Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

Husband wouldn't let me use screwdriver!

97 replies

TheCountessOfGrantham · 12/02/2022 15:48

I asked DH for a screwdriver as I was testing some toys before deciding whether to charity shop or skip them and needed to get to the batteries. He sighed, went under the stairs (where his tools are) produced the screwdriver and then came over and started to unscrew the screws himself, on a toy I was holding with one hand. I said "I can do that, thanks, I didn't mean you had to" and he rolled his eyes and kept going, really awkwardly. I was sitting down on the floor and he was crouched over. When it was open, I tried to get the batteries out but before I'd so much as lifted one, he was prising them out with the screwdriver.

The toy worked and I reassembled the battery pack and went to screw it closed and DH held out his hand for the screwdriver and I said "what do you want?" He said "my screwdriver!"
I said that I wasn't finished with it yet and he said "would you just give it to me, please, because I can see this ending in disaster."

Wtf did he imagine? That I was going to stab myself through the hand?? I remarked that very little was going to go wrong with tightening some screws, that it wasn't my first time with a screwdriver and I'd managed to not maim myself or wreck a house with a screwdriver so far and he stared at me and repeated "would you just give it to me?"

Aibu to think that he should have just given me the screwdriver and had some faith that I, a woman he has observed using basic hand tools successfully, could have been trusted? Aibu to be feeling a bit prickly over the weird hint of 1950s misogyny?

OP posts:

Goooglebox · 12/02/2022 17:40

Oooh he should not have behaved in such a misogynistic manner to someone holding a screwdriver. How do you cope.

Dashel · 12/02/2022 17:46

Depending on finances I would get myself a screw fix order in a basic set

www.screwfix.com/p/stanley-mixed-screwdriver-set-8-pcs/914GG?tc=ST1&ds_kid=92700055262507126&ds_rl=1244066&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2NOHytf69QIVGIXVCh3gvQy-EAQYBSABEgI86_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I would also get myself a tool box and potentially a cordless (a decent one to prove a point) and some other hand tools. Unless you can scrounge some extra tools off a friend or parents and then I would get a label maker and use that tool to put your name on them all.

Seriously he sounds like a right twat, I would have had a serious chat about why was he being a sexist pig? And if he didn’t apologise I would let him parents know what a prat he was being.

We have a lot of tools as we are renovating the house, I use what I need when I need it, we do ask each other where things are, but it’s not a can I I use it, unless it’s because it’s right by him and he is busy.

Holothane · 12/02/2022 17:49

Oh yes the silent “your and idiot and don’t know how to do this etc”. I’m on the way out I hope you are too, no I’m not being dramatic this will get worse over time and over more things.

Crazykatie · 12/02/2022 17:49

If he wants to show off his prowess with a screwdriver I wouldn't stop him. On the other hand if he saw me with a screwdriver he’d probably say “have you been trained to use that” and I would stick my tongue out and we’d both laugh.

TheHaka · 12/02/2022 17:51

You need your own toolbox gurl.

junglejane66 · 12/02/2022 17:58

If it was a power tool I would have understood, but a screwdriver?

LargeInCharge · 12/02/2022 18:00

Dh kept dirtying the long nosed pliers so I bought myself a pair.

You definitely need your own screwdriver set, one of those with interchangeable bits.

TheApexOfMyLife · 12/02/2022 18:15

@junglejane66

If it was a power tool I would have understood, but a screwdriver?

Why? Women can use power tools too. It’s not riskier for them to do so than for a man.

PinkSyCo · 12/02/2022 18:17

Buy yourself a pink toolset. I suspect your DH is far too manly to take over the oh so tough task of unscrewing battery compartments using a pink screwdriver.

girlmom21 · 12/02/2022 18:19

Women can use power tools too. It’s not riskier for them to do so than for a man.

DP wouldn't try and stop me using a power tool but he'd probably prefer to do it himself if I was using his power tool because he's protective over them and would worry about me using it wrong and damaging the equipment rather than hurting myself or damaging whatever I was doing.

It's like I'd much rather drive my own car than have him drive it if we're going out because if something goes wrong and it gets damaged I've only got myself to blame.

2catsandhappy · 12/02/2022 18:27

Wow. This would irritate me big time.
Buy yourself your own tools. If you want to keep his mitts off your tools buy those pink ones.
I am so annoyed on your behalf. I have a tool box and several power tools. And a diy decorating box. And a garden tool lock box.

Original poster

TheCountessOfGrantham · 12/02/2022 18:57

@junglejane66

If it was a power tool I would have understood, but a screwdriver?

Yes, because I might scramble my uterus with one of those

OP posts:

ErrolTheDragon · 12/02/2022 18:57

You definitely need your own screwdriver set, one of those with interchangeable bits.

Great when you come across a weird screw - eg our integrated dishwasher has a 6 pointed star head, which stumped DH but not me.

And obviously, make sure all your kids are competent with tools at appropriate ages. The last ikea flatpack we had was when DD was a teenager so we left it to her to assemble.

Original poster

TheCountessOfGrantham · 12/02/2022 18:58

@TowandaForever

You can buy screwdrivers in Poundland.

But I wasn't in Poundland. I was at home

OP posts:

Howdoisawwithnosaw · 12/02/2022 19:01

Is he usually medicated for his ADHD and if so might he have stopped taking them?

Thethuthinang · 12/02/2022 19:03

So I would epoxy the bolts on something, and then beg for his help unscrewing them. Could provide hours of amusement.

Stravaig · 12/02/2022 19:30

Tell him your delicate ladyparts can't possibly cope so he'll have to screw himself in future?

EmoIsntDead · 12/02/2022 19:36

@junglejane66

If it was a power tool I would have understood, but a screwdriver?

Can women not use power tools?

2bazookas · 12/02/2022 19:38

why didn't you just fetch a screwdriver yourself instead of asking him? He probably thought you really wanted him to do the job for you.

KateMcCallister · 12/02/2022 19:40

@2bazookas

why didn't you just fetch a screwdriver yourself instead of asking him? He probably thought you really wanted him to do the job for you.

Wish this would work when I ask DH to pass me a tea towel but yet he doesn't seem to think I want him to wash up for me

Original poster

TheCountessOfGrantham · 12/02/2022 19:46

@Howdoisawwithnosaw

Is he usually medicated for his ADHD and if so might he have stopped taking them?

He isn't on medication no, he's had to stop due to a health condition and they thought the medication was possibly aggravating it. I have wondered if his dickhead ways are due to that, but he stopped taking it almost five months ago and he's turned intermittently infuriating in the last four weeks or so. He's always had trouble with letting go of grudges as he doesn't deal well with perceived injustice, but he's getting irritable about things that he'd have absolutely no need to be annoyed about

OP posts:

Original poster

TheCountessOfGrantham · 12/02/2022 19:48

@2bazookas

why didn't you just fetch a screwdriver yourself instead of asking him? He probably thought you really wanted him to do the job for you.

-Because he was right next to them and I wasn't.

because he's quite protective of his toolbox and I am not prepared to deal with the flap he would get himself into if he thought someone else had been "rummaging" in there

OP posts:

Mumoblue · 12/02/2022 19:51

YANBU, I’d be fuming if that happened to me. He’d probably get told I’d shove his screwdriver where the sun doesn’t shine.

I’m a single mum and I manage to change the batteries on my sons toys without a man to stand next to me being condescending.

I’d be telling him he needs to apologise and never be a pig again.

babyjellyfish · 12/02/2022 19:54

I was hoping this story would end with you sticking the screwdriver into a convenient orifice!

Etinoxaurus · 12/02/2022 19:57

Exactly the same scenario takes place in my house.
But reversed. Because DH doesn’t know what tools we have, where they live what they’re for and would wander off half way through or lose it.
Sometimes it’s not that deep

Flip

1 2 3 4