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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What would you expect your DH to do?

311 replies

notkatemiddleton · 28/07/2014 16:55

Last night, I went out for a meal with some friends for a friends birthday

I drove back to our house as i am 30 weeks pregnant and wasn't drinking but everyone else was (the car was full). I drove because the taxi from our house to the restaurant and back again was £50 each way. So I thought seeing as I wasn't drinking, i would save everyone (including myself) some extra cash.

During the drive back from the restaurant , in the dark, in country lanes, with me driving, when I braked to go around a corner, a friend of my DH thumped the back of my seat, violently to mimic a head hitting the back of it. He was told off by my DH as in "Come on man...." but then did it again at some traffic lights later on in the journey. I got disorientated and almost went through a red light.

We got to our destination and I screamed at him to get out of the car. He said "Hit me then". I shouted "Get out of the fing car otherwise i fing will....get out of my sight".

I went straight to bed, sobbing my eyes out, woke up the next morning and the friend was gone. DH says that he spoke to him and that he was sorry and that he shouldn't have done it. But no apology to me??

Part of me expected my DH to be a bit more brutal with him, after all i was driving.

OP posts:
KeemaNaanAndCurryOn · 28/07/2014 21:58

OK, leave the pregnant thing out of it.

Being pissed off because some drunken twat was distracting you driving on a dark country road and then offered to get into a fight, when you've done them a favour by driving them there and back is perfectly reasonable.

MarmaladeShatkins · 28/07/2014 21:59

"FGS can we stop going on about the OP being pregnant! People have babies all the time but in here it seems you have an excuse for everything if you're pregnant"

No-one has excused her of "everything". OP has admitted herself that she feels more cautious when driving now that she is pregnant. Nothing wrong in that.

Are you trying to be one of those super women? "Well, I built a dry-stone wall when ay was pregnant, why are YOU getting so het up about that?" It's very boring.

Haroldplaystheharmonica · 28/07/2014 21:59

icimoi well maybe just no piling in at all then? It seems on here that some people see their own point of view and are totally blinkered to anything else other people have to say.

LineRunner · 28/07/2014 22:00

The OP's being pregnant is relevant to why she didn't need to be insulted for not drinking and why she probably didn't really need to be called out for a physical fight.

Or is there a new pregnancy guideline manual now that I don't know about? I'm very much for bodily autonomy but 'Drink and fight your way to obstetric health' is brilliantly Viz.

gertiegusset · 28/07/2014 22:03

Grin at Linerunner.
Absolutely.

Icimoi · 28/07/2014 22:05

People have babies all the time but in here it seems you have an excuse for everything if you're pregnant"

Why do you think she needs an excuse for anything?

NickiFury · 28/07/2014 22:05

Grin Linerunner.

I cannot stand this "pregnancy is not illness" no it isn't but it has many of the symptoms of quite a serious one. Those symptoms are no less because they're not to do with illness. Most pregnant women are more cautious and self aware, I know I was. It's completely relevant to this situation.

ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy · 28/07/2014 22:06

'Drink and fight your way to obstetric health

Grin
MissDuke · 28/07/2014 22:06

I have been driving for like 17 years, if someone thumped my seat as hard as they can, frigging right I would jump out of my skin too! Op, you may have over reacted here, but I can see why.

Icimoi · 28/07/2014 22:07

Fair enough, Harold, but I don't follow why you singled out only those attacking the OP as needing protection from the horrors of people robustly disagreeing with them.

MarmaladeShatkins · 28/07/2014 22:08

LineRunner!

Sallystyle · 28/07/2014 22:08

She should have more driving lessons if she isn't confident driving 6 people around?

Give it a rest! this is exactly what I am talking about by the bitchy replies.

Since when did someone being nervous over someone drunk punching their seat means they are a nervous driver who needs a refresher course? Hmm That is just pure bullshit.

My dad was a taxi driver for over 15 years. Even he had got nervous at times when a passenger was drunk and acting aggressively. Perhaps he should have had more lessons too Hmm only nervous drivers get scared when a drank man is aggressively punching their seat after all.

ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy · 28/07/2014 22:10

"DH is on antibiotics so me and some of our mates went on a drinking spree and he drove us home. My mate Bob ribbed him for being a wuss and not drinking then slammed his hand hard into DH's headrest, once on a twisty dark road and once near some traffic lights near home, which shook DH up a lot. When we got home, DH yelled at him to get out of the car, Bob said "Hit me then". DH shouted "Get out of the fing car otherwise i fing will....get out of my sight".

AIBU to think that DH should apologise to Bob for yelling and swearing?

Icimoi · 28/07/2014 22:10

I cannot stand this "pregnancy is not illness" no it isn't but it has many of the symptoms of quite a serious one.

Bit of a diversion here, but I do agree with you. When I was pregnant I used to wonder a bit why I wasn't entitled to say I felt ill when I was throwing up the entire 9 months.

Pyjamaramadrama · 28/07/2014 22:11

Perhaps they should put drink people in the back of the car unexpectedly punching your seat on the driving test, just to prove how hard as nails you are.

Cluffyflump · 28/07/2014 22:12

Why are some people such twatbadgers?

If some drunk idiot was punching the back of my seat and offering me a fight my dh would bury them! More so if I were pg at the time.
That's not to say that her Dhs reaction and subsequent actions were wrong, just a fair bit more restrained than mine would have been

Lets remember that if it were the ops dh punching objects to intimidate/upset her, we would be shouting ltb and maybe make a complaint about it to the police.

ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy · 28/07/2014 22:12

"Perhaps they should put drink people in the back of the car unexpectedly punching your seat on the driving test, just to prove how hard as nails you are."

Sounds like a Top Gear challenge! If undertaken in a half-Zafira/half Skoda welded together by trained monkeys...

StandsOnGoldenSands · 28/07/2014 22:13

What a nasty thread. Perfect example of why AIBU is horrible.

If I was pregnant, driving drunk people in the dark down country roads, I'd be very alert to say the least. To have some drunken arsehole kicking or punching my headrest would freak me out too. Let alone repeatedly.

The OP was scared. If other posters wouldn't have been then good for them. But she was and she is asking whether she is owed an apology. Well yes she absolutely is. And I wouldn't drive that person again even if they did apologise.

Nicola19 · 28/07/2014 22:15

Honestly, I think the OP was right to do what she did, she could have had a right fright. I think she did just fine on her own and didn't need DH to say much more.

ExcuseTypos · 28/07/2014 22:15

MNHQ has a thread in site stuff about AIBU NOT being a fight club, and being like another part of the site.

It looks like a lot of people haven't seen it.

Nicola19 · 28/07/2014 22:16

In fact I admire her being able to let rip at somebody like that, when called for.

HicDraconis · 28/07/2014 22:19

I have read the whole thread. And I think you were restrained in merely screaming and swearing at your ridiculous passenger.

I have had my headrest thumped hard while driving. It made me slam on my brakes and skid - loud impact noise that I wasn't expecting equals emergency stop. On an unlit country road that could easily have seen the OP end up half way through a tree.

I also have a tendency to feel just as much of an adrenaline rush after a near miss as I do after an incident. So it's understandable that the OP is still thinking about it the following morning.

I don't think OP was a drama queen, diva, or overreacted in the slightest. Personally I'd have stopped the car after the first incident and told the offender that they could walk or call a taxi from there. After an apology and an assurance that they would behave for the rest of the journey, I would probably have continued - but the second thump and they'd have been out. No excuses, no apologies, no nothing. Out and walking.

This has not stopped me being able to ferry two squabbling children around, or DH and his mother (which was worse than the boys!). It doesn't make me a nervous driver. And if someone suggests I hit them, I remind them that I can hit both hard and accurately (karate) and not to be so stupid.

I think OP has been given an unreasonably hard time on this thread.

Sallystyle · 28/07/2014 22:20

I am more concerned by the drivers who wouldn't be scared.

It doesn't make you a safe and confident driver, it makes you stupidly over confident and arrogant, someone who is probably more at risk of having an accident than a person who get nervous over someone punching their seat.

I fear drivers who have so little fear that getting their seat punched aggressively wouldn't phase them. Makes me wonder what other potentially dangerous situations they don't care about.

Works both ways doesn't it? the people who think she needs driving lessons because she was scared could easily be the stupid drivers who don't have a healthy dose of fear in dangerous situations.

Nicola19 · 28/07/2014 22:24

The pregnancy is valid in my view. A 30 week bump might be a big one and there it is, tucked under the steering wheel, the one thing she is protecting with her life. She doesn't want to dig into the steering column with this silly twat messing about behind her. Relevant?? Er, yes!!

NickiFury · 28/07/2014 22:25

Well quite icimoi not to mention the massive swelling growing on the front of you and the aching and stretching muscles, the severe reduction in mobility, the shortness of breath and inability to sleep. I think that not being recognised and being told to constantly "suck it up it's not an illness" is at best nasty and dismissive and at worst misogynistic.

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