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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU - the morning after the night before

100 replies

GinSolvesEverything · 27/04/2016 09:21

DH and I work in the same industry, and next week we have the annual awards event. Black tie, lots of free drinks. It's a creative industry, and this is generally a major blowout. I'm usually home between midnight - 1am, but last year DH crawled in around 4.30.

He's got a birthday dinner and gig to go to the next night so has booked leave the day after the awards (event on a Thursday night). He thinks as he's on leave, that absolves home from having to help get the kids off to school in the morning.

I think that he should absolutely help, even if it's just getting them there. Otherwise I'll effectively be doing all the before school tasks by myself while he lazes in bed, most likely with a very sore head. Meanwhile I'll still have to go to work (although it's generally accepted that it's fine to spend the day on a beanbag pretending to work on your laptop). He's also out in the evening, so I'll be on dinner / bath / bed duties that day by myself too.

So AIBU to make him haul himself up to help in the morning?? His argument is that he's on leave so shouldn't have to!

OP posts:
Stillwishihadabs · 28/04/2016 13:24

I would leave my dh in bed, but then he is a pain when hungover and would just grump about. I don't like getting drunk really so it would be no hardship for me to only have 1 or 2, especially if I had to go to work the next day.

TwentyCupsOfTea · 28/04/2016 13:37

If the school run involves driving he should not be doing it, but then neither should you if you are drinking Til 4.30.

If you have to drive, whoever does school run needs to stop drinking by twelve and not have many.
Since he has booked annual leave I think it's fair to let him have more drinks. then you will need to do the school run.

If the school run doesn't involve driving let him do it- he can go back to bed!

mumindoghouse · 28/04/2016 13:38

I guess it depends on whether this is a typical assumption thing, and a long-standing niggle, or a one off. If I'm up anyway and is easy enough to drop dc on my way, then I'd be happy enough to treat DH to a lie in. If responsibility too often falls to me, then less so.

MargotLovedTom · 28/04/2016 14:20

Talk about over reactions! He's an 'selfish man-child arse ' who is 'deliberately making the OP's life considerably more difficult'???!! What a load of shite. There are two children age 6 and 8 to get up and get to school - that's it.

Is the OP making her husband's life considerably more difficult when she has a nap to sleep off the night before, or when she lies in and he takes the DS to football or whatever?

Surely it's about give and take?

herethereandeverywhere · 28/04/2016 15:55

Setting the man issue aside, ensure you prepare to minimise your own hangover.

A dioralyte before bed, in addition to a pint of water is much more effective than water alone. I always have a carby snack kebab and 2 neurofen too. I'd take paracetamol if an empty stomach though that is worse for the liver apparently (as the liver processes it in the same way as alcohol).

If you get to sleep by 1.30 you shouldn't feel too bad in the morning. In any event repeat the dioralyte, carbs and neurofen (or paracetamol) as soon as you get up.

Also make sure all the kids stuff is out the night before (everything down to socks, hair clips etc). Not having to think makes a hangover much easier.

I'd personally expect a long lie-in at the weekend if I was bearing the brunt of this one. In fact I'd rather that than some half-arsed help from a useless hungover shape.

Haroldplaystheharmonica · 28/04/2016 17:03

FGS, just take the morning as it comes!

If OH stayed out later than me and drank far more then I'd get up and leave him wallowing in bed. Not forgetting that if it was me who'd drank loads and stayed up later then he'd be up earlier the next morning. These things can be reversed you know, not all men are arses for wanting a skinful and a lie-in the next day, us women do it too.

IfNotNowThenWhenever · 28/04/2016 17:10

Normally I agree that the division of domestic stuff in marriage is a very big deal and needs to be fair, but in OPS case, given what she has said about their usual situation, I would let him sleep.
She gets her share of lie ins, she doesn't actually want to get wasted drunk and stay out til 4 am, and she has to be up anyway.
I have a relative whose house I cannot bear to stay at, because of the endless sniping between the couple about who does more. No one is allowed to have a proper lie in, or time off ever and both are constantly totting up the tasks they have done and reminding the other just how much they are doing. It's exhausting.
This, to me as a singleton, seems a total waste of another adult!
Surely, unless the dp regularly takes the piss, it's give and take, and one in the bank for her.

IthinkIamsinking · 28/04/2016 18:21

I think you will cope OP Hmm

BeALert · 28/04/2016 18:56

I'd get up at 6.30 and head straight to work before anyone else wakes up TBH...

Jmangel · 28/04/2016 19:20

I'd let him sleep in - seems crazy to have taken the day off so he could lie in and then have to get up anyway. Just make sure you get a lie in on Sat or Sunday. I think a lot of marital disharmony breeds from this kind of thing unnecessarily. My DH works crazy hours and travels loads and since I changed my mind set and took anything he does in the house and with the DDs as a bonus, I've been a lot happier. In fact, I think just removing the word job or chore from anything to do with childcare helps me.

CauliflowerBalti · 28/04/2016 20:24

If you're getting up anyway, then I reckon it would be churlish to make him too. It's bad enough that one of you has to be up with a hangover. He shouldn't be made to get up too. Not because it's his day off necessarily. Just because it's a decent thing to do.

gandalf456 · 28/04/2016 20:39

I would let him lie in as a one off but he would owe me. Either letting me have a lie in in return or picking the kids up from school and doing bed/bath on his own. I can sort of see his point of view in that there's no way I could do the school run with a massive hangover. If you had booked leave because you'd planned a blow out, though, then it's trickier and more unfair of him to assume you'll be doing the childcare then.

OneAPecker · 29/04/2016 07:18

Perhaps let him stay in bed? Not nice to see your parent hungover to the extent that they can't function, particularly if they stink too. And if they clearly would rather be in bed than looking after you. Not a great start to the day for an 8 year old.

InternalMonologue · 29/04/2016 08:23

Threads like this make me wonder how anyone can be arsed with drinking when they have children. It doesn't seem worth the hassle of hangovers etc.

roundaboutthetown · 29/04/2016 08:44

I understand your dh's reasoning. If he does his fair share, why are you getting on your high horse about this? Do you disapprove of the way he enjoys himself and want to stop him enjoying his two forthcoming events in the way he wants to? Is this actually about you thinking he shouldn't drink and should come home with you at midnight??

Sallystyle · 29/04/2016 09:00

Threads like this make me wonder how anyone can be arsed with drinking when they have children. It doesn't seem worth the hassle of hangovers etc.

Threads like this make me wonder how some people can be arsed with being married if they run their lives like this.

I would let DH sleep. However, I get to sleep in a lot. He respects me, he is a good husband and father and I'm not obsessed with things being fair. I would 'let' him sleep knowing he would do the exact same thing for me if the situation was reversed.

OP says she gets lie ins at the weekends and often has naps as well. I am not seeing any big unfairness here. Mind you, I don't run my marriage like that. We both do kind things for one another and don't have a tally chart on who has done what.

I don't even understand the issue here. This isn't a woman who gets up every weekend while her husband lies in bed and does fuck all for the rest of the day.

CuntingDMjournos · 29/04/2016 09:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

InternalMonologue · 29/04/2016 09:08

I don't even understand the issue here.

I'm not disagreeing with that, in the OP's case it seems a bit of a non-issue. Other posts though, with all the hand-wringing about fairness and whose turn it is to lie in. It doesn't seem worth the hassle. Though as you say, I don't run my marriage like that.

Original poster
GinSolvesEverything · 29/04/2016 09:14

Oh wow, this thread is still going!

Definitely not on any high horse - don't fret people. Was just a fairly throwaway question about what others thought of the situation.

What I imagine will happen is I will get up and sort getting the kids off to school, no big deal. I'll probably get them a lunch order instead of making their lunches, but ironically I'll need to wake DH to put the order through on his phone as I don't have the app set up (and don't want it).

He'll have a lovely snoozy morning, and will probably spend the afternoon walking the dog and doing laundry. Kids will go to after school club and he'll get them early. I'll come home in time for him to go to his dinner, and we'll get a takeaway.

I have zero interest in a steaming hangover from being out until 4am, and will be fine to drive, if a little dusty. I may even leave my car at work overnight and uber back in.

OP posts:
OptimisticSix · 29/04/2016 10:01

I think you should leave him in bed and next time you have a days leave you should be left in bed. That's how DH and I try to work. Neither of us ever get enough sleep so if one of us gets the chance to stay in bed we try and enable it :D

AriaTloak · 29/04/2016 10:13

Could be worse,

You could be a single parent who doesn't have a DH to share these tasks with.

I'm sure you'll manage, it's just a day Hmm

DiggersRest · 29/04/2016 11:13

Yes but she's not a single parent and does have a dh to share parenting with Hmm.

Bogeyface · 29/04/2016 15:52

I do get pissed off at the old "try being a single parent......" on these threads. I have been one and yes it sucks at times, but that doesnt automatically mean that anyone who isnt on their own cant have a moan! Its the same as "My mother is really pissing me off" threads with "At least you have a mother!!!"

Bogeyface · 29/04/2016 15:54

Oh and I would say that being married to a selfish arse can be far worse than being a single parent, I much preferred struggling on my own to struggling when I was married to someone who was supposed to do his share and never did.

shovetheholly · 29/04/2016 15:54

Plus, if we are saying that women in relationships should have to behave as if they were a single parent, that's not exactly going to lead to a solution involving fairness and equality in gender relations terms, is it?

(I do appreciate that a one-off giving-a-little, which is what most posters are advising, is not the same thing! Just saying that there are dangers in this general line of argument).

And all of that by no means suggests that I'm minimising the amazing work that single parents do. Hats off to you women. I mean that.

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