To think I'm not being 'controlling' and that he shouldn't have gone and got pissed last night?

[GreenyHedges]

Background is 'D'H and I have 2 kids, DS who is 6 and DD who is 4. DH still likes to go out with his mates and wanted to go out NYE. I have a job where I have to work New Year's Day, so I said ok but can you please watch how much you're drinking, I'm not saying you can't drink but you need to be able to look after the kids while I'm at work. He said fine and got in the taxi.

Well next thing I know it's 3:30 am and I'm awoken by the sound of him vomiting (not envy!) and staggering all over the place knocking into everything.
I told him I wasn't pleased and I'd asked him not to do this. And that he would still be looking after the kids regardless so to expect to be woken up at 7:00 by DD.

I left for work just before 6 as I was on a morning shift, he'd left the place in a tip, hadn't cleaned the bathroom from when he was throwing up. When I got home around 2, he was upstairs lying on the bed, obviously hungover, and the kids were downstairs watching TV. When I asked them what they'd done they said they'd been watching TV all day and that DH had given them crisps for breakfast and cereal for lunch.

When I tried to talk to DH he said I was being controlling and he's allowed to go out and have a good time if he wants.

@CalleighDoodle
I cannot believe the absolute bullshit sexism on here that some people think op should have phoned work and not gone in RATHER THAN her selfish knob of a husband, who obviously got up at least twice and walked around the house to feed the children

It’s got nothing to do with gender! Jesus, there were two adults with responsibility for two small children, one got too drunk to be left caring for them! Regardless of gender or ‘fault’ the kids come first! Later in the day DH will have been ‘hungover’ and fine to be left BUT at 7am he was still very drunk and NOT able to the left. Jesus it makes me lose faith in humanity to hear all the ‘well it was DH’s fault!’

Who the hell cares whose fault it was!?!?! It wasn’t the kids fault! They didn’t deserve to be left with a drunk idiot!

@GirlDownUnder

Except for when dad wants to get puking sick, then dad gets a free pass at being a parent, and an adult

NO- the kids safety STILL comes first! Sort of petty adult arguments/marital difficulty separately!

I think it's the lack of remorse that would really bother me. We all make mistakes - I got absolutely steaming at my xmas party to the extent I could barely move the next day let alone parent. Luckily dh wasn't at work but it still meant a pretty crap day for him and the kids when mummy spent the day in bed instead of doing nice xmas things we had planned. I knew I'd mucked up though, was hugely apologetic and did my best to make it up to them all.

@WorldsOnFire no the dcs didn’t deserve to be left with a drunken idiot.

But did the Op deserve to get a bollocking for not turning up at work on new year day?? Did she deserve to be the one to sort everything out AGAIN?
Because you can be fucking sure that he wouldnt have taken a day off if tables had been turned. She would have been told to get in with things, get out if bed, even if it’s to be lying on the sofa with the dcs, and to sort of something to eat for them, more than a packet of crisps. Just look at all the threads where a woman is ill with flu or D&V, says she wants to ask her DH to come back home to look after the dcs and the bollocking she gets every time.

The issue with saying that you need to do everything so that the dcs don’t suffer is that it more often than not, means it’s the woman sorting out problems whilst the father can just default being a responsible adult.
What people are annoyed about is the double standards basically. If a woman with D&V can look after her dcs when she is puking all the time and can’t stand up so could he have got up and look after his own dcs....

And btw, no you can’t separate ‘petty arguments’ (that aren’t so petty btw) and the dcs when the dcs are being affected by it.

They'll survive.

Let the stupid man-child sulk! Hope he's got a stinking headache.

DH is absolutely in the wrong and it sucks for OP - I’m not debating that!

But the kids are not at fault or involved in this ^ Leaving them with a drunk adult as their only supervision because it’s ‘his fault and his problem’ is ridiculous and petty!

Kids safety is not a pawn in marital/relationship issues! It’s not a factor in who is ‘right or wrong’!

DH deserves severe consequences but the kids did not deserve to be left in his drunken care at 7am!

There is nothing anyone can say that makes leaving children in the care of a drunk or drugged adult (parent or not) ok!

@WorldsOnFire DH convinced OP he'd be fine by 7am. How was she supposed to know he'd stay in bed all day and feed them crisps for breakfast?

@GiveHerHellFromUs

I understand the predicament OP was in but it’s common sense that if someone is heavily drunk (to the point of vomiting) at 3:30 they are NOT sober or capable of caring for kids at 7am!

It takes longer that 3.5 hours to sleep off that level of heavy night and OP will have known that!

By 10am? Maybe
12 noon? Pretty much safe

But 7am! No, OP will have known DH was not sober. Fair enough nothing bad happened this time and the whole situation was obviously DH’s fault not OP!

But anyone facing this choice/situation in future ^ should visualise explaining themselves to police/SS after something goes wrong and see how ‘reasonable’ they think they sound - before leaving kids in the care of anyone heavily intoxicated!

Had the OP left for work and DH then got drunk - totally different situation!
But OP was a sober responsible parent who at 7am chose to leave her children in the care of their drunk father!
Police/SS would not be saying ‘well he shouldn’t have gone out and got drunk’ because they don’t care about OP’s marital problems! They’d have said ‘You (a sober responsible adult) chose to leave them in the care of someone who was not suitable/capable’

Standing there saying ‘but I had to go to work’ - ‘childcare was his problem’ would mean nothing to them! It’s all just petty marital issues when you look at it from the point of child endangerment!

What OP did at 7am was no different to a childminder saying ‘I’ll be a couple of hours late’ and OP leaving the kids in the house until they got there!

If young children do not have a sober responsible adult- they are unsupervised!!

Excessive alchoholism and childcare are completely incompatible and a risk for the dc.

But to then turn this around on OP by calling her nasty names?!

Dick moves.

He had dc that he was responsible for before he went out and drank himself blind to the point of vomitting.

At that point he can't have any any idea which way things would go.

When you've had that muc to drink you can be completely unrousable, so he's absent for the purposes of keeping his dc safe.

To then turn around and call OP 'controlling' FFS! He's the one with all the control here, what a joke!

She has no control whatsoever, that much is blatantly obvious. If she had control this wouldn't have happened.

He's the controlling one, and all his family are being subjected to his controlling behaviour, they all have to fall in line whilst he does whatever the fuck he likes.

Yes, he managed to get up to give them crisps. Excusable if you are genuinely ill, but to have drunk yourself into a state of drunken vommitting and then walk away from the vommitty bathroom?

I don't think I could have gone to work and left my dc with someone that drunk and irresponsible.

But, when you live with someone that turns their poor behaviour onto you, and blames you instead of being responsible, might have something to do with OP feeling that this is normal or acceptable behaviour

Anyone who disagrees with the way her H has behaved wouldn't be here asking if they were being U, but taken steps to put an end to it, to make sure her dc were never intentionally left this way again.

You are overwhelmingly supported in your view OP.

He's a selfish manchild.

I see we have moved on from "awww, the poor lad, why shouldn't he have a bit of fun, how can you be so heartless?" over "why can't the 6yo sort out meals?" (and presumably clean up vomit too) to "the woman is obviously to blame as she should have taken overall responsibility for monitoring the extent of his hungoverness and if she loses her livelihood that's her problem".

There are many ingenious ways of getting out of blaming a man...

corythatwas hear hear.

The wider point OP is what are you doing about this situation?
It’s not sustainable to have a parent behaving like this. He is risking his children’s safety and your job security and now has the cheek to imply you are unreasonable. Oh, and he has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

What kind of future does your family have with this man?

Grief some of these comments.. Even doing this once a year is not acceptable when a person KNOWS they have to solo parent the next day. The only point at which this is 'a bit of harmless fun' is when there is a previously standing agreement with the other parent/childcare that one can go and do this.

Not cleaning up his puke is revolting and childish. Not being on the same floor as the kids is unacceptable. I had flu this xmas (yes diagnosed by a medical professional thank you..), I had to have the kids on my own for only about two hours thankfully due to a hero DH who dropped everything for me. During those two hours my kids watched tv, destroyed the living room and ate pita bread that the 6 year old scavenged for the 3 year old. It went okay, why is that? Because I dragged myself onto the living room sofa where I was at least in their vicinity. Being on the same floor as he 4 and 6 year old is the LEAST he could have done.

What he SHOULD have done is be home by 1am at the very latest having stopped drinking at the point where he'd be actually able to look after HIS OWN FUCKING CHILDREN.

Some of the apologists for shitty male behaviour here are infuriating.

YANBU OP. Rage on.

I wonder what responses we would get from a man coming on in a day's time saying "I am facing a disciplinary because I couldn't go in on New Year's Day due to my wife being so drunk that she couldn't be left with the children; I had to start by mopping up her vomit so they could use the bathroom".

Because absolutely nobody at all would find it a problem that a mother gets so ratarsed she can't look after her own children or keep their living space clean.

Are you serious cory or am I missing some sarcasm in my post-flu haze? (bc of course it's a problem that the person meant to be parenting the children got too ratarsed to actually be left alone with the children regardless of gender)

Dh works weekends so on the rare occasion I do go out I know I have to be sensible as I have to get up with the kids the next day. A couple of times I have got carried away and stayed out until silly o clock and obviously paid for it in the morning. A pyjama and TV day eating cereal won't do them any harm once in a blue moon. He shouldn't have stayed in bed though, he could have nursed his hangover from the sofa and actually looked after them a bit better. As a parent you have to just get on with it, it's his mistake after all so he should have powered through.

I see we have moved on from "awww, the poor lad, why shouldn't he have a bit of fun, how can you be so heartless?" over "why can't the 6yo sort out meals?" (and presumably clean up vomit too) to "the woman is obviously to blame as she should have taken overall responsibility for monitoring the extent of his hungoverness and if she loses her livelihood that's her problem"

There are many ingenious ways of getting out of blaming a man...

Agree wholeheartedly with this and couldn't rephrase it better.

Sarcasm. You are missing the sarcasm, Damn.

My point was that very few MNers would fail to see a problem if it was Muvver who was too wasted to look after her own children or clean up after herself when she was in charge.

Of course very few bosses would accept this as an excuse for non-attendance from an employee of either sex, but somehow people tend to assume that a woman's job is less important and seem to feel that failing to pay attention to it will have less serious repercussions.

@Cory

Issue One- Marital problems - An irresponsible adult getting drunk, breaking promises and not cleaning up after themselves! Totally open to gender criticism

Issue Two- Child Endangerment - Two completely innocent young children being left (by a sober and responsible parent) in the sole care of an intoxicated and unfit parent.
Never ok regardless of gender

Arguing gender issues to justify child endangerment is as ridiculous as two adults standing outside a burning building arguing over who should run in to save the kids trapped upstairs- on the basis of gender! Doesn’t bloody matter- someone save them!! Sort out your adult issues when children are not at risk!

I would not have left kids with DH whilst drunk - Asked DH this morning and he said same, would not have left them with me like this. It’s not about gender it’s about being a responsible parent, and if your idea of ‘responsible parenting’ is ‘well the other parent has been irresponsible so why should I sacrifice to compensate that?’ Then you’re just petty and probably shouldn’t have kids.

Kids safety comes first- always!

OP, my sympathy.
I can understand you were in a difficult place.

I really hope your contraception is sorted.

He gets into a truly awful state approximately every 8 weeks. Not good.

It's really disrespectful of your husband to leave that bathroom clean up to you, because you don't want your children to see this.

Its awful for your children that their father thinks so little of them to leave such a mess. Just awful.

I think he has an issue with alcohol if he needs to get into this state regularly.

Unfortunately the sulking is further proof that he's neither a good father nor husband.

You are NOT in the wrong here.

I think you need to reach out for support from family and friends.

I also think you need to have a very calm talk with him.

Do NOT allow him to minimise his behaviour.

Is this what you want for your children?.

They will be noticing what is going on around them.

Mind yourself OP💐

It is a gender thing

Because every single Time women are told to get on with it.tough crap.

They are left sleep deprived or recovering from.surgery or suffering from d&v or flu and every single time the mask job is far too important to disturb. The man needs sleep too to function.

If the husband had work to day I'm.prettu sure that despite hanging and smelling hed have got up showered got dressed hit macdonalds on the way and ploughed on through.

In fact having used to work in a hotel where men would repeatedly drink their food allowance, go to Burger King then drink til God knows what time in the residents lounge then crawl out if bed three or 4 hours later and go to work and do the same again the next night when it's their livelihood on the line or their oh so important job they do it.

No wives in the hotel you see...

Amd when theres a wife all the.orsinaty things youd have to do like get up and get on with it well they become optional dont they.

And still.its always the words fault...

In my job you have to find your own cover. I bet everyone who was out NYE on the basis of op working NYD would have happily answered the phone yes? And not even fir her but her husband.

She so wouldnt have a job to come back to.

Wife's fault

There are many ingenious ways of getting out of blaming a man...

^^This.
And yet while we're all discussing this I can guarantee the person who should be giving his actions more than serious thought doesn't give two shits because as far as he's concerned childcare is ultimately a woman's responsibility.

WorldsOnFire but it is a gender issue, for the reasons SarahTancredi has outlined.

More to the point, has anyone stopped to consider the impact on the family as a whole and particularly for the children if the OP were to lose her job as a direct result of this dicksplash and is behaviour?

You could argue at a push the OP may have got away with calling in sick on this one occasion in order to guarantee there was a sober/responsible parent around to manage the children. Very hard to know without knowing what OP's employer is like but at the very least she would not have been popular. The counter argument is that no harm was done on this one occasion by him feeding his kids crisps as he slept in his own vomit in the next room. You can argue the toss on both counts. Clearly neither is an optimal approach.

But the wider point is that this solution is unsustainable for the family. It isn't acceptable for one parent to assume that they can go off and drink themselves into incapability and that the other one will pick up the slack, at potential risk to their own work security, indefinitely. Whether is NYE or not. Quite aside from the longer term issue of the impact on the children of seeing a parent behave like this.

And at the root of this is a gender assumption that all childcare is ultimately a woman's problem, that the buck always stops with the woman, regardless of whose fault it was. So whatever short-term fix is applied in this scenario, you still have the problem that the bloke is a feckless man child who doesn't grasp the fact that the family unit depends on him being collected enough to care for his children if his wife has to work. He's not doing her a favour, he's just keeping his end of the bargain. If he can't or won't grasp this, she would be better off without him. How can that not be a gender issue?