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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be angry / cross / upset when I ask DH to sort important things out and he does nothing?

35 replies

ovumahead · 03/05/2015 08:20

My DH us generally lovely, but can be rather passive when it comes to sorting stuff out - eg even though we both work full time it's always me that sorts out school related things, takes DS to the doctors etc. To be fair he does the majority of the cooking and food shopping but this is because I'm 21 weeks pregnant, utterly exhausted, and he works from home so actually much easier for him to do these things. I'm very appreciative.

However a while ago I took DS to the gp as he was run down. Had to take him to the hospital for a blood test, discovered low iron levels, needed a retest. It's really tricky for me to get to the hospital so I asked DH to do it. And I asked again. And again. Did he? No. When I asked why not be said something utterly lame like "I don't really understand what I need to to and where to go" so I explained it all, but still he's done nothing. Now he's lost the blood form and it's been literally more than 6 months since the retest was due. DS is not overtly ill but low iron levels are a nightmare and I'd like to check it out...

Second issue is with school applications - I did everything, then asked him to deal with getting a form form the council to appeal the decision. He called, but they didn't respond, during this time I've had issues with pregnancy been exhausted and distracted.... Realised this morning he's completely missed the deadline.

Am I being unreasonable to be cross with him? Should I just do it all myself...?

I realise this is rather minor compared to many of the posts here, but is a recurring issue in our 10 year relationship and it drives me nuts!

OP posts:

aquashiv · 03/05/2015 08:38

No you shouldn't do everything yourself.. you will resent him and yourself.
Has he always been so forgetful or disorganised? Is this a problem for him. Perhaps he could have a chat with his GP?

TheLastThneed · 03/05/2015 08:43

YANBU...it shouldn't all be left to you. How does he feel about missing the deadline?

TestingTestingWonTooFree · 03/05/2015 08:45

I don't think the GP can help with people who can't really be fucked to do chores. YANBU op.

RandomMess · 03/05/2015 08:46

YANBU - read "wifework"

I think you should permanently delegate all food & household shopping & cooking & clearing up. It's a largish task, let him get on with it as his & his responsibility alone!!!

You also need to give him some other tasks that he has sole responsibility for to lighten your head space.

thatstoast · 03/05/2015 08:53

How old is your son? It can't be very nice for him that his dad isn't able/willing to look after his health. Isn't he even going to attempt to get it sorted?

IfYouWereARiverIdLearnToFloat · 03/05/2015 09:03

YANBU in expecting DH to do more but are you seriously saying in 6 months neither of you has found the time to get DS's bloods rechecked?

I think that makes both of you unreasonable.

Littlemonstersrule · 03/05/2015 09:31

You both sound unrasonable, in six months neither or you could find an hour or two to take your son for a blood test?

School paperwork is important, surely either one of you could have done quickly one evening. The time spent on pestering him you could have done it yourself.

If he is not great with paperwork leave him to the jobs he does well. Cooking every night would take far longer than the odd bit of admin.

Topseyt · 03/05/2015 09:59

I totally sympathise.

I am currently having a similar problem with my husband getting him to complete his share of the online application forms for our DD1 to get her student loan through for next year. The deadline is at the end of this month, but we have told him it is mid-month to have a chance of him doing it on time.

I have led by example and done my forms, but now he is required to use his own login to do his. Nightmare every year, and I get cat's bum face from him whenever it has to be mentioned.

I was an SAHM when my children were the age your are, so school forms and GP appointments were my domain anyway, but that was probably just as well.

magoria · 03/05/2015 10:09

I actually think YABU.

You are only 21 weeks and it has been 6 months since your DC needed this retest.

You know what your H is like but didn't sort it yourself.

You both have let your DC down.

DoJo · 03/05/2015 10:17

I agree that YA both U for failing to take your son for blood tests for six months! I don't even understand how either of you can be so unconcerned about your son's health as to not do this. I appreciate that it's tricky for you transport-wise, but even if you need to get a taxi to the hospital this should not have become a 'job' that either of you let slide to this extent.

It sounds like your son is the only really suffering as a result of this situation, so I would suggest that jobs like this just need to get done no matter who is doing them. The discussion over your shared responsibilities and how to distribute them should not come at the expense of your son't health and education.

Original poster

ovumahead · 03/05/2015 10:25

Yes good points. I guess it's hard to portray the whole picture, I wasn't actually able to take my son for retesting 6 months ago which is why I asked my dh to do it. Kept asking, then got pregnant and fell into a whirlwind of exhaustion - yes we have both definitely failed him on this, if he actually seemed ill and tired then I think it would have been more pressing. Now I'm coming up for air mid pregnancy and starting to realise what I've not been doing! Quite alarming for me as I'm normally on top of everything. I just wish he'd do these things when I can't. Whinge whinge, grow up and get on with it I hear you say! And yes I will...

OP posts:

FitzgeraldProtagonist · 03/05/2015 10:25

It is the "quicker to have done it yourself than keep chasing it up" attitude that REALLY fucks me off. WhyTAF should you have to keep on and on at a grown up for sharing the load. It is disrespectful and bloody rude.

Oh wifey you are expected to earn the same as me because we are EQUAL but you are supposed to deal with EVERYTHING FUCKING ELSE to support me in earning my share, as well as earning the same?! FFS this boils my piss to volcanic lava levels. Don't let it happen!!! Aggrah faints

saoirse31 · 03/05/2015 10:26

yabvu re your son's blood tests.

ApocalypseNowt · 03/05/2015 11:38

I see where you're coming from. It's the unwillingness to do any of the 'thinking' that comes with having a family.

A couple of months ago i had a bit of a moan at dh saying it was always me who was coming up with things to do/places to go with the dc at weekend and could he please maybe have a think too in future. DH agreed.

Last weekend i asked what should we do? His ideas were 'the park' or 'his mums'. I mentioned that I had asked a while ago if he could start coming up with ideas...ask work colleagues/friends, go on google, etc...nothing too taxing. He hadn't but said he would. So i suggested we have a day out to a nice museum an hour or so away from us. We did and had a nice time.

Fast forward to today. Asked him for his ideas. His idea was....the museum we went to last week. I asked him if he had come up with any ideas like i had asked and he sniped "not this morning, no". I asked well what about in the past week....? Got a very sheepish no.

Humph.

FryOneFatManic · 03/05/2015 11:51

If people like the OPs DH were like this at work, they'd soon be sacked.

So, it basically boils down to "can't be bothered, as I know you'll have to pick up the slack".

I don't do wifework and never will.

LaLyra · 03/05/2015 11:59

You are not unreasonable to be really pissed off with him. Not at all.

However you are both utterly unreasonable that your son hasn't had a follow up blood test and the deadling for school appeal has been missed.

Who does what should be an adult argument. It shouldn't be one that potentially negatively affects the health and education of the child.

LaLyra · 03/05/2015 12:02

*deadline

IfYouWereARiverIdLearnToFloat · 03/05/2015 12:53

I'd be worried that neither of you can make your sons health a priority. Have neither of you had a day off in the last six months that you could have taken him?

I had to have bloods taken weekly as a kid & my parents who both worked & only had one car & two other children always made sure I got there no matter how inconvenient. And from the outside I looked & felt fine & healthy - how can you be sure his iron hasn't dropped again?

CupidStuntSurvivor · 03/05/2015 13:29

Which of you is putting your son first then? 6 months overdue a blood test to monitor an existing issue? I agree you shouldn't have to organise all of your lives but to let something like that become so overdue is ridiculous. As for the school thing, I just hope there was no pressing reasons for your DS to go to the school he'll now obviously not be attending.

Original poster

ovumahead · 03/05/2015 14:51

No there weren't any pressing reasons and actually I've realised we haven't missed the deadline for the school at all! Phew. And re the blood test I honestly did think my dh would do it, but he didn't - our son is a bright, perky, energetic boy who was ok classified as actually anaemic but borderline, as a result we increased his iron intake with diet (iron rich meat and veg) and daily floradix so I don't think we've neglected him at all. He eats and sleeps well, doesn't catch colds etc, so I am resisting the guilt trip some of you are trying to place on me!

OP posts:

DoJo · 03/05/2015 17:50

I don't think anyone's trying to guilt trip you, just to point out that the disagreement that you and your husband are having about how to organise the jobs that need doing shouldn't be at the expense of your son's health or education. The fact that your update confirms that neither of these are as big a deal as your OP suggested doesn't negate that fact that you need to make sure that you (as a couple) are taking care of his needs regardless.

measles64 · 03/05/2015 18:05

I gave up on getting DH to do paperwork years ago, he just is not wired that way. I do the paperwork, he does the cooking. He spends more time cooking than I have to on paperwork. I do most of the cleaning, but he does help if I ask. My American friend has job jars. you write out the jobs that need doing stick them in your jar and pull out one daily, she says when it is written down her DH tends to do them. the-jobjar.com/ your son can join in as well.

Original poster

ovumahead · 05/05/2015 20:57

The job jar thing looks fab!

Yes I know my husband's weak spots for sure and normally we have a really good balance. There's definitely things he does that I can't / won't / hate to do and vice versa. It's just often the more serious and important things get left to me and go unnoticed, whereas he will need a big pat on the back and loads of praise for doing his! Perhaps this is just how men and women operate, who knows...! Need to have a good talk about how to work things out while I'm pregnant though.

Thanks so much for all the advice and support, really very helpful!

OP posts:

geekymommy · 05/05/2015 21:46

Some people are really not good at doing certain kinds of tasks. It's kind of unreasonable to keep assigning someone a job of the sort that you know they're not likely to do well and expect a different result.

Can you (or he) call the hospital and ask what needs to happen if you lost the form for the blood work? They might be able to pull it up in their computer system, or you might be able to get a new copy from the doctor who originally ordered the blood work. Losing forms is something that happens all the time in the geeky household (neither DH nor I qualify as anything even remotely close to organized), so we've had to deal with this kind of thing a lot. (I had to deal with a very similar scenario, in fact, although the testing was for DD's lead levels, not iron. We did get it sorted out.) I know for a fact that he is not the first person to lose a medical form.

Is it possible that he feels bad about losing the form, and didn't want to deal with that feeling, so it got pushed further and further out? I have social anxiety disorder, so a loop like that isn't an uncommon experience for me. I once didn't go to the dentist for two years, because I knew I should ask people for recommendations, but the idea of doing that scared me. Later on, the idea of admitting that I hadn't been to a dentist in two years to anybody scared me, too. I found that asking questions like that online or over the phone was less scary than doing it in person (because I tended to tear up when I did, and I really don't like people seeing me cry). But I managed to do it, and make a dentist appointment, and it really wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be. Of course, my anxious mind being the way it is, "it wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be" means I didn't have to have all my teeth pulled and end up living in a cardboard box under a bridge. Catastrophizing like that is pretty common in people with anxiety disorders.

Would it be possible for you to do the part of the task that involves dealing with the lost form, and DH do the actual taking DS to the hospital part? Of course, it would be reasonable for you to expect him to do something extra for you in return, ideally one of the sort of tasks that he is more proficient at.

Original poster

ovumahead · 06/05/2015 08:14

Good idea. Would make the whole thing less punitive as well if we combine efforts! Also my dh is pretty socially anxious and I hadn't really considered that being a factor in thus particular equation but it could well be..

OP posts:

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