Aibu to feel DH is taking his 'shedding' too far?

[Ladyonashortfuse]

Need to rant a little bit...We are staying at my PIL's for a week or so. It's a fairly big house, in a very rural area. But there are often lots of other family members coming and going so we're rarely alone as such. Yesterday DH disappeared to chainsaw logs outside at around 11, leaving me in the house with our 3 DC (aged 3, 2 and 3m), 2 other cousins under 5, and his DM who isn't well. He didn't come in again until 5. Today he has gone to do the same thing again. Last time we came down here he spent much of the weekend doing the same thing. To be clear, he is doing this mostly for pleasure; there is no shortage of other people able to handle a chainsaw round here.

AIBU to expect him to spend some time with the rest of us, when we're supposed to be having a family break, so to speak? Or am I being mean for resenting him spending time doing things he likes to do during that time? At the moment I feel like there are three people in our marriage: him, me and the effing woodshed.

longlost are you a man?

And as I said before, no one needs that many logs!
I strongly suspect he's using that as an excuse.

Imperial I was thinking of the Divine Comedy ;)

m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFjfa_RB6Pc

Longlost he had a chainsaw, it's not like he was using an axe or a hand saw. I'd LOVE to dump the children and spend hours doing something like that, perhaps the OP would like the option too. It's much, much easier than looking after a pack of young children almost on your own

Have you tried it Pragmat? Its never ending, and back breaking. I definitely wouldn't say it was easier than looking after children, at all, OP does have the option of offering to swap, and she should do.

And as I said before, no one needs that many logs! how do you know? They might well do.

OP, just ask if you can break the day up a bit by swapping roles at lunchtime, or something.

I'd swap. I like jobs like that.

But that's really not the point. There is absolutely no need for anyone to have to be chopping logs for hours on end, two days on the trot. Especially not when there are other things to be done.

And when do you get time to do your own thing? Absolutely YANBU. He's not a baby, he's a grown man with 3 children. Time for him to take a turn looking after them.

And what about the parents of the young cousins? How about them taking a turn too?

Put your foot down and go for a day's shopping. You deserve it.

Nobody is saying its right though.
Just that he needs to talk to his partner!

Maybe the wood needs cutting, and he is helping out in the most productive way?

That sounds like my dh who, when we decide the house needs spring-cleaning, heads to his CD collection, empties all 2000 of them on the floor in the sitting room and starts re-alphabeticising (sp?) them.

Hmm, yes, the important man job!

Ok he's working hard but he's also out there on his own, able to think his own thoughts and have a nice big pile of logs to show for his troubles. I'm willing to bet that food and drink magically appears at regular intervals for him too!

Plenty of people would take that over being knee deep in small children for hours on end!

My DH would do this sort of thing when ours were little and pretend to not understand why I was pissed off with him.

OP, go out there and tell him you are not doing solo child/grandparent duty all day again!

Hah, my DP tries this on. Would rather do something like that than the day to day soul destroying jobs that are urgent and will actually impact on me.

Surprisingly he's now a lot better after I made him do the things like cleaning the kitchen in top as well .

It may be, he needs to get away from his sick parent as he finds it stressfull? Tough shit. He's a father of three now and he needs to do his share. Someone else can chop the wood. His wife's just had a baby and is looking after four other kids as well.

Do women get time out when they find something stressful? Nope.

"he may be feeling the heavy responsibility of an adult son to look after his aged and unwell parent. This is not uncommon."

He's not looking after her, though, is he? How wife is looking after her while he's fucked off out of the house to do whatever he wants.

What's happening, OP? Have you swung for him with that chainsaw yet, or has he deigned to come back indoors and do his share of family time?

What's happening, OP? Have you swung for him with that chainsaw yet, or has he deigned to come back indoors and do his share of family time?

It's now pissing down with rain, so he has come in and is baking industrial quantities of cake using every pan and implement in the kitchen. I'm not going to complain about this, so long as I get my fair share and don't get lumbered with the washing up.

Maybe the wood needs cutting, and he is helping out in the most productive way?

But he's been doing most of this weekend and the preceding weekend (and possibly more?). That's potentially a total of 24 hours cutting wood with a chainsaw. It could be that he's extremely slow, in which case this is clearly not the most productive way of helping - he should look at employing someone efficient to do it. Or he's taking loads of breaks, which again is hardly productive. Or he's chopping industrial amounts of the stuff which simply has to be way beyond any normal usage.

So, he came in because it was raining, not because you asked him to? And then still removed himself from helping with the children by finding another unnecessary task to do?

Good luck with this.