Ironically, we just moved from DC, where he used to get off work at 4pm, pick up DD, and then usually cook dinner when I got home from work. Now we live in the Bay Area, he works 12 hour days, I do all the pick up, drop off, about half of what cooking is still done, etc. It's more the job (and the DH personality) than the place I think...

Leaves at 7:15, picks up kids around 4:30. No night or evening or travel. Trade off is a low salary.

I'm a teacher so I'm out by 7:20 every morning and DH works for a big international firm downtown in a senior position.

DH is up around 6, gets kids' lunches and breakfast ready for all of us. Drops off two of the kids (I take the 3rd). He's usually in the office by 8:45 (3 mile commute) and is home between 5:30-6 unless he's picking up one of the kids from after school activities. On average once a week he may have a late evening - video conference or call with Asia - that he manages after the kids are in bed. Weekends are almost always work free.

I'm lucky for many, many reasons and DH just pushed back against work requests encroaching on family time. Hasn't hurt his career either as he recently got a big promotion and is at the top of his division in the company.

Out the door around 8ish and home by 5, however he often works from home (sales). He travels about 6 days a month. Usually 2 Monday-Wednesday trips.

Anonymous wrote:I'm out the door by 430 in the morning and home by 730 at night. The only family time I get is on the weekends, and that's only if I'm not working Saturdays to catch up.

She knew marrying me she'd also be marrying my career.

Yuck. Absentee husband, father and property-owner. Hope you like your marginal, after-tax pay-check considering you dump everything on your spouse to do. Let me guess, within that time is Me Time, like starbucks, gym, biz lunches or dinners. Family, what family?

On the flipside, hopefully you're not home long enough to make a mess and not clean it up yourself.

DH traveled Monday through Friday for the first 10 years of our marriage. (sales) Now he's in a management role and only travels a few times a month. He leaves every day by 7:30 (except for one day a week when he has a 6:00 am meeting) and is home sometime between 6:00 and 8:00 pm. He usually has a sales dinner one night a week, but on bad weeks in might be two or three dinners. We have one 9-yo son, so it's really not as stressful as it was when he was traveling and our son was little. I work full-time, but my hours are set from 8:00-5:00.

Anonymous wrote:

The travel bothers me a lot because he doesn't have an international cell phone and I really, really miss talking to him during the week. I think it's cheap AF that his work doesn't give him a cell phone to use and we really can't afford another cell phone on his fed salary.

Hmm. This is odd, OP. Does your husband stay in a hotel with internet access when he travels? There are lots of ways to talk every day without a phone as long as you have internet. I Skype or FaceTime my family when I travel. He can also buy a cheap local phone when he arrives (or order one ahead of time pre-paid with a sim card and plan for the country, check National Geographic) and you can call each other. I do this on my aid worker salary, total of $100 for the phone and $25 bucks for minutes per trip.

DH is a Fed lawyer. 9-5:30. We ride metro togther at 8:30. He walks in the door at night at 5:50. I used to want him to go back into private practice. He has a very specialized area of expertise and could start back in private with a base of 400-500k.But it would mean tons of travel, on call 7 days a week and working either in the office or at home till 9 or 10pm. I am amazed at the number of families who think this is a good life. We have one kid and I want her to know her father beyhond just birthdays and holidays.

Don't know. He is usually unemployed. I do know that he gets our daughter to school after I leave for work at 7 (daughter gets up with me and dresses and does her own breakfast while H sleeps in til 7:30). He also picks her up from school 2 days a week and does HW with her. The other 3 days she's in aftercare.

I get home at 6, cook dinner for me and DD (H doesn't eat with us, he goes to his workout and then will get take out food), I clean up the kitchen, walk dog. We trade off doing bedtime.

I am so fed up. He says I don't appreciate what his contributions are and therefore don't realize all that he does.

Anonymous wrote:I'm out the door by 430 in the morning and home by 730 at night. The only family time I get is on the weekends, and that's only if I'm not working Saturdays to catch up.

She knew marrying me she'd also be marrying my career.

wow hope you make enough money to make up for your "career". PS your wife may have married your career but your kids didn't.

I'm out the door by 430 in the morning and home by 730 at night. The only family time I get is on the weekends, and that's only if I'm not working Saturdays to catch up.

She knew marrying me she'd also be marrying my career.

Umm...for us, I also have a workday. It sounds like you're exhausted by the kids, not his job, so I'm not sure how a small town would make that more enjoyable unless you had a lot more help or you would think DH could work less (sounds like you really object to anyone in your household going into the office M-F). Where do you think the house you live in comes from? Have you ever had a job? No one is just giving this stuff out, and being the sole breadwinner is really stressful. It sounds like you're not cut out for adulthood.

My DH does most of the morning stuff with kids and brings them to school at 8:30 a.m., then goes to work. He gets home between 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. I pick up the kids from school aftercare at 5:30 p.m. and we walk home.

He doesn't have any sick days but has a flexible schedule so can go in for a halfday if needed. He never works from home. He makes 95K in a government contractor job that has a lot of stability but not much advancement opportunity. That's just how it turned out, but I'm very happy about it.

He does the mornings with kids, leaves by 8, home by 6. I do afternoons with kids. He does travel quite a bit.

Mine always has irregular hours. He's in the restaurant biz. Two days a week out the door by 7:30 home around 8 or so. Two days a week leaves at 3 home by 1am and one day a week 11-8 or 9. Weekends, holidays are typical work days for him.