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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

....to feel upset coming home after work?

205 replies

PandorasBag · 01/09/2018 18:16

I often work on Saturdays. It can often be busy and demanding. Today was worse than usual because we were short-staffed. Normally I get home and my husband will make me a cup of tea and I begin to recharge.

But today the pattern was different. I am probably particularly tired because for the past two days friends of my daughters had been staying. There'd been a celebration of her 21st birthday. It all went well but there had been a lot of extra cooking and cleaning and preparing of food. I'd also organised the present shopping.

My understanding was that today she'd be firstly getting down to doing some tidying up of her own and secondly starting the business of looking for work. She graduated in June and it seems to have been one long succession of holidays and parties since then.

I got back home to find
a) my daughter had apparently got upset because she'd got make-up on a silk top I'd bought her for her birthday and both she and my husband had failed to get the stains out.
b) my husband had then taken her into town, where she'd then given him some help with an errand. This is the sort of thing I routinely do and it's taken for granted. But because it was my daughter doing this and she then said she felt hungry, he took her out for lunch - nothing hugely exotic or expensive, but a meal that they obviously enjoyed.

I got upset with my husband. I told him that I felt distressed about having lunch in town. I'm off work next week so they could have waited till I was around. (The only commitment is a visit to my elderly mother next weekend.) That he's never taken me out for lunch to show appreciation after I've helped him - and I've helped him a lot. And I felt my daughter has really not gone short of treats. I had assumed the birthday celebrations had signified an end of a summer of festivity.

My husband didn't accept what I was saying at all. He implied essentially that my response was unbalanced and said, 'You're always like this before visiting your mother and I'm fed up with it.'

OP posts:
InSpaceNooneCanHearYouScream · 02/09/2018 13:43

I think many posters are making far too much out of this- feeling miffed that you're working your arse off and your husband is doing not a lot, and your grown up daughter is spending all her time partying and lunching and holidaying, is I would have thought, quite normal. I know my lazy teenagers frequently piss me off!

AlmaGeddon · 02/09/2018 13:45

Disney parenting is infuriating - they pander and have fun, you the dragon are the spoilsport and humourless one. If only rearing children, even adult ones, was just giving what they wanted and leaving them to do whatever they want whenever they want - a blissfully stress free parenthood, very nice for some, not so good for the DCs involved.

MulticolourMophead · 02/09/2018 14:07

I'm with @AlpacaPicnic and the others who've said this is about you not being appreciated by your DH in particular.

You're working, and by the sounds of it still doing the bulk of the housework. Your DH even put a reminder in his calendar about lunches, etc, but the fact that he was about to just up and have lunch with DD shows he is capable of think about others, but doesn't seem to do this with you.

It's time your DH stepped up to do more of the housework and mental organising for the family. For him to just dimiss your feelings with 'You're always like this before visiting your mother and I'm fed up with it.' just seems to me that he actually doesn't care about your feelings.

heartsease68 · 02/09/2018 14:20

Complicated emotions are ok provided you acknowledge them as your problem and not anyone else's.

Your partners care for your Dd doesn't come out of the same pot of care he has for you. No matter how many times he forgoes giving her attention, it will not mean there is more for you. Try to separate out the emotions and own your jealousy and feelings of abandonment, rather than glossing it over, reacting inappropriately to trivial events and pretending it's about something else.

Step back. You don't know the best way for everyone to live their lives and being a martyr doesn't give you the right to dictate. You're dissatisfied with everything about your partner,it seems- professionally, as a spouse and as a dad. The ways he does try are either too Disney or too unspontaneous. Meanwhile your feelings about your DD seem hopelessly enmeshed in your own bitterness and there is a startling lack of insight on your part that it is wrong to act out of these feelings in your relationships, despite sky high expectations of everyone else.

You are unhappy. You are self righteous. You are controlling. Take some responsibility and work out what you need to do to make yourself happy. No one else is standing in your way. Behaving like this will not making anyone else love you more or do anything more 'properly'.

Feefeetrixabelle · 02/09/2018 15:21

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Crunchymum · 02/09/2018 15:27

I'm still not clear as to whether it's your husbands daughter.

You keep referring to her as "my daughter" which is odd

pigeondujour · 02/09/2018 15:30

I simply think there is a kind of taboo - we really want to think that as mothers we are 100% benign and loving - that it is quite scary to hear any mother admitting to having more complicated and difficult emotions about her child.

Your daughter and husband aren't going to congratulate you for overcoming a taboo by coming in and taking your bad day out on them, and nor is anyone else.

Clutterbugsmum · 02/09/2018 15:37

I think it was the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak. It is quite often the little things that get blown out of proportion.

I think and going against the grain here, it time to put your self first for a while.

Your dd not working well she can be doing things around the house to keep on top of it, she should be getting dinner ready for you and your husband.

She had since June to sort her CV out, and start looking for work except she has used the last 2 - 2 1/2 months to have her holiday/fun. Well that now stops and she starts being an adult and doing grown up things.

So her priorities are to sort out her CV, look for a job and when she not doing that she doing the bits around the house that you try to do around working.

BellyDancer124 · 02/09/2018 15:37

OP you sound like a narc. I hope you take on board the majority of these replies and have a look at your behaviour, all your replies have screamed ‘me me me!’.

bubbles108 · 02/09/2018 15:38

That he's never taken me out for lunch to show appreciation after I've helped him - and I've helped him a lot. And I felt my daughter has really not gone short of treats.

You are jealous of your daughter?

What the fuck?

Grow up.

bubbles108 · 02/09/2018 15:41

It was my daughter helping him on errand connected to this business which prompted him to buy her an inexpensive lunch. This is something he simply never did for me despite several years in which I helped him extensively with website development, copy writing, marketing, setting up events, client visits etc - putting in many many hours of unpaid work.

And again.

Wtaf

Poloshot · 02/09/2018 15:43

Odd reactions and behaviour from you OP

Bluntness100 · 02/09/2018 15:46

This is quite unpleasant. You're an adult, you can afford lunch now, you can say to your husband, as your daughter did, you wish to go for lunch.

Begrudging your own child and being envious of her in thr manner you're displaying is concerning. I think you possibly need to have a deep think, possibly even some counselling, becayse what you're writing here is not healthy. Or pleasant.

Bluntness100 · 02/09/2018 15:54

However, the holiday period which has lasted since late June is now definitely drawing to a close

I dread to even think how that little conversation went. Your daughter needs to move away from you. Your husband may have to consider his future also..

Floralnomad · 02/09/2018 16:56

The more you write the more this screams dysfunctional relationships , sorry OP but you need help before you end up very lonely .

wrenika · 02/09/2018 16:56

You sound completely and utterly deranged. I feel sorry for both your husband and your daughter. You're thought processes here are absolutely bonkers.

P0ppyP0wer1 · 02/09/2018 16:59

Perhaps you could encourage DD to apply for some Xmas work, while she is looking for other work. Time to apply now

scaryteacher · 02/09/2018 17:09

OP. All the vipers are evidently having a bad day, hence the pasting you are getting.

Every one of us on here who did A levels and a degree has done 16 years at least of education, so why does the OPs DD need special treatment? I get pissed off with my ds who has to be told very firmly that help is required around the house, and that it might just be an idea to get dressed before his Dad gets home from work. He has just finished his MA. He is not getting months to party after 18 years of education....he will be job hunting.

The OP sounds frazzled; her daughter sounds like she hasn't twigged that at 21 she needs to start growing up and helping out. If it were my child, I would also be pointing out that real life needs to start soon Bluntness.

Not everyone can afford to subsidise their kidult for months on end, and if all the OP does is shell out, and gets no thanks for it, I can see why she is pissed off. As for all the 'begrudging your own child' crap which is being spouted...the daughter is 21, ergo not a child.

BootsMagoots · 02/09/2018 17:17

Quite simply, YABU

frufru27 · 02/09/2018 17:29

First world problems!! 😚

CookPassBabtridge · 02/09/2018 17:30

It doesn't sound like you're talking about your daughter at all. You sound so cold!

Bugbabe1970 · 02/09/2018 17:40

Yes you are ABU
You're tired and overreacting

Cambionome · 02/09/2018 17:43

God - there are some absolutely horrible posters on here today!

OP - you sound as if yo are trying to think through your responses and thoughts in a rational way, but I think you are wasting your time on here. Some people just don't want to listen, they just want to attack.

Might be worth taking a bit of time to yourself and thinking through your feelings about your dh and the way he treats you; I think that this is at the root of the problem rather than the behaviour of your dd.

Crazyunicornlady · 02/09/2018 17:48

YABVU to be jealous because your daughters post graduation period has been different to yours.

You may complain about it but in reality you’ve carried her throughout the summer period and not asked her for a penny in contribution. That’s your fault not hers. She needs to get a job and learn to stand on her own 2 feet...

scaryteacher · 02/09/2018 17:51

Even a 21 year old should be able to work out that you can contribute in kind Crazy or is a complete lack of common sense part of getting a degree now? Looks very hard at ds.....