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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DH thinks I’m being pretentious

346 replies

ramalamadingdong1 · 21/08/2018 23:25

This is so ridiculous but DH and I have been having a jokey arguement about this tonight and I think he IBU but I’m prepared to be told different.

I’ve recently bought a shelves for our living room and have started putting book on it. I’m an avid reader and fluentish in another language having studied it at university and lived in the country. I’ve put the English versions of the books I studied on the shelf and love getting them down to read parts of them.

My DH is not a reader and can’t understand this. However, a friend of his was round the other night and commented on the books. I explained I’d studied them at university in their original language and still enjoyed reading them albeit in English.

Tonight my DH laughingly said he thought I sounded pretentious going on about university and keeping these books on display. I only answered a question about them and there were plenty of other books there!

Now I’m wondering if I should just hide my books!

WIBU to display them?

OP posts:
ViserionTheDragon · 22/08/2018 00:31

YANBU re your husband and YABU to even think about hiding your books!

Fair enough about him not being a reader, but he shouldn't make you feel bad about being one and for you wanting to display your books on a bloody bookshelf!

Why did he think you were pretentious for mentioning uni? Did he not go? It really does sound like he has an inferiority complex...

DuchessAnnogovia · 22/08/2018 00:34

If having books on show is pretentious, I must be the Queen of Pretentiousness. I have 5 bookcases, an attic full of books, and a kindle with a few books on it (about 1500).

I love seeing books on display in other people's homes, I'm terribly nosy and like seeing what other folks are reading.

ImAIdoot · 22/08/2018 00:37

YANBU

Perhaps he feels left out. Can you not get him his own shelf to put spanners and lego on?

CantSleepClownsWillEatMe · 22/08/2018 00:44

This is MN. It's not like anyone is going to say YABU

Maybe not about books but there are plenty on MN who try to take others down a peg or two because they resent someone else having or knowing or doing something they don't or can't. I've seen accusations of "bragging", "boasting" or "being pretentious" on all sorts of innocuous threads. It's generally more about those posters own feelings of inadequacy than anything else!

MyDirtyLittleSecret · 22/08/2018 00:45

It's not your problem if others, including DH, feel insecure or intimidated by the intellectual content of books on your bookshelves. If you honestly enjoy reading them and are proud of accomplishments or achievements they reflect why should you hide them? My books are everywhere (and the cheap airport paperbacks are just as prominent as the vast literary tomes - don't anybody be dissing my Jilly Coopers and Stephen Kings).

I'm curious why you'd not have the originals of books in other languages though, I have all mine from uni and I'd far rather read them as they were written than even the best translations.

Thesearepearls · 22/08/2018 00:48

Colour me pretentious too. Eng lit graduate - compulsive reader - love my books

Your post reminded me of the time the plumber came to fix a leak from an upstairs bathroom into my study. My study is massively untidy btw and DH often tells me off about the piles of papers (in my defence the piles are organised piles). I have fitted bookshelves all around the room and that is where I keep my books. Certainly thousands of them. Haven't counted. I do have a rule though. No more bookshelves. If one more comes in, one has to go out. It's a rule I kind of cheat with nowadays because of course most of my books now come in an electronic form.

He looked at the books and looked at me and said "You've never read those books - why do you keep them?"

AjasLipstick · 22/08/2018 00:57

Jesus.

Has he come out of a 1930s mining town or something?

"Now then our lass...tha'll not be gettin' above thysen! Walk the ferret and put that book on the fire."

Birdinthetree · 22/08/2018 01:00

I used to know a man who bought used classics to display in his home - used because he wanted women to think he had read them. He had no intention of reading the books, he thought they’d help him pull!...So are the books displayed because you wish other people to notice them and be impressed or because you need somewhere convenient to store them?

Cjl1 · 22/08/2018 01:04

He should be bloody proud of you.

CheekyChinchilla · 22/08/2018 01:07

Bonkers. I’m lucky enough to have a library/music room - it’s an extra sitting room with twelve bookcases and my piano. I love it. I’ve no idea how many books I have but it must be around a thousand. Everything from trashy fiction to photography, philosophy, classic literature and cookbooks. I did get rid of a bunch of unread classics recently - they’d been boxed up for moving then the box was mislaid. I read them all on my kindle before the box was rediscovered. Even so, it still felt weird to part with the physical copies.

CurlyWurlyTwirly · 22/08/2018 01:22

I do think it’s very interesting to browse people’s bookshelves.
DS has currently more than me as I download mine.
I do think books ma,e a house homely.
I remember once going to my ex bil’s flat and he had a bookcase full of dvds; not a book in sight.
My ex ( his brother) told me when we met ( in our 30s) he had only read 28 books in his life. Shock

theWarOnPeace · 22/08/2018 01:30

YANBU but I always have a slight fear of looking pretentious, too. I’ve always put it down to my v v working class background, and the constant refrain “remember where you came from” and being careful not to become too posh, which is ridiculous! I always tell people I’m working class, and have absolutely zero shame or issue with it. I love my roots, and my background and childhood was like a novel in itself. I do think sometimes that it’s at odds with our home, lifestyle and professions - maybe I feel like a fraud, I don’t know. I do think there’s a possibility of a class element at play here. We have so many books that they have had to be stacked on their sides now, and have spilled over into little piles on the floor next to the shelves. I seem to read at a rate faster than I can give them away, and there are lots of brainy/worthy/educational/highbrow books mixed in with novels and poetry. It probably looks like we’re mega well-read smart arses to anyone glancing over the shelves. I love reading a few at a time, something factual, a classic, and a thriller are on the go at the moment. I can’t bear to get rid of them, unless I’m physically putting them into someone’s hands - that’s something I love doing. If someone asks about a book, and they’re interested, then I’m really happy to give it away and to hear their thoughts on it later. One of life’s great pleasures. My husband did once say I spend “too much” money on books, but got such a mouthful back that he hasn’t mentioned it since Grin

mywheatbagismybff · 22/08/2018 01:54

You should start holding a weekly book club in your lounge.

StrangeLookingParasite · 22/08/2018 02:06

I’m lucky enough to have a library/music room - it’s an extra sitting room with twelve bookcases and my piano

I am so envious! How lovely.

midgesforever · 22/08/2018 02:07

Our rented house has a built in wall of bookshelves and a library ladder that rolls along the floor, I love it and am so having it in my next owned house.

Seniorschoolmum · 22/08/2018 02:16

Your dh is a fool. Having a love of books and a house full of them will help your dcs to love books and to read widely, aiding their education.
Don’t let you dh put you down like that. He sounds very insecure.

BagelGoesWalking · 22/08/2018 02:33

Midges that sounds lovely! I haven't got room for many books in the front room, just some in an Ikea thing with photo albums etc. Most are in bedroom and box room. I don't buy that many because I get most from the library but, of course, the numbers still grow.

I find it weird to be in other people's houses and there isn't a book in sight!

thebewilderness · 22/08/2018 03:04

I think you may have run into one of the rules of misogyny your DH expressed. You think you were answering a question but he thinks you were being pretentious by boasting or showing off. I do not know why men do not think women are entitled to be proud of things we do or talk about them but they sure do seem to have a problem with women speaking for themselves. (3rd rule of misogyny)
9th rule of misogyny: Men always know the "real reasons" for everything women do and say.

Dottierichardson · 22/08/2018 03:25

To be 'pretentious' is to be claiming to be something that you're not; you've read your books, you have a degree so all you are doing is displaying part of 'who you are'. Isn't that what everyone does in the way they decorate and display items in their homes? The bigger issue is why your partner has such a problem/is so uncomfortable with this part of your history/personality.

bigreadernobooks · 22/08/2018 04:14

he thought I sounded pretentious going on about university and keeping these books on display.

Maybe I'm just nasty minded, but I found this telling.

My elder brother did not go to university (back in the late 60s) but trained for a professional career via a cadetship, which was then the traditional route for that job. His wife, on the other hand, did go to university, achieved very ordinary results and ended up with a very average job on a salary much lower than his. Even decades later, she never shut up about her degree and made (artificially self-deprecating) comparisons about their educations. My patient brother never told to shut up.

The situation was reversed as my brother was the avid reader - several books a week- and did have hundreds of books, which he actively collected. The only time he'd drag out a book would be to recommend a new author.

I am also an avid reader but used libraries, and now ebooks, because I don't want to re-read most books and find them clutter that exacerbate my hayfever.

Original poster
ramalamadingdong1 · 22/08/2018 04:17

Thanks guys! I said to him after I’d seen some of your replies that I’m mighty proud of my education and commitment to studying a foreign language.

He didn’t attend university and he’s sharp as a tack and more interested in current affairs/politics.

OP posts:
cmlover · 22/08/2018 04:19

it was prob the bit that you added that you read them I a different language. though read them in English now.

but who cares.

Original poster
ramalamadingdong1 · 22/08/2018 04:19

@bigreadernobooks

My talking about university was in direct response to his friend asking me about the books. I don’t bang on about university unless I’m asked about it - which is rare!

OP posts:
cmlover · 22/08/2018 04:20

as in who cares what he thinks. it's impressive to know more then ine language imo and id be intreasted to hear about it.

bigreadernobooks · 22/08/2018 04:32

I'm sure you don't - nowadays having a university degree doesn't really indicate anything.

But I'm sure my SIL didn't realise she was rather tedious and offensive in her constant repetitive mention of her degree. This was in a era when having a degree was less common than it is now, and, I think, allowed her to perceive herself as "elite" (but that raises a whole lot of other issues about her lack of self confidence). On the other hand, entry for the cadetship which my my brother did was much more competitive,