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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Aibu to rant about the stupidity of my dp?

110 replies

Rosedee · 24/03/2011 08:34

So dp getting ready for work. I go into bathroom and ds is with dp. Dp ready to leave so I say please put ds in his cot with a few toys til I have finished in bathroom. Here's the dilemma, I had stripped the cot and put the mattress on one end to air a bit and was planning on re making shortly.
So when I ask dp to put ds in cot he is faced with this and has to ask me what to do as "there is no mattress" aaargh!!
How bloody hard is it to lay a mattress back down? It's not like I asked him to make it up again (which also stumped him once as he couldn't work out how to put a fitted cot sheet back on ffs)
Does anyone elses dp lack an ounce of common sense or is it just mine?

OP posts:

Imnotaslimjim · 24/03/2011 08:37

Now my Dh can be daft, but that takes the biscuit! did he suss it or did you have to tell him?

lesley33 · 24/03/2011 08:41

Do you criticise him a lot? Just wondering as he is either a bit daft or afraid of not doing EXACTLY what you tell him to do - so had to ask.

loveulotslikejellytots · 24/03/2011 08:46

Yeah. My DHdoes things like that. I left my clothes on the ironing board this morning (just finished ironing them) DH is running late so I told him to leave his breakfast plate on the ironing board, he can just shoot off then without making a detour to the kitchen! I had other washing up to do anyway.

I thought DH might have put my clean, ironed clothes on the bed, then put his plate on the board... he put it on top of my clean clothes... .

Luckily I only had to re-iron my top as it had a plate mark in it!

Original poster

Rosedee · 24/03/2011 08:46

He Sussed it! Dp would say I nag but tbh if I let him get on with it I would get no help whatsoever with anything so probably am a bit of a whingebag. I have told him that if he helped a bit more or thought for himself sometimes I wouldn't have to nag him or moan. Get fed up of my own voice sometimes but I don't know how to get him to think of stuff otherwise. Any tips?

OP posts:

stream · 24/03/2011 08:53

loveulotslikejellytots - surely what you expected him to do would have taken more time than what he was going to do?!

thumbwitch · 24/03/2011 08:58

Rosedee - mine is like yours. The only thing is to refuse to help him or he just gets worse and worse. I know that loads of people on here say things like "he's an adult ffs, you have to treat him like one, not like a child" but for my own sanity I cannot let him carry on. HE chooses to behave as though I am a second mother to him - I didn't bloody start it! He wasn't like this in England, it's only since we got to Australia (and within a short drive of his own mother) that he regressed - and now I have to either go completely mad with it or work on retraining him to being a useful adult in the home. It's exTREMEly fucking annoying!

So - what do I do - never pick up after him, make it do himself, even if it would be so much simpler to do it myself.
When he can't find something - suggest he opens his eyes and looks, picks something up and looks under it, remembers where he last had it - sounds stupid but it works more than half the time.

I have tried so many times to point out to him that his behaviour is not conducive to a sane adult relationship between us but it doesn't seem to change much - he still seems to think that it's much more fun being on the kid's side.

Sorry, bit of a self-indulgent rant there. BUt i sympathise - I have to spell stuff out to him when it comes to care of our DS - not because he would do things differently, he just wouldn't do them at all. Like cleaning Ds's teeth - he's never done it. Washing his hair - he's never done it. Cutting his nails - he's never done it. Refuses - I am not trying to monopolise these things - I would LOVE for DH to do it but no.

He can cook though. :)

Original poster

Rosedee · 24/03/2011 09:11

Ditto with the dp who can cook. And luckily he is good with ds, might forget the odd teeth clean on a weekend but i let him get on with it. I just wish I could get some help in the house. Any help. I refuse to let my son grow up thinking its ok to sit on your arse while your wife/girlfriend does everything. I don't expect him to do a lot just something!

OP posts:

MrsBonkers · 24/03/2011 09:23

Yep, for an intelligent man, my DH can be bloody dumb!
YANBU to find it annoying.

AlmightyCitrus · 24/03/2011 09:32

DH is carrying shopping into the kitchen. I ask him if he could just switch the washer on while he is in there. (For example) He'll stop and look at me blankly until I say "put the shopping down first, then turn on the washer.

He's an intelligent man. But can't do anything without being told. I dare say the stood up mattress would have him stumped for hours.

Unfortunately DS is showing many of the same traits. sigh.

thumbwitch · 24/03/2011 09:47

That's the worst bit, isn't it AlmightyCitrus - that the DSs start to copy/absorb this behaviour - drives me bats! My DS is only 3 but has already developed the "I can't find it mummy"
"it's in the bag"
"no it's not, I can't see it"
"try opening the bag"
"no it's not there mummy - you find it"
"take out the top thing in the bag..."
"I FOUND it mummy, I FOUND it!"

DH also believes in the dishwasher-filling fairy, the putting-shopping-away fairy and the take-the-coffee-mug/glass-into-the-kitchen fairy. I killed them all.

Pioneer · 24/03/2011 09:53

Oh my god is my Dh secretly married to you as well OP?

He always asks me really stupid things like "Where's Ds's shoes?"

"ERm, where they always are, by the door"

Or if he asks where an item of clothing is and I say, "It's in the ironing basket", he never finds it because he just looks at the basket, rather than taking things out and searching through.

Many other examples - I will ahve a think.

Jux · 24/03/2011 10:02

DH is just hte same. When we were first married, his desk was always arranged precisely. He had a coin which lived exactly there on the desk, and one evening he was sitting there and started panicking I can't find my coin, my coin's gone, I can't find it, help. I got up and went over. There was a blank sheet of A4 paper on the desk in the coin's place. I picked it up. There was the coin.

Nutter.

elmofan · 24/03/2011 10:12

thumbwitch Can i have my DH back please
Oh no wait .... mine can not even cook so its ok

Op after being with my dh for almost 20 years now i have learned that the more you do for men the more they are happy to let you do .

thumbwitch · 24/03/2011 10:15

elmofan - definitely not just your DH - that's why I refuse to do even the simplest things like put his razor away in the bathroom cabinet - I call him to do it. Today he left the loo seat and lid up having not flushed the loo (for the first time in ages, to be fair to him) - I could have sorted it myself but no. I called him to come and sort it.
I'm hoping one day he'll realise that the "nagging" stopping is in his hands - I've told him this often enough but it doesn't seem to filter through...

elmofan · 24/03/2011 10:30

Good on you its the only way he will learn LOL

My Dh is dreadful though , he is 9 years older than me & he does not even know how to turn the cooker on

I am a eejit for letting him away with things for soooooo long .

Al1son · 24/03/2011 10:39

thumbwitch I'm currently working on that principle with DH and DC but not sure if it will ever start to have an effect. DH just comes and does whatever I ask but it doesn't seem to make him do it without being asked on future occasions.

Have you noticed it working yet?

DC have Asperger's/Autism so they have an excuse.

thumbwitch · 24/03/2011 10:46

Al1son - yes, up to a point it works - but then he forgets again. It was bad when he was away for 3 days for work and even worse when he came back after a week away - it was like he'd forgotten completely how to be part of an adult household again! and was expecting everything to just happen around him.

The razor - I used to threaten to throw it in the bin with DS's nappies if he didn't put it away - and did so a few times. It's very rarely left out now and I usually give him 5 secs to get to it (he always manages) before it goes in the bin if he does forget. but seriously - how hard is it to work out that leaving a razor within reach of a 3yo is a really fucking bad idea???

Original poster

Rosedee · 24/03/2011 11:10

At least I'm not the only one but it does beg the question.. What the he'll is wrong with these blokes? Think I'm going to start piling up stuff and leaving t for him to do. get so fed up having to remember everything while my supposedly intelligent dp wanders around with fluff in hisbrain and blinkers on his eyes. Think we need a mass strike ladies.

OP posts:

breakfastbiscuit · 24/03/2011 12:03

I love this thread.

Here is me thinking it's only my dh who is trapped inside a toddlers body.

My biggest complain is leaving phone chargers plugged in when the phone is finished charging, how stupid can you get when we have three children. If I notice this upstairs and he is down I call him up to unplug it and give him yet another lecture on how it is a bad idea (sigh)

We also have a dishwasher fairy and put things away fairy.

vic77en · 24/03/2011 12:11

Dp is always asking me how long I have to cook things for, how much calpol to give to ds etc etc.
My response is always "look on the packet". Still he persists in asking - why?

plopplopquack · 24/03/2011 12:13

Maybe he wasn't sure if you wanted him to just put the mattress down, put the sheet on it as well, or maybe that you had forgot that the bed was like that and would prefer him to put dc somewhere else. If you are always critcal then he's going to be scared to do anything.

Hereforlife · 24/03/2011 12:17

If he'd have done it, he'd have done it wrong or not your way.

Pioneer · 24/03/2011 13:13

Oh I am so with you on the phone chargers thing.

And laptop leads.

My DH actually uses lamps etc to keep the charger leads on the table for ease of use .

whatsallthehullaballoo · 24/03/2011 13:52

Holy Moley!!! YES!!! THAT IS MY HUSBAND TOO!!!

He is a virtual Ape in the house, just vaguely bashes at things with his hands to get them to work, dumbly searches for things and cannot exercise an atom of bloody common bloody sense - it is infuriating!!!

I have 3-5 kids to look after in the day and he just about tops it off when getting in from work.

Argh ARGH ARgh....and breathe....

JeffTracy · 24/03/2011 14:09

...but ask you to unblock a U-bend, lay a concrete path or put up a shelf and you go all

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