Dh gets annoyed when Dd asks him to play

[Newyearnewmerubbish]

Dd, 5 literally has to beg him, he gets grumpy and says ‘I’m sitting down’ then looks me up and down. He eventually gives in and storms around, makes me so sad for Dd.
Yesterday, she had friends over then I did baking with her and arranged and tidied and cooked from a small party. The day before, I took her food shopping and took her to the playground ( he asked if he needed to come)
Now he’s looking at me as if I should be playing with her as though I should be doing it, hate the way he begrudges it so much. He’s the same about bedtimes (we alternate Dds) and will ask in front of her if he has to do tonight’s or will I stop etc
He says he’s off work and should be relaxing, is it so hard to play with your child, everything is always no or I’m sitting down now.

Wow.
What an awful father.

*Will I do it, not stop

@TheShellBeach I think he sees it as he does a lot, after work, it’s always in sitting down, I’ve just finished work, I get it but it’s a lot of the time. He adores her, I know he does but I hate when he’s like that

The message she gets is that it's a chore to play with her, he doesn't want to give her attention, something else is more important. It's going to affect her self esteem if this is the norm.
Can he say I want to play for 5 minutes then I need to do x?

He doesn't sound like he adores her OP. He also sounds like he sees her as solely your responsibility.

He says he’s off work and should be relaxing

Wow. Does he not understand that "relaxing when you're off work" isn't a thing anymore when you have a child?

I'm typing this from the dining room while my DP is playing with our toddler in the living room (voluntarily because he enjoys spending time with her). This makes me so sad for your DD, what a crap father she has 🙁

does he even like her or have good points? Your poor child.

Not helpful my parents never played either me and me and dh don't play either our kids. Do you mean role play etc?

How does he adore her if he won't play with her and makes her feel bad for asking? Like actually how is that adoring? Don't lie to yourself about him. It's unfair on your daughter

Yeah I'm not getting "adoring" vibes either if I'm honest.

OP, how exactly does he show that he adores his child if he won't even play with her and sees it as a chore to join you at the park as a family?

Plenty of husbands have jobs that see them coming home feeling tired but their eyes and hearts light up when they see their child or children and always show them affection and have the time to play with them or give them their attention.

Your husband is a useless lump who is emotionally wounding your daughter by showing zero interest in her.

Thats really sad.

He says he’s off work and should be relaxing

Perhaps your DC didn't* *get the memo about this. I mean, how unreasonable for a child to require parenting while their father is "relaxing".

Wow what an arsehole. I'm typing this in my kitchen as I'm cooking a roast dinner and DH is playing with our 15mo in living room and has been for the past hour. My DH is back at work tomorrow but he'd never use that as an excuse to ignore our son

Ask him what he thought parenthood would look like.

Ask him, "did you not want to be a father?"

Ask him if he thinks that all parenting should be done by the woman, and if so, why.

Ask him if he considers his daughter "a problem to be managed", rather than a little person to get to know and spend time with.

Obviously you won't be wanting to have any more children with such a useless, disengaged man-child.

I’ve just had a go at him and said he shouldn’t be huffing and puffing as though it’s a chore for him in front of Dd. He got upset/annoyed and said he just wants to relax and how can I be sat there on my phone doing nothing, I then listed examples of things I’ve done all holidays-all the planning, all tidying, food shopping, cooking, baking with Dd, taking her out etc

You definitely aren’t BU. He’s making it really clear that he doesn’t want to play with her - it’s not even a private thought which he hides. I think it’s fine and fairly human for him to feel this way (eg think ‘oh god - please leave me alone - I really don’t want to play make believe when I’m knackered!) but it’s not ok to keep making that clear to a young child. As you’ve already started to notice / worry, it’s going to make her feel rejected. So he needs to be told to grit his teeth and at least make an effort to spend some time doing it, even if he would rather sit and watch tv.

Some people just shouldn’t really have had children because they treat them as a hassle that interrupts their free time. If he continues to make her feel like this, then he’s one of those people.

YANBU on the face of it but I can see that if your DD cannot and won’t ever entertain herself then it can get a bit much. I have been known to refuse to play a game with DS2 (7) because I’ve already played two this morning and I’d like 15 minutes to drink coffee in peace. I don’t think that’s awful, or unusual. When DSs were tiny of course it was a bit different…but there comes a point when DC’s wants shouldn’t always override adult reasonable wants.

You're heading for a divorce and it sounds like he won't even want contact with your DD after a few months.

Can she not play by herself?
With regard playing with her, I think we have this middle class Western idea that parents must play with their children and its harmful to their development if we don't. I heard some child development boffin on R4 once saying playing with children is completely unnecessary and so adults should only do it if they really do enjoy it themselves (and most don't). He also said that when adults engage in the sort of imaginative play children of this age want, they enviably take over and start directing play, even when they think child is leading. And that this sort of play is a child's opportunity to play at being an adult, make decisions etc. Their job is to copy what we the adults do, not for us to copy what they do, that's how they best experience and learn from play. Apparently throughout human history and across every culture, parents have never played with their children, it's just a very recent, middle class Western idea. Although I expect in the past children had lots of other children around all the time to play with so the above assessment might not be 100% appropriate to children living today.

Anyway, maybe cut some slack for both of you with regard needing to play with her. The other stuff though, bedtimes, stories, pushing her on a swing at the park, he needs to get his lazy ass into gear. If he doesn't enjoy it, tough.

said he just wants to relax and how can I be sat there on my phone doing nothing

So why does he think he gets to relax, but you don't? He's literally saying 'I just want to relax; how can you be sat there relaxing?!" This is blatant.

If he doesn't like role play he could offer to do lego, board games, crafts, read a story with her instead?
Sounds like he just doesn't want to do anything with her if he is moaning about putting her to bed in front of her.

It must make your DD feel really shit about herself @Newyearnewmerubbish

Hes an awful Dad

I massively struggle with things like this playing games and thing like that and found it hard work as someone else pointed out I can never remember my parents doing that with me

fast forward 3 years when kids were older bike swimming outside stuff there weren’t enough days in week to do things worked out fine as wife detest things like this

I think different people engage more with different stages

Totally depends on what kind of playing though doesn’t it?

Mine has wanted to: play connect 4, play football, have a freestyle competition with his monster jam trucks, and measure him doing a long jump challenge onto our sofa. None of which he could have done alone, and none of which we directed him to do. I agree if we had more children he could have played with them instead, but we don’t.