To be annoyed with DP for this?

[MinnieM1]

I've been seriously ill with flu recently and have been in bed for the last 2 days
Yesterday DC were in school all morning and my Mum had the afternoon off and took them to her house for me, I slept all day
DP is supposed to be home at 5:45, he said he had to work late yesterday he'd be home closer to 6:30 but my Mum had to bring DC home for 6 so I dragged my sorry arse out of bed and relocated to the couch, kept telling myself it was only half an hour
DP rocks up at 7pm! I was already annoyed, poor kids had been pretty much ignored for an hour and he swans in with...a bar of chocolate and a bottle of radox I've got flu I'm not on my fucking period! I don't want this shit I just want to sleep!!
AIBU to be thoroughly fucked off that I was dying on the couch with no-one to watch DC and he was swanning round Tesco buying me stuff I didn't want?! He thinks I'm 'ungrateful'

[NomorepepperpigPLEASE]

its not as if he was out on the piss, he was at work and brought something back to try cheer her up. misplaced but at least the thought was there.

[SolomanDaisy]

God! people just come on AIBU to be twats don't they? Flu is grim, I had it for the first time last year, it was awful. I bet that hour on the couch felt like several days. You're bound to be irritable. Your DH was trying to help though, I bet he's never had flu!

[cailindana]

If you have no other option then that is really hard and I feel for you. But it was absolutely not the case that the OP had "no other option." She has a partner, who was finished work and could come home. But he didn't, he went to Tesco instead. He was inconsiderate while pretending to be considerate. It's stupid and childish to think someone who has flu would rather have chocolate and bubble bath than an extra pair of hands to look after the kids. It sounds to me like he took the easy option - jaunt off around Tesco instead of stepping up and doing what the OP asked him to do which was to be home asap as she needed help.

[EilisCitron]

I think there is a lot of misplaced anger on this thread. As we learnt from the trolls in Frozen, "people make bad choices / when they're mad or scared or stressed..."
I think that knowing you are absolutely alone with small demanding children, NO MATTER WHAT, brings on a certain low level irrational panic, that is causing the women who find themselves in this position to lash out at the woman who is in the more civilised and reasonable position of being able to call upon other adults.

I mean come on it is bonkers, isn't it? That a woman who may have flu (proper influenza) or torrential D&V is deemed by society to deserve no support for days at a time in the very physical job of looking after small children? It's crazy, and no wonder it has made some of the people on this thread crazy and aggressive, because it is happening / has happened to them

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

I think that might be the most bull shit patronising post I've ever read on here EllisCitron.

[NomorepepperpigPLEASE]

well he certainly wont be trying to cheer his wife up again when she is ill will he!

30 mins she had to lie on the couch watching her kids. Bloody hell grounds for divorce!!

[RiverTam]

so this happened yesterday and you're still fulminating about it today? Move on, OP, there's no point to all this. Yes, your DH got it slightly wrong. But is it really that bad? This is where I think MN is a bad thing - situations that would have got shrugged off and everyone would have moved on, get dragged up and over-analysed on MN, to everyone's detriment.

[MinnieM1]

RiverTam - I didn't & couldn't mention it last night, he came in waving the things at me and my reply was "take me to bed" it was this morning that I mentioned it when asking him to please come straight home today and he stomped off calling me ungrateful, so I'm just trying to see whether I'm over emotional & ungrateful and should apologise when I see him later

[EilisCitron]

It wasn't meant to be patronising. If it wasn't clear, I include myself in that. When I was on mat leave with a baby and a toddler I was a little loopy from the constant grating reality of how hard, day and night, the buck stops here. At work I have a team; the fact that I have a job, makes DP behave like a team member at home. It's a lot easier psychologically. I am not trying to patronise anyone, although I guess that the Trolls in Frozen might have been a little inflammatory

[MinnieM1]

EilisCitron - I rather enjoyed that you take your life lessons from the trolls in frozen actually haha!

[Coumarin]

"Let it go, let it goooo"

Glad you're feeling better today. Flu is horrendous. He meant well though so I really would let it go. Choose your battles and all that.

[KatieKaye]

sorry you've been feeling so rotten...

...but he had to work late and probably didn't want to. Most people actually look forward to ending their day at work and don't actively want to stay there any later than they have to. So he had a long day at work. Longer than usual.

And he then bought you a couple of wee gifts to try to make you feel a bit better.

He actually sound pretty thoughtful and considerate, even if you would rather he'd come straight home. If he didn't get home till 7 that is a long working day for him.

[cailindana]

Seriously Katie? The DP, who was perfectly well, had a "long working day" and so the OP who was very very ill should have sympathy for him? The constant martyrism around illness that is evident on MN really bothers me, as does the idea that men are oh so put upon because they have to go to work. The OP was totally understanding about the fact that her DP had to work late. What she objected to was the fact that she asked him specifically to get home as soon as he could and he just didn't do that and then grumped at her for being "ungrateful" - ungrateful for what? For the fact that he didn't listen to her, at all?

OP I would be far far more pissed off at the "ungrateful" comment than the actual lateness. Everyone can have a brainfart and do something inconsiderate without meaning it but to then get grumpy when called on it is really childish.

[cailindana]

He should be the one apologising, you did nothing wrong.

[AimlesslyPurposeful]

Glad you're feeling a bit better OP.

I don't think you're being ungrateful. What you needed was his help with the DCs not for him to waste time in Tesco buying things you didn't need.

Yes, it's lovely that he was thinking of you but he didn't have his sensible head on when he bought chocolate for someone with flu!

[KatieKaye]

Yeah, seriously.
It doesn't hurt to realise there are always two sides to every story and that most people don't actually like having to work late.
He said he'd try to be back about 6.30 and arrived home at 7 with a couple of wee pressies. It's possible he had to work later than predicted and the Tesco trip only took a few minutes. It's also possible that the Tesco trip took 30 minutes but we just don't know. He was trying to be nice.

[NomorepepperpigPLEASE]

I was 30 minutes she had to watch her children from the couch. She hadn't been doing it all day, he wasn't at the pub and he brought her a little gift back to cheer her up. I don't think there was any malice in it at all. Bizarre!

[cailindana]

Yes Katie and when the OP, understandably, asked him not to be late again he called her "ungrateful." Why should someone be grateful for something that made their life harder?

It's one thing to try to be nice, get it wrong and apologise for it. It's quite another to be thoughtless, but dress it up as being nice and then get stroppy when someone asks you not to do it again.

[NomorepepperpigPLEASE]

30 minuets!!!!! making her life hard??

I would have said the same as her DH thb.

[cailindana]

Yes, there was absolutely no need for him to be late. It was rude and inconsiderate. Not the crime of the century, but annoying. And yet the OP was supposed to be grateful for it. Fuck that.

[NomorepepperpigPLEASE]

You seem really angry cailin

[19lottie82]

AnniDollxox - Sorry, but if you actually had the flu then you wouldn't be able to walk the dog or go shopping, You simply wouldn't. A bad col, yes. but the flu, no.

[Number3cometome]

Well that's 4 hours of my life I'm never going to get back.

[cailindana]

Yes I am angry Nomorepepper, I'm angry that women are encouraging other women to accept low-level shitty behaviour from men. It's that constant encouragement not to "make a fuss" and to constantly to view men's time, choices and work as more important than everything else, even when their partner is very ill, that leads women to devalue their own feelings and slowly get pulled into abusive relationships. I'm not saying the OP is in an abusive relationship, I'm saying that this idea that women should soldier on while men fanny about buying chocolate when that's the last thing that's needed is really pernicious. It seems like a small thing but it's part of a much much larger problem.

[EilisCitron]

the chocolate and bubble bath are actually really patronising. these are things you buy for someone who has a bit of a cold or who has had some slightly disappointing news.

It demonstrates that what the OP said - presumably something like "I am very ill, and really struggling" was heard as something more like "awwww she's a bit under the weather". I sympathise with being pissed off about these because some men really struggle to understand that sometimes, what women are doing, is actually objectively hard. it's not about her overreacting to something or having moods or something, it is a task of strength and endurance in objective terms - sometimes. Chocolate and bubble bath say "aw, bless", with a little head tilt. If he was going to get a present, and it was the wrong day to spend the time doing that, but anyway - he should have got a present that says "my hero" not one that says "bless..."