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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU and should I make Dp's lunch?

223 replies

sleeplessinmybedroom · 30/11/2015 23:05

This is semi lighthearted but Dp and I are bickering over whether I should make his packed lunch for him or not. I've said I will post this and if it's deemed I am being unreasonable then I will make his packed lunch.

Just for clarity I'm on maternity leave at the moment with a 3 month old baby and a 9 year old. He works 5-7 days a week, sometimes long hours in a physical job.

I do all of the housework in the day but he does pitch in when he's home. He washes up every night.

He takes the baby when he gets in and puts her to bed. If she wakes in the night for her dummy he sorts her more often than me.

When I was working he sometimes made my packed lunch.

I just hate making packed lunches. I won't let Ds have them because I hate it so much. So who is being unreasonable?

OP posts:

Original poster

sleeplessinmybedroom · 01/12/2015 09:30

I do the majority of the housework just because I'm at home all day. I do all the washing and ironing of Ds's uniform. Pet care is shared. I cook 99% of the time and if I don't cook then I wash up. When I was working it was more even.

OP posts:

Jux · 01/12/2015 09:31

I think that he will stop talking about you making his lunches, if you suggest that he live with his mum as he liked it so much

Booyaka · 01/12/2015 09:35

LeaLeander, you're making the mistake of thinking certain posters would lose any sleep if they did split up. The first rule of Mumsnet is that as soon as somebody moans, no matter how mildly about anything their husband has done, a predictable gang of posters will turn up. Their mission is to convince posters that their perfectly pleasant DH who pitches in and helps out is a monster who is exploiting and abusing her. They would rub their hands with glee if they managed to convince her and break up the relationship.

Thus a poster who says she has the most free time has a husband who works really hard pitches in and gets up in the night with the baby is suddenly an oppressed little flower who is expected to do everything on her own with no help or break catering to her evil husband's every whim. Looked after you and stepped up to the plate when you were pregnant? What a shit. He should have been showering you in rose petals and bathing you in asses milk.

He's working late to make up the financial shortfall? What a bastard. He should be at home giving you a foot massage.

And on threads like these it's frankly a joke. The OP didn't need or want anybody to tell her she was an oppressed woman in a bad marriage.

And quite frankly, there are some posters on here who on being told that a poster didn't work, had a cook, butler, nanny, cleaner, gardener and lady's maid. All paid out of her husband's fantastically paid part time job, and apart from time with the children, he spent his entire time giving her massages, attending to her every whim.

Those posters would be telling her he was a bastard for not peeling the grapes.

maybebabybee · 01/12/2015 09:35

Well then I wouldn't make his lunch! Don't feel the need to defend not doing it when you clearly do so much else.

DP hates cooking. Even if he was at home all day while I worked you can bet your arse he wouldn't be making my lunch. He would do the other stuff though.

hellsbellsmelons · 01/12/2015 09:36

When I was on mat leave I did make my DH lunch (Ex now)
But I love making sandwiches. I take great care and everyone raves about them.
He used to get up with baby and I would do his lunch. Simples.
When I went back to work it stopped.
My OH now makes his own when he wants to.
If I make a soup then I'll get some ready for him to take in the morning as I'm up doing mine anyway. But that is where it ends.

You could do it, sometimes. Maybe 2-3 times a week and see how you get on? But honestly, if you really hate it and don't want to then, just don't.

Roussette · 01/12/2015 09:42

Gosh some people are just mean. It is not demeaning to make a packed lunch, it doesn't make someone their DP's mother. It's just a nice thing to do with no hidden agenda.

I make a friend lunch, I make my grown DCs lunch sometimes when they come home, I make anyone lunch just as a nice gesture. My DCs or my DH sort out my techy problems, they help me with spreadsheets because I'm useless, they do lots for me, isn't life about doing things for others, putting in the effort and you get that back then by the spade full.

Roussette · 01/12/2015 09:44

maybebabee OP's DH does loads and the OP has already said she does less.

maybebabybee · 01/12/2015 09:46

In her last post the OP said she does the majority of housework, I was responding to that.

APlaceOnTheCouch · 01/12/2015 09:48

If you don't want to make any packed lunches because you say you don't make your DC's lunch either then don't. I guess I'm a bit confused about how it has become a big issue. You have two DCs. The baby is 3-months-old, why has DH's lunch suddenly became a topic of conversation and an area of contention? If it's just because his work colleagues are teasing him then I'd find that odd. You have an arrangement that seemed to work for you both.

Lweji · 01/12/2015 09:50

Llewj you say that the OP's DH doing all the household tasks when she was ill was the bare minimum? What more could he have done, he was doing it all!

If she couldn't do it, it's the bare minimum. He'd have been a bastard for making her do anything. Not a hero for picking up the load.
Women who do the same when their OHs are ill are not that highly regarded. They're just expected to. And so was he.

Original poster

sleeplessinmybedroom · 01/12/2015 09:54

It's suddenly become important because I'm on maternity leave and his workmates are being arseholes.

OP posts:

FannyTheChampionOfTheWorld · 01/12/2015 10:02

The workmate thing, and the fact that he felt the need to tell you, does put a different spin on this. It wouldn't be a big deal otherwise, not for me anyway.

Personally I fucking hate making sandwiches so I don't do it. When the DC start school they will be on dinners. But DH did go through a phase of taking chopped carrot to work, and I did that. I like slicing. I don't mind cooking extra so people can take leftovers for lunch also.

Booyaka · 01/12/2015 10:03

Actuall Lweji, a lot of us (including me) when our partners are ill and we're working do 'the bare minimum'. I make sure everyone is dressed, fed, washed, cleaned, the washing up is done and the bins are out but I don't bother with cleaning until he's back on his feet and probably not much then either. The OP however says he did 'everything'. There's a difference. I think you're probably aware of that anyway, but it just doesn't suit your agenda.

Roussette · 01/12/2015 10:04

Well... I think doing it all is what it says - all. There is no more than all unless I'm missing something. From how the OP has described her DH, I bet he was kind and caring too (as he should be of course, but that goes without saying in my book).

Blarblarblar · 01/12/2015 10:08

sleepless it doesn't sound like you want to do it, so don't. I too would worry about his expectation when you return to work and you feeling as if you have to as you started. Then it just becomes something you resent.
I'm really shocked by a lot of attitudes. Yes he sounds like a nice man but he's not a saint why are men celebrated for actually just getting on with what they should do ie 50%, woman are not better at this shit than men, we aren't less of a woman if we don't "cater" to our man.
My DH and I love each other very much and carry out many small acts of kindness for each other the minute it's expected it's not an act of kindness it's a chore and making his sandwich is not nesseseray to the smooth running of the house hold.
Do it when/if you're in the mood otherwise tell him no.

APlaceOnTheCouch · 01/12/2015 10:08

But you've been on maternity leave for 3 months. Have you been 'discussing' the packed lunch issue that entire time?

My friend used to use a sliding scale technique if her and her DP had reached an impasse on unimportant issues ie on a scale of 1 - 10 how much do you not want to make lunches? then your DP says how important it is to him on a scale of 1-10. You both need to be honest for it to work and it might be worth adding a proviso for both of you to scale it on the importance it would have if his colleagues weren't trying to stir things up.

Branleuse · 01/12/2015 10:15

i made my dp packed lunches when he was working n london a few years back, but mainly because he would otherwise spend a tenner today going to fucking pret a manger or some such place. He didnt ask me to

If your dp has asked, and youve got time, then I dont see the problem. It sounds like you both take care of each other, so it doesnt sound like hes being outrageous, but if you hate it, then just say

MoriartyIsMyAngel · 01/12/2015 10:16

You don't like making lunches, and you'd have to get up at least an hour early to do them (unless he likes soggy sandwiches) - so don't do them. Or be strategic and offer up some very mediocre lunches for a week until he gets fed up.

CocktailQueen · 01/12/2015 10:19

Why does he get up at 6 if he takes your dd to school?? That's hours of time in the morning! He can make his lunch then.

But I might compromise and do a couple for him each week if I felt nice.

Inertia · 01/12/2015 10:19

Do all of his workmates have a new baby who needs feeding as soon as he/ she wakes up in the morning?

To be honest I have no strong views either way on the making of lunch, but I'd be damned if my husband thought I ought to be making his lunch on the say- so of his work colleagues. Then again, my husband has enough confidence in our family relationships and his working relationships that he'd be able to laugh off ridiculous suggestions from colleagues.

Surely if you're feeding the baby first thing in the morning, it makes sense for your husband to make his own lunch then?

Has he considered one of those wide-necked Thermos flasks so he can take hot leftovers to work?

chillycurtains · 01/12/2015 10:30

I don't think you have to but to me, he seems to do a lot to help in your shared home. I would want to demostrate love to him and do it just as appreciation of him. Not a big thing but just a little helpful thing. Love is a action not a word. It's the little things that show we care.

Lweji · 01/12/2015 10:34

I don't have an agenda. Do you?

Doing the bare minimum in my post referred to picking up the work necessary at home because his wife couldn't. He is not a hero for that. She was having a baby with him, she was simply not capable, so the very least he could do was take over at home. She owes him nothing for that.
That is what I meant and I hope I was clear this time.

She was incapacitated for weeks if not months, I'd expect, so I'm sure he wouldn't have got away with doing the bare minimum in your meaning of the term.

Lweji · 01/12/2015 10:35

he seems to do a lot to help in your shared home.

Ah, he helps at home. Or rather he does his fair share? Quite different.

Kintan · 01/12/2015 10:38

Can whoever cooks the night before make extra and he takes that? That way no-one is having to do any extra work, and he gets his home-made packed lunches to show his friends :)

Original poster

sleeplessinmybedroom · 01/12/2015 10:40

He gets up at 6 so he can have breakfast, get his stuff ready he needs to take, make the baby a bottle and change her. He takes Ds to breakfast club so they leave at 7.50.

OP posts:

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