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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think DH is taking the piss?

64 replies

NotSayingImBatman · 26/04/2016 14:45

DH recently got a new job following six months on massively reduced hours and a redundancy, all very good and I'm very proud of him. Both of our jobs involve weekend work on occasion as well as the usual Monday to Friday hours. DH has to provide his company with one weekend per month that he will be on call and he told me when this was so I made sure I was available as we have two young sons.

I told him I would be working the following Saturday. I wrote it down. I reiterated a few times in the week running up to it that I would be working from 7am until 1pm.

You know what's coming, don't you?

He informed me on the Thursday that he would be working from 6.30am until 9.30pm on Saturday. I asked what he intended to do about the boys as, you know, I would be working. He made some vague comments about me asking my DM to watch them. I told him she couldn't.

Friday night, he asked me 'was your boss okay about you cancelling going in tomorrow?'. I asked him what he was talking about, he repeated himself. I told him I absolutely had not told my boss I wasn't going in, that I would be going and that as he had changed his plans last minute it was up to him to organise alternative childcare. He threw a strop.

As it stands, I had cancelled. I didn't really have a choice and my boss wasn't particularly pleased about it. I let DH sweat it out until 6.30am on Saturday at which point he STILL didn't have a concrete plan (hadn't enquired with his DF, DAunt or DSis who all live on his way to work whether they could watch the boys - seemed to be hopeful that Nanny McPhee would knock on the door at a loose end).

So, long story short, AIBU to think that it isn't fair of DH to marginalise my career in favour of his own and that when he agrees to be on hand to parent OUR children to allow me to work the occasional unsociable shift, he should damn well make sure he does it?

OP posts:
coffeeisnectar · 26/04/2016 14:52

yanbu. You are both parents and as you had booked work first and told him about it and his was last minute, it was down to him to organise childcare.

BlackeyedSusan · 26/04/2016 15:08

ywbu to cancel. he should have...

ChicRock · 26/04/2016 15:10

Yes he took the piss, but you've set a precedent now by cancelling your own plans. So good luck with that.

Seeyounearertime · 26/04/2016 15:11

Yanbu but you still let him.
You should have gotten up at 630am and gone to work as you said.
He would have had to cancel his work or sort something.

RudeElf · 26/04/2016 15:12

You cancelled work!! What?? Why?

RudeElf · 26/04/2016 15:13

Youve just marginalised your own career with that move. No point at all in talking the talk if youre not going to walk the walk!

HoppingForward · 26/04/2016 15:13

No way would I have cancelled my work plans. It just sets the path for your DH to do this again and again!

expatinscotland · 26/04/2016 15:17

You cancelled? You are the one who marginalised your career, not him. Now he'll do this again and again.

Wineandrosesagain · 26/04/2016 15:17

Why did you cancel your shift? Did you think he would just walk out and leave the kids alone?

Primaryteach87 · 26/04/2016 15:19

I think you should have gone to work and your DH would have been forced to either find an alternative (which seems like there were some options) or cancel himself. But YANBU to be mightily cheesed off with DH.

confusedandemployed · 26/04/2016 15:19

Well I do understand why you cancelled, but I agree with PP, you shouldn't have.

You need to have a discussion about how he seems to think that your career is inferior to his and, if this is the case, he needs to be prepared for you to lose your job soon if you keep letting your boss down. How would he feel about you being a SAHM?

BoomBoomsCousin · 26/04/2016 15:20

Agree with Chic. It's not just that he was taking thepiss originally by assuming you would be the one to cancel, but that he didn't even try to make arrangements for the DCs even though he had options. And now you've set a precedent that you will cancel at short notice and he doesn't even have to be arsed really thinking about it.

It's a hard situation because you are concerned about him losing a job he has just got. But you are setting yourself up for being second class, in the home and at your work. So if there comes a time when you get too sick of being considered the default, you will be less financially secure for setting out on your own. It also adds to that whole discourse about women with children not being as reliable in employment as men with children, so it's a double whammy to your security.

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut · 26/04/2016 15:20

You should have made the Friday speech on the Thursday when he told you. And then not cancelled.

I would be pissed off but pissing about to make a point and then not making it is ridiculous.

LeaLeander · 26/04/2016 15:29

I don't know why the two of you couldn't work out a child minding plan in a mature fashion over the course of the week instead of playing games about canceling/not canceling/ throwing it all in one another's laps because "I had dibs on working that day."

If you both need to work to support the household then it would seem prudent to work together to make sure you both CAN get to work. And expecting him to cancel a day at a NEW job seems rather short-sighted. Do you want him to get a reputation as unreliable?

As it stands you not only failed to make your point but you lost a day's wage. Communication needs to be improved all around.

TheSilveryPussycat · 26/04/2016 15:33

How far in advance did he know about him working at the weekend? Does his work have some sort of rota - it surely can't be ad hoc (unless perhaps the rota'd person was ill)?

RudeElf · 26/04/2016 15:35

Think you need to re-read the OP lealeander.

OP was booked to work the saturday. Her DH was not. Therefore no childminder was required. Her DH then agreed to work on the saturday two days before the day itself.

do you want him to get a reputation as unreliable?

So its preferable that OP gets that reputation? Why?

If he gets that reputation it will have been his own doing for not arranging his childcare.

VenusRising · 26/04/2016 15:36

I agree with Lealeander, no one wins games like these.

You and your DH need to get your shit together, and learn how to communicate.

I suggest therapy, and /or mediation.

OnlyLovers · 26/04/2016 15:37

YANBU but I'm cross that you cancelled.

It's hardly rocket science, is it, coordinating timetables or arranging childcare? (and it sounds as though he's spoilt for choice, with his DF, DAunt and DSis all available to ask).

What happened? How did you reveal that you had cancelled work? Have you had a follow-up riot-act session chat with him about it?

Seeyounearertime · 26/04/2016 15:40

Bollocks Venus

OP communicated fine, her OH ignored it and went ahead and planned something without her knowledge or input. He then expected her to change her already laid plans which he had full knowledge of. That's not a breakdown of communication, that's him being a knob head.

DailyFailAreABunchOfCunts · 26/04/2016 15:40

Why mediation? How is that going to help the OP's H who seems to be hard of hearing? She told him she was working on Saturday and he chose to accept a shift on the same day at short notice. Perhaps I am missing something, but it seems like a straightforward case of 'Didn't listen and am going to stick my head in the sand, do nothing and make you pick up the slack like you always do.'

I suggest a short sharp conversation with your H where you point out that if HE chooses to accept work at short notice then HE is responsible for arranging the childcare. You need to make it crystal clear that you will not cancel work again.

RudeElf · 26/04/2016 15:47

I find it suspicious interesting that his work apparently had to begin half an hour before OP's. Almost as if just to make it so that if it came to it he would 'have' to leave the house before OP and she would be stuck trying to find the childcare.

Imnotaslimjim · 26/04/2016 15:51

WTF, how is it the OP's fault that they didn't have childcare in place? She told him, several times that she was working. But he's a man and doesn't need to remember stuff because The Wife will do it for him. It seriously pisses me off when DH does it, then tells people its my fault!

Batman the only mistake you've made was cancelling the days work. Now he'll think that's how its going to work from now on. You both need to sit down and talk. You don't need counselling or mediation but he needs it explaining, in words that he will remember, that if he books to work the same day as you, he has to sort childcare and this was a one off.

wrcm · 26/04/2016 15:53

Definitely not! I would have been furious with him.
Why did he do nothing about arranging childcare, was he just hoping that you would do it for him even though it was his mistake? Angry

AugustaFinkNottle · 26/04/2016 15:54

If he hadn't arranged care by 6.30 on Saturday morning, it's blatantly obvious that he expected you to do it, and of course you did.

Water under the bridge, but you need to make it absolutely clear that that is the last time it's going to happen, and if he pulls that trick again he will have to take the children to work with him.

Wheels1986 · 26/04/2016 15:54

You definitely aren't being unreasonable! Regardless of what your/his plans were, he made his plans after yours were in place so that he was then unavailable to watch the kids. The suggestion above of mediation or therapy is ridiculous and a massive over-reaction. He just needs to be told not to be so selfish in the future and to be more responsible!