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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Anyone else look forward to weekend but then Husband does jobs ?

62 replies

TulipVictory · 28/08/2021 15:35

I know I'm probably sounding ungrateful but doesn't anyone else often end up in this situation. Currently at home with the kids as am on mat leave. I look forward to the weekend all week as then we're all together. However, often, like today, he decides to do a job (I'm aware it needs doing). Like today he said he needed to strim and mow the front and back. He's spent all day doing it so far and that's just the front, he hasn't even done the back yet. Meanwhile I'm sat around feeling like a spare part with nothing to do all day like the rest of the week. It's just like any other week day as he's not here with us anyway.

OP posts:

MiddleOfThePack · 28/08/2021 18:05

God, how I wish! I spend all weekend being busy doing everything - garden, researching decorators, chores, walking the dogs. Meanwhile my DH gets up late and then sits until about 4pm watching shi%% TV and playing sudokus on his phone, before doing anything at all!

I'd gladly swap.

Aprilx · 28/08/2021 18:07

I would be over the moon if DH came up with jobs to do around the house on his own. 😀

nicecheesegromit · 28/08/2021 18:13

I wish my DH would do jobs without being asked. But to be honest, I much prefer mooching about the house and doing my own stuff at the weekend anyway. Kids are teenagers now so I'm beginning to feel the freedom. I'd much rather that than going to a crowded anywhere and getting stuck in bank holiday traffic. I think I've done too many forced fun days out

OverTheRubicon · 28/08/2021 18:20

As well as asking about the sizes of your garden, I'm confused about number and ages of your DCs - how do you have 'nothing to do' during the week and while he's off doing his endless mowing?

If the issue is that you're left with all the grunt work, that's absolutely reasonable. Or is it that he never wants to do fun stuff or go out? It's a bit confusing to me how you're both using your time.

Wakeywakey86 · 28/08/2021 18:20

He's clearly hiding from you all stretching jobs out... I would be furious!
I'm on mat leave too, with a 2 year old and a 9 month old so I wouldn't do the job in the week as it would be more hassle and to be honest I've pretty much got my hands full. I do leave jobs for my husband but I also have a list of plans/activities and he works around those. I value the family time and also my husbands help too on a weekend.
Can you not pre-plan at least one activity a day, even if it's just a trip to the local park or something? Then he can work around that.
How old is the little one? I'm surprised to hear you feel you are sat about in the week, or maybe I'm doing it wrong but I'm run off my feet with my two. Get joining in some baby groups now they are back open. Fill up your days and get out and have some fun, meet other mums and then it DH continues to make himself busy on a weekend you can get out without him and it's him that will miss out in the end.

SpicyJalfrezi · 28/08/2021 18:23

I had similar with DP at one point. I loved maternity leave, but especially when DS was very small I longed for weekends so that I’d have a break, but then DP would vanish into the garage for hours at a time and as you say, you’re sat round like a lemon.

I should have talked to him about it. It did get a bit better, I think, as DS has got older he can entertain himself a bit more, but I sympathise.

Snoken · 28/08/2021 18:53

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

SpicyJalfrezi · 28/08/2021 18:56

I can’t speak for the OP, but this would have been nigh on impossible when ds was tiny. One of us had to be holding him almost all the time. And there can be a too many cooks element with things like that.

SpicyJalfrezi · 28/08/2021 18:58

Oh, and I think you’ll find the wife is ‘working all week’ as well.

I really wish MN would start dealing with posts like that.

Snoken · 28/08/2021 19:03

@SpicyJalfrezi

Oh, and I think you’ll find the wife is ‘working all week’ as well.

I really wish MN would start dealing with posts like that.

Yes, I’m not saying she just sits around all week, I was referring to the weekend when the husband is out working in the garden and OP said she sits inside.

I don’t know if OP has a newborn or not, I just think that it doesn’t have to be the man who does the mowing and if they did it together they would both be doing something together (ie spending time together like OP wants) and it would get done quicker so the can do other things too.

SpicyJalfrezi · 28/08/2021 19:09

The ‘wife just sits around moaning about it’ was both unfair and unkind and it was written with that intention.

I remember one Saturday when my DP vanished into the garage for seven hours and I was ready to kill him. I would have shoved that bike part somewhere unspeakable

Retrospectively it was really easy to wonder why I didn’t just go into the garage and rip him a new one, but I kept thinking any minute now he’d appear and when he didn’t in the end I was so cross I knew there was no point talking to him at that point,

I know with our garden DP likes it done a certain way, so I don’t bother. I do pretty much all the housework so don’t consider he has a dud deal but I think that’s fairly common. I don’t think the OP is lazy or griping for the sake of it, it’s a desire to reconnect with her partner and that’s not unreasonable.

ApolloandDaphne · 28/08/2021 19:13

We have a massive garden and the guy who cuts and strims it takes an hour tops. You must live in a parkland if it has taken him all day to do the front!

MilkywayMonarch22 · 28/08/2021 19:20

Yes but then I say to him that he needs to do it when DC is asleep so he's not cutting into family time.

Snoken · 28/08/2021 19:45

@SpicyJalfrezi I didn’t even say that I think she just sits around and moans about it, I said from his pov it probably feels like he can’t get a day off from work/chores. I can see how the MN thread would be worded from his end, and it would probably look very different to OP’s.

I’m just trying to suggest that they share the work on the weekends as they are both busy during the week.

Kite22 · 28/08/2021 19:50

Your post was clear Snoken, and I agree with you.

Original poster

TulipVictory · 28/08/2021 20:59

I'm not sat around all week as I have a lot to do trying to keep little ones entertained. The baby is very clingy and will not nap alone so I am struggling to keep on top of housework at the moment. It just feels like I struggle on my own all week and then what it comes to the weekend I think yay some family time. Then
like this morning he says he will cut the garden. It's not huge by the way but he is slow at everything. The front took him 5 hours 😱 thats without going into the back garden 🙄. I don't think he's purposely dragging it out, he's always been like that. Anything he does is slow, he disagrees and gets grumpy if I say he is but he really is. If I did the washing up it would take me 20 minutes tops and him an hour. I've never understood, he is slow at everything he does. Like today, the whole day was wasted really because it took him the entire day to cut the grass. I was going to get the paddling pool and bits out but couldn't because he didn't want to get the grass wet for when he cut it. He didn't start the back garden until after 18:00 🙄

OP posts:

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 28/08/2021 21:08

Ask him what job he has planned to do on Saturday. Set your alarm v early Saturday and go do it yourself. When he comments "well, it needs doing, have a lovely day with the kids sweetheart"

FlyingPandas · 28/08/2021 21:17

OP I was about to say I'd LOVE it if DH had any inkling whatsoever to do any kind of household maintenance jobs (mine has an actual aversion to doing anything around the house - unless it's cooking, washing up or childcare - he would sit in the dark rather than change a lightbulb and wouldn't know a 'job' if it came up and said hello) but having read your recent update I think I'll stick with him. I can't bear people who are slow (unless there are specific disabilities or SEN that apply, obviously) and just reading about your DH gives me the rage!

It sounds to me like he's the kind of guy to make a meal out of doing anything and everything and he needs to massively get a grip.

I do all of our gardening and lawn mowing etc btw - we have a large front garden which takes me around 30 minutes to mow/strim, and a larger back garden which takes around 45 minutes. Either your DH is avoiding family time or is just ponderously, pathetically slow, and either way he needs to sort himself out pronto.

Di11y · 28/08/2021 21:39

I'd be asking that he works around the family - if you're going somewhere he needs to do before/after.

If he'd done the bit of garden where the pool is going first it would have been better - did you communicate that's what you wanted?

billy1966 · 28/08/2021 22:13

5 hours to cut the front lawn?
How in gods name is that possible if it isn't with a nail clippers?

You really have my sympathy OP.

How many children have you had with him?

You are no doubt going to get into the habit of doing most things because of this.

Don't give up your job.
I predict you are going to find his slowness increasingly tedious.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 28/08/2021 22:18

I think this is a lot to do with you being on mat leave and needing some respite. I’m sure it’s absolutely relentless.

Someone slowly doing jobs all on their own in those circumstances seems really frustrating. You just need some time when he’s taking some of the load off you or sharing it at least.

If you didn’t have tiny ones you might be able to potter happily while he does jobs but at this stage weekends need to be an agreed plan.

cptartapp · 29/08/2021 09:08

He's avoiding childcare because it's hard work and somewhat boring.
You mow the lawn and find 'jobs' to do and let him wrangle the DC.

FreeBritnee · 29/08/2021 09:16

I completely understand. I can remember feeling so hobbled by my babies at times. I too had jobs to get on with but couldn’t, so in the end I can remember strapping my son onto DPs back in an Ergo carrier while he mowed the lawn and at least I could get on with something for 30 mins.

phishy · 29/08/2021 09:18

I agree he’s avoiding being with the kids.

DH has just done back garden lawn, started at 9.02 (I know the exact time as it’s a Sunday and don’t want neighbours disturbed). Finished now. No strimming.

onelittlefrog · 29/08/2021 09:20

So have you spoken to him about this and how it's affecting you? What does he say?

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