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Original poster

Comment OH made to me

251 replies

CookieTramp · 17/09/2015 07:02

I am about to go away for three nights/four days, the longest I have been away since the children (6 and 22 months) came along. It is for a residential meditation weekend to try and learn some mindfulness, control negative thoughts and combat depression.

My mum is having the children this afternoon and tomorrow, and my husband over the weekend. I have managed to pre-cook some food for her to heat and serve to the children, so that she doesn't have to do too much. I haven't managed to think about the weekend's food as well, so I told my husband last night that while there's food for tonight and tomorrow, he will need to sort something for the weekend for himself and the kids. (let it be said, I actually feel bad about this...) He replied, 'Yes, because you've got so much on your mind'.

Background is that he has been working crazy hours, and also that he was away working in NY for a year from when our youngest was 6 months. He has only been back 7 weeks. It was complicated and I was under constant pressure to move out there, as the money is good and he loves the job there. I did agree to move out there initially and then backed out because it was too scary while the kids are so young to move away from friends and family, and he works such long hours.

I struggle with being a SAHM. I do everything - house, garden, admin, and all organising, which I find hard to keep everything in my head.

So his comment feels like contempt and disrespect for my role, and for how I struggle to do it all and do it all cheerfully for the kids. I don't understand why he needed to say anything like that. I feel belittled and I have been up half the night staring at the wall, trying to work out whether I am getting it out of perspective.

I am just asking for feedback really, on how it strikes you. I'd rather not turn this into a discussion about his working in NY for a year (with a few visits), as that was so complicated and such a year of difficulty and constant uncertainty.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 19/09/2015 11:42

That's a pretty usual state of affairs for me too, glitter

totalrecall1 · 19/09/2015 12:13

AskBasil - I am not sure I said every parent has to cook meals to prepare for the weekend? What I said was she does have time to go shopping and cook meals during the week, he does not. She is going away and leaving a guy who is probably exhausted on his own with the kids all weekend, so under the circumstances a bit of consideration wouldn't go amiss would it?

m0therofdragons · 19/09/2015 12:19

This is the second thread I've read today which includes a mum being expected to organise meals while away because their dh can't possibly do that. I often do arrange meals as I'm ordering the food but next weekend I'm away and I don't want to dictate what dh cooks. There's always pasta and jars of sauce in the cupboard or fish fingers etc in the freezer so dh can figure out something. If he really gets stuck he can go to the chip shop. When did men become so bloody useless that they're unable to feed their kids?

StarlingMurmuration · 19/09/2015 12:28

total, are you missing the fact that she's struggling with mental health issues? Would you expect her to have done the shopping in advance if she had a broken leg, or any other physically debilitating illness? Whether YOU would be struggling in her position is irrelevant - she IS struggling.

AskBasil · 19/09/2015 12:32

"What I said was she does have time to go shopping and cook meals during the week, he does not."

He's not being asked to go shopping and cook meals during the week, just at the weekend, when she'll be away and he will be there.

Confused

He won't be in his office today and tomorrow. He'll have time to go shopping and cook meals.

Just like normal parents do.

totalrecall1 · 19/09/2015 12:35

Yes starling she could have gone online a got a tesco delivery whilst watching loose women

redshoeblueshoe · 19/09/2015 12:47

Total - round here supermarkets are open all day Saturday I'm sure her DH is capable of finding one Confused

AskBasil · 19/09/2015 12:50

The OP hasn't mentioned that she was watching Loose Women, totalrecall.

So that comment is just a snidey dig at SAHMs, isn't it?

And she obviously couldn't have gone onto the Tesco site, because she was doing other things. She doesn't say one of those other things was watching Loose Women, but if it was, that may have been during her break time (which I assume she's allowed, people at work are.)

Oh sorry, forgot, SAHMs aren't allowed to have break times, are they?

CookieMonsterIsOnADiet · 19/09/2015 12:53

If I worked such long hours and DH didn't work at all I'd be unhappy at having to go to the supermarket for food on my day off. It's not too much to ask is it, a clean house and food in in return for not having to work or bear any financial burden.

Turning the thread around, if a woman posted she worked those hours and her husband was a SAHD who was stressed and needed a retreat for four days and left no food in he'd have the book thrown at him.

HunterHearstHelmsley · 19/09/2015 12:56

What's with all the "he's been away for a year!!!" comments. He was working, not having a jolly!

Anyway, it does seem like one of those open mouth, insert foot comments. I have to admit when I was the sole earner, I'd be furious sometimes with comments like "Saturday is my day off". It's bloody hard work being the only wage earner in the home. It's hard being a SAHP too; there needs to be more understanding both sides.

totalrecall1 · 19/09/2015 12:58

AskBasil she couldn't find half an hour to order groceries as a SAHM ? Really?

UnderTheGreenwoodTree · 19/09/2015 13:06

She's a SAHM who is struggling with depression & anxiety - that's the crucial difference. I wouldn't see her weekend as a jolly either - more like a mental treatment, respite, whatever. She had sole care of the family and home for a whole year. I would argue that he has had many, many weekends to himself when he was in NY - OP deserves one now.

Another crucial part of her OP is that she feels he 'belittles her, and doesn't value her role' - which is a very real problem for sahp's - often criticised for not bringing in any money, yet not recognised for the unpaid work they do (along with the underlying assumption that they have an easy time, drinking coffee all day). Unpaid work that would have to be paid for, were they to take up a long-hours job.

UnderTheGreenwoodTree · 19/09/2015 13:08

*mental health treatment - sorry.

AskBasil · 19/09/2015 13:11

"AskBasil she couldn't find half an hour to order groceries as a SAHM ? Really?"

Yes really. She's told us that.

Maybe we could respect what she tells us?

Just a suggestion.

LadylikeCough · 19/09/2015 13:22

Turning the thread around, if a woman posted she worked those hours and her husband was a SAHD who was stressed and needed a retreat for four days and left no food in he'd have the book thrown at him.

Really? If a woman posted here saying she had two children, worked 60+ hours a week in banking/law, had been living 3000 miles away from the family for a year by choice, and was irritated that the SAHD had not prepared the kids' meals for his first weekend away ever... you don't think she'd have been deluged by posters handing her Biscuit and asking why she'd had kids at all?

OP has permitted her DH to have the best of both worlds: intense, challenging career, and a family on the back-burner. Yes, he works hard: in return, he gets ample payment, social status and is banking year on year of work experience and career progression. Every hour he's out of the house, she matches, in sole charge of their two kids: for this, she gets marginalised (what do you do all day, watch Loose Women?), her efforts are treated with contempt ('because you've got so much on your mind'), and it'll be years of CV void if she does want to return to work.

I think it's great she didn't micro-manage his weekend. I'm guessing there will be laundered clothes in their cupboards, sheets on their beds, toilet paper in the bathroom and a million other barely-noticed signs that someone has been parenting these kids. From some of the responses here, you'd think she'd dropped the family on a desert island and told them to go forage.

Shock, horror: father goes to Sainsbury's with own children, purchases fish fingers.

CookieMonsterIsOnADiet · 19/09/2015 13:26

Permitted her husband to have the best of both world, a job and a family! I'm pretty sure he had something to do with it.

That sort of high powered job is nothing like a few hours housework. It's not matched hour for hour unless you have a mansion and ten children.

The OP could easily find childcare and work so there's no reason for a CV gap other than of by choice.

The "women enable men to work" comment is often used yet you never hear women say they can only work as they have a husband. If an adult can't work without having another around then there's something seriously wrong.

UnderTheGreenwoodTree · 19/09/2015 13:49

It's not "adult can't work without another around" - it's that having a sahp to manage the children and the home is a benefit to the working parent, a bonus- and it shouldn't be belittled.

Say the OP did get a FT time job - there would be a cost to the family - all the unpaid housework/childcare she currently does, which her DH doesn't even need to think about or take any responsibility for at the moment.

totalrecall1 · 19/09/2015 14:24

She doesn't 'allow' him to work. He has to work, you need money to live, its a practicality. His income does though 'allow' her to stay at home (and attend weekend courses which presumably his income pays for). Not too much to ask to get the shopping in is it really? And AskBasil I really cant think of any circumstances unless you are with someone on their deathbed that would not allow her half an hour to order the shopping.

Saltedcaramel4 · 19/09/2015 14:41

It's both ways actually. She enables him to work and he enables her to be a SAHM

Saltedcaramel4 · 19/09/2015 14:43

Providing all meals at weekends so that he doesn't have to shop/cook is a way of de-skilling the DH.

Saltedcaramel4 · 19/09/2015 14:46

Cookie. The husband has previously been absent for a year and had all his free time to himself! On the other hand OP won't have had a break from childcare/sleepless nights for the same length of time.

totalrecall1 · 19/09/2015 14:47

She doesn't enable him to work, she enables him to do the job he does. He could do a less stressful job with less hours and then she could work too, but they have made that decision that she takes responsibility of the household, therefore in order to enable him to do that job she needs to do the shopping!!

Saltedcaramel4 · 19/09/2015 14:56

Twisted logic there

TendonQueen · 19/09/2015 17:38

In that case, is it inconceivable that the husband could nip into one of the many 24-hour supermarkets when he leaves work at 10pm and buy some beans, fish fingers and a couple of ready meals, just for once? People are very ready to argue that she could easily have done it, but then so could he. It's a one off.

TendonQueen · 19/09/2015 17:40

Or is it a case of 'He doesn't pay a wife 24/7 housekeeper and expect ever to have to buy food himself?'