Annoyed with DH

My friend has the same problem with her 16 year old son
He's busy stealing money to get his fix of weed , recently arrested as well
But ..you know he grew up with smell of it from a very small baby ,his step dad smoked it his whole life
You reap what you sow

You’d been home all day imo it should have been on you to pick him up. Also you chose to cook at a time when you knew you’d have to get him without giving husband enough notice to go. He offered to finish cooking. Not sure what you’re annoyed at? Maybe it’s the weed you have a bigger issue with, which is fair

Think the commincication just needs to be clear for all before he starts to smoke it.
Does he just have one or have more later in the evening ?

I thought it stayed in your system for at least a day or so ?
Or is it if you have more than one etc. So driving to work the next day could cause a problem just like alcohol and driving.

I assume you work in education? I’m a TA and am off for the summer. I would expect dinner/club collection etc to be down to me. DH is still working as normal. You say ‘he thinks he can just opt out’ but he’s just done a full day at work and…… you have been at home. I think that’s unfair of you. Not condoning the weed obviously but you didn’t give him any warning and then just got all huffy. I would have planned dinner around club collection. DH would absolutely help out if asked but I would work to avoid that if I can because I feel that’s the payback for having the summer off!

You’re very welcome.

The moment someone swaps an argument for mockery, I know I’ve probably made my point. Have a pleasant evening lovely ☺️

Oh yeah, I’m the fixated one huh 😂 passionate repetitive ranting in every post but I suppose you aren’t fixated at all? Thanks for the laugh!

Fair point - the legality is a fact. I meant your fixation with the legality, not the law itself.

And you’re right, we’ve ended up exactly where OP didn’t want this thread to go. My guess is she wanted advice about her husband, not to have it hijacked by the inevitable “weed is illegal therefore weed is bad” brigade.

That’s why I commented.

Not because I give two shits what OP’s husband smokes, but because every single thread mentioning cannabis ends up attracting the same moral crusade from people who seem to think the word alone tells you everything you need to know about a person’s character.

Anyway, I’ve made the point I wanted to make. Hopefully a few of the pearl-clutchers might go away and actually read up on the subject rather than relying on decades-old stigma.

And I genuinely hope OP and her husband just communicate better in future…

…so her druggie husband can make sure he times his illegal drug use for after the kids have had their tea. 😉

The ‘legality’ is not my opinion, it’s the legality. If he was eligible for it to be prescribed then it wouldn’t be illegal and I imagine OP would have clarified that to be the case by now. I’ve made my opinions about what I would allow clear they are my opinions, but the fact that weed is still illegal unless prescribed is an actual fact, whether you like it or not. And this is about OPs husband, and she hates him doing it, your views on weed and stigma as a wider subject aren’t all that relevant here, though maybe they deserve their own thread. But we are both derailing this thread now as OP did actually state she didn’t want the replies just to be about him smoking weed so I will end it there.

I would have text him to ask while he was at work if he could pick DS up on the way back or a bit after he got in.
I couldn’t be married to someone who regularly needs drugs or alcohol to ‘unwind’ full stop, but that’s your prerogative obviously.
I also don’t think you should have to pick DS up just because you’re home - having the summer off with a child/ children doesn’t mean you’re not working at home - you are doing all child care / entertaining plus housework / cooking etc while your DH is at work.

Yanbu.
He clearly thinks everything is your responsibility.
Smoking week should be an issue.
He sounds like another child for you to care for.

You said in the original post "the weed itself wasn't the issue" and that he's grown up enough to make his own decisions.
But by post 2 you admitted that the weed was in fact part of why you were annoyed.
I think it's unfair to pretend to be OK about something and then be passive aggressive about it. Either it's OK with you or it's not. Either stance is fine.
But if it is OK with you and his decision, you can't bring it up in arguments. If you're not OK with it then you need to give him an ultimatum. Living with someone who weaponises their position on things (whatever they are) is not fun.

My thoughts exactly. I also couldn't get annoyed about weed. It'll be legal soon like it is in many similar countries and you can do parenting after a spliff in the same way as you can after a glass of wine - but absolutely can't drive and he was right to refuse to.
Not your fault either as you reasonably assumed he'd be able to drive but not his fault as he didn't know you were going to ask. NAH.

No, I haven’t changed my stance. You’ve just mistaken clarification for contradiction.

You keep saying “it’s an illegal drug” as though that’s the end of the discussion. It isn’t. It’s simply one fact about it. It tells you nothing about why someone is using it, whether they’re impaired, whether they’re dependent, or whether they’re self-medicating because legal routes are inaccessible. OP states he uses it for anxiety and sleep, I’m wondering why you keep banging the ‘illegal drug’ drum.

Ironically, you’ve done exactly what I was talking about. You’ve reduced a complex issue to one word: illegal. Everything else gets discarded.

The legality is your opinion. Mine is that behaviour is what matters. If someone’s neglecting their family, that’s a problem. If they’re a present, attentive parent who happens to use cannabis, I don’t automatically assume they’re failing because of the substance they’ve chosen.

And to be clear, my reply isn’t aimed solely at you. It’s also for the many posters on this thread who seem to think that the mere mention of cannabis is enough to conclude someone is irresponsible, morally lacking or a bad parent. That isn’t evidence-based thinking; it’s stigma.

OP said his reasons for using it in the OP. I didn’t say he’s a bad parent, I think their whole argument is a bit of a non issue, they just didn’t communicate. But smoking illegal drugs before tea time with the kids isn’t a boundary id be happy with. Personally on a random week day I don’t drink around my kids anyway, that’s just preference. But it being a drug used illegally is a little different in my opinion. You using it legally is not the same thing. Your first post implied you think it is, even if you have changed that a bit in your reply to me.

No way would I be okay with my husband smoking weed right before the kids are about to come home.

After they’ve gone to bed, maybe that’s a different conversation. But him coming home from work and smoking weed in his man cave while there are still things that need to be done? No way.

The fact that you even think this might be okay is shocking. It sounds like smoking weed is more important to him than considering your needs or your child’s needs.

Also, you deserve relaxation and calm time too. What would he say if he came home and you were in the kitchen cooking dinner while drinking a bottle of wine to “relax”? I doubt he would see it the same way.

I think best not embark on complicated time-sensitive dinner prep at the time Dc needs picking up
And if you do need him to pick up Dc, warn him in advance: he could have got held up at work , traffic or whatever.
It would have been better if he had said ‘oops, sorry…’ rather than bring defensive and criticising you.
And if you had said ‘yeah, sorry I should have mentioned it before you went Shed Mode’

Just messy irritable planning and communication all round

I don’t think it’s “silly” at all, because that isn’t the point I made.

I’m not claiming that buying cannabis illegally is legally equivalent to having a prescription. They’re obviously different. The point is that legality and medical purpose are not the same thing.

We know nothing about why this man uses cannabis. Plenty of people self-medicate chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety and other conditions because NHS access to medical cannabis is exceptionally limited and private prescriptions are expensive. That doesn’t automatically make their reasons recreational.

If the concern is that he’s impaired while caring for his child, driving, or neglecting his responsibilities, then I completely agree that’s a problem. The same would be true if he was drinking heavily, misusing codeine, taking diazepam or any other substance that impaired him.

The issue there is impairment and behaviour, not the fact the substance happens to be cannabis.

And before anyone says “but it smells” lots of things smell. Cigarette smoke, alcohol on someone’s breath, strong perfume and agricultural much spreading smells. That’s an argument about consideration for other people, not about someone’s moral character.

Likewise, “think of the children” isn’t a trump card that ends the discussion. Children need sober, attentive, emotionally available parents. Whether someone meets that standard depends on how they behave, not on the label attached to a substance. A parent who has one prescribed diazepam, one glass of wine or one cannabis vape isn’t automatically a bad parent. Context matters.

What frustrates me is how quickly cannabis strips away all nuance. The moment the word appears, some people stop talking about behaviour and start talking about stereotypes. We don’t know this family. We don’t know his health. We don’t know the amount, the frequency or the effect it has on him.

So yes, OP is perfectly entitled to dislike it. She’s entitled to set whatever boundaries she wants in her marriage. But that’s a completely different discussion from implying that anyone who uses cannabis is irresponsible, morally suspect or “just a drug user”. Those attitudes are rooted far more in decades of stigma than in evidence

There’s nothing virtuous about being uninformed. Repeating decades-old stereotypes with confidence doesn’t make you well informed. it demonstrates how powerful stigma can be when it goes unchallenged.

Me too.

I couldn’t get worked up about a bit of weed, unless it is a regular occurrence and to excess.

Communication always helps. OP could have told him beforehand that his chauffeur services would be required, but she forgot. He offered to finish cooking dinner.

No big deal.

He couldn't drive after a spliff?

Lightweight 😂

Sorry but I think that for the actual issue here yabu.

He didnt abdicate his responsibility, he did as you did and assumed the other parent would be doing pick up.

And frankly if he has been working all day and you have "summer off" as you out it then you should be picking up the slack.

He offered to finish dinner, so you are just being a martyr over it.

It’s just silly to pretend a guy smoking an illegal drug is the same as someone taking a prescribed medication where, as you said, it comes from a pharmacy and you know exactly what is in it. Nobody has said it’s the same as taking heroine that I’ve seen, but needing to smoke illegal drugs before you spend time with your wife and kid isn’t something that everyone would tolerate, and it isn’t the same as someone taking prescribed medication, so let’s not pretend that it is. It’s absolutely fine that OP doesn’t like her husband doing this.

The amount of pearl-clutching over the word “weed” on this thread is honestly exhausting.

Some of you are talking about cannabis as though it’s automatically the same as being off your face on crack in the middle of Waitrose 😂

It’s a prescribed medication for thousands of people in the UK. Veterans. Cancer patients. People with chronic pain. Epilepsy. PTSD. MS. Anxiety disorders. Autism and many more conditions that other heavier medications are needed for an can be avoided by using a natural substance. People who’ve tried every conventional medication under the sun.

I’ve got legal, prescribed medical cannabis. It comes from a pharmacy. It’s quality controlled. I know exactly what’s in it. I use it in the same way someone else might use codeine or diazepam. It doesn’t turn me into a danger to society or a layabout. It lets me function.

If your issue is someone being impaired while looking after children, driving or working, then say that. That’s a completely reasonable discussion and it applies equally to alcohol, morphine, sleeping tablets and a whole list of prescription drugs.

But can we stop pretending that every mention of cannabis means someone is injecting heroin behind the bins?

The stigma is decades behind the evidence. Maybe put the pearls down for five minutes and have a read about medical cannabis before declaring anyone who uses it a “drug user.”

No different to having a glass of wine when you get in. Weed is becoming widely accepted now and it’s only a matter of time before it’s legalised. I say that as someone who doesn’t smoke it

I have a thing where I get annoyed at the situation rather than DH and this sounds like one of those. It’s not really anyone’s fault just a bit of lack of communication between the 2 of you, he could have asked if anything needed doing before he went and got smashed and you could have asked him to collect DS before he went and got smashed. Chalk it up to experience and you can both do something different next time.

That’s very manipulative of him - to smoke the weed first before asking you, so that it was a fait accompli. He should have asked you before smoking it to make sure he didn’t have to do any driving.