Just me with the shit DH?

[namechangecosiwantedto]

I'm here for a whinge, because why not?

DH is at times, a bit shit, and it gets me down. Up until a couple of years ago I was a SAHM. I supported him through his career by at times bringing up the DC alone whilst he was away, acting like a performing seal whilst trying to cook tea, make sure the boys weren't about to kill each other, you get the drift. Usual parenting joy.

Roll on now, and I'm working, not full time so I do more than my fair share of house/teen stuff, but am also working now. Yet to DH, it's almost like I've taken on a hobby, like my job isn't important, I'm having a bit of fun - which I am, I love it, but it's also very stressful (work in Addiction recovery)

An example of where he's crap - tonight I had a late zoom meeting. I told him in advance and said that he'd need to sort tea, was that ok - Yes. However, that was tea for himself and DS. His face when I checked he'd bunged something in the oven for me "I didn't know what you'd want!". He would have starved if I hadn't used my noggin to prepare him food over the last 18 years. Why can't he just think that maybe sorting tea would include something for me? Disclaimer - he knew I'd be finished on the call by the time his dinner was cooked, so no excuse that he wasn't sure id be finished.

It's just always the same, can't possibly think outside of the box, and I think it's because I've spent a long time holding us all up so he never has to think. If I dropped dead tomorrow, there's a lot he would be clueless about.

But being blunt about it now, I feel shit. Shit that I'm fed up being not thought about, my job seeming to not be deemed important (there are other things that I mean about that) . I know I've made a rod for my own back, I shouldn't have been a SAHM for so long, then maybe he'd see us as equals.

I can't say anything to him, he is the king of sulking if he thinks I'm having a go.I just want him to think sometimes - about me.

I'm just feeling a bit sad.

Anyone else with a DH like that?!

Infuriating isn't it? I sympathise.

I'm sure there will be someone along in a minute to tell us we should have chosen/trained better husbands though!

My exh was like that . Note ex .

Well there’s the op who’s DH makes her ask to put the washer by on….
i had to train my husband to make me a cup of tea if he was having one….

Speak to him and let him sulk if needs be but I’d let him know that adults communicate in a adult manner and not in a childlish way by sulking.

Lay your expectations clearly without accusations. It all should be about team work- we need dinner and everybody needs to eat so you cook for everybody when it’s your turn and so do I unless you want exclusion (which is shit)

How unkind of him. To not prepare you a meal when he knew you’d be hungry after a hard day. What did he think you would do - eat air? He knew you’d have to make something for yourself, he just didn’t care.

I'm sad for you too, OP.
The line 'he would have starved' made me sad - I know you were using hyperbole, but that's what's actually so upsetting about this - he wouldn't have starved at all, if you weren't there. He isn't starving with you 'not there' now. But it didn't even cross his mind that it might be a nice gesture to make you dinner, with you working late? That's really sad.

My DH was like that in the beginning. Totally clueless, selfish & thoughtless. Luckily I have since corrected his behavior. I called him out on it, EVERY SINGLE TIME. In his instance, it was partly a product of his upbringing but jeez I could have strangled him. Just remind him you exist too.

If I dropped dead tomorrow, there's a lot he would be clueless about.
The sad thing is I highly doubt he would be clueless. He's lazy, he cba, he's not bothered enough, but he would be fine. He is capable of holding down a full time job so he must have some thinking capacity.

Do you want to continue living this life up to retirement? Or even when you've both retired, no reason to leave the home every day, the kids have left home - does that thought fill you with dread? If so, start planning your freedom. I couldn't face the thought of retirement with mine so I'm planning my escape.

DH and I have been married 30 years and he's still a work in progress.

My training skills must be shit, I've decided. I need a competent MNer to come and take me and him in hand.

I HAD a DH like that. When we were going to a festival that he wanted to go to I had rushed around getting all the shit together cleaning house etc making lists. He was getting angry when trying to get out the door as so much to do and he wanted to go. Then driving off I casually joked ‘you have got my sleeping bag havent you’ thinking he’d laugh and he hadn’t. We got back, he ran upstairs grabbed a sleeping bag. Got to the festival and he had packed the lightest weight thing ever, and it was FREEZING. He knows I feel the cold. Then whilst unpacking he had forgotten all the cooking stuff which he was supposed to do. Everything he wanted like beer and all his fancy clothes he bought and left all the stuff like tea and things to make me comfy etc out.

I know how shit it feels to just be cancelled by your spouse. He always did it, dismissed me. It’s very hurtful beI g unloved. We functioned but he never looked after me. We’re not together now, and I’m so much happier.

Sorry that sounds tough. DH and I had kids of hard times and I posted on here about how shit he was before. Your post could almost has been written by me in the past!

In recent months, maybe last six months, things got a lot better for us.

a few things that I think helped:

I insisted in a I will leave you if you don’t way that he had to cut down drinking and smoking pot (yes he did that) and he has significantly

he is currently unemployed and while you’d think that should make things worse instead it’s made things between us better! Even if it’s made us more stressed about money, it’s massively helped that he has to pick up more of the slack around the house - he now cooks all meals, takes kids to extracurriculars, cleans etc. I mean he has no excuse not to, sitting all day only working in upgrading his current skills but otherwise has all time to himself as kids are in after school care most days too. While I’m not suggesting your DH becomes unemployed, I can’t stress enough the benefits of men being forced, in whatever way, to take on more housework, childcare and emotional
labour. It will take pressure off you, but even more importantly, it makes you more equal
and makes him understand you better, it makes you true partners when you both understand the intricacies of hosting a play date, taking kids for their first class if something or cooking daily. I am a strong advocate for persistently insisting and forcing husbands to do the work many women do by themselves. Find ways to make him do it and let him sulk. He will get over it and get used to it. If necessary stop doing it yourself and just watch, with time he will do it, you just need to accept a period of failures and things not being done the way you’d like it. It isn’t ideal and I wish I’d married a more mature man but then again who’s perfect, I literally see it as a malfunction in the way he was raised and he has to learn to pull his weight or I won’t stay with him, so it’s just a tough learning process.

I looked more critically at myself and started to really listening to the things he was unhappy with in me. I genuinely took the reasonable criticisms on board and did a ton of inner work to become a better partner myself. And trust me there was a lot of things I did wrong! I still mess up all the time, but I’m better at apologising and admitting mistakes and I do think I do really annoying/inconsiderate things less often.

we started having more sex. This one is different for everyone, but if you can find a way to make this happen, it usually helps.

I praise him more and support him more. Yes in the beginning it feels patronising and fake but once you get used to it you realise actually quite often there’s a real reason to praise him and I was too stingy with compliments before. And guess what? After a while it rubs off and he’s started doing it too.

I support his positions toward the kids, even if I disagree (unless it’s a crucial issue, but if it’s something small I just take his side or remain quiet) - he always did this for me, it was just me who was always interfering and undermining his parenting

all this to say - it may not be what you’d like to hear, but unless your DH is a total hopeless shitbag, usually when things are bad in a marriage, there’s two sides and you can make things change for the better by initiating change on your behalf and insisting on your own needs being met too (ie for him to change too)

It just drives me a bit nuts. He's a real minimal effort kind of person, if something doesn't jump out of the fridge for him to cook, he'll claim he didn't know what to do. What he doesn't realise is how that makes me feel, like I'm not worth the effort. He's had a stressful time at work today, which I get, but he wasn't so stressed that he couldn't sort himself out food. If I was that stressed, I would have just said let's get a takeaway.

It's no excuse, but a lot of my upset stems from the fact we're such different people. I'm a real people focussed caring person, I like to fuss and spoil, it's the way I am. DH isn't like that, and it's taken me a while to accept that and not take it all personally. However cook me bloody dinner!!

If I'm honest - it has crossed my mind. He is a nice DH in many ways, but things like this then really get to me

Feel for you OP- but what jumps out at me is that you feel you can't pull him up on it because he sulks. My DH can be a sulker too and I dread the wounded puppy eyes when I need to pull him up on anything. I usually think "can i really be bothered?" But I force myself to do it when he needs telling. then I usually tell him off for sulking too. It does work, albeit slowly

Yes I get that! He should have.
DH and I are so different I sometimes marvel at how we fell in love in the first place? But we did, and on good days I remember it and why and in bad days, not so much 😂
what helps me is to see that it’s actually really good we are so different because we complement each other. I’m too spontaneous, he’s a bit too slow to make changes so together we hit the perfect speed. I make too many palms, he makes too little, so together it becomes balanced. I worry too much he worries too little so together it becomes a realistic view etc. we have some very big value differences about a few things and I’ve learned to agree to disagree and we openly agreed to avoid those topics as they’re too inflammatory

He's a real minimal effort kind of person,
Seriously? He's lazy and selfish and uncaring. He's not minimal effort or laid back or super chilled. Call it out for what it is. You can only decide what to do if you stop minimising and lying to yourself. You are worth more. You deserve more. Love yourself more. If you don't, you can't really expect others to.

“I am a strong advocate for persistently insisting and forcing husbands to do the work many women do by themselves.”

This should be a basic requirement. In the 21st century why are we still accepting strategic (and disrespectful) incompetence from the men we live with? You shouldn’t need to have extra sex and ‘praise them’ either… they are grown adults and seem to be able to function as such in many other spheres of life. Stop falling for it.

Yes let him sulk! It’s hard for me too as I always want everyone to be happy and feel responsible for everyone’s mood. But I ask myself - is it fair he’s sulking? If it isn’t, I ignore it and go about my business and my mantra is ‘I’m not responsible for everyone’s moods”

Sulking is a well known abuse tactic. It is never fair to sulk.

It took a number of frank discussions for it to dawn on DP that food has to happen for adults every day and for it to happen at a) a reasonable hour, b) a reasonably set time whilst c) containing some nutritional value and d) preferably tasting reasonable when he became the person who was allocated responsibility for it. He also seemed surprised that kitchens need cleaning, food and cleaning supplies need purchasing and no, I wasn't available to tell him what to buy in the shop because I'm not in the shop and therefore do not know what's available in the shop for him to buy.

He only tried feeding himself and not me on the grounds that he didn't know what I would want the once, though.

He does all the shopping, cooking, meal planning and the like these days. He needed the practice.

Does it make it better then, if there's loads of other shit husbands?

I understand totally OP. It's little things sometimes. DH, DD and I were out for a walk the other day and stopped at a visitor centre. I popped in to use the loo. When I came out DH had bought an ice cream for himself and for DD. Nothing for me. I'm so used to it I don't even care any more, I'm just biding my time. It's not about the ice lolly, obviously.

This sort of thing happens so often and when pondering on many men’s general level of selfishness and laziness about being an equal partner in managing home, life, relationships, children I can only suppose it is years of conditioning that this is acceptable and only a few have the self awareness or interest to be any better.
Women are then left with the options of the hard work of challenging their ways, or accepting them and getting more and more exhausted doing everything and becoming resentful or leaving which can be very hard emotionally and practically.
There needs to be some sort of objective screening process so we can see what our future might look like with a prospective bloke because love clouds judgement and before you know it you are stuck.

Well yea I couldn’t agree more and like I said I wish I’d married a man who was more equitable from the outset! Alas, I didn’t. We have three wonderful kids to whom he is a brilliant and loving dad, he is genuinely a good person and the most loyal and fun man I ever knew. Should I leave him and make my kids live half the time with him
and half the time with me or whatever arrangement we’d land on, make myself miserable as if genuinely miss him, make them miss him and tank our financial situation? (Yes he’s unemployed right now but usually a decent earner and will be again I have all reason to believe) as well as make my daily life much harder as a single mum - just to prove a point that he isn’t good enough?
no one is perfect and sometimes I feel like in MN there’s a fatamogama of this perfect man that exists and nothing is ever good enough. Many people in here seem to be married to this perfect type man, but I’ve never in my life met this man irl! 😂😂

on the praising - I think we should all praise each other and give each other compliments a lot more, between partners and friends, colleagues and family. Compliments are free why not spread the love?

on sex - where did you see me calling it “extra sex” and why are you inferring the added sex isn’t something I’m
enjoyng too? 😂it most certainly is, otherwise it wouldn’t be happening! It’s for the benefit of us both and to strengthen the connection.