Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Unhelpful help

41 replies

Wandastartup · 29/06/2013 15:54

We are hosting a dinner party for the PTA tonight- 6 couples for each course. DH took children swimming this morning and bought bits I had forgotten- all good so far.
I started cooking, cleaned, polished, hoovered.
After lunch 'D' H decides to wash down all the walls as they've not been done since we moved in 12 months ago. I now need to hoover everywhere again, finish the cooking and supervise children's homework while he mows the lawn( also essential apparently).
He is also sulking as there are not enough men coming and he only agreed in order to meet other dads apparently...
He never normally does any housework but decides to do the most inconvenient lest useful thing every time we have people coming over. Grr rant over!

OP posts:

NeoMaxiZoomDweebie · 29/06/2013 16:01

Can't you do the homework tomorrow? Chill. Have an early glass of wine.

Original poster

Wandastartup · 29/06/2013 16:03

I would except there's now huge flakes of paint all over the carpet for people coming round!

OP posts:

raisah · 29/06/2013 16:11

My dh does that and its annoying. U was trying to get stuff ready for dds bday party and he decided that it was important to take stuff to the dump and then collect his sister on jis way back. The party started at 1pm he got back at 3:30pm, I was so angry that I didnt speak to him for a week.

raisah · 29/06/2013 16:12

I was trying not U was trying!

ComtessedeFrouFrou · 29/06/2013 16:14

DH decided on Christmas Eve that the garage needed tidying, despite not having done the things I had actually asked him to do

likesnowflakesinanocean · 29/06/2013 16:16

agreed, dp does this, just before we are due to go out he needs to find a bill which requires him emptying two entire drawers over the side... gives me the rage

Original poster

Wandastartup · 29/06/2013 18:15

It actually makes me feel better that other people's husbands do this, thought it was only mine. My friends all seem to have genuinely helpful partners!
The only time he does anything truly helpful is when either of our mothers visit. He then meets a big show of cooking something so they think he cooks all the time( about once a year...)

OP posts:

carameldecaflatte · 29/06/2013 18:31

Dh suggested we go out today after ds's nap. At 2pm ds and I were ready and dh was watering the garden.

carameldecaflatte · 29/06/2013 18:34

Oops posted top soon
Last week dh decided to paint the hallway outside the bathroom. Half an hour before ds's bathtime.
He's quite spontaneous.

SofaKing · 29/06/2013 18:46

Dh is like this too, I think it is what I get for not organising his every task and standing over him, so that he isn't being lazy but isn't helping.

My mum takes the biscuit at the moment however. I have a total hatred of anyone cleaning my house, and while I was on holiday she has come in and fucked about with everything, cleaned some things and totally ruined others. I am completely freaking out, but have to calm down.

I just know if I challenge her she will be all innocence, but she KNOWS how this makes me feel and she did it anyway!

TimeofChange · 29/06/2013 19:39

Many years ago we packed the car for our week's camping holiday.
DD1 was 18 months old.
We had no money for eating out so the plan was to leave straight after lunch and arrive in time to cook tea on site.

After making lunch and clearing it up I get DD and myself in the car only to find 'D'H is about to start mowing the grass, which took an hour.
I would have gone without him, but didn't think I could get the tent up on my own.

He often found something 'essential' to do if I asked him for help.

He has been XH for a few years now.

Ellsbells32 · 29/06/2013 19:50

In agreement here, when my waters broke my dp decided to change the light switch to a dimmer switch, because at that moment in time that was the most important thing ever!

spangledboots · 29/06/2013 20:04

My ex was the same with housework. Never did any unless it was right before someone was coming over and something that wasn't necessary at that particular moment. If I'd nicely ask him to do the hoovering or somthing, I'd be ignored.

Is this a man thing? Are we doomed to dealing with this forever?!

StealthPolarBear · 29/06/2013 20:07

PMSL at the dimmer switch!
It is an ongoing joke in this house that DH will decide an hour before we are due to have people round that this is the perfect moment to alphabetise his CDs. When I'm doing such fripperies as cleaning toilets, hoovering and cooking.

StealthPolarBear · 29/06/2013 20:08

Whereas obviously if the Beatles were before Abba, the guests would have noticed and been horrified at our slatternly ways.

Purplehonesty · 29/06/2013 20:12

Hmm my dh is exactly the same. An hour before a dinner party he will start chipping away at bits of paint or varnish the decorators have left on the doors or the panes of glass in them.
Not cleaning or tidying or helping to cook...oh no.

FriskyHenderson · 29/06/2013 20:12

As I was packing up four dc and the kitchen sink for a fortnight's self catering holiday to a sandy beach destination, DH spent forty five minutes hoovering the inside of the car. Forty fucking five minutes.

By the time the kids had eaten snacks on the way there you couldn't tell. And when we got home, with two weeks worth of sand, rubbish and food, did he then spent 45 minutes hoovering? Er, no

marriedinwhiteagain · 29/06/2013 20:14

Dinner for 12 for the PTA. That is above and beyond the call of duty and the only part of your post that is truly Unreasonable. You should be going out to a restaurant an picking up the tab for half a dozen bottles of wine.

cardibach · 29/06/2013 20:21

It's threads like this that make me glad I have been single for the last 16 years...
Are men really this crap? I'm better off raising DD alone (suspected as much) in that case!

MummytoKatie · 29/06/2013 20:55

I can relate to this!

Today:- 30 minutes before dinner time. Got my parents visiting plus dd had a party so she is absolutely shattered so important to eat on time. Dinner cooking in the oven (thanks to my mum / me.) Dh has promised dd that the two of them can make a fruit salad together. So 30 mins before dinner does he

(a) start making the fruit salad
(b) start making a filing cabinet

SorryMyLollipop · 29/06/2013 21:04

YABU - sounds like he was actually trying to help. IME people often need more direction, you could have asked him to do something specific like clean or polish? At least his efforts were in the right direction, trying to make the house/garden presentable.

perplexedpirate · 29/06/2013 21:32

I've told this on here before, but the day before I got married my mum asked my stepdad to clear the garden at her house (rake up leaves, move some toys etc) so we could have pictures taken there.
He was gone for about an hour and when she went out the garden was in the same condition as it was before.
He was in the shed, cleaning the pond pump.

perplexedpirate · 29/06/2013 21:33

He also decided to re-washed a bath tap as my mum tried to get ready for her sixtieth birthday.
He is awesome, I luffs him!

HooverFairy · 29/06/2013 21:41

Perplexed, that really made me chuckle :)

AaDB · 29/06/2013 22:50

10 mins before friends and their dc were due, DH went to the tip and to buy a carpet for the tent. . Act of random, non-essential fuckery. He also goes to the loo just as dinner goes on the table.

He is tidy but not clean. I luffs him a lot anyway. Not the least bit helpful or understanding about the task in hand. I wonder what the equivalent of this is? Deciding to fill the photocopier with paper and toner instead of being in time for an important meeting?

Flip

1 2

Swipe left for the next trending thread