to think that DH has just decided he can't even be arsed to try to come home in the snow tonight

[margaretluna]

DH works in central London. We live out about an hour's commute from Victoria. Getting from train station to our house is absolutely fine as only an inch of snow here and we are on a main road only 5 mins from station. So no problems really at this end.

DH was meant to be going to a champagne tasting after work tonight - some kind of Christmas do with other companies that do work for him. Sort of a show your face thing rather than compulsory, but nice to do of course.

I texted snow updates a few times today so he knew what was happening here. He phoned at 6pm to say the trains out of Victoria are currently cancelled so there is no point bothering yet and he might as well go to the champagne tasting thing. Then if there are still no trains then he will give one of our friends a call and see if he can stay there. Makes sense I guess, rather than hang around Victoria for a few hours.

I have since texted twice - no answer - and called - phone switched off/no reception. So I don't know if he is coming home but am suspecting he has just decided to get drunk on champagne and hotfoot it to a friend's rather than attempt a cold journey home and then will call me when asking him to come home is moot.

Ordinarily I'd be fine with this - he works hard, he is really not an unreasonable bloke, champagne is nice, what is the point of battling through snow if there is another option but
a) I have a 9 week old baby and a toddler
b) baby has had first set of jabs today so not herself
c) toddler is going through a really bad patch behaviour wise
d) toddler is going through a really bad patch behaviour wise partly due to the baby but mainly because he is missing his dad who has had two business trips in the last two weeks so hasn't been around much and instead he has only had screaming harpy of a mother to look after him and then full on attention of grandparents when it was too much for me, so he is all over the place at the moment
e) screaming harpy of a mother had her first postnatal meltdown yesterday because i'm exhausted, we have the builders in so the house is a noisy tip, our boiler keeps breaking and nobody will come out to fix it in a hurry so i am worried about it being too cold for children, DH has been away so I have been shouldering the burden of childcare and toddler is being very very difficult so I am shattered and emotionally drained.

I don't know whether I should be furious that he made no effort to come home to see/help me and just hold my hand as I am feeling a bit down at the moment. He could have left work early to come home - he is senior enough that he could do that - but instead he stayed at work until ythe train situation became impossible and he now seems to have resigned himself to just being in London, and hell he might as well therefore go for champagne.

Or has he actually made a sensible call, it is just one of those things, bad luck that the snow has come immeditaley on the back of his business trips yadder yadder and I should just be grateful I am in a reasonably warm house and not having to either try and get a very delayed train home or sleep on a friend's sofa which he will be doing.

I genuinely don't know if IABU so don't know whether to let rip when he eventually calls or whether to sympathise with his plight.

Any thoughts?

(Regular but name changed as DH knows my posting name and I'd be mortified if he found this when it could just me being completely unreasonable)

Like I said, it depends on your personality, and what you are able to cope with.

"I am defending everyone's right to express an opinion (including CD ) without being hounded by a mob"

That makes no sense.

Every individual in that mob has as much right to express their opinion that class was being obnoxious as she has to express obnoxious opinions.

Hey happiestblonde good luck with the hospital check. I have the same thing next week and am also bricking it.
(Not going private though, but we can argue about that another time)

Sorry about the hijack!

I think HerBeatitude has it.

I was being wimpy, and there is nothing wrong with that as everyone is allowed to be like that at times, but I am not a wimp. I have no problem with people telling me I was being a wimp right at that moment - it's part of the reason I posted. But there is way I would post in AIBU if I was a wimp through and through - cannot stand people who post in AIBU and then get really upset if people say YABU. I am usually a very strong, resilient person who normally gets on with things no problem without any day to day support (no close friends here as recently moved and families supportive but live far away so help is only infrequent) - hence the builders at the same time as a newborn, plus other stuff like running a playgroup, doing an OU course et cetera... But I have been having a bad week or so due to DH's unexpected travel coinciding with the peak of newborn exhaustion and the messiest part of teh building works, and now the bad weather just when i least wanted anything else on my plate.

I really didn't mind people saying IWBU, and indeed classydiva's first post was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to hear on here before I decided whether to get upset with DH or not, and those posts and DH's subsequent actions all gave me food for thought.

But her second was uncalled for, regardless of whether I was being a wimp or not. If I had been on here for ages complaining about how shit life was, she might have had a point asking why I had the two children with this age gap (even if it is pointless and unconstructive because i can't give them back!) but this was my first ever post like this so she was clearly just making a point for the hell of it to cause a ruckus and then never returned to answer her critics. That makes her a more wimpish person than me I reckon!

No problem at all with any other post on here. Nice to get a good range of balanced opinions when you're feeling a bit upset like I was.

Goblinchild, it doesn't depend on your personality and what you are able to cope with. Everyone has bad days, everyone, however tough, however competent, however superwomanish, has the occasional day where everything feels too much.

Or are you going to claim that you have never had one of those days? Seriously?

Of course I've had days when I've found it hard to cope.
They have involved not being able to heat or clothe individuals I am responsible for, having one sn child and a full-time, inflexible, demanding job, him being excluded for three days on a regular basis and other stuff I found very difficult to manage.
SIL had a weekend totally destroyed and was in tears because the workmen had delivered the wrong tiles for her second bathroom.
So being at home with two children and some builders ranks low on my scale of misery, and would send SIL into psychiatric care.

But tht's the point isn't it - different things are the last straw for different people.

Sometimes it can be something quite trivial that makes some feel "oh fuck it, I give up" and sometimes it can be something major. It's not for anyone else to say at what point someone can feel like shit and have an "oh fuck it" moment.

I really dislike the idea that there is some kind of gold standard of coping and you're not allowed to feel shit until it gets to a certain line that someone else has drawn. Life's not a competition ("see how much more together and competent I am than you. You're breaking down over the wrong things, it would take a lot more than that to make me feel desperate. See how much better I am than you?")

'But tht's the point isn't it - different things are the last straw for different people'

I thought that's what I was saying?

OP posted in AIBU, not parenting or chat or babies or whatever. So there are going to be posters who think that she is making a large fuss over a small problem and will say so.
I know others who are coping with a huge amount more than I am, doesn't make me feel inferior or incompetent or excessively defensive.

Yes agreed, but you can tell someone they're being unreasonable, without actually telling them their life choices are wrong.

I totally understand. Been in a similar position myself in the last couple of months, no toddler, just a young baby.

I don't think my DH really understood why I needed him home after work, and carried on going out once or twice a week. After all, I cook dinner, and fed DS all evening, he didn't understand what a sanity saver it is to be able to hand a grizzly baby over to someone else, even just for a short bit. 16 hours struggling to make yourself a drink or get a moment to have a wee is a lot. He just about got the message, then had to go away for a family funeral, but broke down and got stuck for 4 days, baby and I both had colds at the time too and he was devastated he couldn't get back to help.

So I don't thing UABU, but I don't necessarily think he is either. You could do with his help, he's not in a position to give it.

Have you got a friend who can pop around to mind the little ones for half an hour while you have a shower or make dinner or something? If not, can you make sure you get out, walk to a cafe or something, during the day, so you get a change of scene. I force myself out with DS in a sling every day, just so I don't go stir crazy on top of everything else. That's especially important with the building, my entire downstairs and landing are mid-decorating, bare plaster, no carpets, so depressing, much nicer to be in a friend's house, or a coffee shop, or a mother and baby group.

AIBU to be giggling about having my downstairs redecorated? I clearly need to get out today...

Surely they don't come in the snow? (The decorators I mean)

Can you get out there? We can't here, there's 2 foot of snow outside. DD tried to do snow angels and they didn't last long as the indent was so deep the snow kept falling in and spoiling the shape.