What are your fifty-something husbands like?

[BoPeepsSheep]

Because mine is starting to do my head in. It’s not just the huffing (and there’s a lot of huffing), it’s the general..I dunno….attitude.

I work p/t and do the vast majority of everything from cleaning to cooking, planning, birthdays, all that stuff. I think we’d call it the ‘mental load.’

DH is starting to find fault in everything. Started with watching me unpack the shopping and criticising what I’ve bought, then criticising/questioning things that go in the bin (‘why have you put that in the bin?’ - because it’s gone mouldy/it’s broken etc….I’m capable of deciding that…but I now cover things up in the bin to prevent him asking me).

In the last few weeks I’ve been researching a long weekend in Europe because we have a very rare child free period in the summer. I planned out a trip where we took the train to London, Eurostar to Brussels to visit some nearby places. I love train travel, which he’s aware of. He was in favour of this but wouldn’t sit down and book it, kept putting it off. We finally went to book it tonight.

At this point he looked at the details and started grumbling about having to start out early (8am) to get to London in time for the Eurostar connection. And the cost (£400 in total). So he decided we ought to fly because we could set off late morning instead, and it would cost £70 rather than £400.

He got really irritated and asked why I’d prefer to spend £400. He said I would want to be in bed by 9.30 if I’ve set out at 8am (slight exaggeration I’d say). I just knew he was looking at the ‘headline’ flight price so I told him to add the luggage and seats, at which point he realised the cost was actually £360 (not £70) which I suspected because I always book our holidays. I also explained that I just find train travel more relaxing.

After that he went off in a huff to watch TV elsewhere. We didn’t book anything. I feel increasingly fed up about little mini strops. I think he realised he’d been mistaken about the price and was annoyed with the whole thing.

I told him I’m genuinely happy to meet him in Brussels if he would prefer not to waste his time on a train.

Anyone else have a husband who acts like this?

Retired but very active - lots of sporty hobbies. So laid back that he's almost horizontal. Happy to do his own thing and for me to do my own thing. Neither of us fuss much about housework etc, coz life's too short. To be honest, he's pretty much the same as he's always been (but without the stress caused by work).

My DH can be critical and nit-picky, but each and every time I pick him up on it. I'm not a junior employee in his office who isn't pulling their weight or someone who he can boss around - I'm his wife and I get an equal say in what we do and how it's done. And if he didn't want to go on holiday and I did I'd bloody well go with my sister or my DM or someone else! I simply wouldn't tolerate the shit you're putting up with.

Does he work from home op? Mine does and I've found it's made him worse...as he knows nows every minute detail of how I run the house and wants an input. Why's the hoover still out? Why isn't there a bin bag in the bin...? Blah blah blah

Yes! It's got worse since he WFH.

Nope. Mine is cheery, supportive and up for adventure. Why do you put up with this shit?

Mine is on the cusp of 50 and a bit of a miserable old git. He's always had a glass half empty/pessimistic view of life, whereas I'm much more of a let's be optimistic/hope for the best and deal with it if and when it doesn't work out kind of person

It does worry me a bit when the children fly the nest, we're probably about 5/6 years away from youngest doing it. I just wonder what we'll have in common!

8am is not early, a lot of people who get on with life and don't moan like a baby get up at 5:30/6am daily.

Amen up snd do your big around the house as well.

'm sorry he's letting you down here and basically never looking at anything from your point of view or how it impacts if makes you feel.

Sounds like a keeper, needs to have a word with himself.

From a 40yr old father.

My husband can be quite huffy and moany (and increasingly weird and eccentric). Criticising the shopping order is particularly jarring. I think, if you don't like the way I shop, wash-up, cook etc do it yourself. We usually do manage to negotiate holidays and things like that without a big strop. He is not penny- pinching thankfully and I couldn't stand that.
Personally I would revisit the Eurostar trip in a day or two when he's had his sulk and just say I am booking it, do you want to come or not.

Sounds like he needs a hobby. Mr Monkey is early 50s but is a regular marathon runner so it keeps him active and on contact with a wide group of people.

He did make a career change a few years ago to a job that is much more fulfilling but he has much less autonomy or management responsibility. He can tend to obsess about small annoyances with his job and moan to me about things that irritate him and hoe he would do it better.

I tend to just respond to with "well what do you intend to do about it then?"

My dh had a friend round recently who heard him moaning to me about where I'd put the kitchen tongs...he actually called him out on it and told him he's being ridiculous. Made me feel quite reassured that my placement of kitchen tongs does not actually make me public enemy number one.

My DH is older than this but is a lovely, cheery soul so it's not an inevitability with age. That said we do have various older male friends who seem to do nothing but moan and complain all the time. They are quite draining to be around so you have my sympathies OP. I think you need to have a pretty firm conversation with him before this ruins your relationship.

Years ago, a friend, who is about 12 years older, told me to not let him get grumpy. She said men get grumpy as they age and I had to work to make sure he didn’t become grumpy.

That stuck to me and when DP got to about 48 he did start to become grumpy. I told him what my friend had said and he took it on board.

Whenever he starts turning back into Victor Meldrew I remind him of what my friend said and he works to not be the moaning/grumpy sod he could be.

I don’t really know if this is an age thing, a gender thing or just down to different personalities but it is a choice to be miserable a lot of the time - I’m pretty sure.

Mines is 55, he runs 5k every week, we have been for a five mile walk along the canal at the weekend and sung together along a quiet stretch of it. He hoovered the house when I was out volunteering yesterday as he was WFH. We are planning on hiring a campervan with a view to buying one as planning a trip that will last a few years when he joins me in retirement. We also played
a video game together, I’m better than him, much joking about it. He works very long hours as a Professor.

I chatted to my mate who is close to 90 a few days ago, what a positive joy that man is. It is a bit shit getting older. When in your fifties you know there are more years behind than ahead and stuff aches a bit more but we intend to squeeze every single drop of positivity we can.

DH and I experienced the sort of tragedy that most fortunately do not suffer when our DD died a few years ago. All of us who reach a decent age owe it to those who didn’t make it to not be a whiny complainer. The accident of birth and us ever stepping foot on this planet as an individual though we are but a speck of humankind is in itself a miracle.

Massive generalisation alert - I think some men of that generation have never really been taught to interrogate and manage their feelings. So it all comes out as generalised negativity aka moaning. A bit like when overwhelmed toddlers just cry.

No, he is nothing like that, he is 60 and I’ve just caught him dancing round the kitchen, singing a silly made up song to the dogs 🤣 it must be exhausting and depressing to live with constant moaning and criticism.

I just read this thread out to DH, and he had to laugh!

I am so very sorry to read about your DD @ViscousFluidFlow. I admire your resilience.

I do think you have to call them out on it if the negativity is draining. NIcely in the same way that you'd want them to point something out to you....pick your moment.

Most couples are going to have ups a downs...

I pointed out to mine that I wasn't going to be the one to do all of the booking of holidays for him just to nit pick about choices, same for things like choosing stuff for the house, if he leaves it to me he doesn't get to moan about my choices....

I just organised a trip to Paris. DH applauded all my choices and was very cheery. and energetic. So I forgive him this week for nitpicking about the bin bags. Maybe.

Why is it women's work to stop men over a certain age being 'grumpy'.

I've never put up with arsehole men. Ever.

Why should I manage a man's emotional life? That's his fucking business.

And if he can't manage himself he can piss off.

I have never, once, taken a man's emotional state to be my business.

FFS, men have to be responsible for themselves. If they're not, they need to speak to other men about that rather than parking it by women.

And I was very bloody lucky to not only have a feminist mother but a father that understood why she was a feminist.

And my Dad wasn't and still isn't a feminist, because he always saw that women were disadvantaged but never, ever, saw women as lesser intellectually

And that's what matters.

Understanding the difference, and that the difference is biological.

And that disadvantages the brilliant and clever women around you.

Once men actually get that, then heterosexual relationships are much better.

My DH has just turned 50 and suddenly become like this. He moans about literally everything. I’ve stopped organising anything travel/holiday related because everything will be found fault with/picked apart.

We’re currently house hunting. We’d agreed on what we wanted, the price range etc, so I found something that fitted down to the ground. He hated everything about it and said he’d only buy it if we sold off half the not very big garden. The garden was largely the charm of the house. So I’m now refusing to find anymore houses to look at because I can’t do that right either.

I’m getting so tired of it, I want my husband back.

Sounds like your DH is relishing a long weekend off work doing nothing?

Mine is nothing like that. He's very fit and active and positive and uplifting to be with.

Possibly a bit of a control freak but then so am I and he likes to get things done.

Like me he loves the outdoors so he I think being outdoors a lot is energising foe mind and body.

I do think wfh has made this worse. Dh used to come home and the house was clean and he had clean ironed clothes and dinner was cooked. Now he's at home, he sees everything I do to achieve that and seems to want to have constant input into these tasks. Why are you doing that? Whys that there? Why's the window open? Why is the kitchen cupboard open? Why is the blind open?

I actually don't think men do well at home...they seem to become obsessed with absolutely trivial irrelevant things.

I would tell him that if he opts to critique your every action, in future he will be doing everything that he has critiqued, as he must clearly know best. 53 year old male here if that helps. 🙃

@Ginmonkeyagain "Massive generalisation alert - I think some men of that generation have never really been taught to interrogate and manage their feelings."

There is a weird thing on Mumsnet where everyone over 40 appears to have been born in the 1940s!

Someone who's 50 this year was born in
1974.

And why do the have to "be taught"? Who is/was responsible for "teaching" them?