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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

I feel bad even writing this but....AIBU?

196 replies

Eliza22 · 25/04/2016 08:11

My DH is a good man. He works hard. Long hours, lots of travel.

We have a rule of no "devices" at the table. My DS (who has autism) used to like to bring his Nintendo ds to the table. Never to play but to have at the side of him. Years ago (when we married - DH is second marriage; DS is his stepson) we had words because DH would allow his own daughter to use her phone (texting) at the table and DH came down hard on DS for having his game device just next to him, unused.

So.... On Friday, me, DH and DS eating at the table. DH has his phone next to him (as HE usually does) and is constantly looking at it/typing. I said (tongue in cheek so as not to offend) "I thought we weren't supposed to use devices, at the table?!" DH fixed me with a condescending stare and said "I'm replying to important messages which allow ME to pay the mortgage". I was so upset. Maybe, over reacting? You see, I'm a sahm. I have a small income which goes into the family pot but contribute little to the financial setup. However, everything I do have, goes into the joint account. I do everything of a home-type nature....and I do mean everything. DS has only just gone back to school full time (he's now 15) due to bullying so yes, I'm aware that without dh's support, I couldn't look after DS in the way I have to.

AIBU to still, days later, want to tell him to shove his mortgage where the sun don't shine?

OP posts:

Lweji · 25/04/2016 12:26

OP, I suspect it might be worth checking if your OH is not MNetting instead of working.

BillSykesDog · 25/04/2016 12:31

He is also in a privileged position. He has someone who takes on all the domestic work and responsibility so that he has to neither do it nor pay for it. Add up the rough costs of a cleaner/childcare/whatever else makes up the work you do. Would he be OK with paying for that?

Well actually in this case I don't think that really applies. DS is not his yet he is supporting the OP to stay at home and care for him. In this situation I don't think presenting him with a bill for domestic work and childcare would work in this situation. Because I think that he could quite reasonably respond that were they to split up he would have no responsibility for either childcare, or supporting her son, or her, so actually if he employed a cleaner or a housekeeper he'd be quids in. It doesn't sound like the marriage is a particularly lengthy one, there are no children and the OP has not worked. I can't see her cleaning him out in a divorce settlement. Given that the DH doesn't sound like he is particularly happy or fulfilled in this marriage either I suspect that is a real possibility.

And why risk it over a bit of bickering at dinner time? I suspect in reality if both sides of this story were heard it would be closer to two people who both feel taken for granted and a bit used. I think marriage counselling might be an idea.

The OP is being given terrible advice by the usual suspects who come out salivating at the first sniff of blood when they think the can convince someone they're being abused and to LTB. I read this thread this morning and I knew the names that would post on this thread and I knew what they'd say. So flipping predictable.

beefthief · 25/04/2016 12:31

Agreed Tendon; but two wrongs etc

PennyDreadfuI · 25/04/2016 12:35

I'm a sahm and I get this all the time from DH. He often says things like 'after all I do for you' if I'm unable to do something he asks me to because I'm busy or whatever, and he's always saying that after 20 years out of work and with my health issues I'm unemployable (his exact words are 'who's going to give you a job?'). He's probably right - I'm probably never going to be able to find a job again - but it still hurts. I feel like a useless encumbrance sometimes.

IcingandSlicing · 25/04/2016 12:39

So your husband broke his own rule and then yelled at you when you reminded him.
I can't see how he was right.
Plus to make the thungs worse because he knew he was wrong he passed the ball to you by making you feel unimportant and belitteling you so he could explain how his important job aloows him to break the rules.

I think you should talk about that. This kind of behaviour is unacceptable for a family.
We may get angry about lots of things but why emotioanlly attack our family?

corythatwas · 25/04/2016 12:40

Not a LTB situation, but I can't help agreeing with

00100001 :

"Unless he's an emergency worker on call and has to drop everything and run immediately. Then book job is so important that a text message can't wait the 20 minutes it take to eat dinner."

Why does he have to be trying to work during the brief moment when the family is eating their meal together? Unless life and death hangs on your responding immediately, most people can take 20 minutes off. I often take work home, was working until midnight the other day- but not during those few minutes when I am seated at the table eating a meal with other people; that is just rude.

araiba · 25/04/2016 12:48

the youngest is 15 and at school?

why cant you get a job? get rid of some of the imbalance

OnlyLovers · 25/04/2016 12:48

BIll, first of all I don't mean the OP should actually write down a list and present it to her DH. I meant it as a way to think about/look at the issue from a different angle.

The DH took on the OP and and her son; one can only assume he was in his right mind/a fit state/knew what he was doing.

It is more than 'a bit of bickering at dinner time'; the OP says he regularly subjects her to the silent treatment and other immature behaviour. His way of dealing with any kind of challenge/criticism/attempt to address something is 'to get very cross and then not speak to me for a few days' and the OP can't speak out 'because if I did I'd be ignored for a week for having criticised him.'

Did you 'know' that I'd be on this thread and 'salivating'? I'd be interested to hear.

BillSykesDog · 25/04/2016 12:58

I wasn't actually referring to you in that part of the post OnlyLovers

Crabbitface · 25/04/2016 12:59

I would be very worried about the dynamics of the relationship. You both seem to have accepted that he is in a position of power over you-

One rule for him and another for everyone else.
Belittling your contribution.
Verbalising his financial control.
Silent treatment if you criticise him.

It is really worrying and I could not function in a relationship like this - i would be in a constant state of anxiety that he would go silent or that my son and I would end up on the streets. I agree with Billsykes that counselling might be an idea so that you can both communicate your feelings without the risk of him walking off and giving you the silent treatment. I think I would also be tempted to try to become more independent - IKNOW that's easier said than done though.

JugglingFromHereToThere · 25/04/2016 13:01

Penny

I'm sorry, sounds like you're in a difficult relationship there x

FlyingScotsman · 25/04/2016 13:07

Just by reading your OP, I would made thre same comment except that I would have made it years ago! Well actually I HAVE made it to DH and told him in no uncertain terms that he can't have a go at the dcs for not sitting properly at the table (aka NOT reading) for him to do the same thing.

Then I read your updates...
I'm sorry but he is an arse. What the heck you can't raise a comment or an issue because otherwise he is sulking for days?
Why does it have to be 'one rule for me, one for everyone else'?
Why is it somehow your responsibility if he can't see his dd? (I Think I remeber your thread about it)
Why is it OK to use work as an excuse but somehow you can't tell him he is fibbing and you know it (and everyone else around the table does TBH!)?

You might have a deeper issue than just texting at the table :(

Catfartstink · 25/04/2016 13:14

His answer should have been "I know I'm really sorry, x y and z came up"
Not belittling you. My DH does this, it winds me up something rotten. We will be out and he's on Facebook just flicking through shit. It's a habit, a rude irritating one and one he'll regret when the kids think it's acceptable.

OnlyLovers · 25/04/2016 13:17

OK, fine, Bill. Any comment on my response to the rest?

AnyFucker · 25/04/2016 13:46

OP, you sound far too grateful to this man

He is not the Fucking Messiah

Get him down off that pedestal, stop tugging your forelock and taking this kind of shit from him.

GoblinLittleOwl · 25/04/2016 13:53

Absolutely agree with you about not having devices on the table while eating a meal, such bad manners. It applies to him also; teach by example.

Utter nonsense that he can't eat a meal without having to answer his phone; it just makes him feel important.

BillSykesDog · 25/04/2016 14:00

I was trying to avoid it but since you ask. I think what people are overlooking is that the OP says that his sulks are in response to her criticising him. This doesn't sound like a one sided thing to me. It sounds like an unhappy marriage. It sounds like the OP criticises him (including in front of DS) and he may well feel like he is unwanted and unappreciated at home and is seen as a bit of a meal ticket. He responds by sulking and the OP feels in turn that this means she is unappreciated and treated as a drudge.

It sounds to me like a pretty standard unhappy marriage where communication has broken down on both sides and both sides feel unhappy, unappreciated and unloved.

But this is Mumsnet so of course the OP expresses her unhappiness by criticising and that's fine. He expressed his by sulking and he's a bastard.

Costacoffeeplease · 25/04/2016 14:00

He's not a good man at all

I think maybe I should stop whinging and be happy to be in the position I'm in.

Be happy to be with this twat? I don't think so, he sounds like a nightmare, your poor son

OnlyLovers · 25/04/2016 14:09

BIll, well, we don't really know how the OP is using/meaning the word 'criticise'. She may not mean 'having a go'; she could just mean 'telling him when she's unhappy about something or wants to discuss something'.

One word with many shades of possible meanings is a bit of a tenuous hook to hang your argument on.

BillSykesDog · 25/04/2016 14:15

OnlyLovers, well to be honest I think that would come down to the same sort of MN logic. When a woman is being critical she is 'discussing things', if a man is critical he's an ungrateful bastard. And to be honest, I know what the word criticise means and if the OP says that's what she's doing then I'm happy to take her word for it. It's probably not nice for the OP to be on the receiving end of sulks and to be made to feel like what she does at home isn't appreciated. I doubt it's very nice for him to work the long hours he does to support the family then come home to be criticised and feel his work is unappreciated either.

HuskyLover1 · 25/04/2016 14:20

I am uncomfortable about the fact, that if he upped and left you, you would be financially knackered.

This, in itself, means that you will probably put up with behaviour that is less than ideal, because you are in a very vulnerable position.

I really would get back in to employment asap, to redress the balance.

heron98 · 25/04/2016 14:21

I don't know - I can see both sides. You don't pay the mortgage, do you? So I think it's a fair comment although perhaps inelegantly expressed.

AnyFucker · 25/04/2016 14:22

Does that mean he is boss, heron ?

Op must never express any opinion or disapproval ?

FlyingScotsman · 25/04/2016 14:25

And how is she supposed to get a job when she is a caere and he is travelling so much???

FlyingScotsman · 25/04/2016 14:27

Bill how you tell your DH that he is wrong and is behaving like an arse (as per the OP) wo criticsing him?
I'm really curious to see how you would word things so that her DH can't possibly take it as a criticism?

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