I have two actually. 1) DH making me lunch 2) throwing my lunch down the stairs

[SchroedingersCat]

1. I work 8am-1pm (sometimes later) monday - friday in quite a high stress job. I see to 14 month old in the night, who is a night waker and tends to wake at 5am.

DH is stay at home dad, takes DD to school, including preparing lunch box (i normally do half the dressing and clean her teeth/do her hair) and looks after 14 month old DS while I am at work.

This morning, after school run, a friend of his came around with his little girl and they (dads and children) socialised, went to the park and DH attempted to feed a teething boy.

AIBU to expect DH to at least chuck some cheese between 2 slices of bread and butter for me to eat, when I am ravenous after working til 1:20pm today? (or indeed any day i am working?)

1. I was home by 1:45pm, no lunch, stuffed a slice of peanut butter and bread down my neck and fed DS his milk (BF) and had a cuddle with him while he dozed on me. I offered to make lunch and was told 'you don't need to put DS down to make us both lunch'.

At 2:50pm i got ready to get DD from school, go into kitchen and DH has a bowl of hot food, contents unknown, so I sat down in the front room and wait, thinking he has made us both lunch and I have time to stuff a couple of mouthfuls in.

At 3pm he hollared that I need to go get DD, and it transpires this lunch was for him alone. He had meant 'you don't need to make me any lunch so take my time feeding DS'.

As I walk to the stairs a few minutes later (flat, internal private stairs) he thrusts an egg sandwich at me, which i refuse not wanting to eat an uncut runny fried egg sarnie with one hand while driving with the other and after an exchange of 'take it' 'don't want it ' he throws it full force in a pique of anger down the narrow stairs, egg, mayo, bread flying everywhere and landing in numerous places on our pretty new decent stair carpet.

Was He Being Unreasonable, or what this a just reaction to what he perceives as my ungrateful attitude to his 3pm mad grumpy dash to provide me with a sandwich.

(am a name change as DH might or might not be a lurker and knows my name on here).

fuck I missed all the stuff about you getting up in the night OP and him making food for himself but not you. YA so NBU.

If he doesn't do nights, he should be doing something extra to make up for it to take the load off you a bit, IMO

Just out of interest, why does no one in your household work full time? Is there a disability to consider or something?

I think YABU but not for the obvious reasons. My DH is a SAHD, I work more than full time and I have 3 kids under the age of 5 that were all breastfed for over a year.

I think you are desperately trying to be a superwoman/martyr and are simmering with resentment as a result of this. You are also probably secretly jealous that your DH is at home and you are working.

You need to communicate with each other about the ground rules and who is responsible for what.

I know for a fact that I do WAY more in the home than most working dads do but I don't feel resentful - I just want to spend more time with my kids as well as work.

Most women who work part time have a husband who works full time so you would be doing way more than you are if this was the case.

Ask yourself why you make the choices you are making - working, breast feeding, not taking lunch into work....to name a few. If you are happy with the answers you give yourself only then will there be more harmony in the home.

YANBU. Throwing the sandwich was petulant toddler behaviour. Making his own lunch and nothing for you while you were breastfeeding a child, and then expecting you to go back out on the school run , was thoughtless of him.

Perhaps a solution would be to make your own lunch to take with you while he gets the children sorted in the morning?

I think that because you were bf, it is obvious that you couldn't make yourself lunch at the same time and he ought to have offered to make you something.

If you were not feeding the baby, then I would not think he has any obligation to make you lunch, but it would have been a nice thing to do and good manners to offer if he was making something for himself anyway.

Throwing food down the stairs like a stroppy toddler is pretty fucking pathetic. No excuse for that kind of behaviour.

I think he is getting a pretty good deal here. You are getting up in the night, which he should be doing if he is a sahd, you are working and doing your fair share of the chores when you come home. Being honest, he sounds lazy and petulant. His job is to look after the kids, but a bit of nurturing for you wouldn't go amiss, esp as your job is stressful and bf makes you very hungry.

abbier not really relevant but.

DH worked full time. I reduced my hours to part time under flexi working, unable to return to full time now due to severe cuts (government related job). He was made redundant and as I earn significantly more than he, we decided, as we can afford it, I would work and he would look after the little one, to save the fortune that is childcare, until he was able to earn enough money for us to make money. Did not see the point in him working in a shit job that he would hate to earn no money as it would all go on childcare. We did not see why our children should have to have childcare in order for him to work when we would gain very little financially from it. When the right job is available, he will return to work. Until then we get the best of both worlds with us both able to be an active part of our children's lives.

Now don't get me wrong. He does a marvelous job at home. He is crap at housework but he tries to stay on top of it, he often shrinks my work tops/stretches my jumpers, puts a new dark towel in with the lights, but he does it so that is not ever an issue.

germum good post. I agree to some extent. I am a bit jealous of not being at home instead of DH, but it is not a secret, we have talked about our ideals and what we would like to happen, and we both know that in an ideal world he would work full time/well paid part time and I would be at home with the children. But is is how it is as we cannot change that and I cannot be surprised as I worked hard for a career in my field so i get the income and the sacrifices that go with that.

I don't think I agree with your argument that I should in effect be grateful because if DH was working I would do my share plus a lot more, so I have it good, because I am not in that situation, i am in a different one. And DH does not get out of his share because he is a man who should be working full time out of the house.

The OP offered to make lunch.

I think people are missing this point.

Schroedinger

I am not BF but I would also die if I didn't eat anything from 8-1. Buy some Jordan's bars and bananas and eat at your desk if possible around 11. Pretty healthy and will keep you going. Also what do you eat for breakfast? Porridge might help?

As for the school run and the nights, if it works for you to do them, fine, BUT then I think your DH should do all the childcare in the mornings so you can have a nice sit-down breakfast and digest properly before you get to work.

As for Sarniegate.... my DP occasionally has random temporary hissyfits. I HATE it and have taken him aside and told him to stow the attitude before now. Does he do this often as a standard reaction OR is he at the end of his tether about something?

OP - I was merely stating that because I know that if my DH worked FT I would be doing a lot more work around the home and so at least feel grateful that I do less than most women who work FT as well as a DH working FT.

In an ideal world, I would have a complete fifty fifty split between me and DH but that will not happen as DH will never earn as much as me but I accept that.

Also, I do not know your sleep situation but you sound like you are probably chronically sleep deprived which doesn't help anyone.

germum chronically sleep deprived? Ooooh yeaaah! I worked out the other day, based on an 8 hour sleep and loss of 3 hours per night (average, has been more than that, esp in early days) I have lost a total of 1170 hours in that last 14 months . That side of it is getting better though, not really an issue now as soon it will be where we want to be.

love the name schrodinger, are you a physicist? sorry, completely irrelevant.

I thought, make your own fucking sandwhich, but you know said he made himeslef one and not you - thats shit.

Sounds to me like he is struggling with being SAHD, for one reason or another. Could that be so?

No WAY are you BU.

You are BREASTFEEDING his child. How dare he fix himself a bite to eat and offer you an afterthought of a runny egg sandwich and then throw it down the stairs.

OP, I think words are needed with your DH.

Cheek

I think it is relevant really. You're going on like you've worked a 12 hour shift or something, and you've actually barely done half a day. I think it has a bearing on the responses: if you'd done a full day while he chilled with his mates, the yes, he should cook. My DH is at home in the day, and usually cooks...but I wouldn't dream of getting the hump if he didn't.

Two adults to look after two kids, only one part time job between them...and you're finding things to moan about! As Compo said above: your work-life balance really does sound like heaven!

I agree with abbier.

Also I would add that if you and dh cannot sort out this type of issue then unfortunately your problems run a bit deeper than who makes the sandwiches.

revolting from time to time we get moments of hissy fits, but not yet chucked food down stairs. That is a first.

As for calm mornings while DH does everything. Ha! We are relatively organised in the mornings, clothes ready the night before, sometimes breakfast stuff set out (not always) but getting up at 5am means I can do some stuff but not always recently as I am working on that bit and it involves a crying baby and not available til 6am or so. DH gets up about 6:45am-7am and does not generally enjoy me 'sorting myself out' while he runs around after two active children.

Your dh may not enjoy you "sorting yourself out" but that is tough imo.

Presumably we are talking about basics (i.e. you are having a quick shower and getting dressed in work clothes rather than an hour's soak in the bath?)

Possibly regardless of the financial practicalities he is the type of person that needs to be a wohd? Is he very unhappy at home?

Personally I need to work, I am glad in some ways that I can truthfully say it is due to financial need as this keeps judgy people quiet. However it is deeper than that, I need to work for sanity reasons and many other reasons that some people may consider selfish.

I think you're both unreasonable. I hope you don't do this in front of your DCs? What is just a nasty display of temper to adults can be frightening for kids.

This might be a one off event but really, you don't seem to behave like partners... I can't imagine makng some food for me and not my husband, or him making a cup of tea for himself and not me...

Do you like each other even?

It's nothing to do with the length of hours worked. He cooked himself a hot meal and ate it and only afterwards thought of OP.

It's as easy to cook for two as one.

I had an ex who used to do this.

It's selfish and OP is breastfeeding, she needs her meals.

Any caring man would not think twice but give her half the meal.

abbier not sure i made it sound like anything other than the hours i actually work, as stated. If I worked 12 hours this AIBU would not be posted as I would know the answer already.

lying now there is no need to be extreme. Honestly no point making presumptions based on little evidence. This was a situation.

DS was in the front room. DD was at school.

How you come to presume that an argument/lack of communication means we don't like each other I don't know

Hang on, you work 8 till 1 and don't eat anything in that time? I work 8 till 1:30 and have a snack at half ten and sandwiches and fruit at 12:30. You need to sort yourself out some food at work.

Am a bit confused about him having some sort of cooked lunch just before 3. Won't that spoil his dinner? Do you have a routine for meal times?

onepeice yes he does need to work. His esteem is lower than it used to be, BUT this is discussed regularly, and we come to the same agreement about how we will proceed.

And workwise, we live in Devon, it is sloooow down here, not many jobs in even poorly paid work, so it is not as easy as working at anything. And if he did, he would be just an unhappy working 40 hours for no money in a job he hates.

We have options and ideas, but nothing is instant. There is no instant fix to our current employment/worklife balance situation.

YABU to expect him to make you lunch, get it yourself when you get in, but HWBU to through food at you.

If you were BFing and he was making something it would have been polite for him to make for you too, especially if you specifically asked.