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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Sunday lunch trauma WIBU?

164 replies

Nerfbattles · 26/10/2015 11:11

Spent three hours cooking a ginormous Sunday lunch for the four of us yesterday, was sweating my arse off getting everything to come together and asked DP (sitting on sofa on his laptop) if he could please carve the chicken. Went back to dealing with everything else, couple of mins pass and he's still on laptop, I'm getting everything into dishes and as i dashed past living room door I said 'now' as I thought he hasn't realised I meant I needed it doing straight away although I had already said not long ago dinner was in 5 mins.

He then went ballistic saying how incredibly rude I was shouting now at him (I totally didn't shout!) I tried to explain I was only saying it as I thought he hadn't realised I meant could he do it straightaway but he was having none of it. Went on at me about being so rude and having a go until I started getting upset so then he had a go about me 'crying and sniffling' said I was trying to make myself out the victim when I was the one on the wrong.

He ended up storming out so I just fed my DS's as I really didn't want to eat by then. He slept on the sofa and didn't say a word this morning before leaving.

I feel he had a massive over reaction and ruined a lovely dinner I spent hours over and I've just spent an hour cleaning the kitchen this morning all for nothing. Was I BU? What do I do to fix it? I felt like apologising this morning until I started clearing up and now I'm just cross and dreading him coming home :-/

OP posts:
Fairenuff · 26/10/2015 13:00

I'm guessing that once he decides he has punished you enough, he will talk to you again. By that time, this will all have become a bit distant and remote and you won't want to drag it all up again. So you won't say anything but promise yourself that when if it happens again you'll say something then.

And around and around you go...

Meanwhile your children are living in this atmosphere.

But it's your life OP, I wouldn't want it personally but each to their own.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 26/10/2015 13:04

Wow that sounds amazing

DoreenLethal · 26/10/2015 13:07

He text me last night to say I was fucking rude but I was making myself out to be the victim

My response would be 'I can never compete with you at being victim - oh and that's the last meal you ever get from me.'

Fatmomma99 · 26/10/2015 13:09

I wouldn't say no to a little bit of horseraddish mash, please, OP. Gets up to get plate NOW!

Notimefortossers · 26/10/2015 13:09

I relent. That's not a roast, that's a christmas dinner of epic proportions!

NoahVale · 26/10/2015 13:12

it takes me ages to make a roast, not that that is any point, there is an art to it and op was let down, and fireworks ensued unnecessarily

Friendlystories · 26/10/2015 13:12

He was being massively U just by being sat on his laptop while you were running about doing dinner on your own, you shouldn't have had to ask him to help in the first place let alone remind him a second time. As for how you handle it now I would just get on with things around him and leave him to make his own opportunity to sort this out, I certainly wouldn't be making any effort to smooth things over. My DH used to be a champion sulker, I eventually stopped pandering to it by asking what was wrong and apologising for the imagined slights he blamed it on, once he realised it wasn't getting him the attention he wanted he stopped doing it. Someone on here likens it to training a puppy, you ignore the bad behaviour and respond positively to the good, that's the approach I would take.

Leelu6 · 26/10/2015 13:13

For the record I made:
A garlic, parsley and thyme butter for the chicken
Nut roast (to take to the parents later today)
Loads of gravy from scratch
Roast potatoes
Mash (mounds of it!), some of which I turned into horseradish mash)
Glazed carrots
Minted peas (made the mint sauce )
Cabbage with onion, bacon & cream
Green beans in garlic
Broccoli cheese (made the cheese sauce)
Pork and sage stuffing balls
Apple and BlackBerry pie.

Hopefully that's shut notimefortossers up

songbird · 26/10/2015 13:14

Oh my god that sounds lush, but very rich - I'm not surprised he has IBS! misses point

Getting back to the point of the OP, he's being pathetic to sulk about something like that. You've apologised already, do not prostrate yourself over it. I wouldn't be treading on eggshells, I'd be telling him to grow up, frankly. I couldn't live like this, and certainly wouldn't put my children through it, even if they were his!

Marshy · 26/10/2015 13:16

How does it normally get resolved when he sulks? I can't imagine this is the first time.

Can't stand a sulker. If someone is cross I'd much rather they came out and said it.

Your Sunday lunch sounds lovely but I do wonder if it's worth all the stress that goes with it.

Notimefortossers · 26/10/2015 13:24

Yes Leelu6 . . . consider me shut up!

GruntledOne · 26/10/2015 13:30

Anything you did wrong by saying "Now!" to him you made up for by instantly apologising. His behaviour is absolutely ridiculous and unbelievably childish. He's making it worse by dragging his IBS into it - if it was so bad that you should have been waiting on him hand and foot he should have said so at the time, and shouldn't have been messing around with his laptop.

I think in your shoes I would say to him just once "Look, I know I was in the wrong for saying "Now" like that but I was stressed, I did immediately apologise and I meant it, and I'm apologising again now. I don't know what else you want me to do about that. Don't you feel that, between adults, this silent treatment has gone on long enough?" If that doesn't get him out of his tantrum, leave him to it until he's over it and then sit down and say to him that you need to have a conversation about this because it is no way for an adult to behave, irrespective of his illness, and is bad for the DC.

Fairenuff · 26/10/2015 13:33

Someone on here likens it to training a puppy, you ignore the bad behaviour and respond positively to the good, that's the approach I would take.

Sad

OP if this is what your relationship has come for I could weep for you. Honestly, it is so, so sad. Is this all you want for yourself? Training your husband like a puppy Sad

Polgara25 · 26/10/2015 13:35

All of that for four people???

Could make the pie and nut roast the night before?

Make less food, make him agree to help before you start (or don't start) ignore his silly sulks.

bigbuttons · 26/10/2015 13:37

but all the extra dishes can be made whilst the bird is cooking surely? Making loads of gravey from scratch takes no more time than making a small amount( I always make my grave from scratch, it hardly takes any time). Making loads of mash doesn't take much extra time either;same time to boil potatoes, perhaps an extra couple of mins to mash extra, but there's no reason to make such a 'meal' out of it.
Why are you being a martyr to this whole sunday lunch thing?

yes you DH was a twat

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 26/10/2015 13:42

I missed a few points!

He's an arsehole for sulking
He's an arsehole for telling you that you make yourself out to be the "victim" - projection, much?
He's an arsehole for still sulking

HE'S AN ARSEHOLE.

What good stuff does he do for you? What is lovable about him? Really?

Wineandrosesagain · 26/10/2015 13:48

Op, you said "He does tend to strop and not speak for days but he's got much better than when we first got together" - so this is an improvement??? He sounds like a right arse, so I dread to think how he behaved previously. But most of all I feel so very very sorry for your children. Why should they have to live in such an atmosphere, where this twat screams at their mother, makes her cry and then sulks for days. What a horrible way to live.

I absolutely despair of the countless women who post on AIBU about the twats they bring into their homes, wondering whether they are or are not being unreasonable. Yes, he IBU but so are you - to want to continue living like this. Your children will not thank you. They will remember walking on egg shells and being forced to live in a dreadful atmosphere in their own home. What a grim way for them to grow up.

ConstanceMarkYaBitch · 26/10/2015 13:50

Making that much food for 2 adults and 2 children is obscene, and if you choose to make enough food for 14 instead of 4, don't complain about how long it takes.

squoosh · 26/10/2015 13:52

She said she freezes some and cooks some to take to her parents too.

Sansoora · 26/10/2015 13:54

Making that much food for 2 adults and 2 children is obscene, and if you choose to make enough food for 14 instead of 4, don't complain about how long it takes.

No its not. Its a nice meal.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 26/10/2015 13:55

Of course it's not obscene and I'm quite sure the OP would be keeping it for leftovers for a couple of meals yet! What a fatuous comment.

ConstanceMarkYaBitch · 26/10/2015 13:58

It's not a nice meal, its a buffet.

TinklyLittleLaugh · 26/10/2015 14:00

Seriously, if my DP had gone to that much effort for me, he could use whatever tone he bloody well liked to call me to do the carving. Your man is being massively unreasonable. He is setting a terrible example to your kids and if I were you I'd tell him to shape up or ship out.

GruntledOne · 26/10/2015 14:00

Oh, FGS, people, do stop whinging about the mechanics of making Sunday lunch and how much OP should have made. It's utterly irrelevant and makes you look an arsehole.

DinosaursRoar · 26/10/2015 14:03

You said he wasn't used to being in a LTR and had to get used to it - that's not something you have to get used to, you shouldn't have to change your personality to not act like a cunt to your DP.

It is not normal or desirable to be walking on eggshells - do you really want to train your DCs to tiptoe round their StepDad?