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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

like having a third child DH makes me apoplectic

92 replies

aspergersrus · 22/12/2014 08:37

Yesterday was a typical example.We were due to be somewhere at 3pm, he wanted to clean the cars in the morning so went outside at 10ish....I showered, got the children's breakfast, washed up, fed dog etc. I then popped out to do some food shopping. Returned at 1.15, DH still in the garden messing about, reminded him of timing and went to put shopping away and make some snacks and drinks as we were taking children skating.
Fast forward to 1.45 and me starting to get angry at seeing him hosing down the steps in the garden (hardly a priority at this time of year), I again reminded him of time and returned to get children dressed, gloves, hats gathered etc. He finally came in at 2pm and I was so wound up by this time, especially as he had said he would walk the dog and hadn't. He showered and we got in the car at 2.30 for a 30 minute journey to be on the ice at 3pm.
I was mad with him and when he told me to stop going on I got out of the car and told him to go on his own. I then walked the dog and left him to it telling the children to have a good time but I was too mad with daddy to go.

This is a common theme, how can i remedy it, he just laughs and finds it funny. I actually find it disrespectful and no matter how many times I ask him to allow sufficient time so I don't get stressed he ignores it. It seems as though there is one parent and three children in the situation.
I do love him to bits, he works hard for the family but I spontaneously combust if this carries on, any advice?

OP posts:

TooHasty · 22/12/2014 17:55

maybe he sees protecting the car paintwork by hosing salt off the cars and clearing slippery 'slime' from the garden steps as more of a priority than arriving 15 minutes early at an ice skating session?

Op are you always like this with your DP.Insisting tou are the only one who can be right?

naty1 · 22/12/2014 18:03

Mine is the exact same. Decides he needs shower spends whole time getting himself ready while i do DC.
Its annoying. If they had sense they know
Changing bag
Feed child
Clean child
Teeth
Clothes
Shoes
Coat
A drink/snack
Hair
Toddlers are time consuming to get ready aand DD takes a while eating.
Im going about say tidying kitchen, washing
Even a polite are you ok doing xyz as im going to (do something unhelpful)
I think they need more practise doing it all so they recognise what work it is.

confuddledDOTcom · 22/12/2014 18:05

You can tell the posters blessed to have never lived this. My dad then the kids dad!

My mum does step by step instructions for dad in writing or he would spend the whole day hand cranking the washing machine or billowing the oven (not sure there's another explanation when he says he wanted clothes or cooked all day). When we were kids she discovered going to an evening Sunday service without telling him we needed food meant we'd go hungry - "Daddy! We're hungry!" "You'll have to wait for Mummy to get back" "but we're starving!" whilst he tucks into his 4 slices sandwich of leftover Sunday dinner, crisps and cake. She eventually found out he was doing this and he said "but I didn't know what to do them" he was also, and still is with our children, terrible for getting into rows with us kids and of course "she started it!" my eldest won't take it now and tells him. Both men are regularly lied to about time, sometimes up to an hour different. The kids dad has a 2.5 hour journey home from work which is at least the trains and thought it was ok to leave work 3 hours before his GP appointment that would take about half hour to get to once he's back in the city. Sadly step by step and letting him make his own decisions doesn't work. It took me 18 months to get save the date cards out of him, I only wanted the paper trimming and the printing done (that and a few other similar events were why I did a Roxy and didn't sign the register). Mum eventually dragged dad to the GP abs said save or marriage, after different tests they found he's autistic, which isn't a surprise, NT is more a surprise in our family. They say autism is extreme maleness and looking at my daughter and the other ASDs in my family and the men I can get that.

It is frustrating and you will nearly always end up feeling like this and confused about who did what, it's almost gaslighting, but your kids will see what's happening. You need to decide what you need to do because it's water torture and it doesn't end.

FunkyBoldRibena · 22/12/2014 18:35

You can tell the posters blessed to have never lived this. My dad then the kids dad!

Or the ones who chose a partner that was fully able to function without all the handholding.

confuddledDOTcom · 22/12/2014 19:22

Yeah because I chose my own dad and I fell for my kids dad based solely on his ability to leave his head.

Even if I hadn't had the XP I do, I'd still have empathy for the OP from experience I couldn't control. Even if I didn't have experience, I'd have empathy because I'm a person

OriginalGreenGiant · 22/12/2014 19:53

Sorry but I think yabu.

You stomped and tantrummed and eventually cut your nose off to spite your face and missed the outing.

It's not like he was sitting on his arse doing nothing - you were pottering inside, he was pottering outside.

He said 'stop going on' - which implies that you were going on, when you were all in the car, about to leave.

If you have issues in general with things he does/doesn't do then speak to him about them. But in this instance it sound like you nagged and nagged, without actually indicating that you'd rather he was inside helping with the dc, then kept giving him an earful about it.

partialderivative · 22/12/2014 20:20

I would rather sit at my sewing machine some days

I'm sorry, and this is no help at all, but this comment made me fall about laughing.

It's like a line from "Hancock's Half Hour"

(well it is to me)

mix56 · 22/12/2014 20:24

Pottering.......not really, he was being a boy & OP was doing all the necessary slog of things in order for the activity to go smoothly.
I have a "3rd child" too, it drives me frigging bonkers.
It is not one isolated "washing the steps needlessly", it's every single time that I try to include him in a family plan. The hardest part is just that? getting him ready, along with the kids, the dogs, the jobs that need sorting before etc.
He gives no practical input ever. Obviously I can ask for help... (ignored) So
I don't ask (whinge) about it anymore, I just increasingly lose respect.
I am no longer looking for his passport, or telling him to bring his reading glasses, So be it.
As a PP mentioned, when HE needs to get to work or be at a RDV with friends he manages perfectly. So when he screws up, well Tough.
Sadly I don't have a solution, but commiserations, It's certainly no fun

Chandon · 22/12/2014 20:38

sounds solo annoying OP.

But being a martyr never worked for anyone.

Maybe he did not want to go skating? Could you just have gone without this dead weight?

mix56 · 22/12/2014 20:50

Maybe that's the Mantra ?
"Are you planning coming or deliberately being a dead weight ?"

TooHasty · 22/12/2014 21:39

who planned the ice skating trip, you or him?
and how old are the kids.If they are going skaing I would assume the youngest is at least six in which case they should be able to get their own cereals and put on their own coats and hats and gloves.

Ihavenopigs · 22/12/2014 22:29

Sounds like he was busy doing car/garden chores. You gave him his orders but he didn't obey them despite your nagging. You then took a total strop in front of the children because he didn't do as you ordered. And you think he's a child. At least he had the good humour to laugh it off.

Fannydabbydozey · 22/12/2014 22:32

I have a third child too... We both work full time, both have crap commutes and I can tell you that Christmas, birthdays, holidays, our social life, house and car wouldn't exist if he was left to his own devices. If I'm not working he will invariably get up, get himself dressed and leave the house without it crossing his mind to see to the children (or wake us). It. Wears. Me. Down.

I delegate. Over the years I've delegated hoovering, washing - clothes and dishes - bin emptying and floor sweeping. He also does hs own and my son's ironing... (He finds skirts too "confusing." CFine. I don't iron any of my clothes anyway, I steam them)

I've accepted that he is shit at forward planning, shit at seeing the whole picture instead of a tiny part and shit at seeing other people's perspectives. He can't cook so I do it and if I'm working late he puts something in the oven for everyone. He only once forgt to feed the children and I was so horrified I doubt he'll forget to again. He'll pop to the shops and buy one thing that we needed at that moment. And then have to go again later in the day... We've all been very sick (apart from him) and it is hard to make him realise that he needs to step up, that the dog food/toilet roll fairy is bedridden!

I know that in part I'm enabling him to be crap at things because I take over in many circumstances but to me at least things happen. It has pushed us to the brink at times and almost all our arguments are on this theme. He does take stock and readjust but it is learned behaviour rather than an inherent understanding of how a family and a household runs and works. He lives in a bit of a dream and seeing him pootle about in a dream while things need doing or sorting out makes me want to scream.

I've long suspected my DH is somewhere on the aspergers spectrum. I think he does too.

Permanentlyexhausted · 22/12/2014 22:35

You can tell the posters blessed to have never lived this. My dad then the kids dad!

Or the ones who chose a partner that was fully able to function without all the handholding.

Yes, indeed. Or the ones who actually manage to communicate effectively with our husbands. My Dad was like the OPs DH. I watched how my parents behaved, and listened to my mum endlessly complain about him but never actually explain what she wanted and I chose not to live like that myself.

grimbletart · 22/12/2014 23:43

Jeez. I didn't realise so many MNetters are married to children.
Give him a time, make it 15 minutes earlier, sit down and make a list, reason with him, wipe his arse for him…...

Husbands are supposed to be adults.

FFS just carry on with your day. If he isn't ready get the kids in the car and go.

Why should a woman baby a man-child to the point where she's about to burst a blood vessel because of his constant man-child behaviour and then end up being made to feel guilty because she's a nag.

His.juice. Let.him.stew. in. it.

TheLastThneed · 23/12/2014 09:43

OP said they had to be on the ice at 3pm, so leaving 30 mins before is not enough.

diddl · 23/12/2014 18:07

"You can tell the posters blessed to have never lived this."

"Blessed"?

To be with a man who participates in family life?
A family that he also wanted & created?

I would have hoped that it was the norm!

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