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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Am I being precious?

360 replies

FloatingObject · 21/10/2019 08:53

I've been away and this evening I arrive back. I need to get to my village which is just outside the city. My train arrives to the city at 8.30pm. I didnt realise they have cut the 9.30pm service so now my only option is to wait for the 10 30pm train to the village.

I'm really not a princess type but I'm kind of hurt that DP didbt suggest picking me up (it's a 30 min drive). He gets off work at 4pm. I feel like sometimes not being the princess type works to your disadvantage because like my DP just expects me to get on with things which I do, but I'll have been travelling all day and now I'll have to kill 2 hours in a pub near the station and I dunno. If it was reversed I think I would have just offered to pick him up?

Before anyone asks, no, I never ask him for lifts.

Would you be a bit hurt/annoyed by this or no?

OP posts:
MrsBobDylan · 22/10/2019 07:34

Fgs don't stay in this relationship. If you can't have an open conversation about a lift then you are incompatible. Doesn't really matter who's to blame.

73Sunglasslover · 22/10/2019 07:36

I think perhaps you just need to ask.

DisneyMadeMeDoIt · 22/10/2019 07:45

My DH is generally lovely and would come to get me if I asked but he might not offer. Not because he minds or doesn’t want to- just because he sometimes doesn’t ‘take hints’ or think about things like I do.

If it were a case of killing 2 hours in a pub after a long day I would ask DH to come get me. Don’t think that’s ‘princessy’ at all!

‘Princessy’ would be asking him to come get you because you don’t want to get the train 😂

Mumofone1862 · 22/10/2019 07:56

To summarise- You didn't tell him to pick you up but expected him to ask. When he did ask you ignored him, then eventually you messaged him to say you had a hotel hours later.

I honestly think that your upset at him not offering stopped this from being a really simple journey. In future just ask him and it sounds like he will come.

I have received a text at midnight off my husband asking to be picked up and I get it in the morning becuase (I assume) like your husband was doing, I am in bed by 10 on weeknights!

The hotel thing sounds scary and horrendous but honestly it wasn't necessary as when your partner didn't offer you should have just called him and told him to pick you up!

MemorialBeach · 22/10/2019 08:15

@KatyCarrCan with respect you have misread or misunderstood the OP and subsequent posts. This is absolutely not about a regular daily commute, it is about a one off journey returning from a few days away. OP first posted Monday morning about a train journey she was taking later thay day. A train had been cancelled leading to a 2 hour wait at a city station for a connection to a village, instead of the usual one hour. OP asked if she was being precious expecting her DP to offer to pick her up from the city station. Later on Monday she had spoken to him and he had agreed to pick her up from a market town station, enabling her to only wait one hour for the train from city to town.

Fast forward to Monday evening, train into city is 2.5 hours late, so OP misses all connections. Train company messes up and fails to have taxis available to take people home, DP doesn't offer to collect OP even though she is stranded and no taxi will take her home, until quite some time after OP arrives in the city. OP ends up staying in crappy hotel in the city

Beveren · 22/10/2019 08:33

I simply don't understand why you didn't immediately phone and ask for a lift when you discovered the train company's arrangements had fallen through. It's seriously weird.

eddielizzard · 22/10/2019 08:39

Go and have a coffee at the station so you miss him when you get home. You don't want to have a fight when you're exhausted.

AmIThough · 22/10/2019 08:40

I'm confused. Did he text to offer to pick you up when you were in the hotel?

Again he probably assumed you were getting a taxi when you said the train company were paying for a taxi and if the plan changed again you needed to tell him.

eddielizzard · 22/10/2019 08:41

I agree it's about control, and forcing you to ask when he knows full well he should be offering.

We want a relationship with a kind person, who cares about our well being. Without having to be told what that entails.

Lowlandlucky · 22/10/2019 08:50

He is a bloke and some of them have to be asked as the dont think

SoupDragon · 22/10/2019 08:53

He is a bloke and some of them have to be asked as the dont think

He is a human and some of them have to be asked as they don't think

Fixed that for you.

OhioOhioOhio · 22/10/2019 09:05

SoupDragon

That is very politically collect.

Pp is a human and is allowed to express her opinion.

AmIThough · 22/10/2019 09:09

@OhioOhioOhio it wasn't an opinion, it was stated as fact. @SoupDragon is right - it's not about being 'politically correct'.

SoupDragon · 22/10/2019 09:13

That is very politically collect.

No it isn't.

Pp is a human and is allowed to express her opinion.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. It was a ridiculous generalisation. Some men don't think. Some men do think.
Some women don't think. Some women do think.

HoppingPavlova · 22/10/2019 09:13

Can see where you’re coming from. My DH would have offered to come and meet me off the 8.30 train as I would him.

My DH would have thought I’d sort whatever issue there was out myself and that if I needed his help in doing so I would clearly ask/explain what I needed him to do.

In this situation his thought process would have been that I’m letting him know I will be in later than expected and a bit merry if there was a 2hr wait involved that I would probably spend in the pub. If however I said I needed him to come get me he would happily do so.

I don’t expect him to be a mind reader. I don’t expect him to know when i need his help as opposed to being perfectly capable of sorting a situation out on my own. I don’t expect his cogs to turn much or indeed quickly when it comes to general life and I appreciate he needs direction, talented at his technical job, but everything else meh. That doesn’t mean he is controlling, an utter bastard or anything else.

SoupDragon · 22/10/2019 09:15

"Oh, she's a woman and you have to do X because women can't do Y"

Also rubbish.

LilyAraminta · 22/10/2019 09:16

He seems very unconcerned about your plight. When you first posted I thought that maybe he thought you would enjoy a couple quiet hours in the pub with a drink and a book. But as it has all unfolded, with you ending up in deserted stations and now a sketchy hotel, and his response is a tepid "oh, bummer" type reply ConfusedHmm
Does he have a hobby or habit that would prevent him from hopping in the car to pick you up? Is he unable to call you to touch base after what has been an awful day of travel for you vs. intermittent texts? I don't think anyone needs to be a mind reader, and clear communication is a necessity, but your latest updates make him sound disappointingly detached and unkind.

FloatingObject · 22/10/2019 09:18

Sorry guys I think this whole situation in combination with basically getting slapped down by my dad just really sparked some horrible emotion in me that I hadn't felt in awhile. Just not feeling very important to anyone I guess. It doesn't help that I dont generally feel all that valued in my relationship either. Not that my partner is a dick or anything. I dont know

OP posts:
darceybussell · 22/10/2019 09:21

I think this sounds like a very disfunctional relationship. Why are you both constantly texting and waiting for the other one to send the particular text you want them to send, whilst quietly seething. A normal couple would just pick up the phone to one another and have a conversation about how you were going to get home.

If this happened to me, once the first train was late I'd be straight on the phone to DH to tell him what was going on, and I'd be saying 'it looks like I'm going to miss all the connections so could you come and get me when I get into the city?' Then I'd keep him up to date about what time I needed him to be there. It would never get anywhere near the point where it became a big deal, and CERTAINLY wouldn't get to the point where I was wandering around a train station in the dark in the middle of the night trying to book into a dodgy hotel because I was too chicken to just speak to him on the phone!

I think there is a lot more to this, the train journey is probably the tip of the iceberg.

Zaphodsotherhead · 22/10/2019 09:22

He let you spend a night in a hotel a half hour drive from home?!?! When you'd been away?!?

I think he'd been drinking and didn't want to offer, and was desperately hoping you wouldn't ask, because then he'd have to admit to it.

FloatingObject · 22/10/2019 09:34

I dont know maybe I am actually playing mind games without realising it. I probably actually would have just sorted myself out with a hotel as I did anyway even if he had offered. But I just wanted him to offer or at least call off his own bat I guess. I didbt want to have to ask

OP posts:
FloatingObject · 22/10/2019 09:36

It's not really about not feeling comfortable asking him I dont think. I think it's about wanting to be in the type of relationship where somebody would be thoughtful enough to ask and would put your comfort/safety above their own comfort without even thinking twice, I guess because that's what I'd naturally do.

OP posts:
SorrowfulMystery · 22/10/2019 09:38

Honestly, OP, while it certainly doesn't sound as if he's particularly imaginative or all that concerned about your welfare, I can't help but wonder about patterns of behaviour here, particularly your inability to ask directly for what you need (probably, as you say, influenced by you having learned as a child 'not to be a bother'), your intense desire for your partner to respond empathically to questions that you refuse to ask him and your anxiety levels in general.

I'm not unsympathetic about finding it difficult to express your needs I grew up the eldest of a large family where there wasn't much of anything to go around, and what I learned also was 'not to be a bother', and that what my parents wanted and expected from me was to get on with things while they concentrated on the younger ones but as an adult, you are responsible for dealing with your childhood conditioning. I've certainly had to teach myself this. (See a good counsellor for a few targeted sessions?) Asking a committed partner for what you need is not 'princessy'.

What I can't help noticing about your update is that you didn't phone your partner as soon as you knew about the delays so you could have that conversation (a) in real time and (b) he would have had plenty of advance notice of needing to come and get you. BUT you kept texting him saying you didn't know what to do after you'd arrived, as if again, you were refusing to ask him to come and pick you up, but were hoping he would offer.

The other thing that stands out is your level of anxiety about the whole journey, in prospect and when it was happening. Even before you left on your journey home, you were already upset and resentful your DP hadn't offered to collect you, and by the time you arrived at your end station after the delay, you were wandering around 'sobbing like a moron'. Why, OP? No, it's no fun having big rail delays, and I could understand you being intimidated if you were in a strange place, or a country where you didn't speak the language well -- but this is your closest city! You live a short drive away! You presumably know where there are hotels that aren't next to the station, and you could have got a cab to a nicer one, or tried an Uber, or phoned a mini-cab base you know and trust, if you didn't have a friend who could put you up.

But you mention being 'angry' by this stage, and it's hard to avoid thinking that part of you didn't want to find a sensible solution and was thinking 'Look at the big mess his thoughtlessness has got me into -- serve him right if I'm murdered in my nasty hotel!'

What would you have done if you lived alone and were faced with the same predicament and you weren't half-hoping someone would collect you?

ny20005 · 22/10/2019 09:38

That's clearly not the relationship that you have then op & at only 3 years together, you need to ask is that the type of relationship you want to stay in x

Zaphodsotherhead · 22/10/2019 09:41

I still think it's a 'background' thing.

If we're used to not asking because the answer is always 'no' or otherwise hurtful, or being neglected generally, then we find it painful to have to lower our guard in order to ask for help. We then hope that someone can see we are struggling and offer to help without us having to do the asking.

Maybe those who've either been in better relationships or who've not had the hurtful 'no, you can fucking manage by yourself' (whether explicit or implicit) are quicker and keener to ask, because they can take the rejection better, should it come.

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