AIBU about husband’s attitude?

[hjbows88]

Looking for opinions really. Long story short our dog is ill - has had D&V on and off all weekend which has got significantly worse today despite going to the vets for meds. I slept on the couch Friday night because he keeps needing to go outside for either D or V and if we are upstairs there is a chance we don’t hear him bark. Also, my husband is training for a marathon and had an early start Saturday and I didn’t want him disturbed.

My husband has never, ever stayed up/slept downstairs when the dog is unwell. His attitude is ‘let him be sick/shit in the house, we will deal with it in the morning’ and would rather go to bed and take the risk. I would prefer not to take the risk and so it’s always me that’s downstairs with him when he is ill. Husband has also never taken him to the vets, always takes the attitude of ‘it won’t be anything serious, just let it run its course’ regardless of what his symptoms are. He actually tried to tell me earlier the dog was constantly asking to go out for attention until he promptly vomited all over the floor.

So I’m now downstairs for a second night facing disturbed sleep. I asked if he would stay down instead and he flat refused.

I feel all of this is bad enough tbh but to make it worse I’m 25 weeks pregnant and he is quite happy for me to stay down here instead of him.

Added to all of this and perhaps not relevant, but basically he is absolutely obsessed with running. He runs 6 days a week but would like it to be 7 (and only doesn’t do the 7th day because I say it’s unreasonable). His running each day ranges from 1 hour to 3 hours. On a weekend he goes our Saturday and Sunday morning and is out most of the morning. When not running, he spends his time on his phone chatting to friends about running, filling in spreadsheets about his times, listening to running podcasts or talking to me/anyone who will listen about running. So, if he needed to stay up all night for something to do with running he probably would. But for the poorly dog and his pregnant wife, nope.

I’m feeling totally fed up tbh but if I try and broach it he sulks/denies there is a problem/says I am unreasonable. I don’t know what to do.

I also did the compromise thing. Can't tell you how many times, pre children, I walked round the golf course with him and his buddies, or watched him play squash of an evening.

I was just as much on my own as I would have been if I'd stayed at home.

This will be you "Honey,I'm exhausted could you get up and change the baby?" "Ahh leave it we'll change him first thing in the morning!" "Honey I changed him in the middle of the night can you get him now?" "Nope,sorry, I'm doing for my three hour training run after all having a baby was YOUR idea and the damn dog!!!!"

Either your dh is going to have one huge wake up call or you are going to run yourself ragged because you “choose” to look after your child.

How would your life look if you didn’t have in him your life.
What does he bring to the table in this relationship.

FWIW ddog used to get D&V occasionally (crossbreed Stafford/Labrador/German Shepherd)

My vet said no food for 24hours which seemed to work.

He has always done this and I’ve spent 11 years telling him to grow up but as you say he has no empathy because he never believes he is in the wrong because he is getting exactly what he wants. I’m obviously stupid to have expected that to change just because I’m pregnant.

This will be your life.

Only more so, once your child is born.

Can you live with this?

I'm sorry your husband is a selfish arse, there is a very nasty D&V bug doing the doggy rounds at the moment, so fingers crossed your dog feels better soon, and you sound lovely staying with him and letting him out, as I'm sure he would get really stressed going indoors as he knows it's not right.

You say the baby was planned so you and your DH must have discussed what life would look like with a baby. Can you remind him of this and ask him what he is doing to prepare for being a father?

He doesn’t need to be going on 6 runs a week. Husband is now in training for London after completing another marathon last October, I am also 28 weeks pregnant with a two year old. He runs approximately 4 times a week with daily physio and some strength training from home, often whilst still looking after our daughter. Your DH needs to step up. Does he really think he can be going on 6 runs a week when the baby is here?

OP, you e got warning signs already. Why not tell your husband that you want to go to bed with him and if the dog does a D or V then suggest your OH clears it all up. I suspect he’ll be very grumpy about it.
As to increasing his running since you’ve got pregnant!!! This is your red flag.
What do YOU want? Can you cope with a newborn with a largely absent father? Does he expect you to ‘deal’ with your joint baby?
This is worrying OP.

Completely agree with looking at how a man treats animals...

I'm sorry OP that he isn't more considerate towards you or isn't sharing the responsibility of the dog.

The same thing happened to our dog a coupple of months ago. Kept womitting and wouldn't drink or eat for days. My partner and I both stayed downstairs for a weekend to keep an eye on her and give her medicine.
I would have been very upset, had he not shared that responsibility with me. However, he was just as worried as I was and stayed up all night looking out for her, even though he had to go to work.

I don't think you are being unreasonable.

He came downstairs at 6am in his running gear. So I’d spent all night on the sofa, up 5 times to let the dog out so estimate I’ve had about 3 hours of sleep. He has had 7.5 undisturbed hours and comes down hoping to go for a run. He is now claiming he came to see ‘what the situation was’ and then make a decision about whether he should go for a run. I took the opportunity to discuss his attitude to the dog last night and this wider running issue. He maintains there was no need for me to stay downstairs and if I want to that’s my choice and he is being selfless letting me do what I want to do. Yes, I’m being serious. He then said he can’t see a problem with the running, that we often do other stuff on a weekend afternoon so what’s the problem with him running in the morning both days. Started trying to say I’m asking him to not have hobbies or trying to control what he does. I give up.

If he's like this with a dog I'd be discussing how he will be as a father , you need to sit him down and explain how it's going to be

Personally I would be making plans to split.
Dealing with a baby and a selfish prick is more than you need...

You are flogging a dead horse, OP. He sees no problem so of course nothing will change. He is a selfish knob, with no empathy even for the dog, let alone his wife. I'm sorry if that's harsh but based on what you have written, it's true.

OP from experience you need to put your foot firmly down now. With a newborn no one gets any hobby time. Paternity leave is for him to look after you and allow recover from the birth plus for him to bond with baby not go running. Hobby time can be built back in once you have recovered from the birth. However, hobby/me time will need to be a lot less and shared equally. If he is running every evening when can you have hobby time?

Is he expecting to cram spending time with you and his child into 1.5 days a week? Whilst he spends 5 evenings and the whole of Saturday morning on himself.

If he is running every evening after work when is he going to spend time with the baby?

After having a broken nights sleep and looking after baby when are you going to get a break or any hobby time?

Do you have any family support? Please tell you parents about your concerns now.

Why can he go out for a run at lunch time when he is at work if it is that important?

I am assuming he hasn’t bought a running buggy so he can take baby on his runs and give you a break!

Honestly just leave. Life is too short. You can't make people care about you and he doesn't. Leave and you, dog and baby will be a happy family without that utterly pointless husband in your lives.

His view is that he can have both. He wants to know why it’s an issue for him to run every night after work when he ‘then spends the rest of the night with me’ and on the weekend he ‘runs first thing leaving the rest of the day (afternoon and evening) for us to do stuff’. He says exercise is good for us as humans and we should be exercising 7 days per week. Says you only get good at something by doing it often and when people enjoy things they put the effort in, not only in terms of time spent doing the activity but also listening to podcasts, chatting to people about it etc. He says there is nothing stopping me (before baby) going to the gym while he is running evenings and weekends so what’s the problem. When baby comes he says he can continue as he is and once he gets home I can then do what I want (like go to the gym, or some other hobby).

It’s so hard to explain to him why his attitude is unreasonable when he says all of the above as he puts in across in a way that makes it sound like I’m being unreasonable. As he said, I could go do other things while he is running or I can do them at other times if I want to so what’s the problem? Ugh :(

The post where you tried to explain how he isn’t completely useless just makes him sound completely useless. He puts the dishwasher on and washes his running gear but that’s literally it, you had to pay for a dog walker when you worked away because walking the dog would interrupt his running schedule . You pay for a cleaner and do all of the cooking because he cba. The time you do spend together, he just talks about fucking running. He sounds so very tedious, I’m amazed you’ve put up with this for so long.

The dog is a shared responsibility as the child will be but he doesn’t care for the dog and I suspect the baby will be the same. Sorry OP, this really doesn’t bode well.

When baby comes he says he can continue as he is

Oh dear. I'm afraid you are going to be left literally holding the baby. It won't affect his life at all.

What a selfish arse.

I am sorry OP, but you are on a losing side here. I was with an ex who was into motor racing and rallying and went away for weeks at a time. Nothing changed and luckily I didn't have any kids with him, but he has same view. When we talked about kids he didn't think he needed to change and was prepared to go off and leave me to hold fort.

He's manipulating you.

Do you want to spend the rest of your life like this?

Good luck with your new born. It's tough and doing it on your own will be very tough.
To make things easier for you could you not do anything that helps him/ takes your time and effort?
You'll be hormonal and sleep deprived as well so I suspect you'll have him told properly soon. Something about pregnancy hormones removes the filter ( not saying hormones as an excuse or men can blame them, in my experience everything a women has been holding back saying comes out).

Hi OP,

OK so le'ts be practical here. As others have said, you will be raising this baby alone (whether or not you stay with DH). So make a plan as to how that will work for you (BTW if you divorce him or legally separate you can add in that DH will have child EOW).

All of these plans do not involve your DH as we are now planning for him to be as useless with your child as with your dog.

Do you live near your family? Could someone in your family help you once the baby arrives? Would your mum move in for a few weeks?

Have you some good friends? Do any of them have children?

Talk to your health visitor and find some mum support groups - can you do prenatal yoga or pilates - anything to get you meeting other mums to be and then you can meet up after the baby arrives?

When the baby arrives, link in with a group of mums - tell your health visitor you want to get a list of all the mum and baby groups. Try to find one for single mums - they may have more practical advice to offer you.

I hope this helps - sometimes when we are disheartened, it helps to make some practical plans so you feel more in control. Remember, as they say in AlAnon, you cannot change his behaviour but you can change how it affects you.

You can get him to take the dog on his run, that is then a job you don't have to do.
Start getting him to look at a sports pram, he can take baby with him while you have a bath.

The asinine statement he made about how life will be with a newborn baby shows his ignorance and narcissism! He must have never seen or heard a newborn because life right after birth is extremely tough! If all the adults in house bathe and eat it's an accomplishment-fuck gym trips,etcetera. Get.out.now.

So when he gets back from his run when you have a newborn fuck the gym all you will want to do is sleep.

I was actually going to side with him over the dog before you said you were pregnant and it became apparent the dog is just the tip of the iceberg. In our house it was my choice to have a dog so I would have taken care of any night duties like this but my DP does help out with dog.

You say he’s not useless because he does the washing up, dishwasher and laundry (only because he needs his running stuff) honestly big whoop, that’s nothing in the grand scheme of things, it takes a lot longer to cook a meal than to clear it up and I bet even with a cleaner you’ll spend time in between cleans. So when baby is born will he take responsibility for all the baby’s washing, they do create a lot?

Good luck with the baby.