To be SO fucking hurt by this

[BelleSauvage9]

Just been at a birthday party for my nephew in laws partner. At the end of the night dp made a big point of telling nephew to get up in the morning with their kids (because he never does). Dp NEVER gets up with our kids. Not on my birthday, mother's day, just never. I feel so unbelievably hurt that he thinks nephews partner is worth that effort and I, the mother of his children, his partner, the hub of our home, is not.

I expressed this to him. His response was that he tells me to wake him up. I've told him many times there's no point in doing that because if I'm awake enough to wake him, then I'm awake and I won't be able to go back to sleep. And it just feels like a bloody cop out, and puts the responsibility onto me. How the hell does being responsible for your own lie in make you feel valued and appreciated and cared for. I just despair :(

I would say you need to start waking him. Go back to bed and read a book / have a coffee / whatever.

Agree. I'm an early riser and my husband isn't, but we take one weekend morning each. He sleeps through his, and on mine I kick him out of bed to go to the kids, and get him to bring me a coffee that I have with a book or the papers, absolute bliss.

If I didn't wake him and send him downstairs he wouldn't wake up on his own. But when I do wake him up, he heads on down no complaints. It has never been something I've thought of with resentment. It seems to be a really sore point in your marriage OP and either it can continue to be so or you can both find a way (however unfair you may think it is to have to make some sort of effort here too) to change it.

You really need to stop with this martyr shite.

Giving him the best bits of meals and he doesn't even know?

Try stepping back a bit, he might appreciate you more when he notices an absence of certain things.

If he doesn't notice, it was wasted effort anyway.

Yanbu but if he sleeps through the noise of the kids waking up and you don't, you're going to need to wake him and tell him to get up. Presumably an alarm wouldn't really help as you don't know the time the children will wake up and it will also wake you up anyway.
One lie in each at the weekend. Pick your day and boot him out of bed. Even if you don't get back to sleep and mumsnet on your phone, it's still a break.

Just start waking him up when you wake up and get yourself a cup if coffee while he entertains children. I actually think that's a very useful exercise.

I also think you're being a martyr. If someone got up and made me a coffee every morning I probably wouldn't think about reciprocating tbh. My dh gets up before I do and sorts the kids out - I do most of the care in the evening so I like a short lie in (15 mins). Dh prefers to be less involved in the evening. I wouldn't get up and do the morning unless dh says 'get up' or is ill and there's no choice. Goes both ways - if I ask him to do something he will. It's called communication.
We are both adults and we both contribute but we do have to speak to each other to manage the house. We both have our 'jobs' (childcare and chores) and very rarely would we take over without being requested by the other.

I would have said something in front of everyone who was around, 'What, like you never do?'

He sounds a bit useless, but if you want to keep your marriage intact you’re going to have to start asking for things. What would happen if you asked him to take the kids out for the morning to allow you some free time?

would you consider getting a job and making things more equal in that respect? DH and I both work full time and split all jobs down the middle but I know if we agreed he would give up work I would fully expect the house to be spotless, all food shopping, laundry and cooking be done by him in that time. Although I would definitely expect to do more of the childcare at the weekend as he’d been with them all week.

Oh I know a man like this. He takes such good care of his children in situations where people will see. Like a wedding, funeral, engagement party.
The rest of the time it's on the wife, and he barely knows the childrens names.
Performance parenting so his family and close friends think hes the best dad in the world. I could easily see him doing something like this just to look good, implying that he does half of the early mornings, when in reality he sleeps til noon and gets crabby if anything wakes him up sooner.
Hes an arsehole but his family think he's Godlike.

OP, I agree with the people telling you to wake him up even if that’s just a half asleep “it’s Sunday so it’s your turn” and you refuse to get up for the kids so he has to.

I think you’re overplaying the he should want to get up as a show of appreciation thing. Does anybody ever really want to get up with the kids to show love to their partner. Not really, they do it because it’s their turn or to keep a happy house or because it’s Mother’s Day and they know they should.

OP, I see how you fell into this, because when I love someone, I do similar. And what I've realised, looking back, is that the men who didn't appreciate me and reciprocate with similar care, either didn't feel the same way about me, or were abusive, even if I didn't recognise it at the time. Lots of abusive behaviour completely slips under the radar, epecially if you come from a family where abuse was the norm. Those partners didn't love me, I was just the 'partner appliance'.

This isn't even about sheer thoughtlessness either, or some 'unspoken rules of a game'. He clearly KNOWS that a good husband would take his turn getting up early, and a good father would be involved with his children, because he's very happy to pretend to be that person when other people are around.

All those people telling you to 'just wake him up' - do they never set an alarm even for their loved one's birthday? Do they really care so little? Because to not even be bothered to do that - yeah, that's not love.

Relationships should be reciprocal - and it's all very well to say OP should stop martyring herself, but I guarantee that if she did, there would be all sorts of ructions. OP would be treated like any other broken appliance.

OP, is this really what you want? A relationship that depends upon your own self-sacrifice?

If he really isn't abusive, then relationship counselling may help. If he isn't willing to do that - again, it speaks volumes about how he feels about you.

100%. Open communication is key.

If you’ve communicated your needs and your DP thinks it’s quite reasonable to meet them, then things improve.

If they think it’s unreasonable, you have to find a compromise that’s fair and acceptable to you both. A parent getting up to see to their kids one day a week to give the other a rest seems perfectly reasonable to me.

If they agree it’s reasonable to meet your needs, but then keep failing to (unless specifically and repeatedly asked), you have to question how much they care about you.

YANBU at all. Full disclosure, I have a chronic illness which makes mornings especially hard for me, but DH does every morning, except Father's Day and his birthday.

When I was BF through the night he also did every bedtime, and every nappy when he wasn't at work. I do most bedtimes now.

However, the ultimate beneficiary of all that is, perhaps surprisingly, him. He has an amazingly strong bond with DD. They adore each other and I don't think he'd ever trade that bond for more lazy mornings. In situations where the Dad is not sharing the load, I feel sorry for the whole family, including him, because by choosing not to be a full parent to your children, you're missing out on so much.

Wake him up. I used to like being alone with DC in the morning and am not a breakfast in bed, lie-in for hours person, however.

I can totally understand why that hurt. He literally pointed out something he never ever does to someone else as being important - because he knows it is. He just chooses not to do it because he doesn’t care.

Just wake him, make him get up and you chill in bed for an hour. That’s what I started doing 10 years ago and now my partner just wakes and deals with the kids every Saturday and Sunday morning. Within a year I barely was waking up. I don’t understand why wouldn’t you do this.

I used to work with someone who always bought me little gifts, did lots of unasked for favours for me, always asked after my family, remembered my children’s birthdays and probably a load of other stuff I didn’t even notice. She also got very hurt if she didn’t think people appreciated her and there were lots of unknown rules that she hinted at but was never clear about. From your posts you do sound like you might be a bit like her. It sounds nice on the surface but for the other person it is like being dragged into a game that you never wanted to play. I suggest that you stop being a martyr and kick him out of bed when you want a lie in.

So have a conversation, like adults, about your down time. Assuming he works M-F and your a SAHM M-F you need to equally co parent at weekend (and household chores).

Tell him you want to give him the opportunity to parent like he wants his nephew to. Ask him how he can do that.

Then if you agree he'll be up in Saturday this week and Sunday next week remind him at bedtime the night before.

Yes you shouldn't have to buy rather than up and LTB try and help him work at your marriage. If you were split you would be putting the same effort in by agreeing his days/ times so do it while together.

And then plan your free time, like he does. Take time to go out alone. A hobby, a sport, the cinema, meet friends, you need to take the time too

People do what you allow them to do.

I think you are being a bit of a martyr about this tbh, and a bit rigid about exactly how you want things to unfold. Your list of nice things you do for him also has martyr vibes. If he never makes you coffee, tell him that makes you feel crappy, and stop making one for him so he notices and understands and starts reciprocating.

At the beginning of a weekend morning, what is it that wakes you up? Do you hear one of the kids waking up and he sleeps through it? If you wake him at that point so he can get up with them and you can stay in bed, you’ve still got the outcome you want. I think expecting him to set an alarm clock so he wakes before them is a bit unrealistic, and the alarm would wake you anyway so you'd still both be awake, but earlier than necessary if the kids are still asleep. It’s like you want him to perform a perfect husband routine, instead of figuring out with you a realistic way to make things fairer. And he’s resisting the performative element of what you want which means you get none of it, because at the moment you want the lie in on your terms or not at all.

Some people wake up easier than others and that doesn’t make the heavier sleeper the areshole, it just means you’ve got to agree a system together so the lighter sleeper gets a lie in sometimes too.

Of course it’s also possible that he’s just a selfish arsehole, but I think the fact that your reaction is to feel hurt rather than angry by what he said at the party means that you’re stuck in a victim role and that’s contributing to the dynamic between you. Look up the drama triangle and see if any of it sounds familiar.

🤮 he sounds gross.

I’d have definitely called him out with his moronic comment to his nephew - “Like you do you mean?! 😂😂😂🤣”

”When have you ever done that?!”

Or rolled my eyes and laughed incredulously.

The tickling is not a loving gesture for you it is literally foreplay to enable him to get sex - you said yourself you go on to show how appreciative you are he has done this so it kinda cancels out his ‘unselfish’ deed as he’s still quids in and firmly top of the tree. I’ll bet you do things for him you don’t particularly like or want in that regard but doesn’t seem like you expect any gratitude for it. He’s got a fantastic life with you hasn’t he. He sounds bloody awful.

Exactly - there is no excuse that he’s oblivious of how to behave appropriately -he knows

Haven’t RTFT but sounds like you need to go away for a couple of nights and let him make his own bloody coffee.

Yeah this. Wake him up and read a book for an hour or two in bed and let him get on with it.
funnily enough me DH and I were talking about this last night. We were at a kids party yesterday and were joking arguing about who’s turn it was to get up the next day (it was his, I had got up with them that day and we switch out). My best friend overhead and said you have no idea how lucky you are, I haven’t had a long lie in literally years. Now I am lucky, my DH is amazing in so many ways but really am I so lucky based on this one thing? Are some womens standards so low that a father getting up with his own children once a week is so amazing. Jesus wept.

YANBU. And you’re not being a martyr. He’s a selfish dick who wanted to appear to be a great husband with insight to offer when in fact he is rubbish in that regard.

YANBU to feel hurt by his attutude.

However, stop letting him off the hook and start waking him up.

Get him to make you a cuppa and take a leisurely bath/read a book/watch tv in bed/whatever your 'me' time is. You could even get up and go for a walk, the point is to start making him take some responsibility for his children so that you can switch off and have a moment of detachment.

Tell him the night before and then give a hefty kick when he doesn't.