To be annoyed with DH

[AliceRR]

DH and I are sharing a car at the moment.

I am 38 weeks pregnant and have just started mat leave. Before then DH and I were travelling to work together in another city as I had managed to get a parking space there so could park for free under the building. I have PGP so it’s difficult for me to walk far and stand on the train etc.

Anyway I’m now on mat leave and DH is still working so we have different needs for the car. I don’t need the car every day but there are things I need it for eg shopping and midwife appointment and just getting around. DH needs it to get to work although he’ll be driving to the train station now that he’s going alone and won’t be able to park for free...

I’m annoyed with DH as I feel he wants everything his way regarding the car. He thinks that he should take the car to the station every day and if I want the car that day I should either get up at 7:30 and drive him to the station and then pick him up in the evening (so then would have car all day) OR get a taxi to the station to pick up the car. I’d then need to pick him up after work.

I suggested that wasn’t fair as it means for me to use the car I have to either get up early and go out in the cold when I’m on leave or get a taxi to our car. It’s less than 10 mins in the car so a taxi would cost maybe £4 around here.

He doesn’t have to change anything - he just gets to take the car or be dropped off and picked up.

Part of why it annoys me is I just feel new not thinking of me. I almost always give him a lift to the station on days when I’m not working as I don’t want him walking in the cold, especially as cold as it is now, but he doesn’t think twice about getting me up early.

Today he woke me up at 7:30 to take him to the station and I just didn’t want to get up. It didn’t help that he comes to bed late and so he disturbed me and I ended up having less sleep anyway. I told him I’m not getting up so just take the car. But then I was annoyed as he’d woken me up and I was left without a car!

I suggested (we spoke after he left) we needed another way as I just feel like I’m compromising and he’s doing nothing.

Also he can’t discuss it. I just want a solution we’re both happy with, bearing in mind i plan to take maternity leave for a year, and thinks will change again when I have a newborn baby. He just says fine I’ll buy a car at the weekend and you can have your own way. But he won’t. It’s just his way out of the discussion!

AIBU?

I think I’m not. I think he’s being selfish.

But I know some of you may think I’m probably making something of nothing. I’m grumpy at the moment! And I woke up in a bad mood because I was woken up and I can’t really go back to sleep...

I have rtft and agree with all pp who can't believe this arsehole.

Just wanted to add that our school run with my 4 year old (and 10yo) is 1 mile which we do as a matter of course every day (then I walk back, and on to work by train, where I have another nearly 1 mile walk at the other end of train journey). 1 mile is nothing! Lazy arse.

I mean it's nothing for a non pregnant person, including a healthy 4 yo. It wouldn't be easy for you at 38 weeks and no way suggesting you should walk to get the car!

"he has believe it or not come a long way since I’ve been pregnant."

So you married him when he was worse than this?

Oh well then, you knew what you were getting into.

No I didn’t marry him knowing, I said that above.

But I had a hard time with him about a year ago, which had been going on for maybe 6 months or a year, and things got better towards the middle of last year.

We didn’t live together before we got married, which I know is unusual. I knew he could be a bit difficult then but obviously it was later when I knew the full extent of it. We are working on it. I know it is important for him to not make the same mistakes he has before leading to him not being with the mother of his older children etc so I can see he is making real effort now and has taken on board certain things eg that we can have big arguments or constant stress especially now I’m pregnant.

We tried counselling last year, as I really thought having a third party for him to talk to would help him, as he is so calm and charming and pleasant with other people but can be SO unreasonable with me and seemingly unable to have a conversation at times...

Please read your own posts as if they were from a client of yours seeking advice.

He really is abusing you and you are in too deep to see it. He is of course charming to everyone else - most abusers are.

He is nice to you if you give him his own way - how on earth do you think you can raise a child and pander to him? Please do not but a new house with him.

And tell him no to using your car. For people telling you YABU - they obviously did not RTFT - this is your car, he told you to share a car with him, he is a solicitor so he can afford his own car.

This is all about control. Please leave before he ruins your life completely

He sounds like a nasty, bullying, manipulative cunt. Who on earth made him King of Everything? I really couldn’t be with someone who needed to feel he was always winning, whatever the cost. He seems to see you as an adversary to be bested rather than his heavily pregnant wife. I actually don’t see how someone whose outlook is so fundamentally selfish can improve.

He sounds like a nasty, bullying, manipulative cunt

Jesus, that's not vicious at all 😱

True though...

Don’t worry. When you have a baby, 7:30 won’t seem so early anymore. That will be a lie in! I had 5am starts with each of mine for 4 yrs after they were born. Prepare yourself for the real fun to start....this is nothing! Just get up and give him a lift. Be kind to each other.

@cherrysherbet please RTFT

How would you describe him then,
@Bluntness100?

Well as as I don't k kw the bloke, I'd focus on his behaviour, and I'd not be hurling obscenities and abuse at some randoms husband and calling him a cunt.

I’m not hurling abuse at him. I’m describing him, based on the picture the OP paints of how he behaves towards her.

But I’m sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities. Bluntness clearly isn’t your forte.

So what happened in counselling

Well he could walk or cycle to the station. What a prince amongst men, leaving his heavily pregnant wife carless because he can’t do a mile walk...

See, this is why you should live together for a while before getting married or getting pregnant!

I got really stressed out reading your thread - he would do my head in. I think the solution is for him to buy himself a car. You need your own car - you want it and you've paid for it. Tell him to get his own. Honestly, it's the only way that you'll get to have your car. And for him to suggest you have it two days a week when he will have it at the weekend for his children is out and out cheeky bastard territory.

Well I started as a bit of a YABU and ended with with bit LTB.

Seriously though, this doesn't sound like a great relationship.

I think you idea of having a bit of give and take really should be you learning to out your needs first.

Can I ask why you didn't live together before you were married? Is it religious reasons? Are you both the same religion? (No judgement, we did the same as we were religious although not anymore). But I think religion can out a different slant on things at times.

The money issue is worrying? Are you going to be responsible for all the child care costs? How will that work?

I’m not hurling abuse at him

Calling her husband a selfish manipulative cunt is the very definition of hurling abuse and quite frankly I'm being blunt right now.

Honestly he can afford a car. He is a scruge.
You paid for your own wedding

I think to hurl abuse at someone, they have to be present, either physically or virtually. But whatevs.

Counselling was just not very helpful. I think the counsellor was not very good but then I would have gone to try someone else. He wouldn’t.

We had something like three sessions but after the second the counsellor went away so couldn’t see us for about a month and in that month we found I’m pregnant (must have been early June last year). As she wasn’t v helpful and we were sort of in a different place mentally we stopped going and he wasn’t up for going to someone else (it took time to get him there!)

The car thing is difficult because now of all times when we are about to buy a new house (bigger mortgage and outgoings but we don’t know exactly what the monthly bills will be until we get there) plus I am not earning my full amount while on mat leave... It probably does make sense to move in before getting a car now. I don’t mind sharing if it is just that but if his version of sharing means he never has to walk to the station or whatever then obviously that doesn’t work.

Even today he was saying again that I don’t have anywhere to be at the moment but he does need to be at work. So he thinks he should have priority. He’s got children so at the weekend he should have priority. There’s always a reason why he should have it but obviously that’s not sharing and not really what I would have agreed to. He also uses the car in the week to see friends or play squash or whatever and to be fair I don’t go out much in the evenings at the moment but obviously overall it means he would have the car most of the time!

He has said that when we move he hopes to car share with one of our friends who lives v close by and would be travelling to the same city by train. So he has in his head that they will be able to car share and alternate so he’d have the car every other day or something but she might not want that and I have no idea what my routine will be when I’m on leave with a baby.

We didn’t live together mainly because I didn’t want to. Not really religious reasons but cultural. I’m from a background where it would have been difficult for my family to get on board with me living with him without being married to be perfectly honest. And it was difficult getting them on board anyway because of the cultural differences and the fact he already has children which my family (Dad in particular) weren’t happy about. I knew him for many years before we got married and we have been married 2.5 years now...

DH got a bike when I started mat leave. He won't want to put a sleeping baby in the car in the cold, will he? In reality it'll be the last thing either of you will want to do.

Also on the living together I wanted to be married particularly because of his past to be honest. I didn’t want to end up living here with no prospect of getting married and then possibly ending up pregnant as well (I wanted to be married first - personal choice).

Yes I paid for the wedding! But again he kind of took the piss with that. He said he’d pay a set amount but he didn’t due to arguments we had about money relating to other things that I won’t go into but he was being unreasonable. It was after I’d paid for the wedding and after we were married that he said paying for the wedding was me paying for my share in his house! Fair enough if we’d agreed that but he’d always said he’d share the house with me and over the course of our marriage I think I contribute more financially anywhere.

He does have a chip on his shoulder about finances and always claims I have “more money” than him. As of September last year I earn slightly more than him but before that he earned more. He still claimed I had more than him because he had to pay CSM to his ex which I always said was down to lifestyle choices he had made in the past. When the kids are with us we share the cost of everything 50:50 as we share all household cost and food and bills (well I always end up paying more for food) but CSM is his. He often claims not to have enough money for things which is why I end up paying. e.g. for things for the baby.

We will need to work out how this is going to work when I’m in leave because I can’t be paying for 50% of everything plus everything the baby needs when I’m on statutory or no pay

Given the background and your parents disapproval I really really understand how difficult it is for you to admit to yourself that you made a mistake and that you deserve better than this man.

You deserve to be treated as an equal and as a partnership.

Even today he was saying again that I don’t have anywhere to be at the moment but he does need to be at work. So he thinks he should have priority.

But the point is that he doesn't need to be driven to the station to get to work. Doesn't he understand that? And that maybe the welfare of his pregnant wife and the baby actually have priority over his wish not to spend 20 minutes walking to the station?