to want DH to at least feign interest at my day with the kids, no matter how mundane it seems.

[alannabanana]

i know its not the most glamourous or exciting thing in the world to take ds to a toddler group, have a drama with nap time, or deal with a particularly fruity nappy, but it is MY DAY. its essentially what i do for a living taking care of our boys, and i take great pride in it, like any job. i manage to listen to his breakdown of what trials he faced at work, so why can't he get all excited about the friend ds made at playgroup??

YANBU, especially as you are not asking him to actually be interested, only to feign interest. When he starts talking about his working day, stick your fingers in your ears and sing loudly. When he accuses you of being childish, remind him that you can go for days with no adult conversation (which is where you learned this behaviour) and it might be nice if you could chat about your day to day activities for a while.

HTH

Nah. Yanbu have a word with him

Yanbu. Share and share alike.

any danger of you being able to leave him with the dcs for a few days just to see what all the excitement is about? once he's spent a couple of days in your life, he might let you get a word in here or there (or at least wonder how it was)

YANBU ...I'd like to have a conversation one evening where DH actually looks at me instead of the effing blackberry

Yeah, dh found my day so amazing he f*cked off to the pub

oh god, sometimes i glaze over when dh talked about work

im sure he does when i do too

thing is when we get home from work, we always ALWAYS sit down without any distractions and talk about the day whilst we have a brew.

whilst he might think your day is shit, you might like to remind him that his recolection of the day doesn't exactly make you orgasm, however good communication and listening is important.

think of it like this - if he didn't talk about his day

you didn't talk about yours

you wouldnt talk!

lightlyscrambled - at the blackberry thing! except with my dh its his new amazon kindle! earlier on he was trying to read me passages from blake on it and show me various functions while i juggled feeding the baby with maintaining interaction with toddler to avoid his jealousy of said baby, and then dh gets all dejected when i dont share his enthusiasm about this weeks new gadget... im too effing busy and to effing female to care about it!
i think men are like children themselves sometimes, and need you to give them the same attention you give the kids, but what they dont get is that they're grown ups and therefore take the lowest priorty right now. sorry but its true, and it wont last forever, but they dont realise that.

I have just seen a really lovely relationship breakdown completely over this.

Mum at home all day with under 5's. Dad getting in around 7pm sometimes later.

He is my friend and colleague. I told him that I was on his wife's side. He didn't get it.

Yanbu

I don't think it is even a question of him being low priority. You said you listened to what he has done that day but he doesn't listen to you. You are giving him attention so it isn't like he is forgotten. It is more his selfishness that he couldn't reciprocate that is the problem. Especially true since, unlike you and his job, he is supposed to be interested in his own children and therefore has even more reason to listen to what you did in the day than you have to listening to him.

And don't get me started on Blackberrys......

i got foiled by the blardy shutdown

never mind.

alanna, you are crazy - next time he sits and twitters about his kindle while you mainline the kids, dump the baby on top of the thing and walk off and make a cup of tea.

he isn't a child, he's a parent - you are enabling him by infantilising him to this extent.

don't give him any choice but to grow up and accept that there is another aspect to his life than work and toys.

and 'too effing female'? puh-lease. plenty of female IT engineers love their gadgets. it doesn't stop them having breasts.

(apols, my first reply was a lot more fluffy, but i lost yet another post to the great 3am mn void)

and i'm deadly serious about leaving the kids with him for a day or two. find a long lost friend in belgium to eat chocolate with.

A few thoughts come to mind alanna. My DCs are teenagers now but I was where you are when I was on ML.

I can't see why you both can't give each other a brief update in your days. Surely that is what all partners do at the end of each day. Even if my DH had had a quiet day I'd expect (nay demand) a couple of sentences about it.

What we used to do was sort the children out together at the end of the day then sit down and chat just the two of us when they were in bed. Worked well for us.

I know it is not easy but try and have other things to talk about that are not babies/his work- watch films together, read the newspapers, know what is happening out in the world. Have an opinion. Meet up with others to do something not just natter. You haven't lost your mind just because you are busy being a parent.

I always found babies fairly boring, even when they are your own. However teenagers are fab. Things just get better and better.

BTW I am far more interested in all gadgets than my DH is- they are not girly and don't perpetuate such stereotypes with your DCs. DH does show an interest for my sake and enjoys my enthusiasm. I am similarly polite interested in his hobbies.

Yanbu, kids are essentially boring, therefore he should share the boredom, kinda like a boredom collective

thanks all! im worried ive painted a bad picture of my dh, when i only really intended a light-hearted thread on the differences between men and women. he's actually a pretty great guy, and i dont begrudge him 20 mins to sit and drink tea and play with his gadgets when gets home, as he works a soul-destroying job teaching the most god-awful teenagers in a school with more management strategy than common sense, so i know his day is very trying and frustrating and he only keeps doing it so we can keep eating. i guess my point was that men dont realise that a day home with the kids can be equally trying (if more boring, as you've pointed out), so they should regard it as a day 'at work' for us mums.

and yes niecie - you're right, i do think he should be interested in what his kids got up to that day, because they are his kids, even though it is quite mundane in the grand scheme of things.

also, nickoftime - i notice you're up at 4.30am, i feel your pain with an ill 3 mth old myself!

See, I have the other problem - I tell DH about our day and then ask him about his and I get 'Fine.' He knows now that I won't accept that as a complete answer and has to find at least 1 more sentence about his day for me!

Today will be interesting - he's going to take DD out on his own all day while I revise. Wonder if he'll have lots to tell me once they're home?!

You are not alone, at weaker moments I have cried to dh that I know what I am saying is boring but I dont have anything else to talk about.

On the flip side, I always feel really paranoid if we've had too much fun, or even been out a bit, if the house isn't immaculate and teaonthetableatsix. I can hear the cogs whirring (if he is listening) 'Ah, you had time to go to the park/visit a friend/go to singing group,(yes, this is what I meant by 'too exciting') but not to mop the floor. He has little comprehension that going out of the house sometimes is a vital part of Not Going Insane.

starnose - i hear that. going out to toddler groups is completely vital at the moment, or else ds1 will literally climb the walls. those 2 hours of manic excitement for him give me time to spend with the baby (albeit while shadowing said toddler) and let him interact with other kids, learn to share etc. and in fact since starting attending these playgroups, ds1 has become much better at napping and going down at night time, so yeah, dh's everywhere, getting out in the day is essential!