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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be royally pissed off at DH criticising EVERY choice I make for xmas....

53 replies

Ivehadroyallyenough · 19/12/2013 09:14

...when all he contributes is money and bah humbug spirit? I am in no way being extravagant, and - again - have to face criticism about every single present I have bought, including the ones for HIS family because he can't be arsed to think about any of it he's at work all the time...I am bloody furious, I am not well, and he knows it, and have been doing ALL the thinking, shopping, wrapping, decorating and generally trying to make xmas a nice memory for the children (11 &13) and all he bloody does all the time is bloody complain. Would these be ground for divorce? Alternatively can someone recommend a good monastery in a muslim country where I could emigrate in nov 2014? I can't be doing this again next year, and it'a too bloody early for wine.

OP posts:

CustardoPaidforIDSsYFronts · 19/12/2013 09:16

i would be telling him that next year he is buying for his family.

i would also tellhim to stfu

what have you said to him?

ShanghaiDiva · 19/12/2013 09:18

As he thinks you are clearly not up to the job, let him buy the presents for his family.

formerbabe · 19/12/2013 09:19

Most of Christmas seems to be done by the woman...I have also done all the shopping/decorating/wrapping and will be doing all cooking on the day. I think the biggest issue here is his criticism of you...that is really not on.

MrsDavidBowie · 19/12/2013 09:19

Why on earth do you buy his family's presents?
If he is busy, he can buy online.

We are visiting dh's father on Sunday. I have no idea if he has bought him anything...I suspect not. It is not my problem.

2rebecca · 19/12/2013 09:24

If he moans about your presents leave him to buy for his half. My husband sorts out his relatives, if he gets them a crap present/ no present then that's what happens, he's not a child, it's not my job to mummy him and control all the present buying.
His relatives know he buys their presents.
I think women who insist on buying all the presents and writing all the cards have only themselves to blame if they get stressed out by it.
He's an adult, if he was single he'd have to do stuff.
Tell him next year he does his own.

Bloodyteenagers · 19/12/2013 09:28

Take the presents back.
Tell him to get off his arse and do his own shopping. So what he works. He doesn't work 24/7. He has time to get to the stores and buy things for his own family.
Tell him any more complaints and he will also be doing the food shopping and doing all the cooking instead of helping.

CalamitouslyWrong · 19/12/2013 09:29

DH does this. It is infuriating.

He will not contribute anything to the thinking, wrapping and shopping or any of the other prep work. And he moans about the cost etc, because he is incorrigibly stingy. It's genuinely embarrassing how stingy he is. I left him to his own devices for MIL's birthday and he really, really upset her by not bothering to send a card and getting her a £10 amazon e-voucher. We both earn decent salaries; there is absolutely no excuse for this stinginess (or the sheer lack of thought/effort that went in to it).

Except that he's not stingy with himself, which makes it worse. In the last few weeks he's bought himself an ipad air, a PS4 and a fancy LED tv to play it on. In fact, he bought the ipad around the same time that he claimed he could only afford a £10 gift voucher for MIL. None of this is in any way his Christmas present. But he complains if I spend £25 on a present for a family member, and is acting like buying DS2 a playmobil dinosaur set, a pack of very discounted books from the book people and a pokemon annual is somehow wildly extravagant.

No court in the land would convict...

Caitlin17 · 19/12/2013 09:36

MrsDavidBowie agreed. If OH wants to give presents to his family that's up to him.

DeckTheHallsWithBoughsOfHorry · 19/12/2013 09:41

DH manages to keep "that present budget per person is a bit stingy" and "our overall present budget is too much" in his head at the same time

DameFanny · 19/12/2013 09:47

What teenagers said. Stop baling him out.

HoHoHopasholic · 19/12/2013 09:51

Calamiyously your Husband is not stingy, he is incredibly selfish to spend all that on himself at this time of year even if you do earn good salaries. WTF?

He'd better get the big guns out for you on Xmas day.

OP. Send your Husband a text 'Sorry to hear you didn't like my choice of present for mil/FIL/aunty flo etc. I've taken them back as I didn't want you to feel embarrassed so let me know when you have bought and wrapped suitable alternatives for them so we can arrange when we're exchanging gifts. Lots of love ivehadroyallyenough

Pleeeease do it

FlipFlippingFlippers · 19/12/2013 09:53

Next year I've told dh that he's buying all the presents, doing all the food shopping, organising all the Christmas build-up (ice skating, pantomime etc) and cooking the dinner. He moaned his arse off when I asked him to wrap a few presents.

Yanbu.

Original poster

Ivehadroyallyenough · 19/12/2013 09:55

Thanks you all, I've calmed down a bit now...turns out it's not too early for chocolate. I know I have brought this unto myself, I had promised already last year I would not do it again, and I wanted to have a quiet holiday just the four of us for the first time ever this year, with no presents except our two children...but then buckled to children's pressure to spend time with grandparents cousins etc..and DAMN IT I obviously forgot how miserable he makes me about this. So I'll end up cooking for 10 for a week. It can only be blind stupidity. I let him (and the kids, obviously) walk all over me, and what is worse EVERY year I convince myself this time it will be better...

Calamitously, thanks, that makes me feel better...DH is similarly stingy... he asked for me to keep to a budget of £200 for the whole xmas shopping, he hasn't got a clue...even keeping it at £5 a present, and starting in bloody september, buying online, on offer etc, and my running total at mo is £750. I don't work but he earns very well and it's not as if we really can't afford it, he just think it's all a waste of money. HIS money. No concept of the pleasure in giving, and in all these years he has totally stripped that away from me too, because now all I think about is how grumpy and moany he's going to be. And I have zero chance to go back to work with health issues, before you suggest I need money of my own, because I know that is one of the issues, but can't see what I can do about it.

I think I have let this go on too long.

OP posts:

Jinty64 · 19/12/2013 10:00

I do everything including shop for my stepchildren, dh appears for the meal on Christmas Day. It drives me mad but he would never criticise my choices or spend on himself and leave me short.

DingDongHairyPOnHigh · 19/12/2013 10:01

Bloody Hell! Some seriously selfish ungrateful people around.

I will admit that I do all the buying for dh's family, partly because my parents are no longer with us, partly because I only work part time and mostly because I like doing it.

It's a standing joke that he has no idea what gifts we have given people, but that's ok because it works for us.

At the first hint of criticism, the whole lot would be refunded and he could get in with it himself. But he is genuinely grateful that I do it all.

Seriously OP, tell him to fuck off and do it himself. Ungrateful tosser

Original poster

Ivehadroyallyenough · 19/12/2013 10:02

Hohoho I like your style. Might just do that actually. It's that he's questioning what I bought the children too, and I don't want them to get an envelope with £5 in!!
He said they should not see xmas as a consumeristic opportunity to get what they want, we should teach them that's not always possible (and I agree...but at F@@@ XMAS???), understand the meaning of the holiday...we're not even religious, not married in church, children not christened...WTF?

Flipflipping, that what I said LAST year...

OP posts:

CalamitouslyWrong · 19/12/2013 10:08

Hoho: I agree that he is selfish. But he is also stingy with pretty much everyone else.

I think he's bought me a gold iPhone 5s for Christmas though. He wanted to buy it at the start of the month (I'm pretty sure that was to disguise his buying himself tonnes of stuff), but I said it was ridiculous and I didn't need one.

We can afford it, but DH's weird attitude to money is very frustrating. He seems quite happy to splurge on stuff he wants, but moans about the price of everything else. Our bed broke this month, and you should have seen the fuss he made about paying £450 for a mattress. Yet, the same day, he insisted that we spend £350 on a ps4 because they had one in sainsbury's.

I have to keep explaining that I am buying decent presents for our family members and that a budget of £25 each for parents and siblings is not ridiculous with our disposable income. We only have one sibling each, and two parents. It's not like we've got to buy for a massive extended family or anything. I've spent far less on all the Christmas presents than he has on himself in the last 8 weeks.

tobiasfunke · 19/12/2013 10:26

I do everything here as well including buying myself presents ffrom DH to give to me which really pisses me off but at least I get something I want and we only buy each other a few small things. DH will turn up on Christmas eve and smile smugly as everyone gets their presents. Once he made some comment on the present for his mother but after a few choice words he hasn't made that mistake again. He would never comment on how much I spent- he is apparently grateful he doesn't have to do any of it.
I think you know your main problem is the fact he sees it as his money not family money and that he is mean- personally I couldn't cope with that. I had a lot of health problems and couldn't work for quite a number of years and then had Ds so I'm a SAHM. MY DH can be a grumpy bastard and I spend a lot of my life moaning about him but never once did he make me feel that it was HIS money. It was understood he worked and I did everything else and therefore an equal partnership. He knows I hate doing all the domestic stuff as much as he does and that I'd rather be the one with the career so he does appreciate what I do.
I couldn't live with someone who is mean it would eat away at my soul.

Maybe he will surprise you this Christmas and be full of festive joy.

middleclassdystopia · 19/12/2013 10:42

This is misogyny at it's absolute worse and it makes me fucking furious.

Babied men, letting their wives run themselves ragged, while they kick back and enjoy the nice parts of xmas. No way would that be happening here.

We have a dd, another on the way. Also a ds. I want them to grow up witnessing equality.

I don't work but dh still helps 50% with presents, food and shopping etc. He can get to shops easier as he works in a city.

I don't know how some of you can bare this?

MrsSparkles · 19/12/2013 12:44

Not unreasonable at all.

My DH currently has 2 complaints - firstly I did all the shopping without consulting him. Result, he is insisting he is doing it all next year, and he thinks somehow this is bad news for me!

Secondly, he complained about the amount of presents I bought DD, I wouldn't mind, except most of them are small stocking fillers from poundland (the total of all the pressies is probably £150), and one of his presents he asked for is more than that on its own. I'm sat at home fuming over this now.

SomethingkindaOod · 19/12/2013 12:44

I organise Christmas but tbh I enjoy doing it. DH will go and get the food shop on his way home from work (I'll email the list) but I sort and wrap the presents, cook Christmas dinner, growl at anybody who comes into the kitchen and we'll both sort the food out for the evening party.
I don't run myself ragged at all, if there's an easy do to things I can usually find it!
There's no way he'd criticise the way I did it because he knows I would just down tools and let him sort it...
His major job on the day is to build things, put batteries in and make sure the toddler goes down for a nap, We have 3 DC's, it takes him a while .
YANBU, your DH needs to sort himself out.

Thesebootsweremadeforwalking · 19/12/2013 12:45

Tell him to do it instead, then.

brettgirl2 · 19/12/2013 12:54

As someone said the issue here is he sees all of the family money as his money. (plus he is greedy and selfish)

I must admit I'm not sure how dh and I would get on if I didn't work and therefore at least have some money of my own.

Florabeebaby · 19/12/2013 12:54

Hm. In my house it's very different.
Only my side of the family celebrate Christmas so I buy for them (small but thoughtful things) and send abroad.
Kids get one present each from us and then whatever GP's and other family send for them.
The amount of money that is spent during Christmas is just utterly crazy...surely, surely Christmas is not about just that.
We eat nice food, try and watch a film or two (kids are 3 and 1)...simple things.
And I intend to keep it that way even when the kids grow.

Original poster

Ivehadroyallyenough · 19/12/2013 13:09

Well it seems at least I am not the only one here doing all the work, although you lot get a bit more gratitude, and possibly bigger budgets!...I'm toying with the idea of showing him this post but would probably get him even more grumpy at how I waste time on Mumsnet. Honestly, I really think I've had enough.

Tobias, I think there are more chances of a roast turkey pig flying at christmas, then him being full of festive (or otherwise) cheer...and yes it has eaten away at my soul, but I let him. It always takes two to tango, right?

OP posts:

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