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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be fuming that DH has spent the whole day on his laptop?

364 replies

MamaOnTheCoast · 25/12/2025 20:41

DH has spent the whole day on his laptop “working” in his home office and he hasn’t even seen me and the DC all day! He was up at 5am (the kids woke up at 6am) and he is still in his home office “working” now so we haven’t seen him all day! He even refused Christmas dinner as he said he was “too busy working”. DH does a senior office based job and he wasn’t meant to be working at all over Christmas but he is saying he apparently has to work today “because it’s urgent”! It’s Christmas Day and we haven’t seen him all day and DH can’t see the problem with this! The kids are really upset about it too! AIBU to be livid with DH over this? DH literally doesn’t see the problem but I’m fuming and the kids are upset too!

OP posts:
Aluna · 26/12/2025 07:41

Gaming, porn, talking to another woman… No way does he have a workTeams call on Christmas Day.

Sounds like he’s not on board with the fostering.

GrandmasCat · 26/12/2025 07:37

If he is not normally like this, my bet is that he has made a huge mistake at work and is trying to put it right before it gets worse or someone notices. His job may be at risk (or worse).

I would try not to make an issue of it now, distract the children as much as you can and deal with him on another day.

Clonakilla · 26/12/2025 07:35

theodozya · 25/12/2025 20:56

There are plenty of computer based jobs that might require urgent work at odd, long hours, including Christmas Day. You’d have to be pretty daft not to realise that but it seems that is indeed the case for lots of posters. The police example made me laugh - how do people think emergency services know where the emergencies are for them to attend? That’s all academic though - OP, you know what his job is so presumably you know whether it’s plausible that he’d have to work today (which is separate from the fact it’s annoyed you)?

Yeah I do know who tells emergency services where to go, here it’s from a rostered call centre with clear shifts not a teams meeting in a bedroom, because actually in jobs that matter you don’t leave Christmas Day to chance. Is it different where you are?

3luckystars · 26/12/2025 07:25

Affair or gambling.

Sesma · 26/12/2025 07:14

I doubt it's his workload, job, an affair or anything like that, its similar to men disappearing to the pub on a Sunday as many used to do, they find family life tedious and want to get away

Moaningminnieagain · 26/12/2025 07:13

Truthfully my ex could have been this way, he is a workaholic and thought he had a job that was a big job that trumped everything. We were secondary or even thirdly to everything. Hes still like this.

FaceTheReaperCushions · 26/12/2025 07:11

Jonnyenglish · 26/12/2025 02:29

does anyone consider the security services ? Afterall we have various intelligence agencies across the uk and the world and mostly they likely are staffed with N,O,C people ?

Even people who work in intelligence have lunch breaks.

Sesma · 26/12/2025 07:08

Sounds like an excuse not to join in with all the Christmas busyness and watching family crap on telly

ShawnaMacallister · 26/12/2025 07:04

Jonnyenglish · 26/12/2025 02:29

does anyone consider the security services ? Afterall we have various intelligence agencies across the uk and the world and mostly they likely are staffed with N,O,C people ?

He's a spy AND a foster carer? Not possible

Gettingbysomehow · 26/12/2025 07:04

MamaOnTheCoast · 25/12/2025 20:53

The DC are foster children and are 18 months, 4 years old, 9 years old and 11 years old.

Thsts a bit of a drip feed. Did he want to foster children or was that just you? It doesn't sound like he is very invested in them.

ShawnaMacallister · 26/12/2025 07:00

MamaOnTheCoast · 25/12/2025 20:53

The DC are foster children and are 18 months, 4 years old, 9 years old and 11 years old.

How the hell are you approved to foster 4 children with a husband so unkind and disengaged from family life? This is absurd. You (both) are not providing the home and family these children deserve are you? Do you have a supervising social worker? I would be raising this in supervision if I found this out - if your children tell their social worker about their Christmas there will be some difficult questions to answer. This is just not ok.

Lairymary · 26/12/2025 06:49

Has he even come out for food and drink?

FaceTheReaperCushions · 26/12/2025 06:49

Jonnyenglish · 26/12/2025 02:03

security / espionage etc

Right. Security professionals can stop for long enough to say a single sentence to their partner. I'm fairly certain even spies, who work from home in a room their wife and kids can enter any time, are allowed to eat at their desk.

And again the fact that this has come as such a shock to OP is the biggest indicator that this is not a usual part of his job.

DreamTheMoors · 26/12/2025 06:43

YourMintTraybake · 26/12/2025 04:58

Things like this make me so angry

Hope your Christmas days are better now

Thank you, and yeah they are.
Evidently his issues were bigger than merely the Christmas gift he got his mother, because when we were all grown and gone and it was just my parents at home, my dad took his life with a firearm that none of us knew he had.
After that initial shock and our bereavement, we’re all doing great.
Nobody sits in the living room and drinks all day at least.
Glass half full, you know? lol
Thank you, @YourMintTraybake❤️

ChristmasCwtch · 26/12/2025 05:23

He’s not working, he’s hiding.
Are you sure he wants to be a foster parent?

Roobarbtwo · 26/12/2025 05:19

Moulook31 · 26/12/2025 05:15

Sure he isn’t secretly playing computer games?

For 13 hours straight?

Moulook31 · 26/12/2025 05:15

Sure he isn’t secretly playing computer games?

Mumtobabyhavoc · 26/12/2025 05:09

It doesn't matter how important his job is. He is not engaged with his family. The children. At Christmas.

YourMintTraybake · 26/12/2025 04:58

DreamTheMoors · 25/12/2025 23:44

There was no such thing as the internet when I was little.
My dad hated Christmas - so he started drinking early and would sit in the living room and watch tv and drink and we were warned not to bother him.
This happened every year.

I mean f**k the little kids, Daddy has a problem coping today so we’re going to indulge him year after year after year AFTER YEAR…

All because of some stupid gift he got his mother that she didn’t like and therefore poor Daddy was traumatised the rest of his life.

MASSIVE EYEROLL.

Things like this make me so angry

Hope your Christmas days are better now

Roobarbtwo · 26/12/2025 04:45

MamaOnTheCoast · 25/12/2025 20:41

DH has spent the whole day on his laptop “working” in his home office and he hasn’t even seen me and the DC all day! He was up at 5am (the kids woke up at 6am) and he is still in his home office “working” now so we haven’t seen him all day! He even refused Christmas dinner as he said he was “too busy working”. DH does a senior office based job and he wasn’t meant to be working at all over Christmas but he is saying he apparently has to work today “because it’s urgent”! It’s Christmas Day and we haven’t seen him all day and DH can’t see the problem with this! The kids are really upset about it too! AIBU to be livid with DH over this? DH literally doesn’t see the problem but I’m fuming and the kids are upset too!

He's a tosser. When people show you who they really are - take heed. You have foster kids yes. Kids who probably have had tough enough lives to date?

Awful human being. Disgraceful

Roobarbtwo · 26/12/2025 04:44

Jonnyenglish · 26/12/2025 02:03

security / espionage etc

He works an office based job. How is that espionage?

Roobarbtwo · 26/12/2025 04:42

Daygloboo · 26/12/2025 01:03

Hea havibg an affair or gambling. Just say you dont believe him and leave him.

How does being on a laptop all day equate to having an affair?

MrsElijahMikaelson1 · 26/12/2025 03:47

He’s avoiding you all

FairKoala · 26/12/2025 03:34

He is either really bad at his job or he has been redistributing the company funds into his own account and has to do some creative accounting so he isn’t found out or he is gambling or watching porn or he is having an affair.
Every possibility equals divorce.

Knew someone who took briefcase and did work throughout his honeymoon

Marrriage lasted a few days . Bride flew home and left him to work in the honeymoon suite. He seemed so surprised when he eventually did get back and found out his wife had left him and the marriage was over

Came as even a greater shock when he had to sell their home and split everything up.

Jonnyenglish · 26/12/2025 02:29

does anyone consider the security services ? Afterall we have various intelligence agencies across the uk and the world and mostly they likely are staffed with N,O,C people ?