Husband slept through daughters first birthday celebration

[Mimsymumsymoo]

This is a long winded one sorry in advance.
So today we planned a small party for my youngest daughters 1st birthday. We decided to celebrate a few days early as her birthday is midweek and her dad -my husband- works away during the week and was not meant to be home. He came home early hours friday morning and weng to sleep as he works nights. Later that evening he decided out of the blue that he was going out with friends for a few hours as being away in a hotel all week gives him "cabin fever". I was okay with this and encouraged him to have a good night, reminding him not to stay out too late or drink too much as we had plans the following afternoon, he agreed and ensured me hed be home by 2am the latest. 3 am rolls around and he strolls in, but decides he isnt tired enough for bed so he is going to stay up for "a bit". Fine. Whatever. We have plans for 2pm he can still get a decent amount of sleep and attend. He ended up going to bed at 10 am this morning and when i woke him at 1 to say hes got an hour to get ready, he moaned,rolled over and went back to sleep. I tried to wake him several times before saying f this and just taking our children to his parents, along with the cake i made the night previous and gifts for the party. We have loads of fun at the party and return home around 7. I get the girls to bed and start cleaning the house while he lounges on the sofa watching reruns of a show on Netflix. He then says to me "are you going to strop all night?" I say i think im allowed to be annoyed that you missed the first birthday celebrations that were planned specifically so you could attend.all he had to say back to me was "if im not tired i cant make myself go to sleep, its not my fault i slept all day. I feel like ive wasted the day in bed". Which to me sounds like poor me im tired feel bad for me. So my question is AIBU to be seriously annoyed that he missed the celebrations to spend the day in bed?

I agree, I'm a bit annoyed about the "definitely drugs" comments, as it doesn't seem like they've even read that he works nights. I've worked nights and it massively impacts your sleeping pattern and body clock.

Not a single photo of my dad at my birthday parties as a child

@HedgehogB this is a pretty telling statement amongst your pleading for understanding of the poor men who shouldn’t need to contribute to family life. I get it. I get your dad wasn’t there but please don’t let that mean that you come on to a forum to argue that dad’s don’t need to be there for their kids. Surely it should galvanise you to the opposite plea?

So his reaction is mainly to make out that YOU are being selfish by 'stropping' and he thinks a 'waste of a day' is not his fault?

Fortunately your DD was 1. By the time she is 3, this total lack of consideration from Papa will be noticed (by her. By your family. Year on year, by you). Hopefully you'll have realised this is not on, before that.

I agree with this. Having worked away and stayed in hotels all week, I agree that it's shit and it's knackering and no-one would do that for fun. You do it for the money. He must have been shattered to miss the party.

Working nights fucks your body clock - it really does. And working away all week in a hotel week after week really does mess with your head. No fresh food, no space other than the inside of a Travelodge , no company, no laughter, - it's like being in prison. But it usually pays a bit more - and you save on a commute and home food - so it means more for the kids, a bit more family money.

Long term shift work can be damaging - but again worth it when things are getting expensive. Trying to fit in with a family schedule for two days is really hard - like having bad jet lag - or like an ordinary person suddenly having to stay up for two whole nights.

But I don't know the circumstances in this case so who can say if OP is UR but I do know about shift work.

This 100%.

I presume for the same reason women have children with men who don't want children. Selfishness.

Because he chose to go out drinking.

That's why he slept.

He didn't need to go out.

Poor lamb

He was ok to go on a bender though. He was hungover/drunk… he could have done this the following week, but chose to on is child’s birthday party.

You know what also must be shit and knackering… being a single parent all week to then having your husband come home and check out of family life at the weekend.

Arse.

I used to work round the clock shifts. I arranged things and managed myself to accommodate others' needs too.

We have loads of fun at the party and return home around 7. I get the girls to bed and start cleaning the house while he lounges on the sofa watching reruns of a show on Netflix. He then says to me "are you going to strop all night?"

For all the pp about the baby is one so they won’t remember. They are the youngest. There is an older sibling who will remember that after not seeing dad all week, dad makes no effort to spend time with us when he is home.

He didn’t attend our party that we made compromises, for him, in order to arrange it around his schedule.

Op tried to wake him up at 1 pm for this family event. He couldn’t wake up (being familiar with night shifts it was most likely because he was hungover not because of his night shifts).

They get back at 7pm. He is watching t.v. He had plenty of time to join them at his parents house for his baby’s 1st birthday celebration later. He could have gotten up at 2 pm or 3 pm and still made an effort to be there and spend time with his family.

Op does bedtime for both the girls. He doesn’t even make the effort to spend some quality time with his eldest daughter, tucking her in or reading her a story. They haven’t seen each other all week. A good parent would want to.

Then to add the finishing touches he condemns his wife for her feeling upset and disappointed by the way he behaved.

@Mimsymumsymoo YADNBU. If this is uncharacteristic of him then I hope you can both get to the bottom of this. I hope he genuinely apologises, takes personal responsibility for his actions. If he is starting to check out of family life, the only person who can fix that is him. I hope he finds a way to deal with that issue.

Agreed !

His behaviour sounds imbecilic.

@Mimsymumsymoo
You say this isn’t typical for him. Could you give some more information to assess whether there is a background issue you need to solve with him to prevent the same happening again?

• has he always worked long hours away from home on nights, or has there been a change in his working life as a result of another child coming into the mix/you being on maternity and/or possibly being a SAHM?
• has he found expanding your family difficult and not been coping (throwing himself into work to avoid)?
• does he never see his friends now?
• are there other underlying issues such as physical/mental health, bereavement, money issues etc.

If none of the above apply then he’s just been a real dick and should be grovelling. If any of the above apply then you need to see the shitty behaviour as symptomatic of a much bigger issue and attend to it before it becomes worse.

My comment needs context. And I do use a lot of hyperbole I accept that. I was posing the other view. I bet there is probably one or two pics of my dad at parties 🎈. He was a widowed dad of five who did millions of things for us including spending all Saturday every week ferrying us around clubs. It’s funny what people will draw from one comment! Let’s not forget the main point here - OP’s husband didn’t cover himself in glory but some have labelled him a druggie and others are saying leave him he is abusive. It’s all a bit extreme and so Mumsnet! OP needed perspective - that’s all I thought. And her husband needs to do better next time.

I think he didn’t do it on purpose , yes it was shit but I don’t think it was deliberate and he probs feels bad inside , but I also agree that he didn’t miss her actual bday and lots of parents who work away miss lots of bdays , one positive view to look at it is the child won’t remember it so you may as well move on from it , if the child was ages to know I would be saying it was awful of him to plan to go and no show

He must have been shattered to miss the party.

Yes cos he went out on the lash and didn't get home until 3am, then stayed up gaming or watching TV or whatever. None of that will've helped him get much sleep- maybe a small amount of those things but he didn't have to do it for that long.

I’ve done night shifts. Like fuck is that an excuse for missing his daughters first birthday at 2pm, when he was out late the night before. Tell him: I’ve reflected and you say it is because of night shifts you had to go out late Friday and were unable to get up for our daughters first birthday at 2pm. It’s clear to me night shift the way you do it isn’t compatible wiht family life and I withdraw my support for I never signed up for a husband who won’t commit to any daytime events - our child is young, daytime events are the only ones she will have for years so you’ve just told me you don’t plan to really be in her life. I’ll be finding a job as soon as I can and I expect you to be looking too. If you’re not actively looking we need to discuss next steps for our relationship. Take a week, think about it, and tell me if you want to be in this relationship, if you want to be an active parent so dd knows who you are, or if you’d rather toss us in and stick with your job.

A lot of men are like this unfortunately. Miss his birthday on purpose, you will see he will be the first to highlight what you did.

I work nights as does pretty much everyone I know. 12 hr nights resuscitating people.
I can’t think of a single person I know who would do this. Not one. We ALL prioritise family stuff like this despite our work schedules; none of us have the luxury of a quiet hotel room in between our nights either, we’re all sleeping around usual family stuff and our other responsibilities.

I don’t believe this is the first time he’s been a selfish lazy bastard. I bet there are plenty of other examples you just haven’t thought about it before.

No one has said he’s an abuser - he’s just a shit dad. And as a PP said, it’s sad that you’ve lived in a world that you think this is OK. It’s not perspective, it’s an acceptance and reinforcement of the shortcomings you have been dealt with respect to men.

I read he was home at 10am. Apologies if I misunderstood.

Yabu.He works nights all week.It totally fucks your body rhythm.

Well he was a,selfish idiot driving you to Blackpool in-between night shifts!

But 10am gor a night shift worker is likev10 pm for everyone else!

Would you be happier if he swapped on to days and took a big pay drop ?could your family finances stand that? If so it might be worth thinking about.Nightwork is about the worst thing you can do to your body.O don't think you can have it both ways-enjoying how I s higher earnings AND expecting him to be able to do daytime things too.why didn't you arrange your dds party for late evenin