To think Dh is an incompetent fuckwit?

[theUrbanDryad]

So here's the scene in the Urban household tonight:

ds asleep in bed. we're trying to get him to settle without nursing at the moment, so dh is going up to settle him, in theory.

ds starts to cry. dh sits on his arse and stares at me gormlessly. i say, "Are you going up?" he says, "But I can't settle him." i say, "Well he's got to learn to settle without milk at some point."

dh goes upstairs. cue 5 minutes of screaming.

i decide i can't take it any more and go up. dh is standing up cuddling ds and saying, "he's wet through." WELL FUCKING CHANGE HIM THEN YOU FUCKING TWAT!!

i take over. get ds into clean nappy sleepsuit etc. by this time he's screamed himself hoarse and so does actually need a drink. won't take cup of water. won't take bottle of water (i know from bitter experience) so i have to nurse him. ds goes back to sleep. i try to leave. he wakes up and cries. repeat 15 times till i get frustrated and "touched out" and shout for dh to bring medised. while dh is crashing about looking for medised, ds falls asleep. dh shouts up stairs "Where's the medised?" i hiss down "Just leave it." dh persists "No, where is it?" i hiss "Just leave it the fuck alone!" "I need to know where it is!" "SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP."

AAAARRRRRGH!!

so i've cooked the dinner, settled the baby, made the bread. settled the baby again. and again. and again.

why oh why oh why is my dh such an enormous knob? it's not just him is it? there are other men like him out there?

No you're not, I want to know what your job is. I will retract the unreasonable accusation that you get a break, if you don't. Are you a teacher?

" pound her gavel" is that a euphemism?

time for sharing,IMO. Expertise, experience, technique and practice in such delicate things as managing an unsettled little one IS undoubtendly to the advantage of the mother. It IS ALMOST impossible to know when to assert, whe nto have confidence and when to give way. And when you do do something there IS the glance over the shoulder half expecting a criticism of some sort, as mums way of doing things takes primacy....

You see, the sad fact is that no one can face the washing up after an 11-hour day, whether it's at "work" or at home with a screaming toddler(s). When you've been at home and you're knackered, the suggestion that you haven't really been working as hard is a red rag to a bull. It just is.

And yet someone has to do the washing up.

see, you're not getting it. you don't even get it when i'm shouting at you (probably because i'm shouting at you)

we both do a full time job. ok, yours is further away, and you get paid, but really, they're about as stressful as each other. because you never switch off when you're a SAHP. even when you're at the park, or chatting with other mums, or on MN or whatever, you never switch off.

so i do my full time job, and you do yours, and yet i'm expected to do all this extra stuff on top, like cleaning and cooking, not to mention the fact that my job seems to be 24 hours a day while yours is 9-6 (excluding traveling time and that's your own farkin fault)

and i have told you SO MANY TIMES to get yourself a support network like MN. there are parenting forums out there for dads. ffs you could even come on MN sometimes for other reasons than to try and justify yourself to a group of women (and men) you don't know! but no, it's easier to just whinge about it.

ladies and gentleman of the MN jury, the prosecution rests.

BIZARRELY I LEFT FOR WORK AT 6.30 AM AND GOT HOME AT 9.30 PM. I MAKE THAT A 15 HOUR DAY. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I DID A SINK FULL OF WASHING UP BEFORE TAKING MY COAT OFF. TOO TIRED JUST DOESN'T CUT IT.

I suppose MrUD just doesn't see it as his washing up.
UD has to see everything as her job because she is in the house all the time (and small kitchen so no escape). She can't leave, step outside and wait for some-one else to come in and do it.

Mister urban - thing is we mums would kill just to be able to have an uninterrupted thought never mind spend our day having a whole string of them and ending up 'mentally exhausted'. What we go through is akin to being under fire, we are shell-shocked.

"and I don't get any chance whatsoever to be the person I want to be anymore."

well exactly...

My DP is always threatening to come on here and 'tell those MNers' hahahahahahahhhahahahahahahaahahahaaa

MRS URBAN, THE COURT HAS ALREADY PASSED SENTENCE, THE PROSECUTION SHOULD BE DOWN THE PUB BY NOW

Wouldn't it be nice to have an 11 hour day?

UD- could you please just ensure that DS is well-trained and can do everything neede around a home before he is 18

the prosecution is going to bed, ready to have my head bounced on at 5am.

"Yeah, I'll do a week of washing up if

oh me oh please me! {jumps up and down with hand stretched hopefully towards ceiling}

oh feck

Yeah, I'll do a week of washing up if someone else'll do a week of my dayjob.

me me etc.

oooooooh I love it when the UrbanDryads come on - pure soap opera

Anyway, I can see BOTH sides
non-sleeping babies make everyone's life a misery and you end up blaming the people closest to you, because only they are experiencing it. And everyone is knackered, and sometimes noone can do anything right

this too shall pass, this too shall pass...I think most of us have been there, and whilst quite often I have exactly the same beef with my DH, I know that quite often I'm making it very difficult for him (not always though )

MrsJC - better than Neighbours? surely not!!

MrsJC - better than Neighbours? surely not!!

is there an echo in here?

MRS URBAN, YOU NEED TO GO TO BED

i think we both do Quattro. but i'm all wired now.

A bone of contention in the house is how she's usually perched on the sofa, typing on mumsnet, and asking for me to fetch her drinks, and food or whatever. Which was fine when she was pregnant, but now it's very wearing.

I ask if it would be better to get a labrador to retrieve everything like that for her.

She says "yeah, and I'd also like a dishwasher, and a tumble dryer, and a bigger house with room for everything as that would make it all easier."

I hear - "you're not working hard enough, or earning enough. You need to work even harder and push yourself to earn even more. I'm unhappy and it's your fault because you don't make enough money to buy these things."

you know what?

go fuck yourself.

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO HAVE A SENSIBLE CONVERSATION WHEN YOU (IN THE SENSE OF ONE) ARE TIRED?

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. YOU NEED TO GO TO BED, BOTH OF YOU, AND DISCUSS IT MORE RATIONALLY WHEN YOU BOTH WAKE UP ...

AT 5AM.

IT WILL GET BETTER YOU KNOW.

AND I DO REALLY UNDERSTAND THE PUSHING YOUR CAREER ANGLE, AND IT ISN'T A COMFORTABLE PLACE TO BE IN, BUT IT GETS EASIER

I'm just waiting for her to go to bed first, so that if I go up there and he wakes up, I don't get blamed for it and caled incpmpetent again or something, just because it's not blooyd easy getting into bed silently when we're co-sleeping still and he's in teh middle.\ so tired.......

Right. The pair of you- go to bed. Don't talk about this again tonight. I have just had a look at UD's profile pics and your son is really lovely. He is, however, by design, meant to be knackering, frustrating and everything else he has been tonight- as well as lovely of course

We all really do understand both your POV, and Quattro is right, it will get better. Of course when my 2yo dd wakes me up about 5 mins after I crawl into bed I will not be so rational...

Hope things are better all round tomorrow. I am also too tired to come up with anything more sensible, and shall be up for a while finishing my final piece of coursework. Sorry to be bossy, please don't kill me