To divorce him over cookies?!?!

[Thecookiecrazylady]

This has happened this morning and is tbh he norm if I ever ask him to get me stuff. Last time he told me they didn’t have wholemeal bread in Sainsbury’s so I jumped in the car and ofc they had an entire end aisle he’d just not looked.

Me: can you grab me some of the chocolate chip cookies in a brownish yellow bag from the free from section while you’re at Sainsburys. If they don’t have them that’s fine but if they do 👍🏻
Him: yeah no problem

Me:… what are those?
Him: your cookies
Me: No they’re not. I said brown/yellow bag these are in a bright purple box.
Him: they didn’t have the others
Me: but these ones aren’t dairy free
Him: yes they are
Me: it says ‘all butter’ on the box they’re just gluten free
Him: give them to the kids 🤷‍♀️ (kids won’t eat them)
Me: You just don’t even care do you? Can’t even make a basic effort to listen, give me a ring to check…or at least read the damn box to check whatever alternative you’re buying is safe for me.
Him: YOU SAID BROWN AND PURPLE BAG
Me: PURPLE NEVER LEFT MY MOUTH ONCE NEVER STOP GAS LIGHTING ME YOU ALWAYS DO THIS!
Him: I thought I had the right bloody ones!
Me: No you didn’t you literally answered ‘they didn’t have them’ when I asked about the brown bag ones. You knew you were buying an alternative and you didn’t even bother to check it was safe or check with me I wanted it. I didn’t even care about the cookies that much it’s just the way you behave. You are never wrong, you don’t give a crap and you turn everything around on me and it’s always my problem.

Ok it’s not just over cookies it’s a very ingrained pattern of ‘IDGAF’ behaviour that always gets turned around on me. Words put in my mouth, him claiming I said or did things I didn’t. For context I do all our shopping and make a huge effort to meet his very particular requirements, even going to multiple supermarkets for items. I care if he’s happy. The only reason I wasn’t doing this supermarket run myself was because I’m poorly.

And we all know plenty of men who weaponise incompetence. So what?
Men should know about running a household, parenting, their own wife's allergies, at a minimum.

And every now and again when they fuck it up (all humans fuck up sometimes) say sorry.
Not start a row, not have a huff, not lie. Just say sorry. It's not that difficult.

I know the title of the thread is funny and definitely hooked me in but I think it also speaks to something that gets lost in these situations.

Your DH will be thinking about this as "about cookies".

In these situations I would always try to avoid getting sucked into talking about whatever the small specifics of the moment are. Eg cookies. And have the conversation or argument about the higher order issue.

You're not having an argument about cookies. That lets him minimize it.

You're having an argument about the fact that when you ask your DH to do something that matters to you, he treats it as it it isn't important. The more you can use this sort of language - elevate above the specifics and talk about the principles at play - the more honest a conversation you'll have. How he responds to that will tell you much more....

And yet they csn manage whilst single and when at work.

Not buying these excuses for them.

If a woman wants to stay married she needs to respect the man's biology

WTF?! 😂

Any man who behaves like this clown deserves to get his ‘biology’ slammed in a fucking door.

Divorce sets both parties back about 10 years financially, completely destroys the family home, and nearly always has a very damaging impact upon children.

My mum leaving my dad was terrifying in the short term. In the long term, it taught me that I don't have to put up with shit from men. I'd say that overall my parents divorce was beneficial for me and my sister, who is currently awaiting her decree absolute after leaving a man who wouldn't even put his own coke cans in the bin by the end.

Divorce also taught me that having less money for a while is survivable and preferable to being someone's live-in skivvy. It taught me that moving and downsizing aren't disasters. I could see the improvement in my mother's mental state and my sister and I were calmer too as a result. Towards the end of their marriage, we were on edge all the time waiting for the next row to kick off.

The example set by a lazy father and a doormat mother to their children is harmful for life. They teach their daughters to wait on men and do everything in the home and teach their sons to please themselves at their wives' expense.

Some posters here appear to be time travellers from the 1950s. Best of luck OP

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hes-Just-That-Into-Understanding-ebook/dp/B006Y0QBQC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=P6IJVX6J6YUR&keywords=I+guess+he%27s+just+not+that+into+you&qid=1705081435&sprefix=i+guess+he%27s+just+not+that+into+you%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1

I totally get you. Makes you wonder why you saw in them doesn’t it ?’

Giving him a bit of his own medicine worked wonders for me. guy I lived with in my early 20's, he kept leaving his work clothes on the floor for me to pick up, I told him if his stuff didn't reach the basket it wouldn't get washed, fast forward to the next weekend and I washed what was in the basket only. At 8:30 on Sunday night be started looking for hsi work clothes 😇 was up till about 2 am waiting for everything to wahs and dry so he could put them in his clothes press 😅😅 we lasted a few years after that and he never forgot to put his clothes in the wash again

My husbands exactly the same . His reply is ‘that’s all they had ‘ to which i reply don’t buy it then . He also is lieing . Don’t leave him it’s a man thing . If it doesn’t matter to them they don’t make the effort . If there are a multitude of other reasons to leave him weigh up the pros and cons . I feel your pain 😍😍😍

Why do you let him be that useless about it? He's only being rubbish about it because he thinks it's a you job. If he wanted A Chicken, he'd have got A Chicken.

I bet if he pops out for some beer / wine / ciggies / chocolate / <insert his treat of choice here> then he wouldn't come back with something almost like what he went for. He'd get it right. Why do you let him think its OK to get it wrong when it's for the family?

Try being less accurate about his particular requests, and see how he likes it. Then try gaslighting him with contradictory replies like "you said" and :"they didn't have" or "what's the difference?"

It's really not a man thing. If I give my DH a list (and I only do the shopping list because I work part time and so do most of the cooking/food prep) he comes back with everything on it, or rings me if they haven't got what we usually want or it's new to us. He'll also manage to bring back what I want if I just write "chocolate" or "biscuits". He might clarify if I mean chocolate biscuits or biscuits to go with tea, but he knows what we eat and what is usually in the house.

He's also capable of deciding I might like a treat if I feel rubbish.

It's worth nothing my dad is the same. Not all men are incapable of remembering what food they usually see in the house, or knowing what their family want/need.

You are not being unreasonable at all. My mother came to stay and she insisted she needed lactose free milk. I went out of my way to a different store to purchase it, and to buy a whole range of special foods she wanted. While she was staying she went to the shop across the road and I asked her to pick up more milk for us - just plain old full fat milk. She came back with different milk. I was so cross with her. She told me they didn’t have full fat milk. I walked across the road myself to check as no one drinks anything else. Low and behold - a full shelf.

It’s the just not giving a “care” when you have actively catered to their very special needs.

My husbands exactly the same . His reply is ‘that’s all they had ‘ to which i reply don’t buy it then . He also is lieing . Don’t leave him it’s a man thing .

What the hell have I been living with these last two decades, if lying is a man thing?

I guess maybe DP's a woman. Or a marmot. Cause if he says he looked but he couldn't find it, that means he looked and he couldn't find it. If he says that's all they had, he might be mistaken, but he won't be lying, and if he knows it's no good to me he won't buy it. If he didn't have the time or energy to look, then he just says that, and apologises.

He's a normal bloke, an arsehole sometimes (like me), has occasionally fucked up on getting stuff from the shop (like me), and has plenty of failings and flaws (like me), but illogical weirdnesses like buying pointless shit he knows I don't want so he can pretend he thinks he's fulfilled a request, or lying about it, aren't among them.

If it was me I'd just go shopping myself and get the right stuff. Men are always shite shoppers. They just don't pay good attention, and buy themselves treats instead of vegetables and toilet roll. Just give him one of your jobs to make up for it.

Did you miss the bit where she only asked him to get her the cookies because she's too ill to go herself? The absolute bare minimum of a decent relationship is that your other half knows your allergies and what biscuits you actually like to eat.

Don’t leave him it’s a man thing

No it's not, it's a shit man thing.

@Nagado I have never seen the thing about the divorce and the cup but it resonated with me so strongly. My exH tells everyone I divorced him because he spoke to my family about my behaviour towards him … that was the straw for me. I hope the cookies are the straw for the OP. He sounds like a real dick!

Treat him the same , don’t prioritise him for a while , don’t consider his preferences , might make him think. Priorities the DC and yourself.

You sound dreadful.

Reading between the lines "lives depend on his attention to detail" - he's a doctor making life/death decisions... or similar occupation - together with the stress/emotions that job has.

I'm certain you do stuff that annoys him and he doesn't make drama out of it. Then your only interactions are moaning about cookies, rather than big picture stuff?

You loved him enough to get married and have more than one child within the very recent past. Sort it out between you and him, not the negfest that is Mumsnet "all men are feckless bastards"

We know some men are feckless bastards as are some women. Then there is a bit of both from both sides

Weaponised incompetence: 'You know I'm useless at xyz, you shouldn't ask me to do it'.
Weaponised help: 'The more you do it, the easier it will be for you. We'll do it together and then you can do it on your own. I don't want to think you'd be helpless if I weren't here.'
Never, ever do a job yourself that you've asked him to do. That begs the response, 'Oh, you'd no need to ask me, then.'
I out-waited DP about painting a door. I waited 15 years. He did it.

It’s about not caring. I had this, shrinking things in the wash when ‘helping me’. Breaking my things through carelessness.
We are divorced now. I wasn’t important enough to him to warrant being cared about so I called time after over 30 years.

A simple yet satisfying method- do the same to him.
They weren't kidding when they said- Taste of his own Medicine.
If you do all the shopping otherwise, this gives you many wonderful opportunities to plan it all out beautifully, and appear very calm and wide eyed and amazed when his stuff is all wrong .
Enjoy!

I mean, I made a joke earlier, but it’s actually really fucking shit how many women seem to excuse appalling behaviour and lies as ‘a man thing’. Wake up, chumps. 😵‍💫