To just get so fucking irritated by Husband every weekend

Why did you only have 15 mins to get you and DC ready? That's enough to stress anyone out even in a good relationship!

i understand the frustration but rather than “letting him” wander off for nearly 2 hours to get ready, give him a child to take with him to get ready Or to do whatever. while you get yourself and other dc ready.

and if he wants to piss of upstairs to watch tv again he can take DC and you can get some rest.

why is him disappearing inside the home with 2 DC even an option.
why accept everything is on you.

also, ignore his grumps. Don’t feed into the ego by instantly pandering to the sulking. Carry on being normal, put the radio on, chat away to the children fake it till you make it.
the same way you treat sulky teenager ignore and redirect your attention, don’t let him drive the atmosphere of family life.

Start taking the the time to get yourself ready and let him manage in the mornings.
If he’s agreed wether he acts like it or not, stick to the plan. either he’ll sort his behaviour out or he won’t and you’ll be done anyway.

He sounds absolutely rubbish OP.

My ex never came with us to the park or anywhere.
He was always too busy laying on the sofa watching football or a very important horse race he couldn't miss. Either that or in the bookies or down the pub because his mates wouldn't take no for an answer 🙄

I got rid of him and I've never regretted it. It's been really tough in some ways because he rarely bothered with them after he'd gone, so I never got the every other weekend off.

In other ways it's like having a dead weight lifted off my shoulders. It's so much easier doing it alone than having the resentment of doing it alone with a big useless man child in the house and being able to go out and have a nice day with the kids without their so called father acting like a big sulky teenager because he's had to waste his precious time by spending it with his family.

Spell it out to him very clearly how you are feeling and that he needs to change and if he won't then dump him!

He sounds like my ex-husband. It was like being married to a child, It's exhausting. If you can summon up the courage to leave him OP I can guarantee you will be happier on your own.

Posters questioning the plans for the day are missing the point. OP is telling us that today was part of a pattern of her husband checking out of family life and parenting and being a dick about it

He doesn't want to be with you and the children so I would set him free OP.

What's the point in a relationship if there's no actual relationship.

You'd be happier without him and, who knows, you might even meet someone that does actually want to spend time with you.

Grumpy, moody daddy upstairs that's what your DC are learning.

Honestly I wouldn't put up with this shit, I can tell you as a lone parent it's a lot easier than having a useless, moody man child in your life.

He sounds like a waste of space tbh. Yet you are sticking with him. Why is that? What are his redeeming qualities? He doesn't want to spend time with his kids. They will notice. It's up to you and we all have different standards but I wouldn't be able to live like that.

He does sound grumpy and irritating, and I don't know that you can do anything to change that.

However I will say you can manage things better while you decide on a long term plan. Don't clean the house for an hour and leave 15 minutes to get yourself ready and the children dressed so that you are throwing clothes at your useless husband in a rage and everyone is agitated and bad tempered. You are setting everyone up to fail, and whereas staying in all weekend is not ideal, growing up in an atmosphere of simmering resentment is much more harmful.

He's a selfish prick.

See XH was like this. Refused to engage with family life on weekends. Just wanted to watch TV or game. Effectively created a man cave space for himself at home. Things were miserable and I assumed he just wanted to be single. It became clear that myself and DC were dragging him down and I decided to ‘set him free’. He was in a new relationship within a couple of weeks and moved in with her and her DC at the first opportunity 🤷🏻‍♀️ good luck to her, I can’t imagine he’ll be able to fake being cheerful for very long!

Oh bollocks to him.

I’m fed up with so many women having to tip toe around their husbands.

Ps. He's checked out

Leave him. Depressed or not he sounds shite

This would annoy the life out of me too OP! It’s quite obvious he doesn’t want to do the family trips out and the thing is you can make him go with you all but you can’t make him enjoy it, and if it was me I’d rather not have him there at all than have him there being grumpy. So I’d probably take the hit myself and just get out with the kids on whatever trips you want to do, it’s better than trailing a grumpy 3rd man-child around with you.

In the house though I’d be forcing the issue. Every single time he disappears upstairs I’d be following with the kids because daddy must want to play upstairs! Every time he is lazing in bed when you’ve been up for 3 hours, again I’d be up the stairs with the kids, daddy needs to wake up now! (Unless you take turns having lie ins).

Stop letting him opt out of parenting. If he’s upstairs for 3 hours, all of you go upstairs. If he wants to lie in bed all morning, see how relaxing that is with the children as well.

And book in some time for you. 1 Saturday a month even where you get up, get dressed and head to the gym/coffee with a friend/go for brunch. He’s their dad and you need a break. Take care of yourself x

Either he's depressed, or you are both not compatible.

This is not a partnership, OP. You should be getting equal free time to him at the weekend and your children should be getting equal parenting from him. It would be shape up or ship out from me. It sounds too miserable to live with.

It certainly sounds like he needs an ultimatum or it's time to go separate ways. My friend is in a similar position and she has said to me however that she's worried as her husband is so absent and rubbish with the kids that separating and then having to leave the kids with him alone on occasions would just stress her. I can get this but I don't think it's worth saying in the relationship due to reasons like this? Kids are so stressful but it's not fair for one parent to just leave it all to the other it's a shared responsibility

Imo he needs to move out and sort himself out. No life for you or your dc. Did he want marriage and dc? He sounds like he has checked out. My ex was very similar
.

I don’t understand why you waited downstairs tidying up and waiting for him before you started getting ready?

Why didn’t you give him one child to organise, you sort the other one, yes he’s not taking the initiative but you also don’t need to be a martyr.

JFC he's one of the millions of man-babies. Continuing to put up with the status quo will unfortunately enable his pathetic self interested mewling to continue. You'll wake up one day and be wiping his arse and feeding him puree. You'd be happier as a single parent. I had a man-baby like this, after 12 years I got a divorce and he was forced to parent alone every 2nd weekend. Tough shit. Now I have a saint of a man and the man-baby is breast fed by another enabler. Don't do it!!!

He wants to be single. You want a partner who is actively parenting.
I don’t think you have a hope in hell of him changing so bitterness will grow.
At least if you become an actual single parent, you won’t have him moping in your face, winding you up.

People are getting very bogged down in minor details and missing the point of the OP which is that her DH never wants to spend time with her or his children. It really doesn't matter why they went shopping and out for lunch instead of going to soft play, or why they had to leave at 11am. OP has been clear that today was just one example out of many and that whatever they try to do, even though they have both agreed they need to do more together, her DH will ruin it by being grumpy.

As for "go without him" and "don't make him go out if he doesn't want to", what's the point of being in a relationship if you never do anything together? Besides, OP has already said she's tried to leave him out of it and even when they're at home he can't stand to be in the same room as his children by the sound of it. He also leaves all the night wakings and early morning get ups to OP to sort out and resents being asked to dress his child.

He may well be depressed, but when I was depressed I still had to look after my own children and make sure they got out and about because women don't get to opt out like that.

It's clear from your responses you are deeply deeply irritated by life atm.
I hope it passes for you

My ex was like this. His life was Work and watching TV at home. His job was far from stressful so it's not like he was knackered.

Was with him 7.5 years. Despite chat after chat and him promising to compromise, he never ever did. There was always an excuse, oh my leg hurts, oh I'm feeling ill. He just wanted to stay at home and watch TV! Weekend in, weekend out!

Wasted so many weekends being thoroughly miserable.

And when I finally got the courage to say enough he had the cheek to say oh I can't do anything with you as you are ALWAYS out with your friends. I saw friends probably twice a month.

Some people (I think mostly men) are happy to have such small lives, but it certainly wasn't a life for me. Thank god I didn't have children with him.

These people won't ever change.