Mozza and the "boys" are spot on. My XH was also someone who would call me at the last minute to let me know he "had" to work late and I needed to pick up the girls at daycare. How many times? Countless. Or we'd schedule a date night and somehow he'd get paged (shows you how long ago that was) and instantly need to show up. OK, he's a rocket scientist. Seriously. But they had on-call schedules, and invariably, the on call person would not answer the page... or the person calling didn't like their answer... or they just felt more comfortable calling my XH in to work. YES, it pissed me off. YES, I called him on it. And YES, I heard all the excuses these guys laid here on the virtual table.
Well, guess what? When we were drawing up a parenting plan, our mediator flat out told him he was going to have to prioritize the girls or pay up. And guess what else? He quit doing this. Sometime in the first year or two of our separation, I commented on it. He had the gall to tell me, "I should have said no all along. The first time I told them to call the on-call person and leave me alone? They told me they were wondering when I'd cut them off. I give, and they keep taking." Maybell, I was pissed.
Then, years later, he apologized again. He changed jobs within the company and commented, "I think a lot of our marital problems were centered around my inability to say no to work issues after hours when it wasn't my job." Ya think?
He's high up at his company too, Maybell. He's been there since 1991 and he flat out won't lose his job unless this Fortune 100 company goes under. He's been promoted, got raises and bonuses, and he works overtime when he doesn't have D17. Otherwise, he leaves when he's supposed to. But it took for our separation for him to get this. I won't say it didn't piss me off, because it did:he had a choice all along. He still works 60 hours a week, but he does it when he's not parenting. If that's how he wants to live, that's fine. It doesn't affect me anymore.
I understand deadlines. I really do. I own my own company and know they sometimes mean my paycheck will be affected. But they are the exception rather than the rule. If you live in exceptions, it means you don't have good time management skills and are probably pretty crappy at setting and enforcing boundaries.
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It's a mindset and I don't expect your H to get it. I would try to explain it to colleagues who would see me (and others) do it and they would say "Yeah, but we really have to meet that deadline." Guess what, it's a made-up deadline and it won't be met anyway because department X isn't done with their review or whatnot. Life goes on.
It come down to boundaries. People respect your time when you value it. I can almost guarantee that when your H is asked to do something on a day he has the kids, he doesn't even consider declining it. He needs to change that balance in his head. The bar for skipping childcare has to be raised much higher.
I don't think I could say this better. It's a home run.
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
