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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want dh to be a bit interested in my past? Or am I just being daft?

63 replies

Loutwenty · 12/06/2013 16:41

Been with dh 3 years, he is step dad to my ten year old ds.

Before I met him, I travelled the world with ds, back packing when ds was younger, I have loads of photos/videos. Recently, I downloaded them all onto the pc to sort out properly and I really wanted to share them with DH. It was an important time in my life, and I thought he would want to see what we did, see ds when he was little. He doesn't care. He's watched a couple of clip, begrudgingly.

My dad bought some home videos of when I was a toddler with him when he came to visit last year, again, DH didn't care - when my dad put them on, he went off to talk to his friend on the phone.

On the other hand, his father is brining down some old family films to transfer onto dvd at the weekend, dh can't wait to have those on.

I just want someone to share them with. I have no family, I haven't got any friends. I'd love to share my memories with dh, but he doesn't want to know.

AIBU to be hurt? Or should I get over it.

OP posts:
OwlinaTree · 12/06/2013 17:36

Notdead loving the Momus link. Havn't heard it before, reminds me of Marc Almond!

Picturepuncture · 12/06/2013 17:40

It seems weird because it is weird.

What you describe is not a fully formed adult.

Don't get me wrong, healthy adults love their families (assuming they weren't abusive) but that level of attachment- over and above any sense of the future is strange.

Jux · 12/06/2013 17:42

I'm seeing massive red flags here, Loutwenty. 34 is quite young enough for meeting man who is actually interested in you, who you are, who you were, what made you as you are now. I think your p will ultimately make your life a misery.

FWIW, I was 38 when I met dh and 41 when I had dd. You've got plenty of time ahead of you, if you don't continue to use it up on someone who just isn't interested in you.

Thisisaeuphemism · 12/06/2013 17:42

Um, you can leave, you know...

Thisisaeuphemism · 12/06/2013 17:44

You sound desperately incompatible.

I met DH at 36...

ImTooHecsyForYourParty · 12/06/2013 17:45

Have you told him that it hurts you that he isn't interested in anything about you?

LadyBeagleEyes · 12/06/2013 17:50

£4 is young Op.
And you sound way too cool for him Smile.

LadyBeagleEyes · 12/06/2013 17:51

£4???
I meant 34 of course.

Original poster
Loutwenty · 12/06/2013 17:52

I know! I would leave if it wasn't for ds. I can't upheave him anymore. DH is very good with him and ds loves him.

To someone in my boat, I'd say LTB too, but life can be more complicated than walking out sometimes.

OP posts:
GibberTheMonkey · 12/06/2013 17:55

Well I want to hear about it

Travelling the world with a small person sounds amazing
Envy

ComposHat · 12/06/2013 17:55

Having spent the first week of university listening to posh twats telling identical gap yah travel stories and competitive I spoon fed a leper in Mumbai boasts. I can see why your husband would not be interested.

YABU - the pictures/memories are largely interesting to the person who experienced them.

A lesson for you both and you'd be justified in walking out of his cine show.

diddl · 12/06/2013 17:58

"The problem is, he doesn't understand what I did and how I lived."

TBH, I don't see that as a problem.

"that he could never love anyone more than them, even his own child."

That I see as a huge problem.

And that you would be "in the shit" if you didn't watch his home movies.

LadyBeagleEyes · 12/06/2013 18:00

But would you be uninterested if it was your partner ComposHat?
I traveled and lived abroad a bit before I married and my ex was a keen climber/ mountaineer.
Surely it's normal to take an interest in each other's pasts?

Thisisaeuphemism · 12/06/2013 18:04

If you feel like this about him now, how will you feel in 5 years time?

You travelled around with your DS contentedly (not ripping him away from his friends.) Why would leaving his stepdad (of what 2yrs?) be ripping up his life?

Original poster
Loutwenty · 12/06/2013 18:08

Because his father and I had a rough breakup. He is insecure anyway about having to swap between homes every other weekend, but he feels secure here with me and DH.

I couldn't afford to keep living in the area we do on my own, I'd have to take him away from everything he know again (just like when exh and i split) and I don't think I could do that to him twice. Or me for that matter.

OP posts:
comingintomyown · 12/06/2013 18:22

Oh this sounds like XH

Him on his day at work : "So I told him blah blah he said I said "

Me on my day : " I saw x today..." cue him needing to use his phone/watch TV/go out etc.

It was comedy in the end and this is a variation of it , so so sorry for you because it will get worse

Original poster
Loutwenty · 12/06/2013 18:33

Coming, I know. He does that too :(

He moans about work all the time, get stressed if he has had a bad day. I, however, cannot show any form of stress or I get berated for it.

He gets stressed over tiny things, like his precious computer not working, or something not going his way. I got stressed when I had a MC - that was unacceptable to him. I get accused of getting stressed over 'little things'. The only things I get stressed over are health, exh taking me to court etc. But still, thats unacceptable to him.

OP posts:
lottiegarbanzo · 12/06/2013 18:36

Right, well if you're determined to stay with him, I think you need to get some friends.

Part of the nature of 'settling' is that the person will not meet all your needs. They'll do some things well enought that the two of you can create a comfortable life toegther but they won't be 'the one' you want to turn to about everything, or do everything with.

Some people are interested in really 'knowing' other people, others aren't and only care that you get on in the present, some are fascinated by their own pasts and have good memories and analytical tendencies, others live for the present or future and see the past as a closed book or have very poor memories.

He sounds boring and immature though and I think having a child with him would be a massive upheaval for him, he'll find it really hard to cut his apron strings enough to act as the supportive partner and father you'll actually really need in that situation. Being able to compromise enough to rub along now is very different from putting yourself in a situation where you are in many ways dependent on him, with a child that is as much his as yours, on whose upbringing he will defer to his mother and fight you about.

Original poster
Loutwenty · 12/06/2013 18:37

Oh sod it, you are all right. And it's more than watching the films.

I hadn't watched them myself in 2 years, I couldn't bear to because I was happy then. Watching them today, I didn't recognise myself. I was confident and happy, so different from the fat, unhappy, slave to doing everything in the fucking house and everything for a moron (and I mean everything, he even gets breakfast in bed and doesn't lift a finger. My life is easier if he's happy and not sulking because he's had to do the hovering so I just suck it up now and do everything for a quiet life).

OP posts:
Bonsoir · 12/06/2013 18:37

Are you crazy? You want him to be interested in your joint future, not your past. Put it behind you.

lottiegarbanzo · 12/06/2013 18:39

Oh dear, sorry OP but this is a classic 'the issue in the OP is the very least of it, each post digs deeper into the depths of a troubled relationship' threads. Move to relationships?

DameFanny · 12/06/2013 18:41

Oh dear. How can we help?

CloudsAndTrees · 12/06/2013 18:42

YABU about the videos thing. I'm interested in seeing what my DH looked like as a child and I want to know what he did with his life before I came a long, but a photo and an explanation would do. Watching videos would bore me stupid. I'd expect my DH to feel the same if I tried to show him videos of me as a child and before I met him, so I wouldn't ask in the first place.

This whole thing sounds weird to me. You have lots of things you clearly don't like about this man, you think if you didn't have a child then you might be better off leaving him, yet you are sting with him because he's a good step dad and you can't afford to live in the area you are in without him. Hmm

He sounds like a regular guy who loves his family that would actually be better off leaving you tbh. I feel sorry for him. You are using him, and then complaining on the Internet that he's not interested enough in your life before you even met him!

Original poster
Loutwenty · 12/06/2013 18:48

Clouds I am not using him. I supported him financially though his studies for the first 18 months we were together, I moved 500 miles to be with him so he could stay at uni. I pay the bulk of the bills and rent now, but could not manage here on my own.

All I wanted was for someone to share my past with. The only living relative I have is my father who is very old and now in a home with dementia. I don't have siblings or other family to show a childhood picture to and say 'wow, look at me then' etc. I guess I feel very lonely in that respect.

OP posts:
Jux · 12/06/2013 18:48

Please don't waste more of your life on this man. Think of the lessons your ds is learning. No wonder he's insecure; he knows you're not happy.

Please kick the twunt into touch. Get him out of your life.

Your son is going to be happy with you. He always has been. You are his rock, the constant in his life, the one he relies on, who loves him and cares for him.

Once you and ds are together again and happy, he's really not going to worry too much about what's been left behind.

And please, please, please don't marry this man or have a child with him.

You are the woman who travelled the world with her young child. You did that. That is who you are. Reclaim yourself. Show your son that the mum he always knew is there. Show him that you are that strong, confident woman who doesn't take the shit from an inadequate, immature idiot who is trying to chain her and negate her, obliterate her.

You don't need the twat.