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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think my husband is being utterly selfish

53 replies

Threethousandtrees · 30/09/2025 19:41

DH is 10 years older than me, he’s 61 to my 51. We have had a good marriage and I love him. Unfortunately though, recently his health has changed and due to lifestyle (too much social drinking which I’ve warned him would catch up with him) over the years he’s developed diabetes where he’s had to have his big toe amputated and also high blood pressure.

The medication he’s on means he can’t drink, needs to watch what he eats carefully and he’s also developed ED so that part of our life has fallen away.

Im so privately annoyed. Im constantly cooking healthy food, we’ve knocked the weekend takeaways on the head so I don’t get a break, we’ve stopped the weekend shared bottle of wine. I don’t think it’s fair to drink around him so I’ve supported and stayed sober with him. A recent holiday was a bit joyless as he’s quiet and not chatty unless he’s had a few beers. We would go back to the hotel after our evening meal and be in bed reading by 9pm 😩

Im the bigger earner and recently he’s toyed with the idea of reducing his hours to a 4 day week which I was In total agreement with. We can easily afford it and I have told him he can reduce his contribution to the savings account so he’s not out of pocket. At his age and with his health conditions I felt it was a good idea.

Well today he’s decided he doesn’t want to reduce his salary too much so he’ll work a 4 day week but start work at 6am rather than 8am which means he will be getting up at 4.45. So I’ll be disturbed every day at that time when he gets up.

FFS, so I’ve already sacrificed all the nice things in my life due to his health conditions and now I have to be woken up at he crack of dawn every day and go to my busy, manic, highly responsible job so he gets his cake and eats it - not losing any salary and working a 4 day week.

Im sure if the tables were turned and I could see that my husband had completely changed his life for me, enabled me to reduce my hours to make life easier and arrange it so I wasn’t out of pocket I’d be bloody grateful!! I feel so pissed off about the whole situation, I’m young but I feel I have to live like an old woman going forward and for no thanks!

He thinks IBU - I don’t - what do you think?

OP posts:
WatchingTheDetective · 30/09/2025 19:43

Like so many men on here, he's utterly selfish. He expects you to suffer for every bad decision he's made.

You're 51. You'll be a carer to him soon, you know. Is that how you want to spend your fifties?

labourthenewrightwingparty · 30/09/2025 19:43

Why are you the one doing all the cooking?

cestlavielife · 30/09/2025 19:46

Well you need to sleep in separate bedrooms when he is getting up so early.

BCBird · 30/09/2025 19:46

Separate bedrooms OP to preserve your sleep..

Figcherry · 30/09/2025 19:49

Well you know what to do on his days off.
Rattle those pots and pans.

cloudjumper · 30/09/2025 19:50

Why are you doing all the cooking? Surely that’s something he could/should do at least half of?!

Original poster
Threethousandtrees · 30/09/2025 19:51

I’ve told him, if he agrees to the 6 am start he’s not sleeping in my bed at all.
Selfish bastard.

I do the cooking as if left to him he’d live off soup or beans on toast. I want him to be healthy and for us to have a nice life going forward. I do feel so cheated though.

OP posts:
arcticpandas · 30/09/2025 19:51

Separate bedrooms and buy him a cookbook.

Pamspeople · 30/09/2025 20:06

Soup and beans on toast are pretty healthy options, tbf. Stop doing all the cooking, don't martyr yourself. And definitely with the separate bedrooms. And I wouldn't stop yourself having a drink now and then, if you fancy one. What's he given up for you over the years?

BiddyPopthe2nd · 30/09/2025 20:06

So keep cooking (if you are happy with that) to keep him healthy.

But restart your 2 glasses of wine.

and go for separate beds as, with your job and the level of responsibility, and the need to keep earning long term to support his previous lifestyle choices and their consequences, you need proper sleep.

it might be worth contemplating some batch cooking - cook a double batch of some meals to freeze so this week you have a curry on a Wednesday but on Friday you have the lasagna cooked last week and next Friday you have the other half of this week’s curry…to make Friday’s easier. Just buy a garlic bread or naan bread or hummus and carrot sticks to have something. Else alongside that doesn’t add to your load.

Pamspeople · 30/09/2025 20:10

If you find him pretty dull without a drink inside him, that's not a good sign for the future. Has booze been quite a big part of your lives?

Screamingabdabz · 30/09/2025 20:16

I’m sorry I voted YABU because a) ‘in sickness and in health’ - you chose to marry an older man and you must've had have an idea that things like this might happen one day and b) you sound like a domestic martyr.

You don’t have to give up a single thing for him - you choose to. Live your life and stop being the full time cook, bottle washer and nursemaid.

Duckyfondant · 30/09/2025 20:18

I don't see that he's done anything wrong with the job. He should try not to wake you and you should stop depriving yourself of so much. That's what's making you grumpy

Original poster
Threethousandtrees · 30/09/2025 20:23

He’s an introvert and a few drinks helped him relax, be funny and chatty. He’s a man of very few words otherwise. Our lives were full with holidays, weekends away, days out but all that has changed as he was pretty unwell at the start of the year and had to have that operation. We had the first holiday after the diagnosis a month ago and we did enjoy being away in the sun but it wasn’t as much fun as usual. A very nice but perfunctory evening meal, no sitting for hours afterwards with a bottle of wine chatting. We didn’t want to sit in a bar with soft drinks (he’s almost embarrassed to ask for soft drinks) so we’d head back to the hotel.

I feel cheated of a future of winding down from years of working, lots of nice holidays, perhaps a cruise or some all inclusive holidays - a continuation of our life now the children have flown the nest. Perhaps I’m being ridiculous as I know we can still do these things but DH is very flat if he can’t drink to relax.

OP posts:
TeapotTallulah · 30/09/2025 20:27

Separate bedrooms.
He cooks on a weekend.
Mini bottles of wine that you drink on your own.

whattheysay · 30/09/2025 20:42

As others have said aleep in separate beds for the days he’s up early. Cook 5 days of the week, on the weekends either he can prepare food or go for healthier easy options which don’t entail you cooking.
Have a glass of wine if you want one, he’s a grown adult he can cope with seeing you drink and you shouldn’t be living his health issues along with him.
Do you have friends? You need other people to spend time with and have fun, the time you spend with him can be different and more quiet and relaxed.
Take control of your life and live how you want to as much as you can.
I am in a similar situation, my dh now has some health issues which means he doesn’t drink a lot if at all, going on holiday can mean he takes unwell so we spend more time in the hotel room than outside of it and we don’t go out as much as we used to. However I still drink (quite a lot) when we’re out and I have fun. I make sure I go out with friends too. I do cook a lot and get him to eat healthily and tell him the foods he should be eating but I’ve also said I’m not his mother and I can’t make him eat how he’s supposed to.
For holidays we are going to try cruises because if he isn’t feeling well then I may feel more confident doing things on my own I think, we’ll see how that goes but I still enjoy the holidays we have
The difference is I know if it was me who was unwell he would adapt his life to the things I could do

whattheysay · 30/09/2025 20:50

Also, this is all very new for you both. He had to deal with life changing conditions and surgeries and you have to deal with that too, as well as the change in your present lifestyle there’s the changes to the future too. It’s all a lot to take in and come to terms with and it hasn’t been that long.
When dh was diagnosed it did knock the wind out of him thinking about what the future would look like - it wasn’t what we thought it would be. But we said we are going to get busy living while we still can as much as we can and anyway the future as we think it will be is promised to no one, diagnosis or not.
You are still young, I am 50 and like to think I’ve a few good years left in me yet so it’s hard to realise that the ‘good’ years you thought you would have won’t be as good as you hoped.

Pamspeople · 30/09/2025 20:53

I guess you're going to need to adapt your expectations of this part of your life, if you want to stay with him. Holidays are going to be different, and it will take you a while to come to terms with that by the sound of it. Your lifestyle and what you can and can't do together are changing, and I'd encourage you to focus less on blaming him and more on what you want to do about it.

Natural to be angry or upset, maybe grieving for what you feel you're losing, and especially if you prefer the slightly drunk version of your husband to the sober one. And if he's generally a selfish bloke then this must feel like more of the same.

But you must have realised what could happen when you married an older man and when you married someone you prefer to have a few drinks? You can't really blame him for "social drinking that would catch up with him" when you struggle to spend time with him sober.

Pamspeople · 30/09/2025 20:56

It could have been you who developed health problems, OP, and your husband could have been thinking you're selfish for spoiling his holidays. Imagine that.

MrsLizzieDarcy · 30/09/2025 21:00

I've been type 2 diabetic for 10 years, and had to make some pretty radical lifestyle changes overnight. Having a toe amputated sounds horrific OP - and to resent cooking him a healthy diet/him not drinking does sound a little churlish. Alcohol is pure sugar and a diabetic's worst friend.

However I would be setting alarms everywhere at 4.45am on his day off so he can equally appreciate being woken up earlier than needed.

Original poster
Threethousandtrees · 30/09/2025 21:02

Pamspeople · 30/09/2025 20:56

It could have been you who developed health problems, OP, and your husband could have been thinking you're selfish for spoiling his holidays. Imagine that.

I don’t think he would stop drinking if the shoe was on the other foot, he’d just think oh well, she can’t drink, too bad. Just like when I was pregnant with the children.

You are all correct, I just need to carry on as normal, no reason why my life should be too curtailed. I’m not the one that drank to excess throughout my youth and twenties, early thirties and then continued with nights out 2/3 times a week all my life like he did. I did used to warn him it would catch up with him at some point and here we are.

OP posts:
Dozer · 30/09/2025 21:04

YANBU over the working hours thing. Selfish of him and not realistic.

’I’ve already sacrificed all the nice things in my life due to his health conditions’ Some of those things needn’t have been changed for you. You decided to do and not to certain things ‘to support him’ but now resent it.

For example you could go out or away with friends.

Similarly, you can’t control his habits and decisions that might affect his health.

Whaleandsnail6 · 30/09/2025 21:06

I think you both need to adjust:

Separate bedrooms for his early start.

Stop cooking every night. If he has beans on toast or soup a couple of nights, then so be it.

Also go back to takeaways, he just needs to choose the healthier options

There is a whole range of alcohol free options drinks, that aren't just cordial or fizzy pop... encourage him to sample some and then it won't feel as awkward sitting in a bar with an alcohol free drink

You can still have your holidays. Maybe just a bit different with no drinking but stil enjoyable once his health improves.

My dh recently stopped drinking alcohol, I've pretty much stopped as well. We recently went away and whilst it was different without the boozy nights, it was still lovely and we actually made more of the day times as we'd be up early, first for breakfast and packed more into the day.

Dozer · 30/09/2025 21:11

Do you still enioy his company?

thistimelastweek · 30/09/2025 21:12

Another vote for separate bedrooms and a glass of wine whenever you want one.

You are not his mum. You don't have to set a good example or protect him from poor choices in the past.

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