Husband GOT UP

Selection bias is something so important yet so poorly understood with MN as is confirmation bias. We have a group of women who clearly have issues with noise and with having their routines disturbed by their partners when they are not following their own usual routine. Combine that with others who can't set appropriate boundaries and expectations with their children and others still that expect to work from home undisturbed without having the appropriate facilities to do so. Other MN posters who have similar issues come on and agree vigorously and the next thing we know ALL men are like that and it is simply unreasonable for men to walk around their houses eating and breathing despite that being objectively unreasonable and would not be tolerated on here if it was a man doing it to a woman.

I'll make one thing clear as far as I am concerned if you have a job that requires quiet and focus and you think that you can do it at the kitchen table or other communal space over Christmas in a house with your husband and school-aged children in it then you are deluded and totally unreasonable. This is a you problem and pushing it on to your husband and children is a bit toxic really.

You can spend time in your own house without interfering in other people's perfectly workable, practical systems just for the hell of it.

Not in this house!

Breathing and sniffing is horrific, I agree, but here at "Maison Vipre" the Master of the House has a tendency to sing tunelessly to himself when he is playing Solitaire on his little computer-thingy.

It's a sort of "do-de-doo-de-doo". He does it whenever he is "thinking" or looking for something.

It.

Is.

TOOTH-GRINDINGLY IRRITATING!!!

Frankly - it's lucky we don't keep guns in the house.

Posts on MN have selection bias. People who don’t have a problem with boundary setting aren’t writing posts about it, because there’s nothing to post. ‘Day 3009 in not being walked all over’ is not exactly an engaging post.

Do you think clearly communicating and maintaining your boundaries around this to your family will make you ‘extremely selfish and entirely unavailable’? If not, then your opinion of your strongly boundaried friends (although interesting) is irrelevant. If so, then why?

If you just wanted a moan, you should probably have put that in the OP. Otherwise, people will try to give solutions.

Oh my goodness @FreshWinterMorning

I can come up with solutions but there aren't really any people I can moan to in real life about this

That in itself is sad.

Do you not have close friends who you can share this with? Is working from home isolating you?

You do contradict yourself a little because on the one hand you've said many times that your words fall on deaf ears, but now you say you can find a solution.

If you can find a solution, put it into action.

Exactly! Some posters on here are just coming on for a moan and a vent. We are fucking allowed.

The 'you need to go onto the relationships board,' the 'just LTB,' and the 'you only have yourself to blame if you stay' posts are really quite tedious and smug and annoying. Go preach, and give your tedious 'advice' to someone who gives a stuff! If I want relationship 'advice' I will ASK.

There are plenty of women who hear you @BlackWhiteWhatNow Keep ranting gal! It's so cathartic isn't it?!

.

I was just concentrating on something and heard DH say something to me. He repeated himself so I shifted my focus to him.

You need to ignore.

Sometimes I go in to ask my husband something & I know from his face whilst working not to ask or I ask, he doesn't answer & I go away!

If your not answering upsets him then that's on him not you!

Surely the more you respond at all the more people will keep bothering you?

(If they really don't respect you enough to just stop bothering you/banging on locked doors when asked.)

Start turning up at his construction site asking where your socks are

No but seriously your family should respect your work

I immediately said, what the hell are you doing up I was hoping to be alone for a couple of hours I thought you were having a lie in you haven't got anything on why are you here??? Or similar

Genuinely if my partner said this to me if I dared to get out of bed on a morning, I'd LTB.

@FreshWinterMorning please don't assume all women are living like you.

@FreshWinterMorning From the description of the cupboard rearranging, I'd hazard a guess your H is neurodiverse and the ASD spectrum. Has he ever been assessed for this ?

@FreshWinterMorning Kindly, it may serve you better to start your own thread in Relationships rather than hijack this one .

You may have heard this before, but it's a true one....

"You can't change anyone else's behaviour, only your own."

If you can't walk away from your marriage and your H knows there are no consequences to his behaviour, then it will carry on as it is.

Only when he knows you are not going to keep accepting what he does (and you are - even though you might scream and shout, you are still there with him) might he start to change.

You deserve better, so get your get-out plan ready and please stop saying all men are like this. They aren't. Just the one you are with, or have dated before.

I'd love to know what you do, just out of interest

Most people don’t have people walking all over them, though.

And, from your post, it doesn’t seem like you’re clearly saying what you want at all. This isn’t me having a go. It’s an observation, based on what you’ve posted.

@Emotionalsupportviper · Today 10:08

Agree - it is a male trait to irritate the hell out of women.

When Mr Viper retired he became a thorn in my flesh regarding the everyday. I've grown accustomed to it and can ignore much now, but the fact that he WILL INSIST on coming to do food shopping with me still drives me crackers. Especially since our local Sainsbury's closed their cafe and I can't even suggest that he sits down with a paper and lets me get on with it.

Don't get me wrong - he doesn't interfere and say what I should or shouldn't buy, but he is THERE and it drives me up the wall!

Every woman I have spoken to, whose husband has retired/ changed career and is now working at home/ is spending more time in the house for whatever reason finds herself close to drowning even the best of husband's in a bucket in a very short time.

At least Mr Viper keeps out of the kitchen cupboards. A close friend's husband retired and promptly went through all of her cupboards, re-arranging crockery etc, and sorting tins/ packets by some strange system of his own which turned out to be related to something like calorific value/ nutritional value/ vitamin B12 content or something equally obscure. Frankly, I would have beaten him to death with a tin of beans.

Apparently his system was more efficient, but
a) he never went into the kitchen to cook or even clear up
and
b) she couldn't find a bloody thing!

😆 Are we married to the same man?!

It's the 'I've got a few days off so I'll re-arrange the fucking kitchen cupboards' phase.

This has happened quite a few times... to me......

When I am out for 5-6 hours meeting a friend, or a family member who lives 40 miles away, I come back, and all 10 kitchen cupboards have been completely re-arranged. He has spent 4 hours doing it.

He has done NOTHING ELSE in the house. No vacuuming, no dusting and polishing, no washing, no ironing, no cleaning the bathroom or the kitchen and bathroom floors, no cooking or prepping for dinner later, no oven-cleaning, no microwave cleaning. FUCK-ALL. Just everything moved around in the fucking kitchen cupboards. All the tins facing the same way - a-la 'sleeping with the enemy,' and things in alphabetical order, and oh-so-neat. With a beaming smile and a 'that's how you do it' remark. Followed by 'saved you a job there' and 'you're welcome!'

Not only am I fucked off that he has wasted 4 hours doing FUCK-ALL, but also I cannot find anything for WEEKS after. He thinks he has done me a favour, but all he has done is hindered me. Last time, I told him to never do it again. And the last few times I went out for 5-6 hours he did nothing. Didn't even wash a fucking plate. Arsehole.

@FreshWinterMorning If that is your attitude and your experience, you need some counselling and ways to help you be assertive.

If you just nag and there are no consequences for your H (or any man) then they will continue to treat you like dirt.

If you demand better behaviour and say you will leave, they might take notice.

All men do not behave like this, just yours, with you.

Nowhere in your posts, for example, have you stated that you directly communicated what you wanted/needed to your husband. Not once.

Unless you marry an absolute arsehole, no, in my experience men do not just do what they want and they stop doing things that upset their partners when asked.

Most women are not living lives of repressed misery. From your posts, it’s clear that you are. So, just end your marriage. Nothing you’ve written is normal or healthy.

Do you and your family have an ongoing issue with communication @BlackWhiteWhatNow ?

You don't appear to be listening to constructive suggestions.

You see the thing that stands out here, in your replies, is that you aren't actually engaging with the suggestions posters make (eg you stay upstairs, get a shed, etc) only those that say they are in the same boat. your thread descends into a pointless 'let's all have a moan.'

You're reacting, on the spot, rather than being proactive.

Assuming you are in your 40s, or so, wouldn't it be sensible to have a conversation first with your H, and also your kids, along the lines of-
I need to get in a few hours of work tomorrow.
I'm going to get up early and work in the kitchen.
I'd really appreciate it if you could keep out of the way

OR

I am going to stay upstairs, working, so you can all use the downstairs space and not disturb me.

I won't be free to tell you where anything is, or make you drinks or food, and I'd ask you to respect my working time.

There is a huge difference between talking and planning ahead and reacting on the spot.

Are you not reading peoples posts? Women on here have been saying that they HAVE told him/communicated with him about it, but THEY. DO. NOT. LISTEN. Men do what the fuck they want. It's what they do. Do you think they will stop just because their women ask them?

Sorry missed her update. Agree.

YANBU but you've just been unlucky. I've had flu from the moment I opened my eyes on Christmas day. For the first time in 2 years, I never get ill. A long with a couple of other things it's ruined Christmas.