Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Aibu or is this really rude?

61 replies

VerySadPandaBear · 23/02/2020 05:43

Husband and I were having dinner with his friends, somehow the topic of relationships came up and I commented on how husband never asks how my day was. He proceeded to say that he doesn't ask me because he doesn't care. I was very hurt, his friends looked shocked and he just carried on like it was a big joke.

I tried to tell him how rude that was but I didn't want to cause a scene at the table, so how can i articulate when he gets home from work how hurtful that was? Or aibu?

OP posts:
Onetwothreeeee · 23/02/2020 08:21

I’m like your DH. I have no interest in what people have done that day or at the weekend.

Original poster
VerySadPandaBear · 23/02/2020 08:22

Even if it's your partner?

OP posts:
ThePlantsitter · 23/02/2020 08:24

Ah, then he's gone too far - because he hurt your feelings. You need to tell him.

Honestly OP if be interested in your day because you must get loads of gossip and good 'annoying customer' stories in a newsagents!

bigchris · 23/02/2020 08:24

Sounds like he was just trying to be funny but it went wrong

Original poster
VerySadPandaBear · 23/02/2020 08:25

Plenty of annoying customers! Grin I'll have a talk when he gets home. I hate having a "discussion" with him, he always seems to manage to escalate it somehow

OP posts:
Shoxfordian · 23/02/2020 08:26

He means what he said, he doesn't care how your day was. Not much of a jump to say he doesn't care about you.

PerceptionIsReality · 23/02/2020 08:26

I also have no interest. Of course if something out of the usual had happened, specifically to my partner, then I’d want to know (eg he was assaulted at work one day) and I’d care but not the normal day to day interactions with colleagues/customers.

PerceptionIsReality · 23/02/2020 08:28

Point is whether this means something deeper such as generally not caring about you (and the fact your so upset about this suggests that you may be concerned that this is the case) or just that he’s not interested in a daily blow-by on your work day.

PerceptionIsReality · 23/02/2020 08:28

OMG you’re!!!!!!

letmeinthroughyourwindow · 23/02/2020 08:32

"He means what he said, he doesn't care how your day was. Not much of a jump to say he doesn't care about you."

I don't think that's necessarily true. I love my partner. I think I am kind and supportive, and I'd want to know if something out-of-the-ordinary had happened at work. I'd want to help him talk it through if something bad had happened, and celebrate or have a laugh about something good.

But I honestly have no interest whatsoever in his day-to-day working experiences. I ask him as a polite courtesy but always hope that the answer will be brief. I don't know his colleagues or customers, or care about them. His job isn't interesting to me.

I think your dp was being honest. You can't make him care can you? The best you can hope for is that he'll feign interest from now on.

GetOffTheTableMabel · 23/02/2020 08:44

How much of the problem is that you were embarrassed by the dismissive attitude that he took in front of your friends?
I think I would have felt humiliated by that and that would have made it all much worse.

PermanentlyFrizzyHairBall · 23/02/2020 08:44

I would assume he said that as a joke to try and make his friends laugh (at your expense). I wouldn't have liked it either though OP and would humiliated. Not sure what I'd do except talk to him, let him know how you felt and also that he made his friends uncomfortable too to make it clear no one was impressed.

The only thing I can think in his defence is that he felt uncomfortable you bringing up the fact that he doesn't ask you about your day when you were in the middle of dinner with his friends. Perhaps he was trying to make it into a joke so it was less awkward.

Meltedicicle · 23/02/2020 08:47

Horrible thing to say and presumably untrue because if you were being bullied at work or given the sack then surely he would care?! A large part of conversation between me, DH and the DDs over evening meals is about our days.

CatteStreet · 23/02/2020 08:51

How did it come up in the first place that you said he never asks you? Tbh that's quite critical and if my dh had done that to me I might feel provoked into the kind of (obviously rude and unacceptable) response he gave (I hope I wouldn't, but I would certainly feel got at in front of friends).

As your friends I would feel a bit embarrassed that you two were clearly carrying on some kind of conflict in front of us.

PhilCornwall1 · 23/02/2020 08:55

If everything else in the relationship is good, I wouldn't worry about this. Sounds like he was trying to be smart, but failed badly.

I don't go in to much detail about my day with my wife, as to be honest she'd be bored to death, consultancy isn't the most stimulating of jobs. Having said that, I certainly do care if she's had a good or bad day.

She goes in to hers more, as years ago I worked with quite a few of the people she knows, so I know who and what she's talking about.

Dontdisturbmenow · 23/02/2020 09:02

There's two approaches. You ask how someone's day was but have to be prepared to listen to the person telling you about the day, which indeed, can lack interest, and if you're knackered from a long day at work which involved a lot of talking and listening, to boring stuff, the last thing you want to do when you get home is to do so again.

Or you ask in the same way than people ask you how you are, with the expected, fine and nothing else is said.

Personally, unless something very significant happens, we don't bother to ask each other. We'll just tell if there's something worth to share, usually after we both had time to unwind a bit.

BraveGoldie · 23/02/2020 09:03

OP I think that sounds good - you get where he is coming from (if you feel you do) but his words hurt and have left you feeling uncared for.....

It's very easy in these situations - especially if there is an established culture of joking insults- to get something wrong and miss the mark...

Your man sounds a bit like a 'substance over style' type who is rough around the edges, but the heart inside is good?

Good luck. Thanks

MillieMoodle · 23/02/2020 09:07

My DH has said the exact same thing to me in the past. You know your husband best, but with mine I think it's because he doesn't care at all.

WhereYouLeftIt · 23/02/2020 09:09

"he can be a bit harsh with his words when in company though"
When in company? Interesting. Is he trying to impress 'company' in some way, present himself as some sort of macho master of all he surveys and thinks he can only do that by humiliating his wife in front of 'company'?

Also interesting is that "his friends looked shocked and he just carried on like it was a big joke." 'Company' is not impressed by his shitty behaviour. And it was shitty.

I think I'd be telling him that if he pulls another immature stunt like that on you I'll be responding at the time in front of the 'company' he's so keen to impress - and it won't be pretty.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 23/02/2020 09:11

Other posters have already said about not caring about the minutiae of your working day not equating to not caring about you. I wonder though why you'd tell a group of friends that your husband doesn't ask about your day... did that seem a good thing to bring up in company, not directly with your husband?

If I'd been in that group I'd have been embarrassed for you and a bit annoyed that you'd think it acceptable to use dinner as some sort of safety net to raise couple issues.

fuzzymoon · 23/02/2020 09:17

I agree with lying.

It was a loaded comment to make by you and I'm not sure where you expected the conversation to go. You set it up.

That conversation should have happened between the two of you.

His reply was cutting and hurtful.

recycledbottle · 23/02/2020 09:17

Sounds like a joke gone wrong to me.

lottiegarbanzo · 23/02/2020 09:18

Rude isn't the word I'd use. Uncaring and unloving, yes.

He's said he isn't interested in how you feel, certainly how you feel when you're not with him. Does he see you just as something of use to him, who he only needs to be nice to when together because that benefits him?

Or, was he being he very clunky about saying that he isn't interested in the minutiae of your day? that's not what he said though. 'How your day was' means how it was for you - how you feel, whether you're ok at the end of it.

Did he notice how unimpressed the others were?

Does he often use social gatherings to relax and let his true self out? Away from having to be 'nice enough' to you as a quid pro quo for his own benefit at home.

lottiegarbanzo · 23/02/2020 09:22

But you did bring it up. What response were you expecting? From someone you know can play to the crowd by being harsh? Does putting you down normally form part of that? it may have been a bit of a kneejerk response to being made to feel embarrassed by you.

Ghoulestofmums · 23/02/2020 09:22

There’s a difference between asking about eg all the customers and whether you sold out of the Torygraph or whatever, and asking how you felt during the day and afterwards. Luckily DH and I were in the same line of vowel so we were genuinely interested and asked each other how the other would have solved acquire issue