Why do I listen to promises...

[Bathsheba]

Dh went out last night. To a beer festival. With his work.

I heard every promise in the book - I won;t be out too late, the bus is coming back at 11, I'm taking one of the guys from our African base so I'll need to look after him....

3:40am in he staggers, AGAIN, very very drunk...so I need to now write off all of today...

So now I have to

• take a teething 9 month old with a cold to the hairdressers while my 2 eldest girls get their hair cut.

• take all 3 of them to an NCT meething this afternoon because its not fair to leave them at home with DH when he has a hangover/is lying on the sofa moaning/is still unconcious.

The NCT meeting was my "me time" this week. He has been out every evening doing DIY jobs as my MIL has just moved house. He is also out all day tomorrow ferrying people from work from the airport to hotels (he isn't a taxi driver, he is a project manager but has decided its better to welcome his team coming from abroad personally, which is actually very nice but rankles after I've looked after all 3DDs all week by myself)

Now, at least I can take 1 thing from it - I AM going away without all of them next weekend for a girlie weekend with my friends, so for the first time ever I do actually get to go away myself and repay the "favour"....

It just upsets me that every time he promises to be sensible and promises that I'll not need to "lose" Saturday, and every time he ignores that and how I might feel

Leave your DCs with him and tell him that he is to play with them/not lie on the sofa mopping his brow.

He does it because you let him. If he wants to go out and get shitfaced then that's his choice but his responsibilities will still be there waiting for him, hangover or not.

he does it because you pick up the pieces.

don't

do exactly what you had planned. he will HAVE to deal with it

If you were ill - self inflicted or not - would he take time out of his planned activities to look after you dd's?

I honestly honestly don't feel thats fair on the children....because he will just lie there and not engage with them.

He is supremely stubborn and has Aspergers - he won't "learn" anything from the experience of me leaving them, he'll just behave as he would noramlly have done - lie there and let them trash the house as they constantly vye for his attention.

I doubt at the moment he'd take time out if I was ill - I doubt he'd take an evening off his mothers DIY.

He is a selfish arsewipe.

Our friend had a rule, yes her DH could go out and get shit faced if he so chose, but the next morning he was up early on child duty. I have implemented such rule in our home, why should they get a lazy recovery day after a big night out?

I'm with the others who say leave him to it. He will only learn the hard way.

he might surprise you. have you ever left them with him before in a similar situation? can you give him specific things he has GOT to do with them?

sorry, but i think if you aren't willing to put your foot down he WILL keep taking advantage

I have left them before in a similar situation - I came back to my house trashed, him asleep on the sofa, the girls having only ate biscuits and DD2 having had a double dose of paracetamol in a half hour period because he couldn't read that the cold relief and the calpol both contained paracetamol.

Honestly, if I left them with him, they would trash the place, I'd have to clear it up and he would learn nothing at all from the experience...