AIBU re DH

Hi, we all have strengths and weaknesses and different irritations!

How can he be your best friend? What on earth can that meN if, after 16 years together, you are both so reactive to each other?

OP, yanbu.
He is selfish and you are not a priority.
You need to look carefully at all that you do and cut back completely on ANYTHING that benefits him.
Does your salary pay for any hobbies or treats for him?
If so, knock them on the head.
He is living off you and benefits from all that you do while happily suiting himself.

You are clearly at risk of burnout and if that happens your children will suffer.

Stop asking him to be caring and decent and start taking back control.
Stop tolerating his selfishness.
Start holding back some of your salary.
Look at counselling.
Men like your husband see you as a work horse to provide them with a good life.

This is not a good man.
Good men care about their wives well-being.

rather than him just behave in a way that a loving husband would do

This jumped out for me. You may have a definition of what "a living husband" does which is different to his. I'm not saying you need to tolerate poor behaviour (and ultimately you are the judge of his actions as living with him day to day) however do you nurture yourself? Do you buy yourself treats so that they are in house when you need them? Do you take time out to relax after a stressful week at work?

If you separated and loved alone with the children what would you have done to rest yourself last night? That doesn't mean you don't have to rely on him but nurturing yourself is important and a good life skill.

He fucked up the drink, that's fair, maybe he didn't give it the attention he should have.

I wonder about some of the other stuff, though. As happens I considerably out earn my DH (and have a more stressful job) but if the situation was reversed I'd be really hurt if he felt the need to point out he was "the main breadwinner" when we both work, our roles happen to pay differently and by nature I'm more ambitious. He contributes as much of his income to our family as I do (all of it!).

It sounds like your DH is trying to support you in a way, he is also working, doing things with the DC, possibly finding it quite stressful seeing you stressed? He tried to find a practical solution by sitting down and going through the finances. He can't cook but bought food to make for you - you called it low effort but what did you want him to do? Learn to cook? Or try and fail?

What is the balance of other stuff like? The housework, the mental load? The DCs stuff? Does he try and take stress off you with these things or put more stress on you?

Practically, you've been through the finances and don't feel like there are options but burning out completely isn't an option either. You will end up quitting/ off sick / breakdown and your finances will be screwed anyway. There needs to be another option which might include changes for you both or all.

I know you are feeling alone and unsupported and that you aren't getting the care you need. Maybe you feel everything is on you? Because you have to stay in this job to keep the financial situation going? But I wonder if some of that is becoming resentment that DH doesn't earn enough to fix it? Even if he had got the drink right, would that really have been enough?

I could be hugely wrong and maybe he has been a shit DH and done a million tiny things to make you feel rubbish (or both could be true).

No matter what you do about DH though, something will have to give with work.

😄

You clearly asked for alcoholic ingredients so it’s really lazy of him to just sub this with cordial. I’d suspect him of hearing you perfectly well but just choosing to buy the cheapest and easiest substitutes next to each other on the shelves to save himself the hassle of buying you vodka.

Is he just thick? In which case it can't be helped, but I'm not surprised it has pissed you off. Maybe sit down and explain it and see what he says.

Hi, didn't say it was acceptable, just deserves another chance. I wouldn't be considering separation at this point. No abuse involoved

Tbf my family have always called tonic water soda water so I would have got probably got tonic water as well.

However that's not really the point is it, it's much more than that.

20 years ago I was you. Whilst on paper our marriage was fine my DH lacked the emotional intelligence to meet my needs. I was lonely but not alone. Ultimately I decided that he loved me as much as he was capable of but for me it wasn't enough. We divorced and I'm happily remarried to a man who "gets me".

He doesn't get to strop & sulk.
He needs to support you whilst you are providing the biggest part of his home comforts.
^Remind him if he doesn't care, or want to up his game & fulfill a simple agreement, then you feel like he isnt bringing what you need to the relationship.
That can be rectified^

How absurd.

Vodka and tonic is not some exotic drink that's easy to confuse.

OP, he's a low earner who doesn't give a shit about you needs. What does he bring to your life? Do you want to be stuck burning yourself out to support him for years to come??

He sounds useless.

Don’t go around putting words in people’s mouths.
Nope. You just couldn't be bothered to read and/or understand. Which is the same as her H.

HE asked her want she wanted.
SHE clearly and precisely said what she wanted.
HE got something totally different then got upset when she said no thanks.

Why did that happen? Because he actually doesn't care enough. That's all it is. Not enough. What the OP does with that information is down to her but there's really only three choices.

Accept that this is it (and it will slowly break her).
Couple counselling (which he will ignore after a couple of weeks due to him not really caring enough).
Or she thinks long term. Divorce, or living together but having a separate life.

Again OP, download that free pdf. It explains more clearly why he does that.

I explained clearly what I wanted (vodka, soda and lime)
home after work, he has bought lime and mint cordial and tonic water.

So did you already have vodka at home?

He bought tonic instead of soda & lime & mint instead of just lime cordial?

Now I don't know where you live Op but none of that would be hard to source here.

Presumably you can read and write since here you are, posting on Mumsnet. So you'd be capable of reading a label that says soda water and a label that says tonic water and grasping that they are, in fact, different things. Much like strawberry jam, raspberry jam and blackcurrant jam are all different, even though fundamentally they are all jam.

If this was a one off, the OP would be overreacting. It clearly ISN'T a one-off, it's part of a pattern of disrespect, so she is dead right to lose her shit.

Thing is , if he is thick as op describes, then she can explain all she likes, he won't understand. If you want to stay together, adjust your expectations

I'm assuming he has a phone? So he could of googled the drink and its ingredients he also could write up a note in his phone of all the things you like op. That takes minimal effort and I imagine he is fully capable of simple instructions and effort in other parts of his life like job/friends/hobbies. Does he disrespect all the women in his life? How does he treat his mother?

If he behaved this way repeatedly in his job, eventually he'd be let go.

That is incredibly picky. Sounds like he made an effort and you threw it in his face. As someone who doesn't drink fizzy water I don't even know the difference between tonic and soda water, maybe same for your DH and I really couldn't be getting wound up about a bit of mint in with the lime I requested.
I'm sure this is more of an ongoing thing but why speak with him and ask him to make an effort if you're going to blow up when he does.

Did this include the option of him trying to earn more, going for promotion, a new higher paid job, or a second job? Or nothing changing for him and it all being on you?

Is there anything you can juggle at work to make life easier? Some companies are more flexible. If you are lucky enough to work for one, could you do a 9 day fortnight? The reduced tax/NI would partially offset the loss of earnings.
Those days could be just for you. Not for housework, grocery shopping or appointments. Just for you to have some space. Relax, breathe, and be you again.

It really does sound like you are at breaking point. I hope you find a solution that makes life easier.

We have a very small snapshot of a one sided story. If you want to leap to these conclusions that he must be an awful person who can’t be bothered, that’s up to you.

I have a wider range of thinking than that, and have suggested a possible situation where he did try and intentions were good.

Neither can be proved or disproved. We’re entitled to have different opinions.

He Is demonstrating that he really doesn’t give a shit about what the OP wants. He didn’t bother to listen. He didn’t ever bother to commit her favourite drink to his memory because in his mind, it isn’t important. And when that mindset runs deep in a relationship, it is demonstrated over and over again in a million different ways and it is utterly depressing for the person on the receiving end of it.

Posters need to realise this is a small snapshot of a huge picture, otherwise they’re just recreating the H’s role in this relationship and dismissing her all over again.

I think the fact that the OP is the breadwinner by a country mile, and whose work and efforts afford them all their lifestyle, really just is the icing on the shite cake of the H’s behaviour.

He will see this at a surface level, that I’ve had a strop over a drink, as some posters here have also suggested.
But like others, it goes deeper than that. Do I ever really feel like he has put me at the centre of anything? Not really. But he is somewhat dismissive of me saying something like that, he doesn’t really listen to me.

Time for a serious talk. Because you have had a strip
over a minor issue - but that is because it is representative of a major issue. Tell him - explicitly - what that is and how that feels for you. If things don’t change after that, then you will know you’ve given him every chance.

Not really, as I said he could genuinely be trying, yet making a mistake, or get as something close as possible if they didn’t have what she wanted. I even made the distinction of whether what he bought is something she didn’t like (e.g. tonic water) and if so, did he know this. As there’s a difference between purposely going out and getting something she didn’t want or doesn’t like, and going out with good intentions and getting it wrong. Because to chastise someone for the latter is pretty shitty and ungrateful.

It would be a bit odd to make the effort to do something nice yet purposefully try to upset someone in the process. Hence needing way more context than we have. I know my OH wouldn’t do something like that on purpose, but he’s made mistakes before. I’m so not horrible and selfish that I’d make him feel bad for that like you would. OP says there’s no back story here, so can only assume her DH isn’t out there trying to hurt her.

Don’t go around putting words in people’s mouths.

Victoria Wood.