... to want to scream- husband thinks my hobby is “deeply unattractive”

[DimensionalShambler]

It’s cold and rainy and all day I was looking forward to starting a new knitting project. After dinner I settled down with my wool and needles and and my husband started with the sighing. After the usual rigmarole I dragged it out of him… seeing me knit is “deeply unattractive”, it’s for sexless, boring, tedious women and he hates seeing my projects laying around because it’s a “stringy depressing mess” and I should find something more interesting to do with my time.

I’m absolutely furious at the sexism and stupidity but also really sad because I love knitting- it’s cozy and peaceful and meditative. But now it’s ruined.

Tell him to get stuffed. Needlework is sexy apparently. Traditionally, nice men are attracted to women who do needle-crafts because it brings out a 'nesting' instinct. Threaten to stick your knitting needles where the sun don't shine if he mentions it again.

Then knit him a nice suitcase in which to place his belongings when you throw him out.

What a monster. Sounds like a man who wants you to sit alongside him whilst he watches something dreary on tv. Good luck with him, sister, you're saving another woman from his company.

I think any love for my husband would dissolve after he said something so hurtful. Knitting is so flipping difficult ( I've recently learned and am halfway through my first project and my God,it's taking a LOT of effort!!)

Love the swear blanket pick, it’s my next project

Knit him a dickhead hat.

On a serious note, this has really upset me. A husband who takes something you are enjoying that makes you feel good, and uses it to put you down is a dick. A husband who suggests that you should use your - limited? - free time to look sexy for him is a dick. Really unpleasant.

On a less serious note, I would get dressed up in my tightest Lycra (fat I am) and wait for him to put on his boring documentaries, then I would stand directly in front of the TV and do lunges. Hundreds of lunges. And I would say, “Is that sexy enough for you? Twat.”

The Swear Blanket! It's my secret vocabulary, reserved for using only when I'm alone but over the most trivial things. It's so satisfying. I'll know if my neighbours overhear when I see a post on AIBU about 'mad, sweary old lady neighbour, should I tell her to shut up?'

Knit some nipple tassels.

I think you should store all your knitting needles in the centre holes of his vinyl - and if the hole is a bit too small, we’ll force them im

Sexless? Well surely that's down to a failure on his part, tell him!

@mronionsbumperroller

As if being sexually attractive even comes into hobbies. My hobbies are lying in bed swilling wine and Mumsnetting while listening to The Archers, farting, rolling over and going to sleep. He should consider himself lucky.

I am dying laughing here. Hi there doppelgänger!

knitting is no longer the hobby for old ladies it is very now and popular

Whilst I was still married, knitting and crochet were the only reason my ex husband still had a pulse!!
Tell your husband to fuck off!!

I remember when doing re-enactment when one of our number - a 6'4'' skinhead would never be on a long train journey without his latest set of trim and his embroidery hoop...

He sounds mean and controlling. I’ve got one of those (or did have - things have changed much for the better since we had a Very Big Talk with an ultimatum attached ...).

Don’t knit but I love me a jigsaw on a rainy Sunday, which was just one of the many things that boiled his piss - “like living in a old people’s home”; “makes me feel depressed just looking at it”, “totally pointless waste of life” (yeah, like looking at cars you can’t afford online for four fucking hours isn’t ).

Being so nasty about something you enjoy is simply designed to rinse all the pleasure out of it and give it such a bad association in your mind that you just stop. And therefore fall in with exactly what he wants. That’s the way that shit works.

If he’s like this about other things in your life, OP, then it’s time for a Very Big Talk, in which you tell him that this needs to stop. And if he can’t see and acknowledge the effect of his behaviour, then he needs to jog the fuck on.

Don’t stop knitting, love, and don’t let him rob you of harmless happy pleasures. It’s your life.

"cyclist as a personality trait..."

I am laughing out loud at that one!

Knitting is fab BTW

I wonder if that's why he collects vinyls, but doesn't actually listen to them- he believes it's a 'cool' hobby.

Mine didn't like my photography & walking hobbies either and said it was stressful (going out to the coast when I thought the low sun was nice, all the walking) and boring and pointless and he really put me down about it.

Single now and can enjoy it as much as I want .

You need to tell him relationships have ended over this sort of controlling, undermining behaviour and ask him if that's what he wants.

This isn't about him not liking knitting -

This is about him wanting to feel bad about doing things for yourself, to make you stop doing that thing

Its very very mean but more than that, its controlling and not something a loving partner would ever do

If you don't start knitting... wooly jumpers with boob holes etc then I will be extremely disappointed*

I just spat my coffee out 😂
Please do this

Agree with @Lilymossflower I suspect it’s to convince you into not doing something for you.

Hobbies are so important. Necessary self care/you time.

I ride and have a lesson every Saturday at 12. For an hour. I’m out of the house for hour and half/two hours tops. We have two kids (ds 2 and dd 3 months). Dh makes a fuss every Saturday about me going. Despite the fact that ds usually naps while I’m riding. Then when I come back we go and do something together.

Is he the same kind of man that thinks ladyezzz shouldn't fart because its unladylike?

Take a needle to a record - a knitting needle that is, scrapped across a rare piece of vinyl, extra points if you write 'twat' in the grooves.

I think Lilymossflower has nailed it.

All the men in my family used to knit - on iron rods from the Glasgow ship yards. If they'd been using barbed wired as wool they couldn't have been more manly I'm sure these deeply macho Glaswegians would have been somewhat unimpressed with your DH and his hobbies.

My friend is a corporate lawyer, Oxbridge-educated, and she knits all the time. She is also incredibly stylish and good-looking.

Last Christmas she knitted me a pair of socks with the first 20 lines of Beowulf knitted into them! I have NEVER seen anything like it.