Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think my partner is being a prick when he does this?

105 replies

isthisacceptable4 · 01/02/2023 12:50

I'm so fed up of it and would like to know if I'm overreacting or not.

Whenever my partner is concentrating on something and I'm trying to help but he's getting frustrated he will talk to me in such a disrespectful way sometimes. It's nothing severe but it's really getting to me as he never stops when I've said I dont like it.

Earlier he was reversing out of the driveway as the neighbours builders had blocked us in and was getting frustrated. I was agreeing with him and suggesting an alternative and he just screamed QUIETTTTT at me. I now just don't want to be around him and he's calling me pathetic for being upset with him. This has happened so many times over the years and I've just had enough. I feel so disrespected.

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill here?

OP posts:
Ladybug14 · 01/02/2023 14:45

You could avoid speaking to him unless you are sure he's not concentrating

But that's just ridiculous imo

If hes concentrating and you interrupt he could be polite

But he isn't

If its making you unhappy and he won't change and its not possible to avoid him when he's concentrating , then leave him

Tessisme · 01/02/2023 14:50

It's a double blow because my partner can't drive and doesn't have a lisence but knows how to drive better than me apparently.

Oh, I've got one of those at home. Not so much that he can drive better in the technical sense (like yours, he can't drive at all), more that he seems to think he has a better view of the road than me and likes to point out possible hazards etc, like Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances - 'RICHARD!! THERE'S A PEDESTRIAN!!'😅😅 I have lost it with him a few times - ok quite a lot of times ...

BaroldandNedmund · 01/02/2023 14:57

There are some unfair comments on here OP. Mumsnet is like that…people read the thread and copy what others have said.

My exH used to be disrespectful and sometimes he still is. It shocks me now to think that I let him speak to me like that. Like when he was pulling out of a side road and I was in the passenger seat he’d always yell at me to move my head. My exBF was similar when he was concentrating but he’d shoo me out of the way with that dismissive hand gesture.

Once you wake up and get some self respect it’s impossible to stay with someone like that.

CleaningOutMyCloset · 01/02/2023 15:01

I'd do exactly the same to him, then ask if he thinks you were being rude. Next time he walks into your office and talks to you without checking you're not on the phone - yell QUIET at him. Then look at him and say 'this is what you do to me, how does it make you feel? Is it acceptable I did it'

crosspusscrossstitcher · 01/02/2023 15:03

If you were talking at me while I was carefully avoiding the neighbours builders, I'd have told you to shut up too.

I think you're being a bit sensitive, and maybe ought to let him work stuff out for himself.
He's presumably an adult. Keep quiet and let him fuck it up on his own.
You can then look suitably smug. Grin

Foxglove22 · 01/02/2023 15:06

I don't think you're wrong to react to him shouting at you in this way. Do most people just allow their nearest and dearest to shout at them like that?? It shows a massive lack of respect and is a big, fat red flag. I have noticed my father-in-law talking to my mother-in-law like that and I hate it. She is a bit annoying at times but he talks to her like dirt sometimes and tells her to shut up quite often. I can't bear it. Whatever the situation, unless it's an emergency where you have to shout instructions under pressure, no-one should be spoken to like that if the advice being given comes from a place of kindness. It seems that people's standards about how people should speak to each other has fallen dramatically.

MangoBiscuit · 01/02/2023 15:19

While I understand getting frustrated or overwhelmed, and one more input, even if it's just a friendly offer of a drink, can tip you into snappiness, I cannot get on board with his later reaction.

If I get overwhelmed and get snappy with my DP (not a regular occurence, but I'm not perfect) then he will give me space, and once I've calmed, I will always go and apologise. Getting frustrated is human, taking it out on someone is not ok. Belittling someone because they've expressed not liking being treated like that, that's a dick move.

Apairofsparklingeyes · 01/02/2023 15:23

It’s ok not to want to be screamed at or called pathetic. The fact that he won’t apologise for upsetting you makes him sound unpleasant and disrespectful. Do you plan to continue to put up with his nastiness?

housemaus · 01/02/2023 15:41

He's being incredibly rude about communicating it to you, so YANBU there. As you said, he wouldn't speak like that to someone else: I'd be having a serious conversation about why he isn't showing you the respect he'd show e.g. his boss or whatever. Not okay.

But I have very little patience for people fussing/interrupting/talking while I'm trying to do something. It fries my brain and makes me lose my concentration, and it really irritates me. I wouldn't be rude about it, but I would be annoyed by it. Clearly he's also someone who needs minimal distraction. If he can realise he's wrong in how he speaks to you then I think your part could be to stop distracting him when he's in the middle of something as you know it obviously is frustrating for him.

DahliaMacNamara · 01/02/2023 15:46

Way too much projection going on in this thread. Nobody likes interruptions when they're concentrating on a tricky and unavoidable task. That doesn't mean, from what she's posted here, that OP is 'wittering', or looking for attention at the wrong moments. Her DH sounds fucking rude, and yes, OP, a prick for doing this.

NumberTheory · 01/02/2023 15:49

OP I hope you aren’t listening too hard to the people telling you it’s okay for him to snap at you because you must be being annoying.

I think almost all of us do get snappy at times, but that doesn’t make it a reasonable reaction. It’s the sort of thing that will happen occasionally and for which the snapper should apologise, not something that you should expect and accept as though it were okay.

Even if your comments are obviously and necessarily annoying (and they don’t sound it to me, even if concentrating I’d appreciate an acknowledgement about the builders being inconsiderate) him going straight to snapping instead of just asking you not to is nasty, especially since he wouldn’t do it to someone else.

You have become the “thing” he takes his frustrations out on and that’s a really bad dynamic in a relationship. And if your normal way of interacting annoys him so much you are, in any case, incompatible.

Don’t put up with this. Talk to him about it, give him an ultimatum, or just leave. But please don’t take away from this thread that you deserve to be treated this way. You don’t.

Hups · 01/02/2023 15:51

To be fair, my husband tried to be ' helpful ' when I was driving to the point where I actually screamed ' will you shut the fuck up! '
He shut the fuck up permanently after that when I'm driving, thank god.
I can't be doing with people wittering on when I'm trying to do something.
So for that reason, I'm on your husband's side here op, sorry.

Cherrysoup · 01/02/2023 15:52

He does this a lot. Why are you putting up with this?

Over40Overdating · 01/02/2023 15:59

OP as you’ll see, the very important thought havers say it’s absolutely fine to scream, shout and insult your partner over something minor.

So next time he disturbs you - do it back. See how absolutely outraged and offended he is. Tell him he’s pathetic to be upset at being told to be quiet or shut the fuck up. (If anyone, any time, told me to shut the fuck up per a PP, I would. I’d also remove them from my life at lightening speed).

Because despite being too important to respond politely, these arseholes will expect that you treat them and their interruptions on your time as valuable.

You wouldn’t be posting here if you didn’t know this was a sign of something bigger. Once contempt creeps in, it’s game over for a relationship.

PriamFarrl · 01/02/2023 16:02

I can see both sides. Not nice to be screamed at but also it sounds like what you were saying wasn’t helpful at that time.

Coronavirus19 · 01/02/2023 16:05

This reply has been deleted

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

UdoU · 01/02/2023 16:06

isthisacceptable4 · 01/02/2023 13:36

I think this is a big thing. He would never speak to another soul in this way, only me.

Show quote history

You are his punching bag and he will not change unless you become like him and take no shit from him.

Consider if you want to be spend the rest of your life this way.

JudgeJ · 01/02/2023 16:06

Oopswediditagain2023 · 01/02/2023 12:55

I mean he sounds like a nasty piece of work if I'm honest.

That said, it does really piss me off when someone can see I'm concentrating on something and they start chit chatting to me.

He sounds like someone who, when he's concentrating on a difficult task, can't stand little know-it-all clever clogs offering the benefit of 'advice' from a position of not having to do it! No doubt his headline would be 'My partner is interfering and unhelpful, wish she would just shut up!'

SalviaOfficinalis · 01/02/2023 16:10

It’s not just shouting at you though, he’s also said you’re “pathetic” for being upset about it.

It’s really hard to tell without the context but I don’t think I’d like to be talked to like that.

Furore · 01/02/2023 16:15

I was reversing my mums car out of her drive while she was loudly telling me off for leaving her front room lights on. I not realising her reversing beepers were turned off scraped the car passenger side against her front wall. Only you can say whether your advice was helpful eg, passer by coming on the left etc or just distracting. However, I understand what you mean, in that he treats you overall in a disrespectful way. Maybe just, say later, " I didn't quite understand what I was doing wrong when you said ..." I can see you're upset by the way he speaks to you. As other posters have said, people do get irritable and stressed sometimes.

Gawpygertie · 01/02/2023 16:17

It's tricky.
My dh will frequently ask me to sort something out and yet when I'm on the phone doing it he'll be chittering in my ear with 'helpful' suggestions.
It really annoys me.
If he's watching his football team I'm barely allowed to breath!
So sometimes I do snap.

Suki2023 · 01/02/2023 16:19

Tbh, if my OH yelled 'QUIET' at me and then called me pathetic, he'd have his work cut out for him before I spoke to him again.

If he's going to want silence, give it to him in abundance

Fingeronthebutton · 01/02/2023 16:40

I’ve had this for 42 years. I think the problem is: my partner is an extremely clever man so any advice that is giver is seen as detrimental to his intelligence.
I still haven’t leant to keep it shut 😄

Keha · 01/02/2023 16:42

I think what matters is how you feel. Without being there I don't know whether the yelling quiet would have felt okay to me or not. I know if can get a bit exasperated trying to do something like reverse and could probably be quite blunt with DH if he was chatting on whilst I was concentrating. But if it feels unkind to you and you aren't able to have a conversation about it with him then that is an issue regardless. The other examples make it sound like you are walking on eggshells around him and it shouldn't feel like that.

Sparkletastic · 01/02/2023 16:46

He's a rude man thinking he can get away with treating his wife disrespectfully. Stop tolerating it.