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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think he should have said no?

214 replies

OnlyTheHuffle · 24/05/2022 18:40

I've been away for a week with friends on holiday and got back today. I'm really tired (early and long flight) and starting with a bad cold. I was looking forward to coming home and going to bed and not getting up until late tomorrow as I'm off work.

My husband knew how tired I was and that I was starting to feel unwell but when I got home it turned out he'd agreed to have DSC here tonight (not usually our night) so ex can go out.

I could do without that in itself as I'm knackered and was looking forward to a quiet night but the thing that's really annoyed me is I always have to take DSDs to school on our days as DHs work starts too early.

So this means I now have to get up early to take them to school too.

AIBU to be annoyed and say he should have said no, knowing I was tired and unwell? And to say he can go in work late to take them.

OP posts:
Bobbins36 · 25/05/2022 06:07

He’ll have to phone in work and say he’ll be late due to childcare issues. Something working women do all the bloody time!

HandScreen · 25/05/2022 06:11

I mean, TBH, it's just a small favour, the kind people in families do for each other all the time.

Aubriella · 25/05/2022 06:14

HandScreen · 25/05/2022 06:11

I mean, TBH, it's just a small favour, the kind people in families do for each other all the time.

Surely a small favour would be to let your sick wife have a lie in the day after her flight home? Rather than prioritise your ex’s night out over your wife’s illness?

TibetanTerrah · 25/05/2022 06:18

Presumably you were in touch while you were away and he just neglected to mention this? In that case I absolutely wouldn't help out; he orchestrated it this way on purpose to back you into a corner, knowing you would say no if you knew in advance, giving him enough time to sort an alternative. Now he'll "expect" you to take them in and you'll feel pressurised to do it, in a situation all conveniently and deliberately set up by him.

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 06:22

If you marry someone who already has kids, you are becoming a parent yourself, and that involves obligations that are not on a set timetable or just when you feel like it
Nope. Didn't sign anything. Didn't agree anything. Neither did DSD. Neither did either of her two parents who are actually legally and morally responsible for her.
If you marry someone with kids you are not agreeing to a life of being treated like a domestic appliance. Not even the help, because as PP said a paid employee would have been treated with more respect in this scenario. If you marry someone with kids you are not agreeing to do what you are told when you are told it for the duration of your marriage. If you marry someone with kids you are still a human being who deserves to be treated with respect, not just the idiot at the end of the line that the parents get to pass all their inconvenient jobs to and they just have to suck it up because "they knew what they were getting into".
When you have a penis, you don't lose the ability to take your own children to school when you agreed to look after them.
When you have a penis, taking children to school isn't some big huge terrible task if at the same time it's just a silly little job to the appliance you married. It's one or the other. If it's a big job, unreasonable to push it on others without consulting them. If it's a silly little job, get on with it yourself, your kids might enjoy their own dad taking them to school for a change.

HandScreen · 25/05/2022 06:24

@Aubriella I'll not sure you understand what a small favour is, or the spirit of it. You could say "but surely it would be a small favour to me if you did xxx".

So if I ask my husband to pop to the shops while I'm busy to pick up something for my lunch tomorrow, he could of course say: "Not my problem, it's your lunch" or "Surely a small favour to me would have been if you'd considered me enough in the first place to have picked up something on the way home."

I mean, yeah, you could say those things, but what a poisonous, unhappy relationship.

We happily do each other small favours all the time! We love it, that's what a good relationship is!

Aubriella · 25/05/2022 06:31

@HandScreen I’m not sure you understand that the definition of ‘favour’ is broader then what you have so condescendingly set out above.

Letting your sick wife sleep in after a flight the day before, instead of asking her to take his children to school counts as doing a favour.

If you happily do stuff for each other, you should have the sensitivity of knowing not to volunteer your sick spouse for a task.

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 06:31

A poisonous, unhappy relationship is one where someone feels resentful and taken for granted.
Plus, nobody's going to use all the emotional crap on you if you don't buy your husband a sandwich.
"But won't someone think of the sandwich?"
"You knew he'd need feeling when you married him"
"When you marry a man with a stomach, it becomes your stomach too and you are responsible for fulfilling its needs now"
Can you imagine?

HandScreen · 25/05/2022 06:54

Cool beans, but I can tell the people in happy relationships from the ones in resentment-filled, score-counting ones from reading this thread.

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 06:58

I'm happy my husband does not give me orders or make assumptions about my time, but asks respectfully when he would like me to do something for him or his daughter 🤷‍♀️

HandScreen · 25/05/2022 07:14

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 06:58

I'm happy my husband does not give me orders or make assumptions about my time, but asks respectfully when he would like me to do something for him or his daughter 🤷‍♀️

The language you use to describe a favour here tells another story.

rwalker · 25/05/2022 07:15

Not ideal but sad that you tolerate your step kids as an inconvenience just hope the kids don't pick up on this.

Not ideal situation but the thing is what happens when he needs a favour with kids off his ex to enable you to do something could be a home goal because you can't expect her to be flexible if you 2 aren't .

Just really sad that you don't see them as part of your family and CBA to put yourself out for them .

SomersetONeil · 25/05/2022 07:20

rwalker · 25/05/2022 07:15

Not ideal but sad that you tolerate your step kids as an inconvenience just hope the kids don't pick up on this.

Not ideal situation but the thing is what happens when he needs a favour with kids off his ex to enable you to do something could be a home goal because you can't expect her to be flexible if you 2 aren't .

Just really sad that you don't see them as part of your family and CBA to put yourself out for them .

Do you also feel sad that their own father ‘CBA’ to put himself out for them?

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 07:20

@HandScreen I'm not using any language to describe my life or marriage. I'm using language to describe what's happening to OP.
I suppose I must just be uncommonly lucky that my DH takes his responsibility as a father seriously and doesn't think I'm just here to serve.

SomersetONeil · 25/05/2022 07:22

I don’t think it’s uncommonly lucky - some people are just so used to skivvying after everyone, and being taken for granted by men that don’t care or appreciate them, that they need to insist everyone else does it, too.

DysmalRadius · 25/05/2022 07:24

JohnnyCashmachine · 24/05/2022 23:22

This is the reality of having a blended family. If it was your own child would you moan about taking them to school? Assume you were aware of the children before you married now DH

Well, these children actually are her husband's own children and he's moaning about taking them to school. I assume he was aware of their need to go to school when he chose to have them...

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 07:27

I assume he was aware of their need to go to school when he chose to have them...
Careful with that logic, they don't like it up 'em! 😆

HandScreen · 25/05/2022 07:32

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 07:20

@HandScreen I'm not using any language to describe my life or marriage. I'm using language to describe what's happening to OP.
I suppose I must just be uncommonly lucky that my DH takes his responsibility as a father seriously and doesn't think I'm just here to serve.

It's seeing favours as being "here to serve". That's the language I'm talking about. How sad and ungracious.

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 07:36

No, a favour is either respectfully requested or willingly volunteered.
Being told someone has decided you will do something is not a favour. That's being given an order.

HandScreen · 25/05/2022 07:38

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 07:36

No, a favour is either respectfully requested or willingly volunteered.
Being told someone has decided you will do something is not a favour. That's being given an order.

You sound super happy!

JacquelineCarlyle · 25/05/2022 07:39

YANBU Op & I'd say you need to stop this now as otherwise you'll end up not ever being asked and it just being an expectation of your time.

Hope you feel better (& do get your lie in!)

bloodyunicorns · 25/05/2022 07:41

OnlyTheHuffle · 24/05/2022 19:06

I know it'll be made out to not be a big deal because schools not far

Well, if it's not a big deal, he can take them!

AskingforaBaskin · 25/05/2022 07:41

HandScreen · 25/05/2022 06:24

@Aubriella I'll not sure you understand what a small favour is, or the spirit of it. You could say "but surely it would be a small favour to me if you did xxx".

So if I ask my husband to pop to the shops while I'm busy to pick up something for my lunch tomorrow, he could of course say: "Not my problem, it's your lunch" or "Surely a small favour to me would have been if you'd considered me enough in the first place to have picked up something on the way home."

I mean, yeah, you could say those things, but what a poisonous, unhappy relationship.

We happily do each other small favours all the time! We love it, that's what a good relationship is!

She does more than her fair of favours every day that he has his children.

While so far I've not read a single thing he does for her.

Threetulips · 25/05/2022 07:41

We happily do each other small favours all the time! We love it, that's what a good relationship is!

so you asked your husband to do something for you …. He then has a choice if he can or can’t do it … if he said no it’s an unhappy marriage …

Totally different to what’s happening here.

Youseethethingis1 · 25/05/2022 07:42

@HandScreen
I don't understand what your problem is with my marriage being respectful. We both ask for favours and both volunteer before asked. Where we seem to fail your happiness test is that we consider each other and don't make demands.
Sucks to be you.