Fall out over Christmas present hiding place. AIBU?

Apology? Is he fucking kidding? Is he always a lazy, gaslighting cunt who doesn't understand the word "sorry"?

He should have done what he was supposed to do. He should have immediately apologised for not doing it. If he's regularly this much of an arsehole, you have a husband problem.

Exactly!

This amount of drama is ridiculous - how can this have caused such a big deal?!

I feel like this is how I’d have tackled it too.
No backstory here - I’m sure op has a long list of backstory issues.

Why are the dc allowed to just wander into the garage of their own accord though; we don’t have one attached to the house but my grandparents did, they kept all sorts of stuff in there which could have been dangerous to us as kids so they kept it locked with a key. We thought it was very exciting when we did get to go in there!
Maybe lock your garage to avoid the stress?

I could decorate the garage with my kids Christmas presents hanging from baubles and it wouldn’t matter because they don’t go in the garage. What are the chances of your kids actually seeing this box in the garage and deciding to look inside it?

Apologise or not but if you don’t both get over yourselves you’re actually going to spoil Christmas and that will be far worse for your kids than seeing a present early.

Fwiw, even if he was in the wrong, I’d not be impressed at taking a call with the sole purpose of berating me whilst I was out shopping.

Yeah, you owe him an apology, OP.

Honestly I think this is petty and ridiculous on both sides, which I'm sure the 'huge backstory' would illuminate.

He was a bit useless not hiding the presents as requested, but perhaps thought it unlikely the kids would go in the garage in the next week so thought plonking them in the garage was suitable.

You've enormously overreacted. You shouldn't have needed to "compose yourself" to discuss a minor annoyance and you shouldn't have rang him while he's in the supermarket to start a fight (I'd have been snippy if someone had done that to me too and I'm quite level headed, supermarkets are absolute hell this time of year). What was he supposed to do about it from the supermarket? He was correct to want to speak about it like grown ups when he got home, people having domestics over the phone in shops are really embarrassing.

Whatever the backstory is it's created an environment where every molehill becomes a mountain by the sounds of it. Most people would be able to shrug this off as a miscommunication, you two have turned it into open warfare. Lovely environment for your kids at Christmas! Both of you need to either sort out whatever it is that's going on between you, or sort out separation.

Do the children go in the garage? If they don't the presents are hidden just by being in there. Why didn't you just put them out of sight or cover them with a dustsheet and talk about it when he got back. Hardly seems worth ringing him about, nothing he can do when he's not there.

Am I the only one who would have put them away (no shaking and crying), waited until he got home from the supermarket, then had a quiet chat “the kids still believe in Santa, let’s keep the magic up etc”

As a one off, this is a none event. You were in the garage, tape the box and move on. Nothing DH could do from the supermarket.

So, the back story here is what means this small thing has tipped you over the edge.
There are obviously issues in the relationship. Work on them, or work on separating. The current situation isn't sustainable.

Tell them the apologies need to come in chronological order. You’ll apologise for not hanging up when asked when he’s apologised for the things he did that led to that point.

Big overreaction from you.

I feel like the backstory explains what this is really about. Cause it isn't about a few boxes and a phone call.

He should not have half assed hiding the presents. You should not have had to compose yourself before calling him. You should not have called. He should not have been aggressive on the phone. You should have respected his request to talk later. You do not need to apologise.

I think you’re making a lot of assumptions here – you assume he would sort it because ‘garage is his domain’. You assume he knew what you were referring to when you asked ‘is it done?’

You say he spoke to you aggressively and he says he didn’t, but no one here knows the contents of that discussion. You allude to ‘backstory’ but don’t say what that is.

From my view, it’s impossible for an outsider to weigh in.

But calling him at the supermarket to have a go was the wrong move.

Agree with all the comments why call him whilst he was at the supermarket? And you had to compose yourself before you spoke to him? I’m guessing you don’t like him because of whatever happened in your “backstory” and you are just looking to start an argument. If my DH did this I would have either taped the box up properly myself or asked him nicely to it again when he got home

Sorry what did you want him to do about it while he was in the supermarket?

If DH had rang me with something like this I probably would have said sorry and let’s talk when I get home. Did you just want him to apologise on the phone? If so it’s not much different to him apologising at home.

Now he shouldn’t be ignoring you either, and he’s probably deflecting from the fact he knows he fucked up, but I can’t get my head around why you didn’t just speak when he got home and could’ve done something about the problem.

Why do you keep saying he was aggressive when he was just saying that he didn't want to talk about it in the supermarket and can we talk at home? That isn't aggressive?

Sounds like neither of you think you are in the wrong but I think you both need to take responsibility for how the call went, apologise to each other (him for not hiding the presents properly and you for trying to continue with the call, which lets face it, isn't the kind if call to have when in the supermarket) and move on...or let this spoil Christmas?

If you believe he won't apologise if you go first then ask him outright if you apologise then will he? If he won't then you'll know all he wants is you apologising so he can lord it over you.

I suppose if you're at an absolute stalemate you can each write it down and swap notes at the same time. Childish but the silliness of it all might help to diffuse things.

This.

What was the point of calling him in the supermarket? If this had happened in our house I'd have rolled my eyes, said to DH did you realise you'd forgotten to tape up the box, and that would be the end of it.

Obviously this is without your 'huge backstory'.

You telephoned him to complain?? This automatically puts you in the BU box, this is not something I would 'compose myself' and then 'call' over, it would certainly be something I would bring up when they are home. Your DH was perfectly within his rights to say he was in the middle of shopping and wanted to wait until he got home.

You are the one that need to apologise over the attitute on this one. He need to apologise for doing a half-assed job.

So my husband and I can get stuck in these loops and it used to drive me mad that I'd have to apologize to sort things out. Over the years though we've discussed that when calm and realised it's never the small things were bickering about making things escalate it's these patterns of feeling blamed, feeling attacked, feeling disregarded etc etc.

You both have to want to get out of that loop and it takes a lot of communication to achieve it. We still get sucked I to those patterns when stressed (Xmas prep being a prime example)

It's not great, I agree, I'd have been annoyed too.

However, calling him while he's at the supermarket achieved nothing. What would it change? I'd have fixed the issue and brought it up when he got home. That would have been composing yourself. No reason why you shouldn't be annoyed and talk about why and it's on you to decide how much of a problem it is in the grand scheme of things.

It's worth stopping, thinking about what you want to achieve and working through your rage yourself rather than wading in

(I too have previously been someone who would wade in, but it's not effective communication and gets defenses up rather than resolving anything)

Yes you should have waited until he got home. However it sounds like he fucked up and is now conveniently found a reason for you to be in the wrong and only you. I suspect he has form for this? It sounds like the communication in your marriage really isn't great.

It was perfectly reasonable for him to ask you to discuss it at home. Having a go at him (for something you could perfectly have done yourself) is not an emergency that justifies an argument on the phone in the middle of a supermarket.

Yes he should have hidden the presents better, but it's not a huge deal either.

So you wanted to argue about presents with him being in the middle shopping? I would be annoyed if my husband tried that one on me

If you're both childishly waiting for the other one to apologise first you have bigger problems than the non-problem that one of your children might have caught a glimpse of a present before Christmas.

He made a minor fuck-up and isn't backing down, you needlessly antagonised the situation by calling him at the supermarket and aren't backing down. You're as bad as each other.