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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

For losing my shit at my husband whose response to our carbon monoxide alarm going off was "It's probably a fault, just go back to sleep"?

115 replies

disneybee · 12/10/2020 01:19

So we sleep right next to the kitchen (which has the boiler in it) and leave the doors open so our young kids can wander through to our room easily if they wake during the night. I've always been concerned about the safety of us and our kids sleeping on either side of the kitchen. When our carbon monoxide alarm woke us up tonight, I got up and anxiously started wondering what to do. My husband was so dismissive, saying its probably a fault, just go back to sleep. This isn't the first time his stupidity has made me frustrated about the safety of our kids. (Think falling asleep with the back door unlocked; not fitting car seats correctly etc). I have a problem with being over anxious and I'm not sure if that stems from feeling so responsible for the kids.

Anyway I lost my temper and shouted at my husband calling him stupid, ignoring a CO alarm and going back to sleep, what is the point of having an alarm, esp considering we've been lethargic and headachey recently. The alarm has stopped now, but I've opened the windows and called the Gas Safety line, who are sending someone round to check our house. My husband muttered "of course they have to send someone, once you phone them" and I am fuming at him. He's tried apologising to me and joked that he is scared of me but I am really angry at him for always leaving all the sense of being responsible for the safety of our kids up to me. AIBU for being horrible at him?

OP posts:
Bowerbird5 · 12/10/2020 05:04

Disneybee
I’ve got one(DH) like that!
I woke up to hear noises downstairs and nudge him awake. He told me to go down and see what is was rolled over and went back to sleep😲not quite what I was expecting. It turned out to be one of our sons (adult) who had been away and came back earlier than expected. It could have been a burglar though. I stopped relying on him...ever.

Bowerbird5 · 12/10/2020 05:07

Posted too quick.
Glad to hear everything ok. I think I would buy a second alarm to give me piece of mind.
I would have done the same as you but I would also have got myself and the kids out of the house.

Sweetener12 · 12/10/2020 05:58

He is terrible irresponsible and totally unreasonable, you are not! You did the right thing.

Chocaholic9 · 12/10/2020 06:11

His reaction doesn't make sense! How weird. I'd be pissed off too, sounds like he's not interested in protecting your babies.

rwalker · 12/10/2020 06:37

Going against the grain but it didn't take 2 people to sort it .
It can be hard work living with someone thats anixious you feel constantly checked and critisied to a point it wears you down and think why bother as it won't be right.
If he would of got up you would of been up what could he of done more than you did.

FippertyGibbett · 12/10/2020 06:38

He is a twat.
You do whatever you need to keep yourself and you babies safe.
He needs to watch his behaviour or resentment will set in.

MagpieSong · 12/10/2020 06:39

We had ours go off. My husband turned it off without me. When I went inside the house, it went off again and I evacuated all of us inc pets and baby to front of drive. Turned out our massive ancient range was leaking Carbon Monoxide.

What part of Carbon Monoxide kills do some idiot men not understand? Yanbu to get cross. I did too. Safety/responsibility is mainly left to me in our house, that’s changed a bit since an ultimatum was given, but it’s stressful and bloody infuriating.

pippistrelle · 12/10/2020 06:50

You were not unreasonable to have it checked, of course.

However, you were unreasonable to lose your temper, shout at him and call him stupid. That is not acceptable. Perhaps he wasn't joking when he said he was scared of you.

MinesAPintOfTea · 12/10/2020 06:57

The only thing that might be a tiny bit unreasonable is if CO was present, it does make you drowsy and to not feel like moving (from experience). Therefore you could be shooting at him for suffering from the problem the alarm is for.

TORDEVAN · 12/10/2020 06:58

Yanbu. Even in your reaction. What a scary thing to have happen! Don't think I would have been any measure of calm in that situation. I think calling him stupid was him getting off lightly - he was being very cavalier with all 4 of your lives!! Glad it was faulty and you're all ok x

thelegohooverer · 12/10/2020 07:10

I really get this OP - it’s very difficult to keep a sense of proportion and perspective when your reactions are so widely different.
I had a similarish issue when ds cut his hand on something unidentified but possibly dirty and dh saw no reason to take him to a hospital and upset him (ds has asd).4 hours of waiting, an X-ray, hugely upset child, incompetent junior doctor who kept absent mindedly poking the wound while she was talking to meHmm, we ended up with a diagnosis of “no serious damage and antibiotics just in case” so 3 more days of waking him at night to take the antibiotics. And ds declaring a fatwa on hospitals. And a huge bill.
So yes, dh was technically correct, because we got lucky. There’s so much that could go wrong with a hand and ds wasn’t able to process what happened or articulate it and there was no way of telling what made the cut.
I do suffer from anxiety and tend to over react but that was an under reaction from dh and at the time I was seeing a great counselor who helped me see that or it would have fed into the narrative of Lego is anxious and over protective.

Being angry about it isn’t particularly helpful. We talked it through and have acknowledged that in a lot of cases the best course of action is somewhere in between, and that he should question whether he’s under reacting as much (if not more) than I should question my over reacting.

Funnily enough, I’m tuned into the dc in a way that dh is not, but he reacts to sounds in the house that don’t even register with me. We’ve learned to be respectful of those perceptions even when we can’t hear what the other one is talking about. He’s been right about a few issues. And so have I.

I know people always point to double standards on mn but if I got a bollocking off my dh for trying to sleep through a carbon monoxide alarm, I don’t think I’d be posting on AIBU Hmm

Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 12/10/2020 07:23

Sounds just like my partner. Thats exothermic reaction I would expect him to have.

ChaToilLeam · 12/10/2020 07:28

I don’t wonder that you’re anxious when your DH is so cavalier about safety. Sounds like he is unreliable in this respect and needs a wake up call. You have children, he needs to to keep them safe!

SoupDragon · 12/10/2020 07:30

Do these alarms only go off when the CO2 reaches a level at which it's going to kill you now or is it a "you need to get this looked at now" level?

ShallICompareTheeToASummersDay · 12/10/2020 07:32

@ChaToilLeam

I don’t wonder that you’re anxious when your DH is so cavalier about safety. Sounds like he is unreliable in this respect and needs a wake up call. You have children, he needs to to keep them safe!
That could be chicken and egg though - I appear to be “cavalier” because my husband is a worrier and in that sense we balance each other out. If he worried less, I’d feel more free to air my concerns without him panicking.
Scoobygang7 · 12/10/2020 07:35

@rwalker it did need 2 people he needed to wake up and get out too. One to open windows and call the gas safety line and the other to wake and get the kids out.

Would you leave your partner asleep in a house with a carbon monoxide leak? I wouldn't.

SpanielSprint · 12/10/2020 07:37

YABU to ‘lose your shit’ and call him names. Such double standards on here. There was a thread just the other day where the OP had done something potentially dangerous to her boiler and stopped it working - her DP shouted at her and called her a stupid bitch, and everyone was up in arms (quite rightly).

Obviously YANBU to disagree with him, react to and sort out the CO alarm, have a serious discussion the next day etc but that’s not what you asked about in your OP.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 12/10/2020 07:58

YANBU at all.
The whole point of having a CO alarm is precisely because it is an invisible unsmellable gas that could kill you.
Your husband is a careless dick.

Elai1978 · 12/10/2020 07:59

Do these alarms only go off when the CO2 reaches a level at which it's going to kill you now or is it a "you need to get this looked at now" level?

They don’t measure carbon dioxide at all.

PivotPivotPivottt · 12/10/2020 08:07

@SoupDragon

Do these alarms only go off when the CO2 reaches a level at which it's going to kill you now or is it a "you need to get this looked at now" level?
I had a gas check the other day and I asked the engineer how reliable carbon monoxide alarms were (I'm very anxious about carbon monoxide poisoning) and to reassure me he created a small leak by unscrewing something on the boiler and held the alarm near it and it beeped within about 3 seconds.
Gumbo · 12/10/2020 08:10

I spend several nights a week in hotels for work (obviously not during Covid times) and I've lost count of the number of times the smoke alarms have gone off in the small hours (often when it's raining/snowing) and people have had to evacuate to the car park wearing dressing gowns etc. I have to admit I've become very complacent now and tend to not bother leaving (sometimes I poke my head out of the door to see if I can smell smoke).

The result of this is that when our alarm goes off at home in the middle of the night, DH shoots out of bed, grabs the DC and hurtles outside, while I put on my dressing gown at a leisurely pace and go and get the hoover to see if there's a bug or something in the alarms that have caused them to go off. DH finds my attitude incomprehensible... I'm well aware that he's right and I'm wrong, but years of false alarms have made me jaded.

Either way, total panic and screaming at your spouse is not the answer - just sort it out calmly!

TeenPlusTwenties · 12/10/2020 08:11

To clarify Elai's comment:
CO2 is carbon dioxide - this is what we breathe out.
CO is carbon monoxide - this is the dangerous one.

thedancingbear · 12/10/2020 08:12

'Losing your shit' and calling your husband names is abuse. No ifs or buts.

We can't know what the real story was with the carbon monoxide detector. One thing we do know was that the OP's husband was right and the OP was wrong. I wonder what the other side of the story sounds like here.

butterpuffed · 12/10/2020 08:14

I think there may be different levels of alerts on the monitors ~ mine was quite noisy when it needed new batteries but when it was tested when new, the sound of the alarm was enough to wake the dead !

MentalLockdown · 12/10/2020 08:14

It's hard work living with someone who is less safety conscience particularly when the children are small so you are thinking for them too.
DH would take joy in being free and easy, risk taking, time efficient (late, holding others up) in order to progress his agenda. It has meant I stopped being able to relax at home, if he made a sandwich I'd have to check the knives weren't sticking out off the kitchen surface above a toddlers head. We'd talk about that example but he was sure it wasn't an issue as would not change. If he was supposed to be watching the kids he wouldnt 'waste' that time he'd do DIY. So I'd come back to find the kids bored, tools on the floor, etc.
It has eaten away at my mental health at home - at work no one would ever guess this! Good luck