"Have you had a drink" - is my reaction unreasonable?

[MostlyCloudy9C]

Brief background. Work very stressful at the moment, new role, underresourced, lots of projects coinciding. I've been suffering from insomnia and general stress around this, though it is hopefully short term. DH knows this. I'm back in office, he is still fully WFH.

DH had an event tonight and asked me to leave early to pick up DS8 from school club. I said I had a meeting til 5.15 so it's tight. We decided that DH would pick him up, and he could stay at home with DD12 for around 15-20 minutes after DH left before I got home at around 6.20.

My meeting overran and so I left a little bit late at about 5.25. DH called me at 6.10 and asked me where I was. I said 'I'm at X station' (about 20 minutes from home). DH replied 'that's miles away' and I explained meeting had run over. He then said ' Have you had a drink?'

I didn't want to reply in public in a station at 6.10pm 'no of course I haven't had a drink' and so I hung up.

I'm now fuming about this. It's something he's said before if I'm a little bit late. The implication of today though has really got to me - I know my kids are alone, and he thinks I would have had a drink (I assume at 5pm ish on a Wednesday?). I'm really pissed off and upset with him especially as he knows how stressed I am right now.

DH is telling me not to make a big deal of this.

Who is BU?

The irony being now he IS out and IS drinking and has told me he hasn't got a key and I now need to 'be fair' and wait up to let him in, despite being fucking knackered

Does he have a pattern of using passive-aggressive comments and behaviours to punish you when he feels deprived of something he wants or of being the priority/in control?

He might be angry/resentful that you didn't automatically agree to his request to come home early so he could go out, but asked him to accommodate your schedule first. He might feel this was 'selfish' of you. So accusing you of having a drink could be a covert way of him conveying his belief that 'You are a very selfish person', by suggesting that you're lying about the meeting and hiding the 'real', very selfish reason you're late.

This implication that you are a selfish person also might make you become hyper-vigilant about expressing your needs/expecting him to accommodate you in future, because you have learned that being 'selfish' results in your husband punishing you in subtle ways.

The fact that 's now left his key home so you have to wait up when you're tired (it's payback in kind for making him wait for you to come home – only he won't be 10 minutes late, he'll be much longer than that, but you won't be allowed to complain because 'you did it to him').

The thing with passive-aggressiveness is it's covert, so there's always plausible deniability to what they do. And often passive-aggressive people do not have a clear understanding of their own actions / thoughts – it's happening sub-consciously – So if you bring it up, he will genuinely feel quite angry and act insulted that you think 'so poorly' of him. This makes you the 'bad guy' again. It's a real mind-fuck.

Disclaimer: I had a partner who regularly used passive-aggressiveness to punish me, so this might be me projecting.

@Hoesbeforebroes

You probably could have headed all this off with a call/text at 5.25 to say you'd be later than expected, rather than leaving everyone waiting and letting their imaginations run wild. When people are depending on you and you're cutting it fine with time, I think that's the courteous thing to do.

But on balance, he's still a dick.

I’m not sure he was waiting, the whole point is that the dc was being looked after by a 12yo so dh could get to his drinks which he couldn’t possibly be late for.

And that doesn’t change the problem it’s one rule for the op and another completely different rule for him. Her going along with his idea she’s a lesser being who doesn’t really count as a person isn’t going to head anything off or fix anything.

Both wbu to leave two young children alone,more so him,he should have waited until you got home.I'd be far more angry my dc were all alone than being precious about a personal comment.maybe think about your priorities here op?

@KarmaStar

Both wbu to leave two young children alone,more so him,he should have waited until you got home.I'd be far more angry my dc were all alone than being precious about a personal comment.maybe think about your priorities here op?

2 young children? The elder one is 12. Year 8 at secondary school. A child who is too old to go to after school clubs or holiday clubs in most places. And you're having conniptions about them being left to watch an 8 year old for half an hour

Get a grip

I can’t get past this comment either. Like, if there are no developmental or disability issues we are not hearing about, why would this even be a thing?
12 and 8 are more than old enough to be on their own together for less than half an hour.

Unless you lived in the crime capital of the world or your child is a known pyromaniac, I just don’t get it.

I tell you what's unreasonable, any adult going out without their keys for any reason other than accidental, and then expecting their partner to stay up to let them in.

Fuck. That. You're a grown up, take your fucking keys so you can be independent and not inconvenience your partner.

So so many threads with this. It just wouldn't cross my radar to not take my own keys with me, and to expect my husband to stay up till I could be bothered to come home. Especially if I knew he was tired.

@BoredZelda

This place is so weird. The summer after I turned 12, I was left at home all day with my siblings (10 and 9). Made lunch for us all, did laundry/ironing, some cleaning, loaded dishwasher, etc. You think a 12 year old can't look after an 8 year old for half an hour after school?

Yeah, on another thread they were having an aneurism at a 9 year old putting on some quick cook pasta. At 9 I was coming home and making dinner for mum coming home after work.

A 12 year old isn't a 9 year old

And "be fair" when asking you to stay up to let him in because he couldn't be fucked to take his own keys? My response would be "get home by 10, when I'm going to bed, or stay out"

Fuck that shit 🤬🤬🤬

This could also all be a way of projecting his own, unrecognised feelings of selfishness for going out drinking onto you.

If this is the case, what might be happening is he sees you're working your ass off to the degree that you are too knackered to go out, and deep down he feels he is selfish for going out drinking while you're waiting at home. But he also wants to be selfish - he enjoys going out drinking - so he suppresses those negative feelings.

But those suppressed feelings don't actually go away - they sit inside him, still feeling bad. So what he does is he projects the bad feelings onto you.

So when you're running late, he phones to ask where you are, and you say your meeting ran over (increasing his suppressed feelings that he is selfish for going out drinking when you're hauling ass). Now he secretly feels even more guilty.

So to relieve or decrease that guilty feeling, he accuses you of EXACTLY the thing he feels bad about doing himself – being out having a drink while he sits at home! Of course, you deny this (cause it's not true) so he's back stuck with those bad feelings. How can he get rid of these bad feelings? He could punish YOU for being late, by being late himself!

Two things could happen now. One: it's all too much drama, so you suck it up and accept the 'punishment' and just wait up to let him in. Maybe you even accept responsibility and say sorry for being late earlier. Now he can privately feel that he was 'right' to punish you, generously forgive you and apologise himself for being late, and feel okay about the whole thing.

Someone (should be him, but actually you) has been accused of selfishly going out drinking when they should be home. And someone (also should be him, but actually you) has also been punished for this selfish act. His bad feelings dissolve, and all is well.

OR, what could happen is you get mad and refuse to leave the key out, or tell him you're angry that he's treating you badly when he gets home. Now, he gets to yell at you, act self-righteous, tell you that you're impossible to please, and otherwise vent all his bad feelings by blaming you for causing the problem. Now the bad feelings are gone, and all is well – for him at least, not so much for you.

This is just a theory, and may be way off course, but do have a think about whether it matches up to your reality.

@BoredZelda

This place is so weird. The summer after I turned 12, I was left at home all day with my siblings (10 and 9). Made lunch for us all, did laundry/ironing, some cleaning, loaded dishwasher, etc. You think a 12 year old can't look after an 8 year old for half an hour after school?

Yeah, on another thread they were having an aneurism at a 9 year old putting on some quick cook pasta. At 9 I was coming home and making dinner for mum coming home after work.

I got really into baking at age 9 after becoming obsessed with a local French-style patisserie - I got a book about it for my birthday and was making (bad, but edible) mille feuille, citron tarts, and croissant! Barring any physical or developmental disabilities any 9 year old should be allowed and encouraged to make flipping pasta. Also a 12 year old can watch an 8 year old for a little while. It’s not like mobile phones and neighbours don’t exist.

It's weird it's his first thought and comment?

Does he have concerns about your drinking? Would he think you drink and drive? Very bizarre

It's a strange thing to say unless you have a drinking problem you're not telling us about?

My DH says things like this. Very annoying as if I am (rare) going for a drink after work, I tell him. Likewise if I am late leaving because we are busy etc , I tell him!
Sounds like you were both a bit stressed with the juggling and leaving DCs alone.
I was babysitting for quite long periods of time at age 13 in the days before mobiles. I think a sensible 12 yr old would be fine for half hour or so.

Why couldn’t you just say “No.” ?

@CharlotteUnaNatalieThompson
I have housemates that do this (who then leave the front door unlocked, cos you have to have the key to lock it.) They either expect someone to lock the door for them, then open it when they come back, or get arsey if someone locks it. The people in question are a man in his 50s and a woman in her 40s, so old enough to know better! Just take you damned keys with you, it's not difficult!

Really? I think you should get over it. Completely inconsequential.

@Clymene ehhhh yess.... the OP's other child is 12. The 8-year-old isn't home alone. Their 12-year-old sibling is there. That's the point.

@Helloise Agreed! It's just bizarre to me how some people coddle their children. I was an au pair for a family when I was 19 and the mother wouldn't let her kids (11 and 8) make their own cereal in the morning because the milk carton was 'too heavy' and she thought it was unsafe. She called me an idiot for letting the 11-year-old make himself a mint tea because he could have scalded himself with the water. Eleven. Eleven!!! I was making tea and coffee for my parents at 7 or 8 years old, and cooking dinner for the entire family at 11. I dread to think how the poor kids coped at uni.

He's a nasty piece of work and you are dead right to be well pissed off.

He used to do lots of travelling and because he has had to step up and actually do a bit, he is making aspersions on your character that you would go drinking with your children waiting at home.

He's a CF and he would be told he better not wake you.

I would not let that go.

He sounds like an absolute twat.

He needs firmly putting in his place, big time.

You are too passive if he thinks he can speak to you like that.

There is nothing weird about it.

It's the type of nasty thing a right twat would make to belittle his wife and try and imply she is a shit mother.

The OP has said that she has gone out on 3 occasions in 6 months and he was told.

There is no need to imply the OP is somehow lying about her drinking.

He's most likely a PA twat that is having a dig at his wife.

CF.

What a strange thing to say.

I think he's saying that's what he used to do, to avoid doing bedtime etc, so he's flippantly 'humorously' suggesting that you're doing that.

I'd be so cross if my DH did that. How dare you accuse me?

Glad your 8yo was fine hanging out with their older sibling.

@BoredZelda

This place is so weird. The summer after I turned 12, I was left at home all day with my siblings (10 and 9). Made lunch for us all, did laundry/ironing, some cleaning, loaded dishwasher, etc. You think a 12 year old can't look after an 8 year old for half an hour after school?

Yeah, on another thread they were having an aneurism at a 9 year old putting on some quick cook pasta. At 9 I was coming home and making dinner for mum coming home after work.

You missed the part about the 9 yo being responsible for the 11 yo, being alone for 3.5 hours and getting them both ready for a club. As for a 9 yo making dinner for their mum every evening, it is honourable that you did but that was the extreme rather than the norm and not something to aspire to.

A 12 yo looking after an 8 yo for a short period early evening is fine and not comparable.

So, OP, how did it go? Did you wait up? What time did he get in? Etc.

Sounds like a classic ‘finger point’ when you point one finger forward at someone you have 3 pointing back at you.
Because HE’d have done this it’s why he’s accusing you.