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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To get so irritated from answering the same questions again and again?

46 replies

HorseInTheHouse · 10/02/2022 13:17

Last night I asked DP to sort the children's bags out for the next day. 3 days a week one or both of them need to take something extra to school for an after-school activity or for school swimming. I sort the bags out more often than him but he also regularly does this job. They are 6 and 4 so too young to manage their own timetables and bags. Yet again he asked me what they need for a Thursday. I refused to tell him and told him to go and check the timetable that is stuck up on the fridge. He said I was being ridiculous as it would take me no time to just remind him again.

I have told him many times before that I find it disrespectful that he always asks me again and again instead of bothering to commit it to memory, or checking the timetable if he genuinely can't remember. I feel like a reminder app or something.

It's not just the sports and activities, lots of little admin details especially to do with the kids seem to go in one ear and out the other, like it's not worth spending the mental energy on it because he can always just ask me. We both have access to the same emails, apps, websites, printed timetable, but he'll always ask me over looking something up himself.

I will happily answer the same question a few times but it really winds me up somehow when it happens again and again. I wasn't cross with him, I just said he could check himself, even though of course I do know what they do on Thursdays since the timetable has been the same since the beginning of the academic year and I could have simply told him again. Was I being ridiculous and petty?

OP posts:
Postitmug · 10/02/2022 13:20

I get the frustration.

You could try claiming you don't know either? A cheery, "Oh I'm not sure, is it swimming or football? Best check the fridge." Every time. So you are no longer the source of all info.

orzoisorange · 10/02/2022 13:43

Wifework.

Why should you have to be the one to use up your headspace with all this trivia when he doesn't have to?

Original poster
HorseInTheHouse · 10/02/2022 13:58

To be fair I didn't make any specific effort to commit this information to memory. It just stuck after a few weeks of them following the same timetable every single week of term time since autumn 2021.

There are other household things that he manages and has more information about off the top of his head. There are also things (admittedly things that come up with less frequency) that I always have to look up and can't seem to remember, but I do look it up. I would feel rude if I kept asking the same person over and over.

I do claim not to remember some things, but he knows I know their school and after-school timetables by heart.

OP posts:
BethDutton · 10/02/2022 14:19

I completely get why it annoys you. YANBU.

I would have a notice board / pinboard in the kitchen with timetables and clubs on it, meal planner, birthday party invites and whatever else you get asked about over and over and over. Then “check the board” is your only response.

Yes you shouldn’t have to do the board but I think it will be less annoying long term.

Aprilx · 10/02/2022 14:22

No I understand. We don’t have children but my husband asks me the same things over and over again, in my case it is what temperature to warm the oven to and what setting to wash clothes on.

senua · 10/02/2022 14:29

Tell him that it's swimming. Let him get half-way through packing the bags then say, "oh, terribly sorry, I've checked the timetable on the fridge and it's actually Scouts. You'll have to re-pack".
Rinse and repeat.Wink

Dibble135 · 10/02/2022 14:33

Mine once asked me what temperature to set the oven for an item of food whilst holding the packet containing the instructions in his hand. I just looked at him…

TheLongRider · 10/02/2022 15:01

You need to go all Taskmaster on him.

"All the information is on the card".

GCITC · 10/02/2022 15:24

Start asking him every time you need to sort the bags

VerveClique · 10/02/2022 15:27

It's called 'learned incompetence'.

DogsAndGin · 10/02/2022 15:30

Ask the school to take your contact details off their file, and give them DH’s instead. When they call him chasing him for the pe kits etc he couldn’t be bothered to learn to pack, he can deal with it himself. Lazy sod.

Sweetandsaltycaroline · 10/02/2022 15:44

YANBU. I feel your pain!
My DD is a teen but has been doing the same activity on a Tuesday evening for about 5 years.
We often used to pass DH on his way home from work when dropping her there and every time he would ask where I was going.
He keeps asking me why don't I do my sports club on a Tuesday evening any more (because he is not always home, and it clashes with me taking DD to her activity)
I said I wanted to go back to my sports club so could he please be home in time to take DD. He agreed. I reminded him multiple times, remember to be home by 6.45 on Tuesday. Then on Tuesday he said, the DC will be ok for half an hour if I don't make it home for 6.45 won't they...?
Aaaargghhh. Drives me insane.

RainbowBridge21 · 10/02/2022 16:03

He needs to take responsibility for his own kids and not expect you to be the family administrator! Doesn't he show any interest in his children enough to know what they're doing? I think it's unconsciously rooted in that mindset that women do all the parenting.

AuntieStella · 10/02/2022 16:10

You've done more than enough by making sure the info is always accessible and clearly on display.

And I'd be a stuck record on 'my minds gone blank, you'd better check their timetable' until he gets it

mrsm43s · 10/02/2022 16:14

You need to stop providing him with all the information, and don't fix his fuck ups.

I have a list of stock answers to DH's annoying questions

e.g. What's for dinner tonight?
It's on the meal plan

What are we doing this weekend?
It's on the calendar

What day is xyz happening?
It's on the calendar

Are we free this weekend?
check the calendar

We need more bog roll/toothpaste etc when you (!) next do the shopping.
Put it on the shopping list

Did you order any bog roll/toothpaste?
Was it on the shopping list? If so, I ordered it. If not, you'll have to go out and get some

etc etc.

And you have to stop enabling. If they fuck up, they fix the fuck up. So if they pack the wrong stuff for school, they go and sort it out, not you.

iwantmyownicecreamvan · 10/02/2022 16:16

Next time you're doing it, ask him. Say you can't remember. Wait till he's in the middle of something first though. Wink

2holibobssofar · 10/02/2022 16:23

Just tell him you don’t remember.
If he questions it, tell him you find it just as hard as he does to remember and he needs to check.

SartresSoul · 10/02/2022 16:45

I hate this too so I’ve stopped answering DH when he asks now and I just say ‘check the calendar’ or ‘read the texts I sent you earlier’. I will always have told him about something yet he plays dumb and pretends I haven’t or he just wasn’t listening / reading if it’s a text. Last week I told him I was dreading my dentist appointment tomorrow and he said ‘oh shit, shit, shit I totally forgot to get the day off for it!’ Needed him to look after our two toddlers while I went. Appointment had been booked and on the calendar for about 6 weeks and it was a specialist appointment for an impacted wisdom tooth. I was furious tbh and forced him to ask his boss for the morning off.

Whatwouldscullydo · 10/02/2022 16:49

Yes stop enabling him.

If he cant even be bitterest to look at a timetable in the fridge he's showing you that your time and the kids education etc is not important. All that matters is he doesn't have to do anything.

Fuck that.

You aren't his mother. Hes an adult co parenting 2 children.

Whatever he can't do he needs to come up with a system to enable him to do it. That's his job not yours

NoNameNoGane · 10/02/2022 17:10

[quote bedheadedzombie]www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic[/quote]
I've seen this article before and it is interesting but so so generalised and cringey in parts!!
I am in a same sex marriage and DW does all of the stereotypical "husband" things whilst I carry the mother load. I know plenty of heterosexual couples which are on a totally even footing with both parties chipping in at everything...it's not a gender thing, it is just learned incompetence

NoNameNoGane · 10/02/2022 17:12

By stereotypical husband things I mean she can't ever find anything/ correctly stack things, doesn't do much around the house without being asked, hasn't really bothered to learn certain information and just asks for my instructions over and over.....I don't mean she puts up shelves, mows the lawn and cleans the car (I do those things too...)

mrsbyers · 10/02/2022 17:17

Can you not move the timetable to where the bags are stored and packed ?

Threewheeler1 · 10/02/2022 17:20

Yep. I get this. Drives me fucking mad, especially when I'm unlikely to know where someone's left their stuff etc. I'm not the fucking Oracle!
I hate the repeated questions that seem to go on for yeeears and DH still hasn't learnt. He can't be arsed to find out himself or actually remember stuff so he just asks me. I get irrationally annoyed these days Grin

Fizbosshoes · 10/02/2022 17:20

Can you not move the timetable to where the bags are stored and packed?

But even this is putting the responsibility back to OP who already knows and has printed out the timetable!