Was my request reasonable or was he right to storm off?

[Unsurree]

I just don’t know if I am the problem. In a nutshell we bought raw bacon to put in nets to fish for crabs. DH was putting the raw bacon in while dd 3 was watching.

Affer he filled the net and put it in the water so dd could hold it, I asked him if he would go into the pub opposite to wash his hands.

He got really cross and stormed off muttering. There’s lots of moments like this and I just wonder if it’s me?! I don’t think it is but I would welcome other perspectives as he clearly thinks I’m unreasonable. For context I work full time as does DH but I am fully responsible for dd in the week due to the hours he works. I therefore try to avoid unnecessary risk of illness as there’s already lots of time off I have to take for sickness bugs etc and I thought it was a small thing to do to wash hands to be safe. AIBU?

Even if bacon is cured there’s still a risk it could contain tapeworm larvae, toxoplasmosis, trichinosis. Probably best to wash hands.

@Mumtobabyhavoc you can keep quoting that but in reality if you were crabbing how often would you wash your hands? Every time you touch the line, hook, crab, handle, sea water (knowing what floats in our water)

It's about raw bacon.

You're right, you don't get it.

Where was the raw bacon? And what were they doing with it?

Hint: it was at the sea side and involved crab nets.

The moment you touch anything else involved in the activity, the washed hands are... no longer washed.

good gawd. 🙄

@Mumtobabyhavoc that’s what we are doing after each of your responses too

Carry hand sanitiser if it bothers you

We? You're not sounding very nice. 🤔

Another head banger after your responses. The sea is dirty, probably more so than bacon! Which bit of that are you not understanding?

but it wasn't the end of the activity, it was midway through. I mean how many times are people expected to break off doing something?

Another meanie. Oh, well.. 😔

"Everyone’s day goes nicer then doesn’t it -"

@Tacotuesdayfan that sounds so sinister

"EVERYTHING goes NICER when you do as I SAY, doesn't it EVERYBODY???!!!"

DH lived in Germany for a while where they eat bacon raw, it is however prepared and made in a different way than in the UK. He is however blasé about bacon because of this. A wipe would have been enough for me and always carried them when kids were little.

Mean for trying to educate?

Mumsnet is so bloody misogynistic. Posters absolutely frothing because OP has had the obscene audacity to ask a man to do something. Doesn't she know you can't do that? Doesn't she realise that any request of or reminder to a man makes you a nagging harridan, or his bitch mother? It's time she learned that men must never be questioned, even when the safety of a toddler is involved, because men are all-wise and authoritative, and if a stupid little woman dares to ask him something he is perfectly entitled to ruin the day for everyone by calling her names and storming off.

No just stop trying to dominate every activity by being the authoritarian. It's as simple as that. Mostly when people do that it's pure jealousy and competition that drives them to try and infantilise their partner and disrupt the connection between the child and their other parent. It's to show the child that I let you have this time with Daddy/Mummy, and I can stop.it any time.

@Hoolieghoul I’d have said the same if dad had told mum to wash her hands for the same activity. Crabbing is not a sterile activity. What would happen if there had not been a convenient pub nearby (and one that didn’t mind you using their facilities when you hadn’t bought anything there)?

The what ifs are irrelevant here. OP isn't actually asking about the hygiene aspect of this. She's asking whether it was unreasonable for her to make a request of her husband, and whether it was unreasonable for him to call her names and storm off in response. And even though name calling and storming off are shitty behaviours from a needlessly aggressive man who is training his wife never to challenge him for fear of reprisal (because OP has confirmed this is a pattern), posters on this site are falling over themselves to defend the husband and tell OP how wrong she was to ask him to do something.

Whether you think you should wash your hands after touching raw meat is irrelevant. What matters is do you think it's ok to be unkind and disrespectful to your spouse when they ask you to do something?

You are very clearly bringing your own relationship issues to this thread.

If you had been my partner, I too would have stormed off to the pub. And stayed there. Unless your partner is putting his fingers n his mouth or into the 3 year old's mouth- handwashing can wait until the end.
FGS just take some wipes with you. Just dont throw them in the estuary when you are finished

No, just experienced a lot of people in my time and have heard and seen their story.

Flip this round, if you're fed up with being asked to do seemingly ridiculous things and have just had enough. What if this was the 20th time that day the mum had made a "request". Any sane person would be pissed off.

See, what you've done here is invent an imaginary scenario and used that to justify OP's husband treating her like shit.

Becauae we know that anyone comfortable with a) asking and then b) feeling put out when she isnt obeyed must do this habitually. We have all met this woman. We have met her hen pecked husband.

@Hoolieghoul surely the hygiene issue is relevant here otherwise OP wouldn’t have requested he washed his hands.

Obviously storming off isn’t good

But I wonder if OP has a history of criticising his parenting, she says she spends more time with DD during the week. You do see it quite often when mum might criticise dad for doing something differently as she has a particular way/routine. But different isn’t always wrong. I had to learn to bite my tongue a few times when DC were young and I either was SAHM or worked PT so spent much more time with them than DH, and he went to do something in a different way.

It would be useful if OP could give other examples of both their behaviours so some of us could stop fixating on the hygiene of crabbing!