to think hubby should have cut short his bender

[fayc84]

My husband left the house at 4.30am on Wednesday for a three-day course in Birmingham for work. Fair enough. He decided to follow that up with a three-night boozing session with his brother and former flatmate in Leeds (we live in Fife, Scotland, so a wee way away). I was a little put out that he was going to be away for five nights but I'm 14wks pg and have been so tired and sick I thought it was fair enough that he should get some time away to have some fun.

While he was at the course my morning sickness went from constant nausea to not being able to keep down any food or much in the way of fluids. I lost 5lbs in the space of two days. I spoke to hubby on the phone so he knew I was ill and considering calling the hospital as I was concerned about throwing up even water but there was no offer to miss his boys' weekend.

I started to feel slightly better so did a spot of Christmas shopping on Saturday but slipped on the snow and sprained my ankle really badly. I have been unable to walk for the whole weekend and now snowed in with pretty much no food in the house. The vomiting hasn't really got much better.

I was in tears on the phone to hubby on Saturday because my foot was so sore and there was no heat or power thanks to powercut. His response was I should phone my dad who lives over an hour away to bring me a tubigrip or drive me back to parents' house. No offer of coming home even a day early. Now it looks like he may well be stranded or at least very late with train disruption due to snow. I still can't get out of the house, though am hobbling about inside alright.

So am I being unreasonable to think he should have at least offered to cut his three-day bender short to take care of his ill, injured, pregnant wife, or am I just feeling sorry for myself?

Sorry you seem to be getting a hard time Niceguy, I get the points you are trying to make.

I only found out the week before that he was going away at all. Then when he said he was tagging time with his brother and pal on to the end of the business trip I thought it would just be the weekend and was genuinely shocked when I asked what time he would be home on Sunday to find out he wasn't going to be back until Monday evening. This was on the Thursday night I think I found out and I cried on the phone saying I was so sick and missed him and didn't want him to be away so long. He said 'oh, I thought you knew' and I felt unreasonable for spoiling his fun so actually appologised and said I was just worn out and emotional. I never asked him outright to come back though and am not sure what he would've done if I had done so, I can't imagine he would have said no to a direct request like that. But I honesly thought it was obvious I needed him, even just for a bit of emotional support.

Love, you seem to be doing a lot of thinking for him.

I do get the point that NiceGuy is making and it is a shame he is getting such a hard time on this thread.

My DH is a genuinely lovely man but he does not get hints. If I say, "I could do with a new pair of gloves", he would not think to buy me a pair - even if I say this the week before Xmas and he is struggling to think of something to buy me. I have to say, "I need new gloves, will you buy me them for Xmas".

When we first moved to Geneva I was pregnant and had a miscarriage. DH was on a business trip and did not cancel to come home. I never asked him to and he did not offer. I have to say that neither of us were happy that I was pregnant so it was not as traumatic as it seemed, but I did resent that he did not come home, even though I had said I was fine.

It took a long time before I told him that and he was genuinely sorry that he had caused me upset. We were going through a difficult patch at the time but our relationship has improved since then. One thing that has helped is being completely honest with each other.

It is no use to either partners if resentment and hurt is stored up.

That is appalling Fay. When he gets back, you need to have a long discussion with him about this. He's acting like a carefree bachelor, but he isn't. He needs to face up to that.

He is a selfish git imo.

And he is acting like a single bloke not a married, father to be.

So, lets say NiceGuy is right and he thought you had solutions to your problems. Did he ring you back and check that you had been in touch with the hospital and asked about what they had said, did he check that your dad had arrived and you were warm. Were you on his mind at all?

Sorry, but I don't think this man thinks of you at all when he's out drinking or making plans. I don't think your being treated as an equal in your relationship at all!

I think NiceGuy's posts are both sad and annoying. First of all, the fiction about male and female brains is incredibly irritating (and really, irrelevant. It doesn't matter what men as a whole do, it matters what the OP's DH does because that's what she is upset about).

Generalisations about how all men or all women may think are worthless.

Both NiceGuy's descriptions of the male brain and the rationalisations about OP's husband are scary for the same reason-they seem to be accepting that men lack empathy and that is just something to be accepted and tolerated. That's not true and it should not be tolerated.

OP, if your husband worried about you at all he seems to have been able to put that aside all too easily so he could carry on carousing with his mates. I do think you need to be more direct but please don't carry on having such low expectations of him. It just gives him a licence to be selfish.

I have to agree with Spidookly's excellent posts.

The OP really should have told him to come home. Their relationship sounds (like many I've read about on MN unfortunately) as if it's based on a careful passive-aggressive dance that's been choreographed for years. He can't read her mind, she can't say what she's really thinking, she wants him to do X but he wants to do it like Y, in the meantime she makes all his sandwiches and does his chores for him. He thinks this is fine because clearly she's doing all this and not complaining about it. If it were a problem, she'd say so? Great lumbering sighs and dirty looks and martyring "oh what a hard life I have" hints don't get far with a lot of men. You have to tell them straight up how it is, or how it's going to be.

So why don't husbands and wives just talk? TELL each other what you need, don't expect the other to know. "I need you to cook dinner this week". "Please clean the bathroom". "The spare room needs to be painted, can you take care of that?" "Come home, I'm ill and I need you". "It's absolute shit that you spend all your money on a weekend out for yourself so there's nothing left for Christmas." Is it really that hard to just say it out loud?

Hard to tell from this thread if the OP's DH really is a twat or just clueless á la Niceguy's comments. But if she is straight with him and he does not respond or change what he's doing or improve things, then I think it's the former.

This person sounds really immature. I was like that, but even then had the maturity not to have a child at that time in my life because I preferred to spend all my spare time being selfish.

Once that got old, I grew up and then decided to have children.

So you need to have a very, very serious and frank discussion and be very clear about his fair share of the work involved in life, the life he has chosen with a wife and family, and how does he plan to do this fair share.

I'd be very concerned about having a baby with a person who's still at the stage where they can drink 3 days in a row like that, tbh.

But I suppose that damage is done already so you need to focus on now and what is to come.

And be very clear about it, because he doesn't seem to get it.

My DH does not get hints either.

He is absolutely 100% male stereotype "fixer" (as, to a large extent, am I).

The point is that someone who is trying to fix a situation doesn't look at a massive problem and think "not my fault, not my problem"

That's not finding a solution, that's refusing to take responsibility.

If I hired someone and their response to a problem arising when they were away from base was "there's someone nearby who can probably help, ask them", I would not be looking to extend their employment.

If you want to take the utter bullshit "male mind" argument about how men like to offer practical solutions and don't take hints, then be consistent. A man who likes to find practical solutions would have rushed to his wife's side to offer her the practical help she so clearly needed. THe opposite of finding solutions is claiming that the problem is nothing to do with you and therefore you can ignore it.

The argument DimGuy is making is not that men are simple creatures who don't take hints, it is that men are lazy, selfish creatures who won't lift a finger to help anyone because other people's problems are not their concern.

Now some of us on here may be so jaundiced from our time on Relationships that we see the truth of what he is saying, but that doesn't make it true for all men.

Or acceptable.

Amen, Spidookly. Like I said in my earlier comment, the logical solution to this problem would be to put your partner first and make sure you helped them and that they were fine.

Fay, am worried that you seem to only be responding to NiceGuy's comments, which virtually everyone on here thinks are ridiculous and offensive. You seem to be naturally inclined to make excuses for bad male behaviour. You should've told your DH to come home in no uncertain terms. I really do think that his behaviour is a Big Deal - if he's not willing to curtail his fun when you're suffering like this, then what is he going to be like when bigger problems and responsibilities come along. He needs to buck his ideas up massively but you also need to toughen up and stand up for yourself.

PS Niceguy - recent scientific developments have proven that there is virtually no difference whatsoever between male and female brains and the presumption that there is was just based on sexism. People are genderised from the moment they're born to act 'male' or 'female', but saying this is because of their brains is nonsense. You can't excuse bad behaviour because of someone's sex or gender.

"he should probably enjoy himself now because there will be little chance for either of us in the near future!"

well maybe he actually thinks he will be able to just up and go off for three-day weekends, coz you will be in charge of baby...

is this something you have discussed?
have you agreed with him, that with baby, these things wont happen?
are you just expecting him to fall into sensible father role?
have you thought about what "enjoying yourself" means when you have a baby?
doesnt mean you cant go out or do fun stuff-it is different though...(hangovers and babies dont mix well) do you have friends with babies/children?

i agree with others saying you need to learn to make it very clear to him and spell out to him exactly what you want eg "i really need you to come home now", especially when it comes to a "crisis".

because when you have baby and there is a real crisis, he may not get it then either...

I didn't mean to just respond to Niceguy, I just felt he was getting a bit of a rough time. I have been reading all of the posts and while I need to learn to tell him more directly what I'm thinking, he has been quite selfish and needs to step up a bit as we are to become parents. I appreciate the support and indulging a bit in getting some sympathy.

I think I overcompensate a bit with things like cooking and cleaning because he earns more than twice what I do, so I feel I somehow have to do more to pull my weight in the family. That's my own hangup, and he would never suggest I'm worth any less because I earn less. But I am finding working full time on top of having what seems to be a bit of a rough pregnancy so far just too much. I need to spell that out to him though and make sure he does more to support me at home and emotionally.

Good to see the responses that it's not a case of I'm right or he's right, we need to communicate better and sort this out sooner rather than later or the resentment will build up and it will only get worse. Cheers everyone for your replies.

Don't worry Fay, it's all water off a ducks back really. Luckily I have thick skin. I just dislike the whole if a man doesn't think/do/act the way a woman thinks they should then he's a selfish bastard and string him up by his balls mentality.

It's true your bloke isn't perfect. He could have indeed taken your hints. But the fact is that he didn't. And neither did you ask him directly. I don't think this was done out of malice. Thoughtless? Perhaps. Is that a sackable offence as some people here seem to imply? No!

PS Niceguy - recent scientific developments have proven that there is virtually no difference whatsoever between male and female brains

I'm not rejecting it, I happen to know what I'm talking about: my academic speciality is sex & gender and yes, all the most cutting-edge research of the last few years has been proving that there is no difference (or negligible difference). Just because you want to pretend the research doesn't exist doesn't mean it doesn't and just because some articles still say there are differences doesn't make them true, either. Your reductive, ill-informed, old-fashioned and self-serving attitude to gender is embarrassing to read. I don't recognise a single man I know in your bleating about 'how men are'. I know for a fact that my father, DP, brother and male best friend would be highly insulted to have you speak for them on what men are like and how they think!

People are conditioned to behave in certain ways due to their gender, this is true, but being born with a certain set of genitalia does not make this innate. However, being a thoughtless arsehole like the OP's DH has got nothing to do with being male or female.

Fay - get a cleaner.

sit and say - it is too much for me.

you are both working full time so there should be no reason why you don't get a cleaner once a week to do the bulk of hoovering, dusting, ironing etc.

keep the cleaner once per week when you off with baby too - a familiar face who may also turn out to be a good babysitter... as has happened with my sister.

and agree finances - where does his/your money go? how will the baby stuff be paid for? nappies/childcare? is it all combined? is there joint account for all household and baby stuff?

a lot of these issues will rear up when you have a baby if you dont discuss the right way for you as a family, now.

does he work 100 per cent more hours than you - or just earns twice as much ? it's about hours of work versus household chores not money...but if he does earn enough then just get a cleaner. you shouldnt ahve to suffer when you got morning sickness to do housework when you can presumably afford a cleaner,,, and while mid trimester might be ok, by the end you not going to want to hoover and dust and cook so much either...

You poor thing you sound so fed up. Where in fife are you? I am dufermline if it anywhere near you would be happy to go to shops for you and get you
Some food in xx

Londonlottie - Niceguy kept insisting men's brains are completely different from women's and that's apparently why the OP's DH couldn't work out that he was being a wanker in not caring that she was suffering badly. I just pointed out that this is a load of rubbish, esp. blaming it on brain difference. Nice guy was suggesting that cos of brain difference, such crap behaviour is natural and biological. I pointed out that genderised behaviour is socialised, not innate, which is your point too. Hope that clears it up.

Broodymomma, I'm in Dunfermline too! Managed to shuffle rather gingerly through the snow to the local shop and get some supplies in (now hubby will wonder what all the fuss was about as I'm obviously not on death's door) and he should be home as soon as the trains allow - hopefully in the next half hour or so! So nice to have a friendly offer though, as I have been rather feeling sorry for myself.

New mantra - communication is the key! :)

Waves to fay as same town inhabitant. Just found this thread and the weather is awful. Just about to start a trek to ASDA. Hope everything is OK when DP gets home.

Well you have a friend in dunfermline now! I am
In duloch if you ever fancy a coffee I know it can be lonely I don't know that many people here either. Glad your dh home soon x