to think he should have come straight away

[inmyshoos]

If you lived in a new area and didnt know many people and had no family nearby would you expect your dh to come straight away (from work) to the hospital if your dc (under 1 yr) had had an accident involving a broken limb possibly needing operation to pin and you were there with your injured dc plus your other 2 pre school dc?

If they chose to finish their working day before heading home a few hts down the line having only sent a text saying 'hope X is ok'. Would you be happy with that? I wasn't. Dh didnt think it was necessary to excuse himself and tbh it caused a huge bruise in our relationship. I felt completely on my own. It was actually a long time ago but recent relationship troubles has made me think about this and i wondered if i expected too much. Was i unreasonable expecting him to come straight away not stroll in at the end of the day?

The dog food incident is just unfortunate; if he doesn't normally shop for the dog food/feed the dogs then he wouldn't know any better. Also, the meeting was important and two hours away so I understand that he couldn't just walk out.

op, I'm more concerned that you are focusing on these things so long after they have occurred

4 years ago isn't that long ago, the OP's using it as an example of an indifference which he refuses to acknowledge, to show that he never changes and to work out whether she can live with him/his lack of care.

He thinks he's superdad when in reality he's not giving his DW the most basic support when things turn to shit.

I think he was unreasonable. Not for the broken bone - or having 2 other children there - but the fact that one of the children was 2 years old! Very difficult to manage a typical child that age without being fully prepared (and obviously you wouldn't be in an emergency/accident situation) when you are also needing to fully focus on the also mobile 1 year old.

I could quite easily manage my 3DC at a hospital alone if the youngest (1) broke a bone. But my older 2 are 6 and 9, which is a totally different kettle of fish!! And if I couldn't easily get hold of a friend to do school pick up for example in that situ, DH would just be summoned by text message to do it for me!! I have only called him home once ever - and we are also in a new area where we had literally zero support to start with - it was when DD (9) went missing and I literally could not think what I was going to do - had the 2 younger ones in tow and thought I was going to be getting police involved etc - luckily it didn't come to that! But he literally just walked out - told his boss very briefly what the situation was and jumped in a taxi immediately.

You seem to expect an awful lot of your dh without actually telling him. He probably isn't a mind reader, and never will be. So unless you start communicating clearly how you feel and what you want him to do it's never going to get any better.

YANBU - if a grown man doesn't know to make every effort to get home ASAP if his child needs urgent medical treatment and his DP is alone with their injured child and two other small children then there's not much hope for him. It's one thing if he had tried to get away and couldn't but another thing entirely to just not bother even trying.

I think lots of us (men and women) separate work and home mentally. When we're at work we think about work, and wouldn't leave work unless we had to. Perhaps especially in the charitable sector. He thought you were coping (and trusted you to cope or to ask for support if you needed it?)
So if you want your dh to detach from work early you need to be very specific in asking him to. Equally, perhaps you knew that buying a different dog food is asking for trouble, but if caring for the dogs is usually your job perhaps he didn't.
Perhaps YABU to resent not getting support you haven't asked for?

Did you say or text " I need you at the hospital now, bring me food and take the 2 dc home to give them tea etc" ?

Once when he worked away all week i asked would he get dog food on way home. He went to a different shop for the food because the usual one was ten mins out of his way.

Have you ever worked away all week?
Did he know about the importance of the dog food?
Why not remind him which food was required? I have a cat with dietary requirements and I need the old bag to remind me of the brand and type of food.

If he is the type that often works away all week or has a long commute and these things are not part of his daily life it's natural that he doesn't pay that much attention to it.

ExH once asked me to pick up a take away on my way home from the airport while carrying my bag. I still resent him for that.

See I wouldn't expect him to come ASAP as he was two hours away. A pp asked whether you just generally don't like him and this is something to pin feelings to?

The pet food thing I actually think you were setting him up to fail. Part of you may have wanted him to fail so that you could hold it over him.

"Why not remind him which food was required? I have a cat with dietary requirements and I need the old bag to remind me of the brand and type of food."

Gasp! Hopefully OP's husband doesn't think of her in quite those terms!!

:)
I am the only old bag at home.

I phoned my DH from hospital at 10.30 am after having my first child (yes he was there for the birth) and he said yes I'll collect you on my way home from work tonight. I was collected at 7pm

A smaller baby I would expect him to shoot back for, a 7 year old I think he could cope on his own and would have taken the shopping home or at least with me to the hospital.

I wouldn't have expected dh to come till after work for this I'm afraid.
But, that's kind of irrelevant as it's you we're talking about, and you did want your dh to come.
But, I don't think he should have to read your mind, so if you wanted him there, you should have told him so.
If he's 'flakey' , then I would say that means he needs to be told what you want him to do.

YANBU ...I guess it illustrates he has no idea how difficult looking after small children can be. I think people need to think this through - imagine a screaming in pain baby and two confused and probably also upset by the fact you and the baby were upset small DCs - probably needing the toilet, nappies changed, feeding, entertaining etc etc. Sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.
It must have been really difficult for you ...a strain keeping your emotions under control and caring for the other two...
And maybe I am reading too much in to it but if you feel he doesn't appreciate you/what you do anyway this would be salt in the wound.
Maybe he needs to spend more time with the DC on his own - maybe you could go away for a weekend/week and let him see how easy it is...
(although that might backfire - I have school age DC and had to stay in hospital for a week - DP says it was easy - doesn't appreciate that no cleaning got done, bear minimum washing and other mums helped him out picking up from school/taking to activities etc etc - even the school didn't chase him for lunch money - much longer and it would have been chaos!)

And as for all those saying he couldn't leave work etc ...what if he was a lone parent? What if both parents were working - one would have to leave...a cm or nursery couldn't have taken them and sat with them...his work was more important than his DC...because the OP 'does' the children etc - right

I think some of the people on this thread probably can't put themselves in the OPs shoes.

New to an area, so absolutely no one to call on to help with childcare during a serious emergency involving a badly hurt baby, in pain and distress, no doubt needing his/her mummy, but she also has to deal with trying to comfort/entertain 2 other pre-schoolers - who may have been dragged out of the house in a hurry without time to grab a snack/favourite book etc/ unsettled by the panic and needing a drink/the loo at the hospital. And at the same time she has to listen to/take in what medics re saying and answer questions/give consent etc.

Of course the DH should have come, and should not have had to be told/asked! He majorly failed that day and I am not surprised it still rankles.

I would have been very pissed off with him, you shouldn't have to ask for his help/ support in what anyone with half a brain could imagine was a really stressful and upsetting situation. This doesn't mean expecting him to be a mind reader, it is expecting him to be a normal, responsive husband and father. As for his wankerish non-apology apology (I'm sorry you still fell like this), fuck that.

feel, not fell.

lucycoco

I don't expect husband to be a mind reader but i also dont expect to have to spell out things as if be were a child. The dog food thing he should have known better. He knew the food they were on, it was about him being lazy thinking just pop to closest shop rather than the one we always got dog food from.

It grates on me still because we have issues at the moment and part of it is his inability to make the right call, do the right thing. He panics under pressure. He means well, im fairly sure about that. He loves me and dc and actually does do plenty round house and with dc. But like someone said whilst dh manages on his own with house and dc only the bare minimum is done and he has never been ldft to it for more than a weekend. I think a fortnight would be telling!

It's possible that if he was left responsible for a fortnight, then he'd step up. When someone is many hours away from home and someone else is in charge effectively, it's easy to keep the home stuff on essentials only.

When exH was at home and did most of the cooking, I wouldn't know well what was stocked in the fridge because I didn't deal with it every day, for example.

If you think he panics under pressure and makes the wrong choices, I think it helps everyone if you do spell out what you need rather than wait for him to decide. If you ask him and he still fails, then you'll really have something to complain about.

Yanbu at all to have been upset about that. I cannot conceive of my DW needing to be told that I would like her to come and help me out in that situation. She would also just want to be there for our Dd. That said she does work away and sometimes abroad but she always says she will come back if we need her. Likewise there are tricky times when she is away that I just get on with on my own but something like this, when he wasn't that far away and your situation was clearly a very stressful one I would have expected him to come too.

It's upsetting when something like this keeps bugging you for a very long time. I think if I were you and he was really sorry I would try very hard to move on from it. Do you think he would respond in the same way again now?

Hang on. The OP is in hospital with a baby with a broken leg and two pre schoolers. The baby might need a general anaesthetic. Why would any adult human being not realise that, if at all possible, somebody needs to come and either take over with the baby or take the other two home?

But people are suggesting that the OP needed to spell it out to the children's father?

I don't know how my DH would have reacted in that situation.

I think he would have thought that I would be able to cope. Not because he is uncaring, but because I always do, and he would be in work mode and not actually thinking things through.

I do know that I would have explicitly said, "I need you to come home now".
I also know that he would have been contrite, when he had realised he had screwed up after a massive bollocking from me

Is that part of your frustration? Yes he is flakey, but is it more his inability to admit this and see things from your point if view? Does he generally find it difficult to empathise with you and the kids? Does he really think you have it easy? Does he see you as the strong capable one while panics? Is he anxious generally? Do you resent that he us not strong and dependable. Someone you can rely on? Has he always been like this?

If he has, then you either need to accept it or move on. He can't change a basic personality although he can change aspects if it, but you will need to explicitly tell/show him how. I think counselling might be a good idea.

Both my children have been blue lighted to hospital for different reasons. Both times I have phoned my DH at work and said 'I am in an ambulance' and before I have explained anything else he replied 'ok I will meet you at the hospital'. He usually gets there before we do. He just walked out of work, saying ' My DC is on their way to hospital' He has never asked his boss if her could go, he just tells him he is going. His boss is generally a cunt but he has never challenged DH about sick children (ours both have medical problems so lots of hospital appointments apart from the emergency stuff)

Apart from supporting me, he says he could not concentrate on his job if he was worrying about what was happening at the hospital.

YANBU.

I think in your shoes OP it would be the fact that he still insists he was right not to come straight away. I could just about cope with my DH screwing up like this if he acknowledged he had done. The fact that he thinks he was right along with your ongoing issues means you still can't trust him. If you can't trust your partner to be there for you then the relationship is pretty much over.