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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To just want some bloody furniture?

169 replies

CockleCockleShell · 15/06/2016 17:45

DP and I moved into a new flat in April. We'd been renting a one bed furnished flat in the posh bit and bought an unfurnished four bed place in the shit up and coming area. I'm not on the deeds or the mortgage because DP is an accountant and, according to the bank, a proper person. I'm a lowly postgrad with no job security or taxable income, so all my savings were to go for the furniture budget and I pay him half the mortgage every month plus bills so it's about even.

As our first flat was getting sold by the landlord, we packed up our stuff and put it into storage and moved into my best mate's place for a few weeks. Then when we moved in, I was away at a conference then he was away, plus I work opposite hours to him.

During this time, DP argued that there was no point considering any kind of furniture, even a bed, because we didn't know the dimensions. Fair enough, but after nearly two months on an airbed, I put my foot down and we got one ordered for delivery the week we moved in. Bed is a bed no matter how big or small your rooms are! After some stropping, he went and let me buy some bedding. Under duress. Because he figured that a sleeping bag works just as well. A week later, he bought a tape measure.

In the first week we went bed shopping, we back with two Indian chests and a tree trunk for a coffee table. End of discussions. Still no chairs, no clothes storage, no kitchen table. Beanbags instead, and I'm not allowed a microwave because he thinks they're trying to kill him. Cutlery because I told him I'd go without him and pick it for him.

After another month, I shouted at him because our clothes are STILL in boxes and there'd be no movement or discussion on the wardrobe front because the bedroom 'design' means absolutely nothing in it but a bed and two rugs (from the old place). He build a garment rail out of copper piping in the boxes room that's held to the wall with climbing quickdraws because copper piping is fuckingbendy.

Turned a cupboard into a wardrobe with IKEA crates. Shouted and bribed and moaned and he went shopping for chairs. We came back with a Victorian painting easel and a box of medical textbooks from 1890. No chairs. The crates don't fit in the cupboard. He's decided we need more space and wants to build a new rail upstairs. That was about a month ago. It's now the place he hides boxes he wants me to think he's unpacked.

Forced him to IKEA to get the office set up so I can finally do some work. Got desks, which he complained were too small, then we finally got chairs. DP is a ridiculous person and we've got multi-coloured egg chairs. Bribed him to go to a furniture shop and he stormed out because he thinks it's not cool enough and it's the kind of furniture owned by people on Gogglebox he doesn't like it.

Ordered sofas a few weeks ago but they come in July. We've got a table made by some social enterprise that also takes weeks but I had to bribe him with 'urban botanist' plants so he'd buy legs for the fucking thing. Legs are in a box in our hallway. He let me buy shelves so I'd stop shouting at him. There's nothing on the shelves because he wants it to be minimalist.

Our friends think it's hilarious but they don't have to live here. I hate beanbags. We don't have any lights, or proper chairs, and our stuff is all in boxes and this week he spent £20 on a ham stand for the kitchen. I've got 5k sat in a bank account from working ten hour night shifts, it's not like he's got to fork out for any of it! But if I buy things he'll sulk like fuck!

AIBU? Should I just roll with it and accept it takes an age to furnish a place?

OP posts:
DesolateWaist · 15/06/2016 20:04

I've just looked up ham stand.
You could get those in Aldi at Christmas.
Now maybe it's because I'm not a meat eater but I don't understand why anyone would want the leg of an animal on permanent display.

FlowerOfTheWest · 15/06/2016 20:09

There's been a lot of discussion about ham stands, but I'd quite like to know what 'urban botanist' plants are.
OP, you need to get a) some actual useful furniture and b) your name on the deeds.

HopeClearwater · 15/06/2016 20:10

OP doesn't seem to be responding to the people on this thread who are pointing out the giant flaming bull-aggravating red flags that her DP is waving at her.
What have you to say to all this, OP?

HopeClearwater · 15/06/2016 20:11

FlowerOfTheWest other way round, but yes

Or maybe some furniture for her new place...

CockleCockleShell · 15/06/2016 20:13

I say that I should get in touch with a solicitor and get my name on the deeds... ASAP!

Flower they're called terraniums. Goldfish bowls with plants and stones in them. You can even make them out of lightbulbs if you're a twat creative and want a new project

OP posts:
DesolateWaist · 15/06/2016 20:18

I say that I should get in touch with a solicitor and get my name on the deeds... ASAP!

No. Run to the sodding hills. Why are you with someone who is willing to make you miserable every day?

FlowerOfTheWest · 15/06/2016 20:18

Ah, I know what you mean now!
Show him this blog. Full of design inspiration for hipsters:
fuckyournoguchicoffeetable.tumblr.com

CockleCockleShell · 15/06/2016 20:21

Desolate He makes me happy, and he's brilliant. I'm not leaving him because he hasn't upgraded the beanbag situation yet!

But yes, the finances are an issue.

OP posts:
whois · 15/06/2016 20:26

I love terrariums. He's suddenly sounding much more cool :-)

Notcontent · 15/06/2016 20:26

You need to sort out the financial situation. I say that as a lawyer.

NeedACleverNN · 15/06/2016 20:28

What would happen if you brought home a bed

katiekrafter · 15/06/2016 20:30

Danger signals flashing at me here, OP. Why are you not on the deeds? I would have thought mortgage company would require it. Sounds vvvv fishy to me that you are handing over half your money for nothing.... Suggest you take advice on this, from CAB if not a solicitor and get this sorted.

EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard · 15/06/2016 20:31

He sounds like a total arse to me, but that's just me.

An air dried ham and stand to suit is an utter indulgence. Somewhere comfortable to sleep is not.

There's no way on god's green earth I'd be subject to all this shenanigans.

TowerRavenSeven · 15/06/2016 20:34

He sounds exhausting. If you want to live that way, fine. But he won't 'let' you do this, you aren't 'allowed' do that and if you do he sulks. I'd rather be on my own!

TooLazyToWriteMyOwnFuckinPiece · 15/06/2016 20:42

He makes you happy, he's brilliant, yet you have to regularly shout at him to get him to agree to anything, he sulks and storms and you don't like how you live.

StatisticallyChallenged · 15/06/2016 20:48

"Why are you not on the deeds? I would have thought mortgage company would require it"

Actually it's more likely they will have required her to sign a document waiving rights in the event of repossession. Most mortgage companies don't allow people on deeds who are not on the mortgage - they used to but don't now

PansyGiraffe · 15/06/2016 21:52

Go to a charity shop. You can get cheap, solid wood furniture without destroying the environment (MDF) which should appeal to his hipster nature, and can be recycled back there in due course (ditto) and he may find something uniquely so-untrendy-it's-cool (ditto!). He's not a minimalist judging by what he's bought, he's a magpie, so he can stop using that as an excuse for his prevarication right now.

SquinkiesRule · 15/06/2016 22:27

Terrariums look pretty cool and are quite Victorian if I remember right, they liked some weird shit.
He does sound like a bit of a tight fisted hipster wanker. If you aren't on the deeds pronto, then you will know he's stringing you along.
We bought two houses on Dh's wages alone, I was on both. He's playing you.

FoxyLoxy123 · 15/06/2016 23:00

I wouldn't want to come across him in a professional capacity (also an accountant) if this is how he rolls! That is not a valid reason for you not to be on the deeds. You will have signed a bit of paper saying you have no claim to the property at all. Furniture depreciates crazy fast. You have a bad deal and he is a con artist to have sold it to you as anything but.

Laquitar · 15/06/2016 23:02

Why do you dress it as funny?
I don't think you are stupid so is it some kind of defence mechanism / denial?
I don't find it funny at all.
You are losing money every month and you might be left with nothing.
He is not eccentric. He s smart and controling.

You sound strange tbh. Almost as if you are trying to show off. Like 'look what a cool man i 've got, we do alternative lifestyle'.

Take off your pink glasses and see it for what it is.

KaosReigns · 16/06/2016 00:25

Way to smash the accountant stereotype to smithereens.

You know your relationship better than a bunch of strangers on an internet forum, and to be fair he sounds more useless than controlling and manipulative.

Put your foot down and get some chairs though, march on up to him, put on your bossy voice and say "We are buying chairs this weekend. You may choose to join me or not, you may choose to help pick the chairs or not, you may choose to sulk about this. But note, sulking will be ignored, I will be going with or without you, and there will be chairs in OUR flat by the end of this weekend."

I love my DP but we would also be furniture-less if I did not put my foot down (because he is cheap not fussy). He will now happily admit that he really enjoys having a desk for his computer and a dresser for his clothes he just needed some (blunt) encouragement to get there.

KaosReigns · 16/06/2016 00:32

And if you're so worried about all the cries of 'financial abuse' and 'controlling bastard', write out a contract and sign it. You do not need a solicitor to make a contract legally binding as long as you are both mentally competent, and sign it then it is legally binding, get a friend to act as witness if you want an extra layer of protection. (Although to be fair while I have studied contractual law, it was not in the UK. It was in a country who's laws are mostly based on UK laws though.)

Assuming that you would be paying rent regardless if you were living elsewhere you're not really losing money every month are you? Worst case scenario you're paying rent with the possibility of getting a return eventually, which is a better situation than any other renters.

You've been together for 7 years now, that's a long time for this man to be playing the con isn't it?

But yea, buy your furniture with or without him, he will get over it.

EveryoneElsie · 16/06/2016 00:33

He has lied to you about you not existing.
You signed away all your rights.
You believe everything he has told you and you havent checked any of it.
You act like its no big deal and furniture id the issue. It isnt.
He sulks when he doesnt get his own way.
He doesnt want your stuff in his house.

AllegraWho · 16/06/2016 00:46

Not married, do not work outside home, name on mortgage and deeds. Wouldn't have occurred to us to have it any other way.

AllegraWho · 16/06/2016 00:50

Oh, and the "buy one item a month" thing ? Make sense if you're living from month to month with no savings and paying from that month's wages. More sensible than buying the lot on credit. But with the money already sitting there ? Just buy the bloddy furniture and be done with it.