“Well I don’t want to...but if I have to I will!” 😡

[HappyHoll]

DP and I are getting married in 10 weeks!

I’ve also been working FT, studying a degree FT and organising this wedding FT, causing serious stress.

He reasons that, coming to appointments with me and helping to pick between 2-3 short listed options (which I narrow down from thousands 😒), means he’s doing loads!

And yes when I talk to others I realise he is better than ‘most’ grooms! However, when he proposed- I spelt out to him that due to my commitments he would need to STEP UP to share the ‘mental load’!

Today recovering from a horrible virus and am supposed to make an hour journey for the flowers girls to try on their dresses!

We’ve already rescheduled twice (because we’re too busy to go), so I can’t reschedule again. We also have no available time to reschedule to!

The girls 6 and 9, keep getting excited and then being let down and the dresses are too much to post. DP is a GP and says I’m no longer an infection threat so that’s not an excuse!

DP messaged at lunch to say he’s taken the afternoon as annual leave after a training session was cancelled.

“Great, would you come with me to do the flower girl dresses so I don’t have to do the whole drive myself, feeling pants?”

DP (bottom lip out)- “well I don’t want to... but if I have to I will.”

Smaked of ‘I don’t want to waste my annual leave on wedding stuff’ - despite almost all my annual leave going on this!

AIBU to be fuming and have stomped off upstairs?
He’s down there watching Netflix...amidst all the wedding crafts I’ve spent the morning glue gunning together!

In general he’s wonderful and caring, and ofc he WILL come with me, but I just hate the reluctance, that Im asking him to spend HIS annual leave doing something for OUR wedding! The audacity I have 🙄

Omg, YES I would be absolutely fuming!
Bottom line is, you're not feeling well, something needs doing for your wedding (which is both of your responsibility), he has the afternoon off.
Why the hell should he not want to make your life a bit easier given he's unexpectedly got the afternoon free and you've so far appeared to have done most of the stuff!
Especially as you stipulated at the start you'd need his help in sharing the load!

I would be mad too, would totally be stomping off and having a tantrum tbh haha. I had the exact same with my DH. He promised to help with everything, and agreed he wanted all the same stuff I did, but didn't step up and showed no interest when it came to it. I used all my annual leave on the planning.
He took 1 day off the day before the wedding and that was it!

I think it can just be a man attitude thing. They assume weddings are all down to the woman. His friends basically told him the same (but I imagine lots of women enjoy doing all the planning and would rather DH just go along with it).

Totally with you on this one!
Even just the fact you are poorly and have asked him to do something for you and he's being grumpy about it. Regardless of it being wedding related! He's being inconsiderate.

Hope you feel better soon!

I had to take charge and divvy it up in the end, spell it out for him. I told him the things I wanted him to be in charge of (things mainly he wanted anyway like sorting a videographer, sorting a DJ) and just said if he didn't do them, we just wouldn't have them - as I wouldn't be doing it.

The things that didn't get done, we didn't really care about in the end xxx

If he won't drive with you then can he pay for a courier for the dresses? Parcel collection and delivery services are surprisingly cheap these days.

Agree that you've taken far too much on your plate. Scale it right back or divvy things up with DH - give him a list.

All I can say is, if you've been doing three different things full time there must be three of you. Are you triplets?
Honestly, calm down. None of this shite really matters.

Not sure why you are getting so much glue gun related snark - I wanted to elope, my DH wanted the big shebang, and yes I ended up glue gunning because I was damned if I was going to waste money on invitations/decorations/button holes/flowers that we could d.i.y.

That said my DH did plenty of crafting too (mostly under my direction because he thinks I'm the 'artistic one'), and spent as much time searching the internet for venues etc, because he isn't a twat.

All our families still believe I was the one who wanted the big wedding though , that's just the sad sexist world we live in.

Is he sexist or are you controlling? Of course, it could be both.

Your insistence that you've had 3 full-time commitments points to you being a bit intense.

If he's leaving stuff to you because you'll complain if anyone else does it then you need to back off.
If he's leaving stuff to you because you have a martyr complex and poor time management (making everything super stressful for everyone around you) then you might want to consider how that's working out for you because it will be in every aspect of your life and not just in wedding planning.

If he's leaving stuff to you because he's sexist then grab his coat and him, and make him go to the dress fitting. On the way, delegate the remaining tasks so he's picking up the slack and give him carte blanche to complete them any way he wants so he doesn't come back for permission/approval. Plus practise saying 'no' and enforcing your boundaries.

There's a lot going on here really.

Spending all your annual leave on organising, driving hours for fittings, spending hours glue gunning....you absolutely don't need to do this. It's bonkers for one day, for things most people won't even notice let alone appreciate.

However, if he's the one driving the big wedding, he needs to actually do the stuff required to make that happen. Tell him - if you want X, you need to do Y. Don't want to do Y? Then you won't have that thing at your wedding. Simple choice. Don't be a martyr about it, stop running around and pandering to it.

Crikey. This is the stuff that really puts me off getting married.

Never understand these kind of weddings... if you didnt want a big wedding don't agree to one and continue to take on the work..
DH initially wanted a big wedding, realised the organisation required (and we in no way had plans of 'making' or 'glue gunning' anything !!
We decided on a destination wedding which cost us about 1/5 of a home wedding. All decisions (cake/flowers/music/timings) were made from choices emailed to us and appointments for dresses (mine, bridesmaids and flower girls) were attended by me and he ordered suits and shoes for himself, FOB, BM and Usher.

If you want help with the wedding tell him this and make sure it happens.

Wedding crafts?

My DH is like this. It's like having a child sometimes. I don't mind telling him 'too bad - you're going.' No I shouldn't have to, but it's one of his flaws and I don't let it get me down - I have plenty of flaws myself. If he is being particularly unreasonable about something then sitting him down and calmly explaining why he is upsetting me works far better than getting angry/shouting/etc.

AIBU to be fuming and have stomped off upstairs?

Yep. Infantile.

You. Are. A. Mug!

What do you think your marriage is going to be like if you can't even tell him now how you feel about all this stuff?

Get a grip and TELL HIM he either helps 50/50 with ALL the planning or you're booking tickets to somewhere hot and sunny with or without him

Seriously, you need to be able to have these conversations with the man you are planning on spending the rest of your life with...

This is another ne of those martyr threads.

I didn't want this, it was what he wanted but I'm doing all the work.

Stop it. Stop it right now and do nothing and see if he steps in and sorts it. If he doesn't then it's not important to him. And you've already said it's not important to you so stop making problems where they don't need to exist.

You don’t have to do any of this though do you. ? You don’t need flower girls. Wedding crafts?? Just keep it simple if it’s annoying you doing it and he doesn’t want to help. I can’t see why he’s want to come to a flower girls fitting? Are you going to the best mans suit fitting?

Wot Fairenuff said.

Seriously, the best wedding present you could give yourself is to simply drop. the. mike.

Let him know, now, the way it's going to be. You are not his assistant.

Also, you have a mind of your own. You're not bothered about this wedding. Call his bluff. Say you're done with it and it's up to him if he wants to now do his share of the boring shit. And stick to it!

DH and I eloped because he wanted a big wedding and I didn't, I refused to organise it and so he came around to my way of thinking. It was perfect. No way in hell would I be doing it all if i didn't want to, but tbf even when we were doing it here I wasn't having flower girls or glue gunning anything.

Can I echo PPs who have said this is what your marriage will be like! I’ve been married nearly 20 years and remember happily making all my wedding stationery, favours, planning all the colours and flowers etc. I’m an arty type and at the time I suppose I thought DH was letting me get on with it because I’m good at that sort of thing.

If I had realised that this was a portent of our future in which he would also leave me to get on with all the housework, cooking and general life admin, I might have had second thoughts.

DH and I had no flowers and no bridesmaids.

On the day DH's father turned up with buttonholes and my mother turned up with bridesmaids in matching outfits. I kid you not.

All of which clashed with what we were actually wearing ourselves

I don't know, but... "you don't have to get married either"?

How about splitting responsibilities? It looks like at the moment he thinks he's "helping you".

He obviously thinks all this frippery is "women's work". How much more in your life is going to be women's work OP?

This doesn't bode well for your future as a married couple. He persuades you to have a big wedding, against your better judgement, but then won't lift a finger to organise it. Is he going to want a big family that he spends no time caring for? A massive family home, that he expects you to clean? Big family get together that you're expected to cater for?

You need to cancel the big wedding. If he can't deal with that like a reasonable grown up, then don't marry him.

This is how it'll be for all your married life, you do all the work and he just floats along. I bet you do all the housework too. Stop being a mug

In general he’s wonderful and caring

Oh, yes the obligatory *he's lovely' equivalent at the end of the post...

I bet he's not.

He wanted a big wedding, you would have been happy to elope, but yet he's dumped it all on you in spite of promises otherwise.

You're using up all your annual leave on his big wedding, while he pouts if you ask him to help.

Think long and hard before having children with this man. He is acting like drudge work is your department ...

Op. You really should have put your foot down much earlier. When it was obvious that he was not going to engage appropriately i.e as soon as you found yourself doing all the research for the short list of venues ( which I assume you did), I would have told him he had two choices 1) step up and take the lead on organising the event - by that I mean I.would do specific things if requested but he was to organise and plan it all including come up with a venue shortlist
2) I would organise the small event I wanted

. I would have given him a time frame to start on 1) after which I would begin 2} and we would forget the big wedding . It is just a recipe for.resentment otherwise