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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

... to fucking explode at partner and daughter on their mobile phones ..

230 replies

Fontella · 12/01/2018 23:26

ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

Went out to the local pub this evening the three of us - rare in itself - and they are texting and looking - all the fucking time while we are sat in the pub.

Came back home and I'm cooking supper and preparing everything and the two of them are sat at the table completely engrossed in their phones while I run around like a blue arsed fly laying the table, trying to chat, preparing salad, pouring drinks for everyone, lighting candles, putting on the music - I might as well be a waitress.

I just flipped out - not sure where that came from - and they both looked at me like I was a mad woman and so I came upstairs and the two of them are sat down there eating the food I fucking cooked!

I don't want to share a room with people whose whole focus is a little battery operated handset. I want to talk, laugh, engage, have conversation, interact, enjoy the food, listen to the music .. but I might as well have been nobody tonight because that is how they both treated me.

OP posts:
Original poster
Fontella · 13/01/2018 00:07

Are you drunk?

No, sober as a judge unfortunately and the wine is downstairs.

I'm just fuming with anger, and I'm not even quite sure myself why this has pissed me off so much. Just the realisation how much they take me for granted I think!

OP posts:
Bowerbird5 · 13/01/2018 00:07

I would be raging too. I regularly lose mine people look😳 at me when I say I don't know where it is...I had it last week.
I had a friend that used to come and sit down and she would position her phone on my sofa arm so she could continently read it. She used to make out it was in case her daughter needed her( 17/18) she would bloody hear it ring! I didn't say anything but I wanted to shout at her " Don't be so bloody rude."

Bowerbird5 · 13/01/2018 00:08

Why, what's wrong with having candles and music?

quizqueen · 13/01/2018 00:08

I suggest you just cater for yourself in future and then just sit at the table eating what you have prepared for yourself with your laptop or whatever in front of you and totally ignore them and then they may get the point.

DarkPeakScouter · 13/01/2018 00:09

Let them pick up the slack and use that time for your passion. I bet they are sitting chatting cos they feel guilty and expect you to pop down and join in now that they’re humouring you.

FrancisUnderwood · 13/01/2018 00:09

I'd love to read the other side of this.

Original poster
Fontella · 13/01/2018 00:10

I don't understand people rushing around after other people who clearly don't give a fuck.

That is the best comment I have read on here tonight and you are absolutely right.

Thank you!

OP posts:
theftbyfinding · 13/01/2018 00:11

FFS what's with the questions about candles and music? It's lovely to set the scene on a (hoped for) relaxing Friday night dinner after the pub. The point is, op is being ignored by her dp and dd whilst left to cater, with no offers to help or converse.

Bloody phones. So rude to stare at them when real, live people are gathered. YANBU op. Don't run around after them again and make sure you get an apology.

MimsyFluff · 13/01/2018 00:12
there is always options.
fluffyrobin · 13/01/2018 00:12

Why is it not a team effort in your house to get dinner ready?

May be they feel that you do everything for everyone and so rendering them as spare parts?

Sounds like you have enabled them to take a back seat and watch you buzzing and flapping about seething with resentment.

Why have you let them treat you so badly?

Why not stop enabling their selfish, treating you like doormat behaviour?

May be they don't value your efforts or opinions or company?

If that is the case then I have a lovely plan for you:

Don't get mad, speak to them kindly and say you think it's a shame that they don't value your efforts and company.

Say from now on THEY are to do the laundry, tidying, cleaning, food preparation and cooking which will free you to enjoy yourself with new hobbies and interests. This will make them find your company interesting and agreeable.

Never skivvy for people who don't value you, op.

Take the power back and use your anger as a catalyst to channel them to be kinder, more thoughtful people.

Good luck! Grin

Nanny0gg · 13/01/2018 00:13

What the hell does it matter that the OP likes candles and music whilst she's eating?
We tend to have the radio on in the background when we eat too.

But what's it got to do with the fact that her OH and DD are incredibly rude and thoughtless?

Stop looking for a way to have a go at the OP and if you can't be bothered to discuss the actual issue why bother posting?

Original poster
Fontella · 13/01/2018 00:13

Thank you so much everyone here ... honestly, I don't think I've ever been so angry as I was tonight and they both sat there and looked at me like I was a mad woman.

All over Christmas I worked like a Trojan while they sat on their arses. .. and I didn't even mind that if you get something back.

But tonight I got fuck all back. Just sitting at a table with two people engrossed in their phones.

Lesson learned and I mean it.

OP posts:
MadMags · 13/01/2018 00:14

Ok, OP did you once say "can you grab the bowls?" or "will you make the salad?"

I mean did you literally do absolutely everything then flip your shit and run off?

It just sounds a bit mad!

TaliZorahVasNormandy · 13/01/2018 00:16

Op, maybe when your DP karks it, you can have #fail engraved on his headstone or maybe just on his head now. Not sure about your daughter though.

But seriously, it is really bloody rude.

GardenGeek · 13/01/2018 00:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SimonBridges · 13/01/2018 00:20

I hear you op.

We had family who complain that we never see them so they came to visit. The whole time they were here none of them ever put their fucking phones down.
I might have suggested a trip to a pub that I knew had no WiFi or phone signal.

IamLucyBarton · 13/01/2018 00:21

OP I get it. Totally. And if you exploded today it is because it has been going on for ages and you just let it go.
I became invisible too, once. It is bloody awful.
They are rude, without a doubt, but ask yourself why you never stopped it. Why you did not speak out for yourseld.

Anyway, start now.

mathanxiety · 13/01/2018 00:22

I'd rather me on my own, eating what I want to eat, watching what I want to watch on youtube or whatever, or reading what I want to read.

Do this.

No more cooking, fetching or carrying for them. No more laundry or reminding them of important dates or homework or PE kit, offers of lifts, little favours or picking up after them.

Eat what you want, clean up after yourself. Let them shift for themselves.

(Neither here nor there, but I love military history too! Mainly WW2 but also the Napoleonic wars).

NewYearNiki · 13/01/2018 00:23

Order yourself a takeaway for one tomorrow op and eat it yourself and leave them to make their own.

Original poster
Fontella · 13/01/2018 00:27

Is it candles and music EVERY NIGHT?

Nope of course not ... but tonight was 'special' I thought, with the adult daughter and the other half and the trip to the pub.

But yes, also If I'm at home alone after a busy day I do light the candles and listen to music to unwind.

I posted in AIBU and I've been around MN long enough to see how anyone here gets slated, so I'm going to take everything that gets directed at me on the chin. People can question my use of candles and music and whether or not I am drunk, and maybe even want to hear the other side of the story ... but frankly I could not give a shiny shit.

I will take on board the good advice and the astute observations and I will ignore the usual IABU flotsam and jetsam.

But trust me .. on this, tonight .. the pair of them were bang out of order.

OP posts:
Sn0tnose · 13/01/2018 00:29

I'd have got up and walked out of the pub if that had been me.

But after being ignored all evening I wouldn't have complained at all. I would have let them sit on their phones and not asked for any help at all. Then I would have cooked myself a lovely meal for one, sat at the kitchen table with a glass of something nice and watched you tube videos while I ate. And when it finally dawned on them that dinner was not forthcoming, I'd have told them to ask Facebook for advice on what to cook when you've pissed your wife/mother off so much she's refused to do it for you.

IamLucyBarton · 13/01/2018 00:29

I read "the little red hen" story to my girls tonight... I think you should follow on her steps.

IamLucyBarton · 13/01/2018 00:31

Sn0t that is brilliant! Could I pm you next time I get the rage so you can direct me towards a much more genteel and effective way of telling them to FO?

Original poster
Fontella · 13/01/2018 00:33

Once again apologies for all the swearing but I was BOILING with rage.

You've calmed me down immensely and even the ones who critisised me, you have given me a whole new perspective.

No matter how I handled it tonight - I was essentially right and they were essentially wrong.

They will probably never see it of course, but it has triggered a fundamental attitude change in me.

Thank you Mumsnet and all you late night posters.

xxx

OP posts:
MadMags · 13/01/2018 00:36

OP, did you ask them to help or say anything at all about them helping you?

Someone will come along and say you shouldn’t have to. Of course you shouldn’t.

But rather than it go from nothing to you storming out and not eating, did you say anything at all before the explosion?