To not want to allow DH any freedom because he takes the piss with it?

[letsmakebiscuits]

Title probably sounds a bit more provocative than intended. But hear me out.

So we have two young kids - age one and four. Obviously they are a lot of work.

Whenever I have them solo DH uses the time to do things he’s obviously wanted to do for a while; fine. Except then he just takes the piss with it. So for example - a couple of weeks ago I took the children to a birthday party in the morning and then another mum suggested we go to soft play. It wasn’t very local so DH was alone from half nine in the morning to four in the afternoon. He still wanted to get his hair cut. Or I’ll take them to the park for a few hours to let DH do something but then he’s wanting to get the car valeted or something.

It gets on my nerves. I think he should use the (ample) time I give him for these tasks. AIBU?

Trust me: you miss even the annoying bits if they die suddenly.

My husband annoyed the crap out of ne daily.

I'm fairy recently widowed 2 months) and - boy - do I miss the fuck out of him annoying the crap out of me daily!

@Surveille222 I understand where you’re coming from with this too. I often notice when people (at work) talk about others (eg spouse) and say “I told him to meet me in town” for example. It just stands out to me because it is so strongly worded and it seems unnecessary.

However, I think there is also an important thing to consider. OP wrote that she ‘told’ him or whatever… but the point is what actually happens is that the spouse is doing as he pleases. So OP’s not holding the power at all. For all her chosen words, she isn’t actually in control.

So it’s not controlling leaving his partner to look after the kids again while he pops out to run errands for himself that he’s had all day to do?

Where was her consent in this? Did she agree that she’ll have the kids while he's out? What if she had plans to go run errands herself sans kids? Why isn’t he taking the children to run errands and do his fair share of the childcare?

We can all manipulate the situation to make it look like the other is controlling the situation. Doesn’t make it true though does it?

He should manage his free time better.

I get your point you should both be getting kid free time and family time. I think he is taking the piss as gets child free time to enjoy but leaves you solo parenting whilst he goes and does stuff. I think there needs to he clearer scheduling. I have kids till four but then can we do family time ? Or their yours 4-6 type stuff.

I hear you.
my guess is if you take the kids out for 8 hours on Saturday, you are not even going to ask for him to do the same on Sunday.
you feel like you’ve already accepted that you have less child free time than him.

but you do actually want (and obviously deserve!!) some child free time, so if you come back and he then suddenly has to go cut his hair you feel taken advantage of.

or, i am just projecting as i have a similar issue with my DH.

all I can suggest is more, clearer communication. Be clear ‘DH I am taking the children out. when I come back I expect you to have them, and to cook dinner/do bath so I can rest after 8 hours with them’

or whatever

(and ignore those who say this is controlling behaviour, honestly. )

You wrote this whole thing in a weird OP.

If you’d just put ‘AIBU to be annoyed that I’ve taken the kids out all day so DH can have free time and/or get jobs done but despite this, he hasn’t got his jobs done’ I think everyone would be on your side. But because you talked about ‘allowing freedom’ etc it just made you sound controlling.

Of course he should have got his hair cut or his car cleaned in the 8 hours you were out. Taking the piss not doing so.

I think people haven't picked up on the fact that you're looking after the kids solo, he has tons of free time therefore to do all sorts in, but then he is waiting til you're back to then go off and do "chores" which means you are still solo with the kids, extending your responsibility time and his free time.

Does he have the kids solo often so you can do things? Not sure why people aren't getting that, it's like him having all day Saturday off whike you're busy with two small children then the minute you get in and are hoping for some time to do leisure or even your own chores he says he's got to do xyz, but why didn't he do them earlier.

Putting aside the equal parenting/child-free time aspect (albeit I agree there's a valid point amongst the confusing original post), I would like to see what the reaction on here would be if this post came from MRletsmakebiscuits, or Mr anyone else, for that matter.

Can you imagine the death stares if a man posted on here using the terms 'to not allow DW any freedom' or 'she should use the time I give her'.

Madness!

No that’s not controlling. Lazy parenting maybe, but certainly not controlling. No,

If anyone's being 'abusive' it's the lazy article dodging his parental duties and leaving the heavy lifting to his wife. Honestly.

I don’t think the original post is that confusing. OP goes out for XXX amount of hours with DC, leaving DH at home. She gets back, and then he decides to go out to do his little jobs. The jobs that could’ve been done whilst OP was out. Meaning that yet again OP is responsible for the DC.

Not on, OP. YANBU

Yeah my ex used to do this. So annoying.

If it's because you want him to take over minding the kids as soon as you return, you should just say as soon as you're back you're going out yourself. But the fact remains he still needs to get a haircut at some point.

And also, I mean, how long does a mans haircut take? 15 mins?

So there is a,birthday party then the op decides to stay out more then gets home but the husband has to do what he wants when the op decides he should?

She was out for hours. There was plenty of time for him to do what he needed to do whilst she was out. It wasn’t as though she was out having cocktails with her friends.

It all sounds like an unhappy tit for tat marriage. Can’t be pleasant for poor kids growing up around this pair

He's skiving for sure, either do the same, (if he doesn't get the message when you tell him) . ie, there's some urgent groceries you've forgot suddenly, or accept that looking after kids is fucking boring grunt work, (which is why he doesn't want to to do it)
and get on with it.

I think the point is (and I have apologised for not being clear but I was getting two children lunch alone, just like I have all week!) that DH has ‘freedom’ if you like. It isn’t controlling to point out you can’t just zoom off and do what needs doing whenever you like when you have very young children. I needed to clean the house; I still do. I’ve done some of it when my one year old is napping and my four year old watches TV. DH though gets so much more flexibility. It’s frustrating because it means I have to do ‘my’ tasks when I can, around the kids, he doesn’t.

They are a lot of work so I do try to give DH a bit of space sometimes but it just gets taken the piss with and it’s that which is annoying.

The posts calling me narcissistic are ridiculous.

you make it sound more like a prison sentence than a marriage.

I thought you were going to say he would go on an all day bender or disappear for the weekend. I don't understand the post/issue if I'm honest

I think it was just a poor choice of words in the Ops original post. As someone with two small children I completely relate to what Op is saying. She is not being unreasonable at all!

Op - I think you need to clearly stipulate start and end times for each of your “you time”. So he can’t sneakily continue to rob you of yours / inflate his own.

** Your OP was confusing-maybe you need to communicate clearer with him as well as on here

If you say, 'when I go out with the kids to give you a chance to get stuff done, you seem to fuck about and then want to go and start doing the jobs the minute we get in, so I'm left looking after the kids for even longer. It's constant and it puts me off saying yes to stuff because you're taking the piss and I know it won't be for two hours, it will be all day'...what does he say?

Or have you not actually said this?