless of whether you stay married, he will need to care for them, either by providing the care himself or paying someone else to do it. If he will not take the kids to daycare, tell him that you will be using the family money to pay someone else to do so.

As for evenings and weekends, when does he interact with this child he supposedly wants sole custody of? If he cannot spend time with that child at all due to the possibility that he may get called into work, he absolutely will not get sole custody. He won't get it anyway unless you have major, major issues you're not disclosing in your OP. I have seen exactly zero cases of a parent who wants custody of some kind not getting custody. Also, you don't need his permission to divorce him. You can separate, file for divorce, and file for child support without his permission and he doesn't get to simply say that he won't let you divorce and won't pay child support. It does not work like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a SAHM with a marriage that has slowly been circling the drain, so my #1 priority the last few weeks has been to get a job, which I have finally done. It's not the best job in the world- I'll make just enough to cover daycare and gas to/from work, but it's doing something I love and there is opportunity for advancement, and it's about the best I can do right now. If I accept, I'll start in November.

DH knew I was applying and resisted, but I guess thought I wouldn't actually get an offer. He's not happy. He has a "big" job which he claims requires him to be on-call 24/7. My new job is early mornings- before daycare is open- the occasional evening, and about half of weekends. DH has stated that because of his job, he can not do daycare drop-offs even though he doesn't go in until 8, sick days, or watch our child on evenings/weekends because he may get called in. He never actually has been called in, but supposedly the potential exists. I don't know how much is true, but I do know many other people in his position at work somehow manage to have families, so I suspect most of this pressure he has brought on himself. He is pretty upset over this, so much that he skipped dinner (which I have never seen him do). He also stated that he never would have taken this job had he known I was going to go back to work. He has graciously (sarcasm) offered me a divorce as long as I sign over all custody to him, and barring that, he wants to live separate lives where I do my thing and he does his. Yes, he has a penchant for being dramatic, hence why we are headed towards divorce anyway.

Am I unreasonable in expecting him to pick up some kid duties? How do other people manage when one spouse has a job that is "more important"?

This is not your problem. Your problem is that he's unwilling to try to make it work.

I agree with this.

I also wonder (and this is just a hunch, I could be completely off base) if he's trying to block you from taking this job because having a job would give you the ability to leave him, whereas he probably figures that if you're unemployed, you won't be able to afford a divorce. I think his comment about giving you a divorce only if you give him full custody was very telling, he knows divorce is a possibility and he's trying to intimidate you into staying.

[Anonymous]

He's having a grownup tantrum. He doesn't want to handle morning daycare, but wants full custody. Ridiculous! Go to work. Tell him to hire a morning nanny.

[Anonymous]

He is not making sense. Does he know that if he gets full custody he will have to do ALL drop offs AND pickups and be there in the evening doing all things kids?

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone. Yea, I know he is being ridiculous. He thinks that if we divorce, he'll get full custody and his mom will leave her spouse, job, and life to come live with him and help out

[Anonymous]

For too long I describe my DH as fully supporting my decision to start my own business as long as I did everything myself. It is not that he doesn't do things - but he does 'assignments' rather than sharing raising and caring for our child(ren.) It wasn't easy and he back tracks but he has come to see that as adults, partners, parents, the kids we decided to have together are a shared responsibility. Your DH sounds like an ass on many levels so short term, find that nanny, pay for it with his bog money and make sure you advance in your job so that when that divorce happens you will have a stable base to build from

[Anonymous]

I’d say “no problem sign this post nup and I will quit today”.


Look- I get it. I could “insist” that my husband change his entire work life so that I could go back to work and not have my life suck (meaning still handle everything in the home plus work)but he would have to quit his very high paying job that he’s invested so much emotional and time labor in. That job has paid the day to day for our family of 5 for 12 years. I’m very pragmatic- me going back to work for 100k or even $150k would mean an overall loss of income for our family.

Just like if you’d made plans to be a SAHM and then you had kids and he told you to scurry back to work you’d be upset- he probably DID make career plans based upon you SAH. He sounds like a jerk overall (and a child)- but nobody likes feeling trapped or like the big bait and switch is going on.

[Anonymous]

Why can't you guys hire a morning nanny to do the morning drop off? Presumably his big job comes with a substantial paycheck that would cover this expense?