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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU about mess or is DH?

55 replies

Orangexxxx · 30/11/2018 17:51

DH and I have a 5 yo DS in school and a 5 week old DS

Im on maternity leave for a year, he's recently returned to work after a significant amount of time off before/after DS2 born - 7 weeks total

Yesterday, DH came home from work and started complaining about :

having to pick up after DS1 (few toys out on floor and coffee table)

The living room floor needed hoovering

DS1 had left out 2 outfits in his room , which DH put away

An instruction manual for DS1 gro-clock being left out by me (due to me never being able to remember how to set it , and as we set it for different times on weekends and weekdays I left it out next to the gro clock)

...

For a bit of context DS1&2 rooms were extensively plastered and decorated and furniture put together by DH before DS2 arrived, (and they are both beautifully done and look lovely) So I do understand him being careful about them not becoming a tip

But AIBU to expect him to just do these things, and not complain about doing it?

I'm SAHM now, exclusive breastfeeding so his nights aren't disturbed and mine are, im knackered, juggling two children, school runs, DH shifts, the house is generally clean and tidy..washing and ironing done, all the usual

We're now not speaking as he pissed me off complaining about these things as if i don't have enough to do, having a go at me for keeping the instruction manual out and for not picking up after myself (even though it's not myself, it's the DS's!)

Today he offered an insincere apology , just because he didn't want us to not be talking so said , over text, "sorry for asking you to pick up after yourself"

AIBU?

OP posts:

AnneLovesGilbert · 30/11/2018 17:53

That is not an apology and he’s being a complete twat. Sorry

Jackiebrambles · 30/11/2018 17:55

You have a 5 week old and he's moaning about you not picking up after yourself?? Is he on fucking glue? What a bell end

AmIRightOrAMeringue · 30/11/2018 17:59

I think when it's an apology for not acknowledging you're still physically healing from birth and how hard it is to look after a newborn, let alone another child and even take a piss or get a hot drink for yourself and he say's don't worry about anything at home at the moment as he will step up and help out when he's home, then you'll accept he's sorry.

I assume he did 100pc of the childcare and housework and cooking etc when he was off and it was all perfect?!

Oddsocksandmeatballs · 30/11/2018 17:59

He's being a knob.

DorotheaHomeAlone · 30/11/2018 18:00

Wow. I’m pretty neat but your place sounds incredibly tidy given your newborn! I’d have been furious with that nit picking in your shoes and the ‘apology’ would tip me over the edge if I was sleep deprived.

1poppy1 · 30/11/2018 18:01

HIBU ask him to leave the manual out, as you need it. Everything you mentioned are completely inconsequential bits and pieces, which any parent of 2 young children should be getting used to having lying around!

You are not the maid, but instead an exhausted parent of a newborn, he needs to adjust his expectations and / or get stuck into the tidying without complaint.

bridgetreilly · 30/11/2018 18:01

If you have a 5 week ago, he should be glad to get home and find that you have kept both children alive for another day. Anything else is a bonus. And he should definitely be expecting to do his fair share of housework when he gets home.

Loopytiles · 30/11/2018 18:02

He is massively U.

5 weeks postpartum!

Why are his nights undisturbed! There is often plenty of night parenting other than feeding.

bridgetreilly · 30/11/2018 18:02

*5 week old.

InvisibleLlama · 30/11/2018 18:03

He's an arse by the sounds of it. Just laugh at him when he comes out with such ridiculous nonsense.

Runnynosehunny · 30/11/2018 18:04

Is it too soon to say LTB?

TeachesOfPeaches · 30/11/2018 18:04

Tell him to fuck off

crimsonlake · 30/11/2018 18:08

Good grief does he have OCD and has he always been like this?

Threewheeler1 · 30/11/2018 18:10

What crimson said.
He sounds extreme.

holidaylady · 30/11/2018 18:11

You can set the gro clock to have two alarm times. In the manual it's for nap times, but we use it for weekend settings.

It is overly complicated to use I agree!

And also YANBU
He is being VERY unrealistic and mean.

LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag · 30/11/2018 18:16

Good grief does he have OCD and has he always been like this?
Please don't roll out the OCD trope.

OP your husband is definitely being unreasonable. I would talk to him about how time consuming it is to look after a newborn and that if he wants it spotless he needs to do it himself, without grumbling or calling it your mess. It might be a good time to reach your older son about tidying up after himself too (better to get this instilled before he's a teenager).

AnoukSpirit · 30/11/2018 18:21

Today he offered an insincere apology , just because he didn't want us to not be talking so said , over text, "sorry for asking you to pick up after yourself"

Fuck that. Just because he used the word sorry as he blamed you again, does not make it any kind of apology.

So what if he decorated the rooms? That doesn't give him permission to behave like a selfish prick.

It worries me that you feel it's necessary to go to such lengths to justify minuscule levels of "untidiness". If I'd come home to my partner and 5 week old baby I wouldn't even have blinked about what you've described, let alone considered it to be a mess.

He was totally out of order. His bullshit passive aggressive text actually makes his behaviour overall even more appalling. It wasn't an apology, not an insincere one, not anything except a way to say "I'm right and you are wrong and being unreasonable".

You are not being unreasonable.

StressedToTheMaxx · 30/11/2018 18:23

My dp used to be a bit like this.
When he comented on the crumbs on the floor. The reply was "the hoover is in the cupboard, carry on"
Just keep passing the job to him and he will stop pointing stuff out.
Dh" there are clothes on the floor"
"Since I am busy doing x you can get them"

Original poster

Orangexxxx · 30/11/2018 18:54

Sorry there was one more thing he complained about which, to be fair, was mine. I'd left a canvas bag with some bits leftover from visiting my Nan in the morning , I put it down on hallway floor when I got home, about 1pm, and literally didn't get a chance to move it,/empty it

But after he had complained about the other things and while DS1 was reading a book before bed, I was trying to settle a colicky DS2 in another room he came into the room i was in, with the bag, and put it on the table in front of me, saying "this doesn't need to be on the floor does it" and walked away

I tried to explain to him that I had spent the last two hours settling DS2, to the sacrifice of the hot water bottle I desperately needed for my poor back, that I had also been trying to boil water for for those two hours as well.. all he didn't cut me off while I was talking.... He kept going on about the damn gro clock instructions! And had the cheek to say he would've made the hot water bottle if I asked him... ? WTF - he would've made the hot water bottle but not do some tidying?!

I'm actually wondering how I managed not to rip his bollocks off last night ???

I'm feeling tired and vulnerable, so when something like this happens I tend to just shut off and not talk

OP posts:

LannieDuck · 30/11/2018 18:54

One of the best things about me and OH both going part-time after having kids (instead of one FT and one SAHP), was that we never complained about the state of the house when we got in from work!

Your DP needs to take a day off work and walk in your shoes when baby's a bit bigger. See how tidy the house is at the end of the day...

Runnynosehunny · 30/11/2018 18:58

Say "dh you used to be so cool, now you've warped into a nasty controlling version of Monica from Friends, I have gone right off you." Then LTB.

Quartz2208 · 30/11/2018 18:58

He thinks that is a mess - its a lived in home not a show home

Original poster

Orangexxxx · 30/11/2018 19:02

Runnynosehunny

hahah

He is a bit anal/OCD

I've kind of grown to understand that when he is generally grumpy or tired, if he has to do something around the house, then I always get it in the ear hear about it

Like he can't just get on with it

OP posts:

romany4 · 30/11/2018 19:06

Tell him to get to fuck.

I had 2 1/2 year old ds1 who i was potty training and ds2 was a couple of weeks old and was ebf. He was also colicky and only slept 90 minutes at a time during the night and barely napped during the day. I was also chronically anaemic after his birth.
DH worked 12 hr shifts in a slaughterhouse 6 days a week. Our home was a total shithole. I was exhausted and apart from making meals and washing clothes, mostly baby and toddler stuff, I did nothing in the house. Did my DH complain? No! His one day off on a Sunday was spent doing as much as he could to share the load.
Your DH is being ridiculous

Quartz2208 · 30/11/2018 19:13

Hold on if he has to do something around the house - surely you are a team?

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