"Hanging your head like a sad dog"

[SuckingDownDarjeeling]

DH has a friend over, our DC were in the room with us too.

DH and I were having a disagreement about a relatively minor issue, but I was becoming embarrassed about the way things were unfolding in front of his friend. I stopped maintaining eye contact and looked down.

DH snapped "stop hanging your head like a sad dog just because I'm trying to talk to you"

I felt really embarrassed, honestly I wished the ground would have swallowed me up.

Is this just something I should shrug off, or would other people be embarrassed by this too?

Does he eat dirty food too? Is it a general ignorance of food hygeine issue? Or somehow seeing the DC as less important?

There will be plenty of articles you can look up and share with him, in accessible publications like New Scientist, that explain the yuckiness and risks of eating off the floor.

I am defnitely not the MN cleanliness police, far from it but I wouldn't eat something 'wet' that had fallen on the floor and don't know people who would. (A biscuit... maybe).

Thing is, while I understand why you felt got at and socially embarrassed, in this instance I've been so certain I was right and he was being absurd, that I woudn't have had any hesitation about speaking and acting accordingly, quite calmly and factually. Because of course you're right and he's being weird.

If he wanted to make an issue of it, then, well he's the one feeding his DC food off the floor and then making a song and dance about it, so drawing it to everyone's attention!

Anyway, I hope things resolve themselves, one way or another and you get to the bottom of your feelings about him, so you can work out what you want to do next, soon.

Thank you lottie. I appreciate your perspective. Just to quickly answer your question, DH would eat a biscuit from the floor but nothing 'wet'. Perhaps if I bring him in some food one day, 'accidentally' drop some on the floor then pick it up and chuck it back on on his plate, the horror would be enough to make my point (absolutely a joke, will not be doing this!)

Hmm perhaps you can practice some responses if he often says things like this: ‘I don’t think you understand what a meltdown is.’ For example. Not defensive ‘I’m not having a meltdown !’ But put it on him.
I didn’t mean it that way - ‘well, it came across that way.’
Friends in the room ‘it’s embarrassing for John to see you do this.’ Not about you- it reflects on him.

I don't think I'll be asking him to feed them any more anyway. Wrong answer no don’t do this!! More parenting not less!!! Try ‘Could you feed them dinner please, here’s a separate plate for sticky stuff they’ve dropped on the floor so it doesn’t go back in their food.’ Dry stuff please ignore, you are being a bit precious about the food.

I’m team his ex probably wasn’t that bad but he is. It’s totally ok for you to say ‘well I’m starting to see there might have been reasons for her to do some of that.’ It is NOT abusive, it is not comparable to saying I understand why your ex might have hit you /kept all the money and let you scrounge for pennies.

I've noticed myself getting irritated with partners in the way your DH has with you.
In me, it stems from contempt, which really is a killer in a relationship, and it's almost impossible to come back from

Difference with me is, I know in my heart that there's nothing wrong with my partner, it's just that they are very wrong for ME. So, I've always ended the relationship because I know I'd just end up damaging the self esteem of a perfectly nice person otherwise.
I think I'm unusual though
Don't let your partner damage your self esteem - the right person for you will either put the effort in to work with you, or will just love you instinctively as you are.

@timeisnotaline thank you, that's some good advice. It would probably be better to challenge certain behaviours of his ex rather than bottle it all up.

I did actually once tell him 'I don't think you know what a meltdown is', as he said I was having one and at the time I was talking normally and was irritated about something. He just continued saying that I was having a meltdown and pointing out what I was doing to lead him to that conclusion. Shortly before this, I had been telling him that I wanted him to be a bit more hands on with DC instead of leaving everything down to me, and shortly after that I went to Asda for a few bits. As I was driving DM called me panicking saying that DH had called her and told her I was having a meltdown. Now DM and I have had some blaring rows in our time, she knows exactly what I sound like when I'm worked up, even half an hour later, and when she heard me on the phone she realised that there was no meltdown. She called him back and gave him a piece of her mind and now he refuses to talk to her or see her, he said she was really rude, didn't care about me and that she was OTT angry on the phone to him 'saying all sorts of insulting things'. That was a massive shit show. But since then I haven't wanted to 'have another meltdown' so I've been practicing other ways of discussing things, or just out and out getting things done without the need for discussion.

Do you think your anxiety would improve if you left him? Hello

Random ‘hello’ 😁

@HullabalooToo Hello! 😁. When DH is at work and it's just me and DC, things are so calm and lovely. There are times when I wonder if that's what life could be like all the time. But I feel sad at the idea of breaking up the family. As I said, DH has so many good qualities. Things have just been so fraught recently and that comment the other night really surprised me as he's not usually like that in front of his friends.

You wouldn't be the one breaking up the family, his behaviour is doing that

Me again. Two thoughts, not mutually exclusive.

One is that he was performing the classic 'do the job badly in the hope of not being asked to do it again' technique. (Which seems to have come pretty close to working).

(If you want to learn to look after the DC, you really do have to leave him to it, let him make mistakes and find his own way out of them - or ask you for advice on how he can do this. Being competent himself and being your only-partly-trusted assistant are very different things).

The other is that he was deliberately setting you up in front of his freind, so you'd either 'tell him off for a tiny thing' or become anxious and uncomfortable, so he could then tell his friend how crazy you are. 'You saw how worked up she got about one stupid chip! Doesn't trust me to feed my own children, or anything!'. One wonders if this is how the 'crazy ex' story began.

Sorry, 'want him to learn to look after...'