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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

So do I just have to accept that being married means I have to do fuckin everything?

100 replies

Mrsgilbertgrape · 17/08/2011 17:24

sorry about the language but I am so angry.

Why is it that nothing, not even the simplest of instructions manage to get into his thick head.

I should have known that sending him to the shops would be a disaster, I should have known that don't use the red bank card use the blue one (said three times) would mean that he goes uses the fuckin red one!!

Now we are overdrawn and leaving to go visit family tonight and I have noway to get funds into the overdrawn account.

That's us landed with £90 bank charges, have tried calling the bank to extend overdraft etc but nope can't be done.

Please tell me I am being unreasonable so I stop wanting to stick the red bank card up his arse!

OP posts:
voddiekeepsmesane · 17/08/2011 20:01

Yet another MN martyr. Spends the first few years of the marriage of either "no.no.love I will do that for you" or "he can't do it as well as me so I will do it", then a few years in " he can't do anything right!"

Mandy2003 · 17/08/2011 20:05

OP, why didn't you confiscate suggest he left the red bank card at home?

Original poster
Mrsgilbertgrape · 17/08/2011 20:10

Both bank cards were in the car while we were in the house, dh left and went in the car to the shop.

It did cross my mind to take it out but I thought he had got the message, I even mentioned not to use it as it would get refused and embarras him which is what I thought would happen but it let him pay and go overdrawn for some reason.

OP posts:
Pandemoniaa · 17/08/2011 20:16

I know that it is often much easier to do whatever it is that needs doing yourself but you can soon find yourself stuck in a vicious circle where the less responsibility that is taken equals an ever increasing inability to take any responsibility. If that makes sense!

I've just put my foot down over certain things I'm sick and tired of taking sole responsibility for. Admittedly there has been a Big Event that's acted as a catalyst but I became increasingly aware that dp was taking my capability and relatively good nature for granted. So while it is difficult to sit back and witness a debacle, sometimes it is better for everyone if you do.

blackeyedsusan · 17/08/2011 20:36

the question is, yhow do you get them to take responsibility, without cost to the already tight finances, or having a detrimental affect on the dcs ? some things are easy, letting them sort out their half's family birthdays etc...

voddiekeepsmesane · 17/08/2011 20:43

"the question is, yhow do you get them to take responsibility, without cost to the already tight finances, or having a detrimental affect on the dcs ? some things are easy, letting them sort out their half's family birthdays etc..."

sounds like your taling of a 18 year old Confused

BoneyBackJefferson · 17/08/2011 20:44

at the risk of repeating others on here

Why are you treating your DH like a child?

voddiekeepsmesane · 17/08/2011 20:44

that should read... talking of an 18 year old

voddiekeepsmesane · 17/08/2011 20:51

treat like a child expect childish behaviour IMO

DoMeDon · 17/08/2011 20:52

I have found that if you act differently people REact differnetly. It's all about balance the more parent like you ar, the more child like he will become. Just STOP it, say it once and let it go.

The answer to how to do it with tight finances/imprssionable DC, etc is just do it. They are fucking up now anyway so step back and trust they will get it right. If you speak to them adult to adult, as an equal, you will get a better result.

Original poster
Mrsgilbertgrape · 17/08/2011 20:54

Ach have calmed down now.

He has shown me plenty of his good points since I started this thread.

Need to get off now anyway, he is away tomorrow so I need to go pack his bag for him Wink

OP posts:
Whatmeworry · 17/08/2011 20:57

How did he cope pre marriage? (One assumes he did....)

Chummybud1 · 17/08/2011 20:57

I have never met so many people who have such perfect relationship and jump on every little comment others make about their others half.

My dh would probably have used the red card to because hedoesnot listen, nothing to do with being treated like a kid, maybe in their relationship she is in charge of money and cards while he is in charge of something else.

I would ram the card where the sun don't shine, and I know how you feel.

I once sent my dp for a pet hamster and he came back with a lizard.

voddiekeepsmesane · 17/08/2011 21:00

Chummy more fool you then. I EXPECT my DP of 11 years to behave like a bloody adult. I do not have a perfect relationship but an equal one I have children and want a completely different relationship with dp than be his mother figure.

Georgimama · 17/08/2011 21:18

Perfect? Well I've never thought so but the more I read on MN of other people's relationships, the better and better it seems to me.

BertieBotts · 17/08/2011 21:31

It isn't about having a perfect relationship though, just standing up to the general notion that all men are a bit useless and if your husband is, oh well, you just have to put up with it. You don't! If your DH is a good guy and you're generally happy, then great, but lots of women are in unhappy marriages and just put up with shit for years because they're constantly told "That's just how men are" or "Lol, yeah, mine's useless too! Typical man!" (Not saying this is what's happening with you OP)

gaaagh · 17/08/2011 21:35

Georgimama, I agree.

I had no idea women in the UK in 2011 put up with so much shite from their husbands, tbh.

I appreciate DH a lot more now I've been around on MN for a few years. I think it's easy to take for granted that your life partner treats you with respect, is genuinely not in competition when it comes to earning power and career prospects, doesn't walk all over you regarding housework, is actually interested in their children just as much as their wife, and is on the same hymn sheet around how to treat the in-laws.

I just took this for granted. I've raised DDs to think that's how things are.

It's not; it's how things should be, but it's not how they are.

Being here has really opened my eyes. In fact I've stopped going onto the Relationship section on MN now because every third or fourth post I feel like (virtually) grabbing the poster by the shoulders and shouting "you're worth more than this dickhead is giving you, aim higher" - which isn't very practical/constructive Grin

carpetlover · 17/08/2011 21:37

Well until I came on MN, it never occured to me that so many women have what I would consider a bizarre relationship with their DH. I was dumbfounded to read 2 threads along the lines off, 'how can I get him to help around the house' within about 3mths of joining. The very worse bit was hearing other women say stuff like, 'well you know what men are like' Shock

They don't just suddenly wake up one morning and act like tossers. Either you have enabled that behaviour or you married a man whose mother did in which case you should have ran away very fast.

carpetlover · 17/08/2011 21:38

x posts gaaagh!

Georgimama · 17/08/2011 21:42

gaaagh I have the entire relationships topic hidden for that precise reason.

BertieBotts · 17/08/2011 21:45

Yes but carpetlover, not everyone was as lucky as you to have a good relationship template from the first time they started dating. If all the men you've ever known are lazy/excessively competitive/aggressive/general knob ends, then that's what you expect when you start dating them.

Georgimama · 17/08/2011 21:49

That's a massive assumption Bertie, my father treated my mother like shit which is precisely why I don't allow myself to be treated in the same way.

notlettingthefearshow · 17/08/2011 21:53

Ah he does sound like hard work. You need to find what he responds to, if he can't/won't remember simple things like postcodes and which card to use. Does he just have a very poor memory? He may need some techniques to help him. It's not normal not to be able to remember your own postcode, or what petrol goes in the car.

Signet2012 · 17/08/2011 21:56

I dont think its about being a shit husband..... dont we all have issues with our partners from time to time?

I love mine to bits, he is a really good man, he treats me brilliantly, we have a lot of fun, there is a lot of love and when I hear my friends/colleagues talking about theirs who go out drinking all the time/ spend all the bill money on drink/gamble/don't come home Shock etc Im grateful to have a "normal" and decent man.

That said as much as I love him, some days he drives me to distraction by being forgetful, gormless and generally frustrating me. This doesnt mean I love him any less and Im sure if he where so inclined he could probably write a post about me being argumentative, annoying, apparently Im obsessed with time and there never being enough of it, I dont put anything in the culterly drawer straight (he doesnt know what a tea towel is for and leaves everything on the drainer so there!)

I dont mother him, but I do have more common sense than him, he has more knowledge around other stuff.

Op have a rant about his stupidity then just try find the FFS what are you like and make him fix it. :)

gaaagh · 17/08/2011 21:58

My Mum has ended up financially fucked in her retirement years due to being a SAHM (my father isn't a bad man, but is very set in his ways, and views a woman "being forced" Hmm to work outside the home as a failure of the husband, which rubbed off on mum's way of thinking (not that she had much choice back in the day from the overall attitude at the time anyway)... very black and white, and not a good template to see on a day to day basis).

I wouldn't say my parents' way of relationships was a good one to base my own on. It certainly has helped me to avoid a few pitfalls - maybe that's the benefit I've gained, I guess. It's taught me that good parents can still be shit husbands some of the time, due to social conditioning, not neccesarily because of being a shit husband, IYSWIM.

Parents in laws aren't much better, in fact they're worse, because MIL "mothers" FIL the same way as has been discussed here... e.g. when MIL once went into hospital for a routine op but had to stay in slightly longer than planned, FIL coudn't cope and bunged them all off onto a random female neighbour. This was whilst he was on holiday (self employed, ran his own business) and MIL had prepared a freezer full of food in advance. Just was incapable of looking after his own DCs even when given a helping hand and it was easy circumstances compared to every day life.

Now that is being a shit husband, IMHO. But I thought those issues were confined to previous generations; I was sorely mistaken,hence why I don't post in Relationships or even look there any more. I get too ranty!

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