To ask what I did wrong?

[Derplerp]

My ex and I have split up. We share a child together and seem to be pretty cordial.

Now I recently had a piece of furniture delivered, he agreed to help me build this furniture. He seemed sort of oddly annoyed with me on this day but I tried to keep it cool for the kids. I started cooking dinner, helped him bring the furniture upstairs. Unpacked it But whilst I was moving things around he was already sighing and rolling his eyes.

I first asked him do you need help with anything he said no I don’t need help. If you want to help you will, I thought that was quite weird so I left him to it. Served up dinner, cleaned up. Asked him a couple more times, how can I help. He kept brushing my attempts to help away.

Towards the end I helped, he made a comment how it was useless it’s nearly done.
Once it was finished he said he’s upset with me because this is my character, I could have helped but I didn’t help him. He’s so disappointed that this is me as a person and I’m a bit stuck, I can’t see where I went wrong.

Your only mistake was accepting his offer.

He offered to help but you busied yourself with dinner. You asked if he need help with anything, making it clear you weren’t taking lead on it and expected him to do the bulk of it. That’s how it reads.

But you know him best OP and exes are exes for a reason. Just don’t have him over to “help” in future.

I wouldn't overthink it. I'm guessing he felt some sort of entitlement because he did you a favour so he was rude to you. And you can't say anything because you look ungrateful.

Don't let him do you anymore favours even if he offers. Tbh it's easier to have separate lives that only overlap if it's specifically for the children such as parent teacher meetings .

I think he offered to help you build it as in you two build it together. He got there and had to get it upstairs on his own and that set the tone in his head. It’s probably something that has irked him before and you asking to help just added to it as in his mind you were doing it and he was helping.

I think it will just blow over but if something similar comes up again you might want a bit more clarity on how it will play out before hand.

This is just him being abusive.

It says nothing about your character and loads about his.

You can parent alongside him without letting him come into your house and treat you poorly. The fact he seized upon an opportunity to offer ‘help’ to come in, take advantage of you cooking for him and tell you how awful you are as a person doesn’t change anything.

Next time, don’t even tell him about things like furniture building. Arrange for him to be taking the kids out/having them overnight (which he should be doing anyway) and build it yourself. If you can’t build it, pay someone to do it. The good thing about paying a handyman type service is that they come in, do it and aren’t rude and nasty to you. Also they don’t expect you to make them dinner.

He's your ex for a reason.

I realise that you want to be civil for the purposes of co-parenting, but that's literally all you need to be with him. You don't have to invite him around, accept his offers of building furniture, or give a shit what he says/thinks about you.

You split up because you didn't get along and you didn't make each other happy. There is absolutely no reason why that would somehow change now that you're no longer together. His opinions on your 'character' are of absolutely no consequence and you shouldn't give them a second thought. It doesn't matter if he thinks you did something 'wrong' - that's his problem, not yours. You care far too much about his opinions. Stop being such a mouse.

What you did wrong was agreeing to him “helping”. Keep everything about your child and distance yourself from him regarding anything else.

He's being an arsehole and you have done nothing wrong.

Is that straight enough for you? 😁

Flatpacks cause issues in even the strongest relationships, you had no hope. Forget it and carry on

He’s an arse. He’s made those comments exactly because he knows that you’ll worry over it. He’s a manipulative dickhead.

You did nothing wrong. You offered help repeatedly, and he refused the offer. You made dinner for your kids and cleared up. You weren’t sat on your backside either, but did he offer to help you?

Let it go. Don’t give it another thought. He’s trying to hurt you. You’ve learned a lesson and know not to let him help in future.

Next time he can take the kids out while you do tasks like that.

He offered to help so he could make you feel like shit and question yourself. He didn't take up your offer of help so he could make you feel like shit and question yourself. He's an arse.

Your OP says 'He agreed to help me build this furniture', not 'He offered' to do it.

So it might be he was pissed off you went to cook the dinner and left him to it.

Could you not have had a later dinner or prepared it earlier?

I agree with other posters that he agreed to help you build it not be left to do it all while you cooked dinner. That’s not him helping you to do something. And you popping in asking him if he needs help while he was possibly annoyed that you obviously meant for him to do it all was probably irritating.

It does sound like some miscommunication.

Well he’s an ex for a reason isn’t he.

He will clearly take any opportunity to have a go. Just don’t let him in your house.

So a normal person says - “hey I offered to help not build it for you, pass the screws.”

Not take the opportunity to harangue the person over their “character”.

It was probably a fake offer of help. He's not alone in this, and once I realised most offers of help are not genuine and not intended to be accepted things became a lot clearer to me. The offer is meant to showcase how nice and helpful the offerer is, it's not meant to be accepted and he resented that you took him up on his offer, is my guess.

Tbh building flat pack furniture is a task that would put the strongest of relationships to the test. I leave my husband to it. I can imagine him acting as your ex has done and huffing, saying he didn't need help but actually wanting help. We are otherwise happily married for 15 years but flat pack is something that we don't do well together.

Not necessarily saying your ex isn't a dick, but I wouldn't read too much into this particular scenario.

You don't actually say why he's an ex, but I'm assuming that he was a bit of a dick during your relationship and spent a lot of time blaming yo for things that weren't your fault or were very confusing.

If there would have been fall out either way, then definitely in future, go for the fall out that doesn't involve him being in your house being annoying. He offers to help, breezy, "oh thanks a lot but it's all good, I've got it sorted." Then if he says something rude/disparaging, "okay, if you think that, fine. I just don't need help."

Call me old fashioned but if a male would offer to help me with building a piece of furniture at the time when my children would be at home I would expect him to take the leading role and do the building asking for my help only if needed. I would ask him if he needed something but that’s it. And I would do exactly this : come to offer tea or coffee and cook dinner for afterwards.

He is twat, OP, it’s not your fault.
He wanted an excuse to belittle you and mess with your head. Don’t ask him about anything, if offered just say : thank you, I’ll sort it myself.
If you have to ask him something about kids send him txt or email to have paper trail and to remove his emotional moaning from the discussion.

He was saying " you asked me to help you, now you are asking if I need help- which is it, me helping you or you helping me, or neither, am I doing this by myself then? And no, I'm not going to 'ask' for your help( because you asked me to help you in the first place). If you feel in these circumstances that you should be helping me then do, if not ,I'm entitled to grump while I am doing this stressy job. "

So yeah, maybe technically you asked him to help when in fact you meant " Could you do it for me?". Or that's what he thinks.

He would have grumped whatever you said or did, don't give it another minutes thought.

Don't ask your ex for anything. A clean break is the best option.
You shouldn't be asking him anything that isn't related to the kids.
It always leads to trouble.

Tell him you're disappointed in him as a person because you would expect a person to be able to give an honest answer to the straightforward question of whether or not they required help. Tell him that given you're both disappointed in each other, it's a good thing you're exes.

@Mirabai - yes I get that. And he should have said something like that. But it sounds a bit like it was what he expected and he wasn’t happy about it. Hence his comment that that behaviour was the OPs character. But I agree he should have used his words!

"So a normal person says - “hey I offered to help not build it for you, pass the screws.”

Not take the opportunity to harangue the person over their “character”."

Well, exactly. You could easily have said to him "well this is your character. Said you didn't want me to help them blamed me for not helping"