I did a childish thing, but it felt good! AIBU?

[fuckhimintheear]

My partner is, on the whole, a great man. He’s loyal, hardworking and an excellent father. But my God, he’s messy! I do all of the housework (I don’t work) and he does the majority of the cooking and running kids around and also working. So I can’t complain about my lot, he’s valuable and he’s lovely.

However, I’m sick to death of cleaning up his beard trimmings, cleaning up his crumbs, cleaning up the fall out when he’s been ‘in charge’ of the kids and there’s shit everywhere for me to fix. I left him alone with our 16 month old for five minutes yesterday and when I came back DP was oblivious whilst the little one was emptying soil from a plant pot and smushing it in to the the carpet and his own hair. This sort of stuff just doesn’t happen on my watch, but it seems to be ‘not a big deal’ when he’s in control.

I work really hard to give us a nice, clean orderly home. He just doesn’t seem to give a shit? He did get a new car last year though, and expressly told us all that under no circumstances would anyone be eating in the car or making any mess.

I lost my shit with the situation and took five kids down Greggs, bought us all a sausage roll and sat on the drive eating them. The car was filthy afterwards.

Am I a dick?

Love a bit of passive aggressive! If he's going to just ignore her asking nicely then bring it on! 😆

I don’t even know if I call it passive aggressive. It is just clear communicating and agreeing to adopt a shared parenting approach! She is feeding her children, that’s quite normal parenting behaviour, and if he can’t actually remember to watch the toddler how could she possibly have the bandwidth to remember minute details like not letting the kids eat in his car when she already has to think of everything in the house?? ‘Oh I’m sorry I just can’t remember. I put so much work into keeping the house tidy that as soon as I step outside the door my brain takes a much needed break. We could try you cleaning up after the kids a lot more and see if that gives me more head space to remember these really strict rules of yours?’
Punnets of berries, icecreams and m&ms next. And if he realises this is all a lot more upset and effort for him personally than putting a tiny bit of effort into watching his own child, well then she’s also massively improved her marriage and he’s ten times as good a parent as he was- huge win.

The best way to build a "genuine marriage" is to find a partner who treats you with respect and pulls his weight without having to be cajoled and flattered into it.

The OP has a partner already.

Well, there's quite a lot of doubt about who her partner actually is, because on another thread of hers he's presented as a financial and emotional abuser. But even if that wasn't true, I cannot agree with you or with @SparklyLeader that women should feel compelled to perform these unbelievable fawning acrobatics to get their partners to do basic household tasks. Why should any woman have to tell her husband that it's incredibly sexy when they wipe up their beard trimmings or clear up a mess that a child made whilst they were in charge? What is all this "smooching" and thigh-squeezing? Can't men be expected to know that you don't make a mess and leave it for someone else to clear up?

It's fawning. It's advice to fucking FAWN over a man.

Best belly laugh one on Mumsnet. Well done OP. Bravo

I don't like it when posters go searching for an OP's previous threads to do a smarmy 'gotcha' on their current one.

Recognizing a name from a few weeks ago and a story that doesn't line up isn't a smarmy gotcha. It's calling out that either that thread, this one, or both have got plot holes.

I don't like it when I spend my time answering in good faith and find that stories are made up. Happens all the time sadly. Why is it "smarmy" to call out lies fabrications?

I agree. Here there was a poster who remembered the thread. Is she supposed to pretend she didn't? But also the site has a function for searching by username and it's totally unrealistic to expect that some people won't use it to find out more about a person whose post they're reading.

That was supposed to be a strike, not an underline. Don't know how that happened it looked ok in the editor.

Circumstances and dynamics change...priorities change.

When a poster wants advice about X, I advise them about X.

I don't go digging for old threads so I can add Y and Z to the mix. The poster hasn't asked me to do so. They simply want to discuss X.

What an OP posts in August say, may not apply in October. They may feel differently now. Such is the complicated, variable and nuanced nature of relationships.
It's not for me to pin them down and make them answerable to it.

When we reply on here it's our choice to do so. There are many liars, trolls and creative writers on the internet. It's a risk we know about and we take. No one owes us anything for doing so.

Excuse me for asking but who are you to dismiss the feelings of others and tell people what they should and should not post?

Just my opinion...I have no authority here. I'm not telling anyone what to post. I'm telling you how I feel about digging up old threads to refer to in a current one.

But really you feel a bit silly for being taken in by the OP's lies...

Not really...I'm not that invested. Like I said, liars, trolls and creative writers. It's the internet.

And also, people who feel differently today to how they felt previously. Very common.

I love it. Well done.