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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Chauvinistic husband?

90 replies

Alisa2 · 29/01/2022 17:02

Am I wrong or is he?

I need a third person to tell me either I'm a psycho or he's a chauvinistic $%&#^

We've got 2 kids. 2 year old and 2 month old. Ever since we've had more responsibilities the more we fight about the responsibilities. He works full time I'm a full time mum.

I work 24 hours. No break. 2 small kids. I also have always done all the house chores and cooking. It gets really hard that once a month he pays a cleaner for a deep clean. I managed all that until I had baby number 2. He doesn't want to help. He does help me though sometimes. But by force. Guilt tripping him. When the house ends up looking like a pigs sty because I literally can't do it. I'm exclusively breastfeeding and baby is clingy. Toddler is not eating properly recently and is being so picky so it takes me hours to make sure she has enough to eat. Giving them both a bath. It takes me all day. And as soon as he's home I just need that help. Just even holding the newborn so I can give my arms a break. Or have a shower. Cooking an evening meal with them two with me alone is impossible. I can't do it without his help. He comes home late (by choice). So we don't end up eating till. Very late. I'm exhausted because I don't get a chance to eat and eat really late. Breastfeeding takes all the energy from me and it stresses me that I don't eat enough to give enough to my baby through breastfeeding.

Anyhow, he has a misogynistic mentality. He thinks it's my job to do all that above. And having food on the table is a 'given'. He shouldnt have to do any of that. Im a wife and a mother and I should do all that without help All he has to do is bring in the money and provide. Anything he does do to help. Like washing dishes or putting laundry on or giving our toddler a bath is him doing me a favour. These are his words.

I realised what his mentality is like since we've had kids. Before then it wasn't really highlighted. We were both working and just doing our own thing on not much to do. With kids I expect us to do everything together. It's his responsibility too. I have a 24/7 job. He thinks I stay in bed for hours and hours and sleep and rest
When I've told him numerous times I'm breastfeeding! If I don't I lose my supply! I don't sleep all night. And have 1-2 hours sleep every few hours or so. That doesn't mean I'm in bed all day sleeping!!! I'm exhausted. When my baby does finally settle then the toddler is up! I wash her give her breakfast on no sleep and no food. Once they've all sorted then I eat breakfast. I can only do house chores or cooking when the husband is home and he takes over atleast one of the kids.

But he hates it. All he wants to do is come home and relax and do nothing. If he has to do me some 'favours' it makes him so angry and he starts swearing. It's my job apparently. He won't even change toddlers Nappy. From his point of view him washing up is him doing something HUGE for me and if I ask him to change toddlers nappy too otherwise she'll get a rash whilst waiting for me to finish breastfeeding or settling the newborn is taking the piss and I deserve to be verbally abused and he doesn't care if she gets a rash! His mentality drives me crazy because he's the polar opposite to me with my mentality and what I want in a man. And therefore I am verbally abusive to him too. I feel like if I don't let it out, my brain will explode!

I cant deal with it anymore feel like I'm going crazy. Feel like a single mother but financially stable. That's the only good thing I get from him. The relationship is so toxic now. He doesn't know how to be a father or husband in my opinion. He should have stayed single and watched as much netflix as he wanted and have his mum and sisters spoon feed him as they always have done.

What do you guys think?

OP posts:
Ginandcrispsarebliss · 29/01/2022 23:23

My husband was the same when my children were babies/toddlers. I was a SAHM and he was working long hours. I was so tired because of having no sleep when my youngest was a baby plus having to look after my MIL. (She was very poorly at the time and lived with us).
When my youngest was 16 months old (3 DC's) I got a really bad bout of flu. I was in bed for two weeks and took 1 month to fully recover. My OH never took me for granted again as he had to take time of work to look after us. He realised how hard it was plus looking after his mum. My youngest is 10 and looking back it was the best rest I had in years.

TibetanTerrah · 29/01/2022 23:36

@phishy many white British men are like this, but its not often a white British man will be as bold as to think he can blatantly say to his wife she belongs in the kitchen and he doesn't in this day and age. They may believe it, but they're a little more discreet.

GreetingsAndSalutations · 29/01/2022 23:42

He won't even change toddlers Nappy. From his point of view him washing up is him doing something HUGE for me and if I ask him to change toddlers nappy too otherwise she'll get a rash whilst waiting for me to finish breastfeeding or settling the newborn is taking the piss and I deserve to be verbally abused and he doesn't care if she gets a rash!

This alone would make me sling him out tbh. He's willing to allow your toddler to be in pain and uncomfortable in order to make some kind of point. He’s a cunt. A useless, selfish cunt and a shit dad. It’s up to you what you do longterm but for the love of got, don’t have any more kids with him. Ever.

Twocrabs30 · 30/01/2022 04:17

@phishy I largely agree with @TibetanTerrah, but it is slightly more than this. I still remain shocked at the openly misogynistic attitudes which my ExH frankly conveyed to and about me. Openly, unapologetically.

From a cultural POV, I think some things about what the OL said rang very true from my bitter and grim experience of marriage to my ExH who came from a particular cultural background, and which wasn’t white British (though I understand Jacob Rees-Mogg would probably be a good example of openly sharing some behaviours of OP’s ‘DH’).

Helping only when guilt tripped; choosing to come late from work once DC arrive on the scene, an 1850s attitude that it is a woman’s job to do 100% of care of DC and it is a man’s sole responsibility to be caretaker of financial responsibility, any child or household contribution is considered doing OP a ‘favour’, wanting to come home and RELAX and do NOTHING after work, notwithstanding 2 young children, getting angry and swearing by having to do any household / child caring task, verbal abuse in response to requests, and the real give away ’he should have stayed single… and have his mum and sisters spoon feed him as they always have down’.

Dare I say it but some cultures put male sons and siblings on a pedestal, treat them like little Gods, and don’t let them do anything in the house. It sets these men up for failure in the future as if these men don’t marry into a similar cultural background and to a wife who won’t also run around the H and also put him up on a pedestal; conflict, resentment and divorce is inevitable.

Had I married a man from my own cultural background (non-British but largely white also), I wouldn't be surprised by some misogynistic attitudes and behaviour, but nothing as extreme as what the OP is experiencing and what I too experienced.

Only a week ago, speaking to my ExH’s mother to resolve a co-parenting issue - yes God help me I liaise with her now, as the matriarchal head of the wider family, with her representing ExH, as it is easier for me than negotiating with ExH - and she can seek some limited cooperation as he/she considers appropriate, she was telling me how I need to understand that in their culture, men simply can’t and don’t do anything relating to children, certainly not food prep, bathing, laundry, brushing teeth and hair, this is not exH’s responsibility and I need to understand that he was raised in an environment where he was never expected to do anything himself, even getting himself a glass of water. His job is simply to financially provide.
And he is doing his ‘best’, she says, I need to understand this.

Like it or not, some cultures frankly are far more backward when it comes to equality between the sexes, and are openly so, and content to justify this inequality so openly,

An unpalatable truth, but one which has rung true from my experience.

HashtagSexy · 30/01/2022 08:10

Pig.
And leave him. He's giving you no help. I would call time on it before he feels so hard done by that he does it himself and emerges the tragic hero, broken by washing up three times a week. Don't put up with it until this pig decides he's had enough of your desperate pleas trying to dent his conscience. You're worth more. You're losing nothing worth having!

MondayYogurt · 30/01/2022 08:18

What exactly do you mean by "verbally abused"?

TatianaBis · 30/01/2022 09:58

@PlanetNormal

What do you guys think?

I think you married, and chose to have children with, the wrong person. Did you really not see evidence of his outdated, selfish misogynistic attitudes before you married him? In my experience, it’s really quite unusual for a man to be this much of a dinosaur in the 2020s. Were there no red flags at all about his attitudes to women?

Of course there were, he did nothing around the house.

But OP thought that magically that would change.

MasterBeth · 30/01/2022 10:01

Yes, he’s a chauvinist pig.

Women, don’t marry chauvinist pigs.

VladmirsPoutine · 30/01/2022 10:35

@MasterBeth

Yes, he’s a chauvinist pig.

Women, don’t marry chauvinist pigs.

Yes this is all well and good but a lot of men really ramp up this nature when their wife is pregnant, they're married and or living together. If men came with warning signs from the jump then we wouldn't have so many women living in that situation.
GrannytoaUnicorn · 30/01/2022 10:47

Jesus Christ. Even my violent father (born in the 1930s so not exactly a modern man) who beat & controlled my mum (& us) shared the cooking & cleaning duties. (He wasn't the best at cooking but did it regularly)
Even DD's late father who walked out on myself & DD when she was 1 and was emotionally abusive, even he did his fair share of cleaning and regularly attempted cooking.

What on earth raised your DH?! Is he a time traveller?!?!

Tywin · 12/11/2022 18:59

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

dottiedodah · 12/11/2022 19:16

He has already checked out of this rl by the sounds of it.also seems to have problems with dates (2022 here not 1952 ffs ). When you feel stronger then maybe look ot a pt job if you can .also solicitor for getting ducks in a row.he is taking the pass here.many men never show their true colours until they have a family. You have done nothing wrong here

Stompythedinosaur · 12/11/2022 19:26

He's a pig.

He's happy for you to have a worse life so he can have an easier one.

If either of your dc are girls then having a df who doesn't share the housework will limit their chance of career success.

Cw112 · 12/11/2022 19:26

Your husband clearly has no value for you or your children or anything that you do. He's made it really clear to you who he is and how he intends to live and he doesn't seem to be willing on any level to change that. If it were me I'd be putting money away as much as possible and maybe looking into getting a part time job and making plans to leave him. You could get a cleaner or a nanny absolutely but it won't change the fact that he's a misogynistic pig who will always put himself first. You need to make some changes that would let you be a bit more independent of him financially and have a plan in place for where you could go if you needed to leave quickly. Maybe your parents or a friends? It does sound like he's emotionally abusive and you don't deserve that. You're already basically single parenting, if you had the financially sorted what would you actually need him for?

SommerTen · 12/11/2022 19:27

Zombie thread

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