or is DH? Warning: long and arguably petty!

[moviemadness]

OK, this is going to seem silly, but DH and I are bickering over a recent trip to the cinema.

DH's family are not great at communication and not very connected as a family. Instead of them being clear and concise with issues of domestic life, they tend to just put up and shut up or expect everyone else to go along with what they want (depending on who the issue involves) until someone suddenly explodes from frustration and it all comes pouring out in a big row.

DH has of course picked up these habits and is sometimes blind to the effect it can have on a family unit and how it can cause unnecessary problems.

For example, we once stayed with his DM and were paying rent for the time we were there. DH's job has times of the year when things can be very stressful. He had a weeks holiday coming up which everyone was aware of. His mother decided she was going to have the bathroom overhauled without mentioning it to anyone. We only found out the morning the guys came round to do the work. Keep in mind we were paying rent. It caused a huge issue with DH's ability to work at home as well as massive inconvenience during a very stressful work week. Had she simply mentioned that builders were coming to do some work, he could have asked her to hold on a few days till the start of his holiday.

Incidents of complete lack of communication like this are totally normal in his family even though they constantly lead to disagreements in domestic life.

DH doesn't understand that communication even with minor issues is key to having a smooth running and stress free home life.

The other day we decided to go and watch a film.

I asked him how long a film was and he told me an hour and a half without checking.

The film was actually two and a half hours long and it caused subsequent problems which would take too long to explain, but to give an idea, we missed DD's bedtime, I wouldn't have wanted to go let alone take DD had I known.

He does this kind of thing all the time (at least once a week) and I am so fed up. I don't understand why he didn't just check the films run time so I would have just stayed home to begin with.

He says it was just a throwaway response. When he does this though, it can cause all sorts of confusion and stress.

He was on the cinema's website when I asked so could so easily have checked.

I know it sounds petty in isolation, but he does this constantly and I am at my wits end explaining to him that this kind of blaze' attitude to answering simple questions can cause a lot of stress later on.

I am finding this hard to explain.

DH thinks I am BU and that I am seeing his actions as malicious even though they are not.

I just do not understand why he wouldn't check the run time of the film when I asked specifically and I think it is really rude.

AIBU? And does anyone out there understand what I mean? Its so hard to explain.

Its just that a minor thing can spiral, causing larger problems because of one blaze' answer to a question that doesn't require a brain surgeon to answer.

We are still bickering about it.

He thinks I have overreacted so I feel he just doesn't understand.

He isn't laid back when he cares about something which makes it worse for me.

He actually gets mad at me for being late to things as he likes to always be on time. He is very on the ball with everything it seems, except when it comes to me

Oh gawd, I think I am going to throw myself a pity party

DH was similar.

DD's now 3 and DH has realised that actually I do have good reasons for asking those kinds of questions.

There's only one way he'll learn. In a situation like this, when it gets to 90 mins, you hand DD to him (screaming or not) and say sweetly "you said the film would be over now, you checked - your responsibility now." And leave him to it.

In our case it took a complete disregard for instructions, a blatant underestimation of time for a particular activity, running out of expressed breast milk (not easy for DH to replace when he'd somehow got through 50oz of the stuff in 4 hours and DD had only actually drunk one 3oz bottle) and an emergency trip into central London by DH and DD to my workplace so I could feed her to get him to understand. Bedtimes were a similar issue - if she wasn't in bed at bedtime due to his actions, he had to put her to bed. Don't think there's anything Gina Ford about bedtimes, more than 30 minutes late and DD turned into an absolute monster and woke several times at night.

So - YANBU re your DH, but let him learn the hard way, not through your nagging.

On the other hand, YABU taking your DD to the cinema (especially so close to bedtime). Did you really expect an 18mo to sit quietly and patiently through 90 mins? There's a reason Peppa Pig episodes are 5 mins long! Get a babysitter/rent a DVD...

OP my DH can be a bit like this. He's not that detail oriented and tends to think it'll all work out (and yes, he's like this at work too). It's got worse since we've had kids, and it bothers me more since we had kids because the impact is greater. So I feel for you.

But the truth is I've screwed up a lot more since we've had kids too. They take up a lot of brain space. I short cut all sorts of things in order to try and stay sane. Ocassionally one of the things I short cut ends up causing problems for someone else, normally DH.

If he respects his family but treats them similarly I don't think being vague to you means he doesn't respect you - just that he does't see this kind of thing as a sign of respect letting you stand in the foyer with a toddler for two hours on the other hand does seem disrespectful no matter how he treats others.

It's annoying but it's likely a way he copes with the overload of family life, especially if it wasn't his strong suit before you had children. If you otherwise love him, like being with him and think he's a good father I would try to work out how to side step relying on him for this sort of thing. We all have our faults.

That level of disregard would drive me mad. YANBU OP.

YANBU OP but you're not going to change him. So what you need to do is change how you deal with him (or change your relationship with him, as in, leave).

I once had a boss in a very stressful and time-crunched job who used to say "ask the real question". Because he'd get people asking him some roundabout question without sharing the details with him in order to suss out info that they needed do make decisions on their own work. When in fact they should have just cut to the point and asked him what they needed to know because he was the boss and knew much more than the rest of us did at any point in time.

In your cinema example, you needed to ask the real question which would have been "what time does the movie finish as DD needs to go to bed by X". Not the roundabout question "how long is the movie" which could mean you are thinking about any one of a million things.

Clearly your DP is neither on the ball in being able to think of this stuff himself, nor is he very good at reading you when you ask questions. So you need to cut to the chase and be very blunt and direct with him. If you sense he is fobbing you off, then either tell him to get you the real answer, or find out yourself. Or just tell him you won't go to the cinema (or whatever the case may be) until he gets his act together and takes you seriously.

Surely the worst part of this is your DH let you stand in the foyer for an hour, with the baby, and didn't come out to check what was going on, or where you'd got to. If this had been my DH he'd have been out pretty swiftly, assuming a) nappy explosion or b) an accident had happened.

Not checking on you shows an even greater lack of respect I think (for your DC too).

It sounds like your DH never ever thinks "why am I being asked this?" like he thinks it's more important to give any answer quickly rather than the right one.

Unfortunately, while you shouldn't have to explain everything to him, if he's not been raised to ever think about why people are asking things then you will have to keep explaining. Or alternatively, he might have been used to the fact that people will ask things they don't really need to know the answer too, does MIL/FIL ask pointless questions for the sake of making conversation?

You need to adapt to the person he is - however, he also needs to think about his DD, she is not solely your responsbility, why didn't he think about her bedtime? Does he leave family stuff to you?

You posted "We wanted to see how she would do at the cinema (yes, big mistake)." That implies to me that you and he had discussed this at some point before deciding to go to this film.

He is, I hope, familiar with your daughter's bedtime and how she reacts when it is missed and she is overtired.

You ask him how long the film is, the answer to which is a couple of clicks away on the website he's browsing. Without actually checking, he gave you an (inaccurate) answer in a manner that allowed you to accept the answer given.

Now, I think your average adult would have tied these three things together without it having to be spelled out to them. And thought to themselves, is this a good film to use as DD's first cinema outing? We might need to make a sharp exit, so maybe best to go to one reasonably short/child-friendly/that I'm not bothered about missing the end of.

That he apparently did not (could not?) connect them (didn't bother checking film length, "I knew he was really looking forward to seeing the film"), that every piece of information he had available to him remained completely compartmentalised, is something to consider. As is the fact that this is a family trait.

I guess what I'm asking is - and I'll hold my hands up, I know next to nothing about it - could this indicate some form of autism/Aspergers? Could this superficial approach to what's going on, not joining up the dots, be because he can't, rather than just him being a lazy inconsiderate arse who won't? Statistically I'm sure being an arse is the more likely, but I just wonder.

"It's the lack of thoughtfulness. Obviously if the OP asked the timings, she had a good reason for that. How pedantic does her DH need to be if she needs to spell out every reason for every question she has ever asked in single syllable answers to make him see how important it is?"

"Surely if your partner asks you a question, you assume that question is important to them, and you give them am answer you have thought about and checked, without needing to have it spelt out to you WHY it is important to them?"

"Constantly having to justify your reasons for wanting to know something is very wearing, and starts to feel suffocating after a while. "

yes, yes...

wingdingdong Your DH managed to use 50oz of breast milk in 4hours?! How? Did he use it to make rice pudding

have a read about asperger's, just in case?

I agree the being left standing out in the foyer is the oddest bit about this.

Who does that?

YANBU

There were two acceptable options open to him, look up how long the film was and tell you, or say 'I don't know'

Its not ok to just make up an answer. One of my teenagers does this and it drives us all crazy, I'm trying to get him to understand how frustrating it is before he grows up and his future wife blames me

It doesn't matter what it's about, you just don't make up stuff because you don't know the real answer, it makes you look like a knob

"I agree the being left standing out in the foyer is the oddest bit about this.

Who does that?"

People whose baby starts crying in the middle of Skyfall, I'm guessing.

I think the title for your thread should have been..........

AIBU taking an 18month old to the cinema? er, YES!!!!!

What were you thinking???? No wonder it was a stressful situation.

Taking a toddler to see an adult film? ......That was never going to have a happy ending

We have been married forever!

If I want to know something generally I am happy with a "about..." answer. If I really need to know something because it might impact on other things then I ask very specific questions. It's no real hardship, its about knowing each others strengths and weaknesses.

So did you both want to see James Bond and tried to get away with taking the baby? DP really wants to see it and indicates its a short film so you'll all go. The baby gets pissed off & you're the one who gets to wait outside, pushing an overtired baby up and down?

I've had to frequently pull oh up over such issues over the years, yup that's what you want but ......so who will be watching the kids? Me by default ? NO.

There is a tendency on his side of the family to be laid back with timings. It's not a real laid backless, despite the talk about not caring. FFS they're always hours and hours late but always stressed. There is no one who will commit to a time, if you try to pin anyone down then you're some mad control freak.

Moviemadness - that last post of yours just means that he is being UTTERLY disrespectful towards you (AND your DD, by disregarding her routine).

If he gets it together enough when it is for him, then he CAN and SHOULD do it for you.

He's not.

It ended badly in my case - I got sick if the lack of respect, the thoughtlessness, the "It's not important to me, so it isn't important". We are no longer together.

"It's not important to me, so it isn't important".

Thats exactly it. What you think doesnt matter, and therefore you dont matter.

I couldnt live with knowing I didnt matter to someone who claims to love me.

OP, IMO, your DP is an arse.

Seeing the film was more important to him than his DD's comfort.

He didn't want to go alone, so wanted the OP there. Could he not have arranged a babysitter? Who takes an 18mo to a James Bond movie anyway?

Only someone who cares more about seeing the movie than about understanding their child's needs.

Yeah, he wanted to see the film. The OP was FINE with staying at home if it went on past their DD's bedtime.

His need to see the movie with someone seemingly trumped the OP's wishes not to disrupt their DD's bedtime routine.

I'm wondering if he KNEW how long the film was, and have a vague answer because he wanted somebody to go with, and knew the OP would stay home if it went on past their DD's bedtime, or because he was concerned that the OP might be annoyed with him if he went alone, and he was trying to avoid any disagreements.

Or whether he genuinely didn't know, but couldn't be bothered to check, and gave a guess to shut the OP up, making HER think he was being truthful.

I would want to know which it was, actually.

So, you can tell I've got the t-shirt for this one, then!

In my future partner, the ability to be thoughtful about stuff like this features highly on my 'list'...

I want somebody who treats my thoughts and feelings with the sane level of importance as they do their own. Just as I would with them.

YANBU.

Also, why do the consequences of him being laissez faire fall on you and not on him? Why didn't you ALL go home when it became clear that the film was way too long for DD? Tough shit if he wanted to see the film - he was asked to check and didn't. Why didn't HE stand in the foyer for an hour? And did he deal with DD when you got home? Or were you the one putting an overtired baby to bed and dealing with the consequences the next day?

Do you find that you are the only one who does all the mental work of planning the logistics of family life?

I don't actually think this is about his family. I think this is about him being quite selfish and entitled and expecting you to just suck up being inconvenienced whenever something HE wants to do is at stake. I would find it quite difficult to maintain a relationship under these circumstances.

Read this: www.amazon.co.uk/Wifework-Susan-Maushart/dp/0747561729

"If I really need to know something because it might impact on other things then I ask very specific questions."

But OP did ask a specific question-how long is the film?

He either doesn´t care enough to find out, or as a pp said, was lying so that you would go.

I agree with Wingdingdong; you need to make him the one that is inconvenienced by his actions rather than you being inconvenienced. I find my DH will only learn through his own actions/mistakes and takes no notice of nagging. It's a bit like the way children learn through their mistakes I find.

Like Wingding has said, there is no way you should have been the one to leave the film and stand around with your DD for an hour. I too would have simply handed her to him. Or left the cinema with her and driven home so that he was inconvenienced and had to walk/bus/taxi home.

My DH is quite disorganised, so I have long since given up nagging him and just let him get on with things now. The other day he decided, the day before we sold our old car, to do a couple of 'jobs' on it that didn't need doing, he just wanted to do them. The result was that he made a couple of mistakes that meant the car had to go to the garage that afternoon to be fixed. He came in the house in a terrible strop, asking me to get him this phone number, and that phone number and basically expecting me to drop everything to help him out of the mess, and I coolly said 'no, this is your mistake and your problem, I haven't got time to help you sort it'. And left him to it!

He also does things like leave laundry everywhere, but he knows the drill now. If it's not in the basket, then it doesn't get washed. Some mornings when he realises there are no clean pants he gets in a huff, but again I keep my cool and say 'only washing that gets put in the basket gets washed'