My husband calls in sick a LOT

[SelfProtect]

My husband calls in sick a lot. He never goes in late or leaves early. If he has a doctor appointment he just takes a day off. He has the time, but if he has 8 hours of sick or vacation accumulated, I know its coming. I just don't get it. My work ethic doesn't allow me to do that. I had like 200+ sick hours and my daughter got sick and I used every bit of it. BUT I was thankful I had it. Now I've been saving sick back to try and accrue 40 hours in case me or my son get the flu. I have 100 vacation hours. I take 2 weeks a year.

We've only been married a year. The plan is I'm going to take vacation without him because I can't imagine him having the time when we need it.

I'm not afraid of him cheating. He is at home. He used to own his own business that didn't do well and he is not used to working 40 hours a week. It is just mind blowing to me. I guess I just need to let him be himself. NOt everyone is like me and that's ok. right?

 

[ChristianGolfer]

Does he hate his job? Maybe he should look into getting a different one.

I would be very upset if my husband didn't save any time off so we could go on vacation.

Have you talked to him about it, asked him to save some time up so you can go on vacation? What does he say?

 

[SelfProtect]

We have talked about it a little. We have vacation scheduled for a week in July and he was the one who told me he doesn't have time off and he didn't think he would be able to go. He might join us on the weekend.

I think we are both at a point in our life where we are learning to be content in our current jobs. We don't love our jobs and we don't hate our jobs. BUT we both have jobs where we are paid more than we have ever made in the past and we make more than the going rate for our skillset.

My personality is I'm a planner and saver, with money and time. His personality is to fly by the seat of his pants with money and time. We see it as complimenting each other.

He is a good husband, he is sweet and funny and generous.

I will try and talk to him again about it. I just see it as us going around a wheel and getting nowhere. I feel like we should just agree to disagree. You know? I can't change him.

 

[ValleyGal]

Where I used to work, we were not allowed to accumulate sick hours - every year, we started back with 0. We were allowed one day per month for sick hours, which could be used for self-care/mental health days. Perhaps his policies are the same. I would schedule all my appointments for the same day, then use that as a sick day.

Yes, it's good to just agree to disagree. His needs and/or work ethic are different from yours, and that's okay. If it eventually puts his job in jeopardy, that's when I'd start getting concerned about it.

 

[akmom]

Yeah, my husband used to do that too. He'll learn real quick that it isn't worth wasting a whole day of vacation for a two-hour doctor appointment!

We started out with odd hours, as most young people do, because when you're inexperienced you just take what you can get. And it's easy to schedule appointments around that, if you work nights or weekends, and automatically have some "business hours" off. When you start working business hours yourself, you don't even realize how quickly those "appointments" eat away your vacation!

 

[SelfProtect]

Your right akmom. I think he is just not familiar with the concept. When we go on vacation without him, I think will be an eye opener.

 

[ChristianGolfer]

We have talked about it a little. We have vacation scheduled for a week in July and he was the one who told me he doesn't have time off and he didn't think he would be able to go. He might join us on the weekend.

I think we are both at a point in our life where we are learning to be content in our current jobs. We don't love our jobs and we don't hate our jobs. BUT we both have jobs where we are paid more than we have ever made in the past and we make more than the going rate for our skillset.

My personality is I'm a planner and saver, with money and time. His personality is to fly by the seat of his pants with money and time. We see it as complimenting each other.

He is a good husband, he is sweet and funny and generous.

I will try and talk to him again about it. I just see it as us going around a wheel and getting nowhere. I feel like we should just agree to disagree. You know? I can't change him.

Well if you're okay with it, then why are you posting about it?

I don't mean to be snarky, but it's obviously bothering you at least a little bit.

If you don't mind going on vacation without him then I guess, yeah, just let it be.

Personally, I'd be upset about it. That strikes me as a little bit disrespectful. He'd rather have a random day off every now and then than go on vacation with you?

You can't change him, but it's not like it's a fundamental aspect of his personality to use up all his leave when he doesn't need it. That's not really asking him to change who he is. It's just asking him to budget his time a bit more wisely.

He's acting like he's still single and he only has to think about himself still. He's married now. Part of being married is planning things like this with your spouse.

JMHO.