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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

and totally unsympathetic regarding dhs best friends death?

101 replies

Cleohatra · 28/04/2014 11:55

Dh is 36 and last week his 'best friend' of the same age died, which is obviously very sad. He went to see his old friends the next day and stayed with relatives so was away for two days. It's the funeral tomorrow and he's going this afternoon (it's half hour away) to see friends, will stay there tonight, go to the funeral then out tomorrow then stay at his relatives again probably returning the following afternoon or evening.

Thing is, I've never met this 'best friend' and dh hasn't seen him since I've known him. Before me he lived far from him so I'd say he probably hhadn't seen him properly for a good 12 years minimum. Dhs friends and family keep calling and texting to check he's ok and I just feel a bit Confused because someone I haven't seen (and very barely spoken to) in 12 years is not the definition of a best friend to me. We have three young children (under 6) and I'm 10 weeks pregnant and constantly sick and think the days of mourning he's taking are taking the piss a bit, tbh.

Aibu?

OP posts:
Infinity8 · 28/04/2014 18:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HappyMummyOfOne · 28/04/2014 18:27

I'd have thought you would be quite happy to have him out of the house for a few extra hours given on your other thread you appear to despise him and dont want him to come home from work during the day.

If thats the case, then he is obviously grieving alone. You dont have to be close to grieve, it could be the similar age etc or the reality it highlights. He is the sole earner for a large family, maybe he's thinking of if it was him the children would suffer financially etc.

medic78 · 28/04/2014 18:56

Thinking so much about the money happy that he is willing to forgoe a weeks pay to grieve but not a day to be with his wife in labour.

TheWordFactory · 28/04/2014 19:02

Five days leave for someone he hasn't bothered with in over ten years?

Sorry, but he's using this to duck out of work and go on the lash...

MagicMojito · 28/04/2014 19:09

Ok so its not upto OP to decide how her dh greives, fair enough. What is happening with their shared dc? Does Op not get to decide about how dh annual leave be taken? Although Op is not allowed to express opinion on these very worthy nights out with friends, is it still a given that she will stay home with dc to look after them? I'm sorry but sometimes circumstances do or should at least dictate the way you grieve. Except, Call me a sinic but I don't even get the impression hes greiving. More like he's sad about his friends passing but is thoroughly enjoying the social aspect of meeting up with the old crowd. Sorry but its taking the piss and is in bad taste (in my opinion Anyway)

MagicMojito · 28/04/2014 19:13

Xpost with sane posters. Hurrah Grin

Charley50 · 28/04/2014 19:24

Hi OP I've got to page 3 and feel that no YANBU. And that there is nothing to suggest that you aren't a 'nice person' in what you have written.
It's very sad that you didnt get to go to your grandmother's funeral, he is taking the piss, the many days funeral is not about him grieving and also...what's this about you not being invited to the funeral? It's not a wedding; funerals are open occasions, anyone can go :-(

JohnFarleysRuskin · 28/04/2014 19:35

Blimey - what happens to this guy if people he has met in the last ten years dies? I suppose He'll never work again.

Quite perculiar, I wouldn't be impressed.

differentnameforthis · 29/04/2014 01:59

My best friend lives 12,000 miles away. I have seen her once in 8yrs, but we talk a lot.

So I can see how this person was your dh's best friend.

You sound very dismissive of your dh & his feelings.

differentnameforthis · 29/04/2014 02:18

Perhaps he doesn't want to hang around the house too much op, as he knows how much you hate him disturbing the kids, messing up your the routine or freaking out his youngest child with his mere presence?

cutefluffybunnes · 29/04/2014 02:35

YANBU. At all. Time off to attend the funeral makes perfect sense. Five days leave to mourn someone he hasn't seen or much talked to in 12 years is OTT. What's he going to do when someone truly close to him dies??

Mim78 · 29/04/2014 04:25

Of course yanbu. He doesn't need all this time awAy just go to the funeral. And you need him at home.

saffronwblue · 29/04/2014 04:41

Most people's best friends know that they are married and have children. Yanbu. He is being indulgent.

scarysmum · 29/04/2014 05:47

YABU. My best childhood friend died unexpectedly last year.

It knocked me for six. I hadn't seen her or spent any real time with her for at least 10 years as we lived on different continents.

We reached adulthood together and I was deeply saddened by her death. I couldn't go to the funeral as it was on another continent, but if I had the chance I would have been there like a shot.

myitchybeaver · 29/04/2014 06:08

Right now, until this happened to me I would have thought you were being very insensitive.

A couple of years ago a 'close' friend of my DHs died. He was much older and had been in a nursing home with dementia for many years. Basically he had been a pub friend. At the time he died we had been married 8 years, had 3 children including an 18 month old. Both worked full time.
I had never met this bloke and DH had never visited him in all the time I had known him despite all the visits back to his home town.

The phone call came to say he had died. My DH was 'devastated'. He immediately started looking at flights back home (not in UK so v. Expensive and we really couldn't afford it). He flew home for 4 days and spent the entire time plastered with all his old pub friends.
Meanwhile I had to take sick time as my DH does school pick up and drop off.

It really drove a wedge between us for a while. What he ACTUALLY felt was sentimental, not grief. As I kept telling him if he had really cared he would have made his life better by visiting him in the nursing home when he visited his home town or sending gifts or even making a donation to the Alzheimer's society with £800 flight money.

I get you OP.

Infinity8 · 29/04/2014 07:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Chottie · 29/04/2014 07:35

OP - you have taken a lot of stick from a lot of people who have not read your posts properly.

You are not being unreasonable.
If his friend was such a good mate, they would have been in touch. His friend would have known you and all your DC and been a part of all your lives.

I do agree that 5 days leave for a not close friend is excessive. Where I work you are only allowed 5 days leave for a close family member (i.e. partner/sibling/child/parent). This would not include a GC, friend, SiL, uncle or aunt.

I agree with PP's grandmother and her comments about caring in life...

RabbitSaysWoof · 29/04/2014 07:45

That is excessive to take all of that time away from work and family.
YANBU

throckenholt · 29/04/2014 07:46

Have you actually told him what you think?

It seems patently overreacting - which would maybe be ok in other circumstances - but when you have 3 young kids and another on the way you need to have other priorities and not wasting lots of money and time on reminiscing about your lost youth.

No reason he shouldn't go to the funeral - the rest is just indulgence.

OddFodd · 29/04/2014 07:49

Whatever the DH feels or doesn't feel about someone he hasn't seen or spoken to for years and years is neither here nor there. Five days off work and out on the lash rather than supporting your pregnant wife and young children is taking the piss, whatever the reason.

OP - he doesn't sound very nice to you :(

Original poster
Cleohatra · 29/04/2014 12:56

If, like other posters have given their examples, he was hundreds or thousands of miles away then I'd understand that they hadn't seen one another. But he was half an hour away. He was five minutes away from another office of dhs work so he could've visited him 4/5 times per month. But didn't. That just doesn't say best friend to me.

OP posts:
Original poster
Cleohatra · 29/04/2014 13:01

Also, I gave him a lift over to the area yesterday so if he was having some kind of 'crisis of conscience' about not keeping up with his friends then surely he'd have thought to introduce the kids and I? To ask me to go to the funeral with him? To introduce us when we collect him? But no, we've been kept away and he didn't even think to ask me to go because it would've meant he couldn't go out on the piss the night before/after.

OP posts:
NotNewButNameChanged · 29/04/2014 13:11

Cleo had you given us all the information at the start, rather than drip feeding after almost universal agreement that you were being unreasonable, you may well have got different answers.

However, clearly your thread should not have been about whether you were being unsympathetic but why your husband is so dismissive of you compared with other people. And if he is as unreasonable as you have painted him, I don't understand why you're still with him. Why would you have yet another child with him if he is so disinterested he didn't even take time off when you were in labour? Why would you not say "sod you, I'm going to the funeral of the grandmother who raised me whether you like or not and you can sort out the childcare?"

spindlyspindler · 29/04/2014 13:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Sunnydaysablazeinhope · 29/04/2014 13:16

Why do you stay? Seriously. This the third thread about how shit dh is that I know of.

Or the other common denominator is, um, you. I'm starting to feel sorry for him..

You must be having a very rough time. For that you still have my sympathy. Have you both talked because I really think you need to.

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