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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to hate it when women suggest their menflok are like an extra child?

266 replies

ChaosTrulyReigns · 25/08/2013 22:25

Angry

If he doesn't step up to the plate, get them to improve and stop enabling the behaviuor.

It's not rocket surgery.

OP posts:
AgentZigzag · 26/08/2013 02:56

Nothing wrong with owning a guitar if it's inch thick in dust in the loft.

Making people sit and listen to you play Eric Clapton badly while singing along in a thin reedy out of tune voice repeatedly, or thinking a room full of people want to sit and listen to you play instead of chat/drink, or you've got to practice for however many hours in the day at home before going to a practice with the band...isn't.

Not all the same person, I've been unfortunate with my guitar experiences Grin

hmc · 26/08/2013 02:59

Stuntgirl- if I am honest I admire your clear sightedness, it's just to say spare a thought for those of us who are less organised and savvy in our relationships

reelingintheyears · 26/08/2013 03:01

What a shame you have such bad memories AgentZigZag. Sad

I love listening to this when DP plays it, and so do the kids.

Kiwiinkits · 26/08/2013 03:08

My kids love listening to their dad playing puff the magic dragon on the guitar and singing along. I have to leave the room because he sings like a cat on heat.

AgentZigzag · 26/08/2013 03:23

My speakers were definitely working earlier reeling, but they're not now, and I can only put it down to them protecting me Grin

I'm sure it's lovely Grin The Doors Spanish Caravan is very excellent, and Led Zep are shit hot (Robert Plant was just hot), so it's only guitar player/singers who think they're good but sadly aren't, but still have that need for an audience.

StuntGirl · 26/08/2013 03:23

One of my favourite musicians retweeted this this week:

"If you want to know who the biggest asshole at your party is, bring out an acoustic guitar"

Grin

hmc - I hope you can resolve your issues with your partner. It sucks feeling like you're fighting a losing battle Flowers

AgentZigzag · 26/08/2013 03:28

Pahahaha not just me then.

Who was the musician? If you don't mind me asking like.

Sunnysummer · 26/08/2013 03:41

YANBU - the phrase 'get them to improve' that still gets my goat a bit. Why is that our job too? And how is it 'easy' to change another adult's behaviours?

AdoraBell · 26/08/2013 04:08

Leavenheath I know it's a couple if pages back now, but just wanted to say that I'm not blaming my MIL, I've actually heard her tell my OH that he 'shouldn't be doing' things like ironing, washing up, taking the rubbish out, and other such domestic tasks, because he has a penis. She never uses the word penis though, just says 'why should that be a man's responsibility' and that attitude makes his brother's think that leaving everything other working outside of the home to their wife is acceptable and has put his sister off marrying.

differentnameforthis · 26/08/2013 04:19

My dh 'steps up' (hate that saying). He does more around the house than I do, he is in a management position at work.

Yet sometimes he acts like a big kid. So sometimes it is like having an extra child.

Sunnysummer · 26/08/2013 04:26

YABU, I meant! Though maybe bit entirely...

themaltesefalcon · 26/08/2013 07:04

I like kiwiinkits list (although having had a relationship of six months' duration would rule a lot of decent people out).

For any New Zealanders, it brings to mind that old Instant Kiwi ad, where the bride alters her husband's wedding vows, unbeknownst to him:

"To have and to hold from this day forth, to never grow a moustache, to sell your Jethro Tull albums, to buy your own underwear, clean the toilet and never watch golf on television, as long as you both shall live?"

FredFredGeorge · 26/08/2013 08:16

Where are all these men who cannot do anything? Is it a regional thing, is it a class thing? I'm male, grew up in the 70/80's, have lots of male friends (well acquaintances), and none of them are incompetent?

StuntGirl · 26/08/2013 08:41

@agent A guy called Dave Hause.

Imo it's just laziness. I mean, cleaning, shopping, cooking, budgeting etc are basic, essential life tasks surely? If you lived alone it's what you'd have to do to just, y'know, survive day to day? So anyone (male or female) saying they "can't" do it gets a suspicious eyebrow raise from me. None of it is hard!

littlemog · 26/08/2013 08:43

Why would anyone want to be with one of these men-children?

Doearwigsmakechutney · 26/08/2013 08:53

Loopylupo I'm afraid I don't have any answers. I've taken responsibility for pretty much everything for ages (including on occasion DH's personal fuck-ups with his own stuff) and I'm now trying to step back. There's a definite distinction between who does what (where things are less unequal) and who takes responsibility (me me me). I feel that the buck stops with me, and that DH perceives his involvement as somehow optional.

So where it doesn't affect me or the DCs I've now stopped asking about stuff. At the very least DH should be able to manage his own life competently. The surprise is how difficult he's found that, without someone chasing him up. But, very sadly in some ways, I find I care much less now. I know DH would like me to be more affectionate and less irritable. It would help me enormously if I saw him as a fully functioning adult.

LoopyLupo · 26/08/2013 09:03

You sound similar to me esp the 'more affectionate and less irritable'. Even thinking about the fact he finds me irritable makes me irritable. He would be irritable too if he had to look after everyone and everything. Grrr.

I know it wouldn't be easier to be single but at least there wouldn't be the expectation of someone else helping. I would just get on with things, pretty much as I do now, but without the built up resentment.

I too have started letting him sort himself out. But along with that comes the moaning when if things go wrong. I have to grit my teeth not to respond esp if there is a slight implication that its my fault for not organsing it for him.

Doearwigsmakechutney · 26/08/2013 09:12

Loopylupo - just about to go out for re morning, so I'll be offline for a bit.

I think one of the problems with DH not taking responsibility is that he genuinely doesn't understand how much is involved in running a house with two small DCs. Whilst he thinks he does a lot, he actually does very little proportionate to what needs doing. It annoys me no end that he would have to do more if he lived alone than he does with two small DCs.

More later, but I share your irritability!

Fraxinus · 26/08/2013 09:13

Loopy and earwigs. I really empathise. There are people on here talking about ironing and housework like that is what defines adulthood. We know through bitter experience that it is not the housework in itself that is the problem. It is the irresponsibility. It's waiting to be asked to do a job.

curlew · 26/08/2013 09:20

"undo martyr mummy's work" - exactly the fucking problem in this house."

Because obviously it's all women's fault.

yellowballoons · 26/08/2013 09:20

I dont agree with you chaos on this occasion.

"get them to improve"
some of them just walk instead

And there are plenty of women like Annunziata, who wouldnt have it any other way.

yellowballoons · 26/08/2013 09:22

I mean Annunziata and others like doing it themselves. I have learnt through life that each marriage is different, and what doesnt work in one marriage, works in another, and vice versa.

Doearwigsmakechutney · 26/08/2013 09:28

Going out has been slightly delayed, so I just wanted to add something...

I did a parenting course recently and one of the things that was discussed was how children can learn life skills, the things that make their lives run more smoothly. I genuinely think DH has missed this. It's hard for me to see that he does much, if anything to make his life easier. Eg, he will iron one shirt a day for work. It would be so much easier to do them all on a Sunday evening, in front of the TV, but every morning or evening, he'll get the iron and board out, iron one shirt and put everything away. If it's morning, I'm then left sorting out the DCs, which is a rush when I'm going to work. There's a dry cleaners three minutes from our door, where DH could get his shirts ironed for very little cost, but he can't organise himself to do that either.

I just don't get why he'd want to make his life so HARD. Perhaps he thinks I'll be so exasperated that I'll take over. NO WAY! I've done that with too many other things and it's just not worth the resultant resentment.

If DH goes to work - with important meetings - in unironed shirts, it's his lookout not mine. I can't imagine how anyone could possibly regard it as the husband's responsibility if the situation was reversed, so I do not accept that it's mine.

Crowler · 26/08/2013 09:33

I hate the implication that women who have to deal with really lazy men are just martyred, and would despair if their husbands actually DID do their fair share.

I sincerely hope that I am of the last bits of the generation forced to deal with this 1970s/80s hangover of men who weren't taught to run a house.

My husband is a fine person but is sometimes shockingly disengaged from the day to day running of the house. So yes, I do use humor to deflect as was said upstream - he does behave like one of my children sometimes. I hate it, and this is never how I planned that my marriage would work out, but there you go.

You NEVER know how someone will react to the nuclear bomb of babies arriving on the scene. Your housekeeping demands quadruple overnight. Some people cope, others don't.

LoopyLupo · 26/08/2013 09:33

Exactly Fraxinus Its the waiting to be asked, and then having to ask again and then check again ad infinitum. And even that is no guarantee that they will do it.

The housework thing is an issue if you are the only one that does any cleaning/cooking/washing - I've been there with dh. But I found that easier to resolve than the responsibility issue for some reason. It took a while but we got there.

I think its what Doearwigsmakechutney says, some men just don't realise how much effort goes into raising a family. I honestly don't think dh has a clue. I think he thinks things just 'fall' into place as if the magic fairy has come along and waved her wand.