Fall out between DH and I… who is BU??

[TheGoldEagle]

DH has been working away for 6 week. Meanwhile, I’ve been working and taking care of our two DC. We don’t have much of a support network here, and unfortunately I was quite unwell while he was gone, so it’s been tricky. DH’s work trips are genuinely not very labour intensive. There is a lot of nights out (optional) but he enjoys that element of it, and the work days are short. I never, ever begrudge him going away and have supported this for many years.

DH got home yesterday and gave my DC a little gift each. A pair of slippers. He got the sizes totally wrong. Bought a pair for age 2 for our 7 year old and age 5 for our 10 year old. The sizes were in EU sizes, but he only needed to text me or Google their U.K. sizes and check. He had promised them a gift and both were so excited, but both acted as though they weren’t disappointed, but as their mum, I knew they were.

Also, I spent most of the day yesterday cleaning and the plan was that DH was going to spend the day with the kids and I was going to catch up on my own work, which I’ve fallen behind with, as I’ve had a lot going on lately. When DH was on his return journey yesterday, he text saying he didn’t feel great. He seemed fine but a little congested when he got home. And today, he has spent the whole day in bed. I took the kids out, since they had been stuck home the day before, and am now just falling further behind.

The kids were so desperate to see him and I feel like he’s just totally let them down. But also wonder if I’m just being annoyed because I have had no choice but to power through, and he’s now having a day in bed at the first sign of the sniffles!

Is it me? Am I the issue here?

When a stay at home mum is a bit ill, she doesn't get to take to her bed and force her husband to take time off work, so I have no idea why he gets that luxury when you have work to catch up on (due to facilitating his completely inappropriate job). He's selfish, thoughtless and lazy. I hope he has plenty of good points for you to be tolerating his behaviour.

The slippers thing is dumb, but presumably an honest mistake. However it's a bit telling that he doesn't know how big his kids' feet are - I wouldn't necessarily expect him to know exact sizes but he was way off.
The going to bed ill thing I dunno about - I think it really depends on the context of the rest of your relationship. Does he work long hours when he's not on a trip? Do you work full time? Who does most of the domestic stuff? Basically, is the issue about this one event or are you pissed off that he doesn't pull his weight in general?

Well, if I hadn't slept in my own bed in six weeks and wasn't feeling well I might be tempted to have a lie in tbh.

The gifts were really thoughtless, the sizing but also the fact he got slippers to be honest. As a mum now I’d LOVE a gift of slippers, but as a child I wouldn’t have!

If I’m being generous with the illness thing I’d say he can’t help being ill (if he is) and if there are two parents available to help then sometimes rest to try and get through it is quicker and better for everyone. When I’m on my own with our daughter and ill of course I have to just get on with it, but if my husband is home then I’d be off to bed if I felt unwell too, equally if my husband is unwell and we are both home then I’d not force him to stay up and about just because I have to make do sometimes when he is working and I’m unwell.

You can't always choose how ill you are. If somebody was berating me whilst I felt like death warmed up I'd tell them to do one.

What if it was your children?

There's a big difference between doing necessary stuff for your kids and dealing with a mardy partner who isn't unwell themselves and just wants to rake you over the coals because they didn't have any support when they were ill. Maybe it's OPs turn to go and sleep somewhere else for six weeks. In the spirit of fairness and all.

I'm sorry he's so useless and I'm sorry so many people on here are trying to make excuses for him too.

It's December - everyone is tired and sniffly and could do with a break, he's not some special case who needs coddling. Tell him to get his lazy arse out of bed and take his kids out after not seeing them for six weeks!

Yeah, sod the fact that OP has been sick and hadn't had a break in six weeks, eh? 🙄

god - think how many exhausted mums just get on with it when they have a cold!

the man has been away - he needs to drink some lemsip and take the kids.

I'd be annoyed at the gifts and probably at him being ill (not him, just because of the inconvenience) but if you had stuff to do, then why did you take the kids out? Christmas holidays are coming up, you're obviously an involved parent, you martyred yourself to make a point and now you have another thing to have a go at him about. That doesn't sound fair.

WTF have I just read?! He's been away for six weeks, he bought the wrong sized slippers that sound like a shit kids gift anyway and then takes himself off to bed with a sniffle?! I don't think so sunshine! He wouldn't have got as far as the bedroom that's for sure! Tell him to bloody grow up.

It’s not his fault that he is ill
I suppose it's not his fault he is thick and bought slippers that clearly won't fit the kids. Claims he has done his best. What an idiot!

He is not ill, he is under the weather and congested, like most people are at some point during the winter.

Depends on the slippers......there's some funky ones that are all the rage with kids at the mo. They have ears that flop up and down with each step so I'm guessing it's that type. Or other novelty ones.

As an aside I'd be making him buy the kids the same ones in the correct sizes. Going straight to bed with a cold after not seeing a partner and kids for 6 weeks is a pisstake.

I would be very disappointed in his behaviour. Particularly not wanting to spend time with the DC when he had been away for so long. Surely he was capable of sitting on the sofa and watching a DVD with them.

ugh "I did my best"
Well clearly either he didn't do his best, because his best would be buying presents for his kids that actually fit (which in itself is bare minimum, not "best" and tbh slippers are a random gift for children in the first place!).

Or he did do "his best" but his best is so terrible it's incompetent and pathetic. Would he whine to his boss "well I did my beeeeesst" if he delivered a project with completely incorrect details that would have taken seconds to google meaning the whole thing was undeliverable and useless? No, he firstly probably would have taken the effort to make sure it was right in the first place and if he did make such a basic mistake would be grovelling and desperately trying to make it right. Not shrugging his shoulders and telling his boss "actually you are the unreasonable one!"

The bar for men sometimes is so low a worm couldn't limbo under it.

Imagine it the other way around. OP has just returned from a six week work trip and is feeling rough. Husband says she can't rest and must do xyz. It'd be classed as abuse.

Maybe I'm a heartless bitch but have you told him that his best isn't good enough?

The only thing he has done in the last 6 weeks is cause you to fall behind with work, disappoint your children with shit gifts and flake out the second he could do something useful.

The fact that it was "away" doesn't automatically overwrite the simultaneous facts that said work trips consisted of shorter days than he usually works and completely optional nights out, which are probably the reason for his "illness".

Neither does it negate the fact that while he was away OP was ALSO working AND taking care of their house and kids by themselves despite actually being ill, not just feeling rough. Who would be "the abuser" in your scenario if OP had decided she was going to opt out of everything when she was ill and just leave the kids to fend for themselves and the household chores undone?

Most people would probably find a few hours of work every day and then the rest of the day to do what they want a much easier option than not having any time to themselves. 6 hrs of active work doesn't somehow magically become harder than 16hours just because it takes place in France (or wherever he was).

Unless he's on death's door he could have at least had a lazy day with the kids playing games and watching films on the sofa. It's not like OP is asking for a day off to go to the spa, she's catching up on her own work, which she neglected while looking after their kids and their house on her own for 6 weeks.

Plus in your hurry to exonerate him, you haven't even mentioned the whole gifts issue. If the OP was "DH came home, bought us a takeaway, said thanks to me for everything I'd done, bought the kids and me some amazing presents, and was going to take the kids out today but has now come down with a bug" perhaps the responses would be different. i.e. if he was usually a great dad and partner but the illness was a break from the norm, rather than being the cherry on top of a shit sundae.

"must do xyz"
No, she's only asking him to do 'x' - where 'x' is 'look after his own children for a few hours,' - and she wasn't asking, they had previously agreed this would be the plan, he is now going back on it. She's not asking him to do anything else, e.g. 'y' - work on the weekend (because she has to do this after falling behind after doing everything due to his absence) or 'z' - clean the house because again she has already done this for him. Just to look after his own children for a few hours. Again, if this is an unfair and impossible ask of someone who is ill, why was it okay for her to do when she was ill when he was away?

Imagine it the other way around. OP has just returned from a six week work trip and is feeling rough. Husband says she can't rest and must do xyz. It'd be classed as abuse.

I can't imagine any mum who has been away from her children and partner for six weeks would ever even consider taking themselves off to bed with a sniffle. Especially if she knew her partner had had to carry on whilst feeling ill themselves, all the while working, looking after the children and the house without any support.

This!

No where to get gifts? Have you been anywhere? Stuffed animals, books, toys are readily available over a six week period if you aren’t in Antarctica.

It's not his fault he's ill. I'm in bed now as I feel dreadful although I probably look fine and only sound a little congested, too.
The present was a bit rubbish.
However, I'd honestly look at the big picture here. Is he generally a good dad and husband? If so, I'd let this pass. Not worth fighting over.

I would tell him his best is pretty shit and to get off his arse and either take the kids out [and treat them while taking the slippers to the charity shop] so you can clean or he spring for a cleaner to do a deep clean out of his own spends.

Mine was dying at the weekend I was making honey and lemon at 3am. Daft wazzock wasn't using his inhalers either. His coughing was shaking the windows. We had some amoxicillin from his previous chest infection so am making him take those.

I bloody hope I don't get it.