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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Sulking dh because he had to miss out

248 replies

sulkingalot · 20/12/2025 10:27

I’ve got the flu (or covid? Not sure which) I’ve been pretty much bed bound all week and only this morning have managed to even pick up my phone as have been that exhausted even holding a phone was too heavy!

Dh has had to miss his work Xmas party and going to the gym due to me not being able to look after the dc and he also had to have 2 days off work. He wanted to go the gym this morning and I said I’m really not up to it and he’s sulking. Keeps giving me strange looks like he can’t stand me and huffing and puffing and tutting for no reason at all.

He’s now off till after Xmas - I have to be better for work on Monday so I really think my recovery is important. Unless of course he comes down with this as well.

AIBU to feel sad that he’s not been very kind or supportive? I’m literally never ill like this 😭

OP posts:
Throwntothewolves · 20/12/2025 12:53

You need to recover so he'll have to manage until you do.
But I think telling him you will be back to work on Monday but that you're not well enough today to do anything without his support is probably not the best thing to say to him. I'd also suggest you're unlikely to be well enough for work on Monday.
He's done a lot already (which should be expected). Don't put up with the huffing, but cut him some slack, and be reasonable about your health and work.

Heronwatcher · 20/12/2025 12:55

Bobiverse · 20/12/2025 12:09

Yeah, I’ve crawled to the kitchen to make my kids toast. Or answer the door to take out.

Single parents also get extreme flu and other illnesses. We don’t hand our kids to SS.

Again, I know you’re not a single parent and you don’t need to manage alone which is great. You’re a team. But a Christmas night out is once a year so I’d have sucked it up and said he could go for the meal and a drink but not all night.

Show quote history

Right a Christmas night out is not a Buckingham Palace garden party. It’s probably a few drinks in a crusty pub or a meal in a chain restaurant with a few dodgy games and a secret Santa if you’re lucky. They also happen every year, and most workplaces have events in between too- team socials, away days, leaving drinks….

People acting like he has already Made the Ultimate Sactifice are mental. His wife was delirious and vomiting. He voluntarily had 3 kids. Ask any working woman with kids whether she’s missed work events to do childcare and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll get one answer.

Blades2 · 20/12/2025 12:56

You think when we get so ill we can’t get out of bed we phone SS to mind our children? Im sorry but you’re completely tone deaf and out of touch. No we don’t. We rely on family and friends IF we become that sick. And if we don’t have that support, surprise surprise, we muddle through somehow.

my ex would never have taken days off.

ConcernedOfClapham · 20/12/2025 12:57

I’m afraid, like a lot of women, you have succumbed to a severe case of Iwedanimmatureprickitis. It often lingers in the background, with few or no symptoms and then suddenly explodes like an all over body rash.

i suggest taking a couple of LTBs, after having a hot bath and getting your rubber ducks in a row. I hope you feel better in 2026 💐

AquaForce · 20/12/2025 13:01

sulkingalot · 20/12/2025 10:27

I’ve got the flu (or covid? Not sure which) I’ve been pretty much bed bound all week and only this morning have managed to even pick up my phone as have been that exhausted even holding a phone was too heavy!

Dh has had to miss his work Xmas party and going to the gym due to me not being able to look after the dc and he also had to have 2 days off work. He wanted to go the gym this morning and I said I’m really not up to it and he’s sulking. Keeps giving me strange looks like he can’t stand me and huffing and puffing and tutting for no reason at all.

He’s now off till after Xmas - I have to be better for work on Monday so I really think my recovery is important. Unless of course he comes down with this as well.

AIBU to feel sad that he’s not been very kind or supportive? I’m literally never ill like this 😭

Another one annoyed because his domestic appliance is broken.

W0tnow · 20/12/2025 13:01

Single parents cope because they have to.

That’s the point, if you have a partner, you don’t have to cope alone when you are bedridden with flu. What is wrong with people? That’s what partners should do. Support one another.

And why can’t he go to the gym at 5 am or in the evening when the kids are in bed?

Letthemeatgateau · 20/12/2025 13:01

Hope you're feeling a bit better OP. He needs to step up and stop with the sulking. Pathetic. My DH is the 9th week of having to look after me and has missed lots of things I'm sure he'd rather be doing. But he's got on with it because that's what you - should - do when you love someone.

ForTipsyFinch · 20/12/2025 13:01

Heronwatcher · 20/12/2025 12:55

Right a Christmas night out is not a Buckingham Palace garden party. It’s probably a few drinks in a crusty pub or a meal in a chain restaurant with a few dodgy games and a secret Santa if you’re lucky. They also happen every year, and most workplaces have events in between too- team socials, away days, leaving drinks….

People acting like he has already Made the Ultimate Sactifice are mental. His wife was delirious and vomiting. He voluntarily had 3 kids. Ask any working woman with kids whether she’s missed work events to do childcare and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll get one answer.

Show quote history

It’s really quite depressing isn’t it.

The bar for husbands is in the core of the earth.

SweetnsourNZ · 20/12/2025 13:02

Wish44 · 20/12/2025 11:40

I am so shocked by this thread. The sexism!

firstly that the husband is even contemplating going to the football- it’s a social activity-

secondly that he is sulking like a child.

thirdly that people support him.

fourthly that there are some people who presumably have been lucky enough to have never been very ill, this is presumably why they can’t understand being too unwell to look after children .

and lastly that you can be very unwell without needing medical attention. It’s called flu! It kills the vulnerable. Yet a healthy person will be fine but very unwell when they have it .

op I hope you feel better soon and that your husband is ashamed of himself.

Actually flu can kill anyone. Even young superfit athletes.

Ivelostmyglasses · 20/12/2025 13:03

Blades2 · 20/12/2025 12:56

You think when we get so ill we can’t get out of bed we phone SS to mind our children? Im sorry but you’re completely tone deaf and out of touch. No we don’t. We rely on family and friends IF we become that sick. And if we don’t have that support, surprise surprise, we muddle through somehow.

my ex would never have taken days off.

If you rely on family, why can't the OP, why is everyone getting so angry at the idea? Emergency Foster care certainly does support sick single parents with no other support.

ICouldHaveCheckedFirst · 20/12/2025 13:03

You have been really ill, OP. With any luck, he'll catch it, and you can reciprocate.

Skybluepinky · 20/12/2025 13:03

Sounds like you are making a point, single parents manage.

Letthemeatgateau · 20/12/2025 13:08

Skybluepinky · 20/12/2025 13:03

Sounds like you are making a point, single parents manage.

Single parents, if they're well enough, do manage, or friends/family help out.

That's entirely irrelevant though, because the OP isn't a single parent and shouldn't have to manage 3 children including a 1 year old and another with special needs.

Why is the bar so low that a man shouldn't have to look after his wife for a few days?

Bobiverse · 20/12/2025 13:08

Ivelostmyglasses · 20/12/2025 13:03

If you rely on family, why can't the OP, why is everyone getting so angry at the idea? Emergency Foster care certainly does support sick single parents with no other support.

Edited
Show quote history

Not angry but it’s give and take. She can stay in bed and rest 24/7 for the week or two that she is ill and he will take care of the kids and the house. I don’t think it’s all that much to expect her to set up camp in the living room for the length of a dinner so he could go out for his Christmas night.

Blades2 · 20/12/2025 13:09

Ivelostmyglasses · 20/12/2025 13:03

If you rely on family, why can't the OP, why is everyone getting so angry at the idea? Emergency Foster care certainly does support sick single parents with no other support.

Edited
Show quote history

I can’t answer why the OP can’t ask family.

My main point is, social services are already over stretched, over worked, and under funded, and the idea of contacting them over a flu, is fucking madness,

Getdne · 20/12/2025 13:12

Wish44 · 20/12/2025 11:40

I am so shocked by this thread. The sexism!

firstly that the husband is even contemplating going to the football- it’s a social activity-

secondly that he is sulking like a child.

thirdly that people support him.

fourthly that there are some people who presumably have been lucky enough to have never been very ill, this is presumably why they can’t understand being too unwell to look after children .

and lastly that you can be very unwell without needing medical attention. It’s called flu! It kills the vulnerable. Yet a healthy person will be fine but very unwell when they have it .

op I hope you feel better soon and that your husband is ashamed of himself.

Agreed.
What an arsehole.
I hope you feel better soon.

SapphireSeptember · 20/12/2025 13:13

OP sounds more ill than I was when I had COVID, for goodness sake. I was on Mumsnet/YouTube while I was off work. (Are some of you lot serious that because I could watch a bit of YouTube and was able to check the weather I should have been at work? I was checking the weather because it was summer and got up to 38°C while I had a raging temperature!) I had to get my own drinks and had cool showers. (This was 2022.)

I had flu in the summer but it wasn't as bad as this. DS got it too and was ill for two days while I took much longer to feel better, which I put down to being unable to rest as I was looking after him (it was around his first birthday, and I'm a single mum but I'm on OP's side here.)

B1anche · 20/12/2025 13:13

Bobiverse · 20/12/2025 12:38

I’m a martyr? Excuse me? Who else do you suggest takes care of my kids when I’m ill then, if I’m a martyr for just getting on with it?

Sorry but there are far too many people on mumsnet (and bloody school mum gates) who go on and on about how hard they have it and how they can’t possible manage the kids, when they absolutely can because one third of parents are single parents and we just get on with it. Without complaining. And I’m a martyr. Right.

Show quote history

I'm saying you are a martyr because you have said in several posts that you would have let the husband go for a Christmas meal and looked after the kids yourself, despite being delirious with flu. That is being a martyr. I'm not talking about what you (or anyone else)would do as a single parent. This post is about OP, not you.

Bobiverse · 20/12/2025 13:17

B1anche · 20/12/2025 13:13

I'm saying you are a martyr because you have said in several posts that you would have let the husband go for a Christmas meal and looked after the kids yourself, despite being delirious with flu. That is being a martyr. I'm not talking about what you (or anyone else)would do as a single parent. This post is about OP, not you.

Show quote history

I’d have let him because I’d expect the same in return. Everyone does their bit, and sometimes you have to suck it up when there is an important/rare event.

But the OP things that single parents are packing their kids off to foster care when we have the flu so don’t think she knows what it is to just get on with it.

Ivelostmyglasses · 20/12/2025 13:17

Blades2 · 20/12/2025 13:09

I can’t answer why the OP can’t ask family.

My main point is, social services are already over stretched, over worked, and under funded, and the idea of contacting them over a flu, is fucking madness,

Show quote history

She isn't phoning social services she has a partner.
Emergency Foster care supports anyone who is suddenly incapable of looking after their children & has no one else, no matter what the reason. That could be a mother who is so incapacitated with flu school have noticed as she hasn't made the School pick up and can't. It happens. Yes SS are overstretched, but it still happens.

Salvadoridory · 20/12/2025 13:17

It sounds like he feels trapped and claustrophobic and I would too but its his fault. He helped make 3 children so now he has to sacrifice life until they are older. I work in a male industry and hear variations of this moan daily from my colleagues.

Shoxfordian · 20/12/2025 13:21

He's upset his wife robot stopped working and doing all the jobs she usually does so he's sulking about it - is he always so selfish?

B1anche · 20/12/2025 13:22

Bobiverse · 20/12/2025 13:17

I’d have let him because I’d expect the same in return. Everyone does their bit, and sometimes you have to suck it up when there is an important/rare event.

But the OP things that single parents are packing their kids off to foster care when we have the flu so don’t think she knows what it is to just get on with it.

Show quote history

So how ill would your hypothetical partner have to be for you to miss your Christmas party and not make them 'suck it up'? I would always put my partner before a Christmas party and I hope he would do the same for me.

andthat · 20/12/2025 13:24

Icecreamisthebest · 20/12/2025 10:35

How embarrassing for him.

Is he actually looking after you properly? YANBU and you may find it hard to look at him the same way again now you know how selfish he can be

Sounds like you’re never experienced a ‘proper’ bout of flu….

pikkumyy77 · 20/12/2025 13:27

Bobiverse · 20/12/2025 13:17

I’d have let him because I’d expect the same in return. Everyone does their bit, and sometimes you have to suck it up when there is an important/rare event.

But the OP things that single parents are packing their kids off to foster care when we have the flu so don’t think she knows what it is to just get on with it.

Show quote history

This is the return! Staying home to look after his own children while OP is suck is what she would do for him if the positions were reversed. That is what being married means. Not that you each get endless party babysitting but that you can each feel safe that in the event if illness your partner puts you and the children first.