Husband is a boring bastard

[bosslady24]

Sorry but it’s true. He works full time and helps around the house but has no interest in family life, days out etc. We had a holiday this year that he was miserable for. Didn’t really want to leave the resort as it would be ‘too much hard work’ with our youngest. If ever he can get out of opting out of something he will. When he has our youngest on his own there are a select few activities he might do like the park or NT but would never dream of taking her to the cinema or swimming because it’s too difficult. Whenever I suggest getting in the car and going somewhere he will huff and claim he has too much to be doing at home or that he’s ill/tired/skint. I don’t want to be busy every weekend but feel as parents we have an obligation to do stuff with our kids when we can and give them a good childhood. He is just lazy and disinterested.

There is an age gap between us - he’s in his early 50s now with a 3 year old and I understand it’s difficult. In hindsight he probably didn’t fully appreciate what having a child later in life means. But she’s here now and I’m finding his lack of enthusiasm for anything quite a turn off. I have resolved to start doing things alone with dc (I have an older child from previous marriage) but I find it sad that I’m with someone who doesn’t share my values around this stuff.

Leaving isn’t an option for me at the moment but I just need to vent. If I bring this up with him he will list a load of excuses and/or sulk so it’s not worth it. It’s bank holiday coming up and I said I might take the dc away for a night and he is practically gleeful about the prospect of being left alone. I don’t get that opportunity because he’d never offer to take them anywhere himself.

How do you know that my DP wasn’t 53 when our youngest was 3? And the difference between 3 and 7 is actually 4 not 5 btw.

You need to take it in turns with bath,.book bed, routine. 💯
Quite a few (not all mind you) fathers I knew would happily let the mother take the lead. Especially if they breast-fed,.as then it was oh only you could ever comfort the baby etc. Such bollocks. 🙄
Just Nope. 👎
Tell him that you will do 4 occasions of bath, book, bed routine, on:
mon/weds/fri/sun 😇
and he can do 3 occasions of:
tues/thurs and sat. 😎
Some fellas need the 'sink or swim method' of being hands on and just bloody getting on with it and tough luck learning.

God forbid if anything happened to you (hospitalised, illness or worse etc), he would need to know how to soothe her to sleep and know her daily routine. 🙏

ETA: We also had a weekly menu board put up so our weekly meals were there so DS had a bit more structure. 🤓

Every little bit of info helps.

I hope you find a decent compromise. 🫂
@bosslady24

Yikes - everyone commenting on age. My DH is 10 years older and has twice the energy I have. Kids are exhausting no matter what age you are and you can be hit by health issues and fatigue at any age. He is not even an absent dad - he seems to do stuff with the kid but it’s just a bit boring. Definitely say it’s making you unhappy and can he make more of an effort

Hmm. I think the thing is that you've met a guy who was in his mid forties and chosen not to have kids, but was happy to be a step dad to your older DC. Fine.

You accidentally get pregnant. So the baby wasn't planned. I don't know how the contraception failure happened, but usually if people really don't want to get pregnant they don't at your age.

He might love his daughter but he didn't plan to have her. I'm not sure why you're surprised he's not that hands on. I expect you're comparing him to dads who chose to have a 3 year old in their 50s so are enjoying it more.

Hopefully it will get better once she's 5 or 6.

It wasn’t accidental. It was very much planned. Not sure where you’ve got that idea from.

Nothing really useful to add, just solidarity. My husband was 54 when we married and I had 3 very young (early primary-age) children. It’s been a disaster. I’ve basically raised them as a single parent. Now I have three teens and he’s mid-60’s. It’s not going well!
The only advice (as you can’t leave) is focus on you and your child and really try to enjoy her childhood, otherwise the resentment will only grow. He will not change, so you have to.

Having young children in your 40s/50s can escalate into nightmare territory if your own parents are still living and start to decline. I don't know whether OP's husband has this responsibility (by the sound of it, he'd palm care for his parents off on someone else too) but it's yet another good reason to think very hard about the outcome of deciding to have kids later in life.

The point I made was a 3 year old shouldn’t be that much hard work. I enjoyed my children at this age.
They are out of the toddler tantrum stage. Out of the baby waking up at all hours stage, and not in the throws of puberty stage.
If you don’t like what posters are telling you then that is on you op,
Quite frankly your dh is not pulling his weight and you are finding out the hard way.
A lot of men will do whatever it takes to keep a new partner happy. The. Once they have you they really don’t have to try anymore. You are directing your anger at posters rather than your lazy, disinterested dh.
He isn’t a good father.
Again, if he can’t cope now at this relatively enjoyable stage, then God help you when your child is a teenager is all I can say.
You have been advised to speak to him and tell him how lacking he is.
Either speak to him or don’t, but he isn’t going to magically change otherwise.

So he had a child at pretty much 50 years old.
No offence, but I can think of nothing worse.
I’m 52 and tired constantly.

Just like older parents, I don’t think you can generalise that all 3 year olds are easy. Ours certainly isn’t. You say direct my anger at my dh but I’ve also been told that the way I’ve spoken about him here is too angry and offensive with helpful ‘poor man’ comments.

I posted for opinions and I’m happy to take the sensible ones on board. However the ones that are blaming me for my husband’s failings are irritating and unfair. I will challenge that. If your assumption that he somehow went along with having a kid just to ‘impress me’ then that’s also on him. Although I don’t think that’s the case.

I have spoken to him many times and hopefully he will make a bit more effort. We’ve all been out today to an NT with the dog which was nice. If he doesn’t I will continue to do stuff alone with them when I can. Doesn’t always have to be days out and I appreciate the comments from posters who say lots of their key memories with their dads were simple things at home. That’s given me a different perspective.

Your title has made me laugh a few times now.

Unfortunately you can't change people. I don't think it's any use to point out how old he is, if you didn't consider having a child and all responsibilities and so on and bla bla..

Just sit with peace in your heart and ask yourself if the reasons you are together outweigh his natural attitude.

I don't think he will change, so accept that it is your responsibility to be happy anyway regardless of what he does. Walk away if what keeps you together doesn't compensate for what's missing.

No husband is perfect, it depends on what your value system is made of and no one can decide when enough is enough but you.

Hmmm… that wasn’t my experience at all. Both my kids were fun and delightful at 2, but 3 and 4 were hell ages. The word “threenager” exists for a reason.

Yanbu.

My husband takes no initiative, never plans anything, is cheap, impatient about everything and is incredibly angry about stupid stuff.

I too can't leave yet, but I'm biding my time.

My DD was 3 when I was 50 but you don't stop.... You don't EVER stop . How disappointing. I feel desperately sorry you are in this situation. My advice is find a younger man.

Tbh, three year olds can be quite boring too… small kids don’t really appreciate lots of different activities/locations a lot of the time. They often love the simple, predictable stuff like going to the same playground, playing the same games etc. eg the famous Billy Connolly story about bringing their kids on an amazing trip across the US including Disneyland, and the kids’ favourite part was a video they played every night about dinosaurs :)
kids often seem to find adults like that reassuring and steadying and enjoy the calm (which can be annoying when you’re the other kind who performs like a circus act to entertain the kids!).
So from the perspective of his parenting, I don’t see a problem, I highly doubt your child finds him boring. The balance of your two different approaches may be perfect for them.
But if you find him boring, that might still be a problem of course :)

Thank you! All these replies are making me feel like my husband and I belong in a care home at 39 & 44 instead of bringing up the young children (inc newborn!) that we have.

I don’t think the op is expecting her dh to be some full on entertainment specialist. She is however, expecting him to step up and parent.
If that means reading a story book over and over, or going to the park and watching dd go down the same slide a monotonous number of times then so be it.
It sounds as though her dh would rather not do that though. He prefers her to do it.
Well unfortunately parenting includes all the monotonous, boring stuff.

No I don’t agree. My father was 40 when I was born and aged 50-55 was still gleefully hiking mountains with us, running around theme parks, building tree houses in the garden and sandcastles on beaches.

OP it’s nothing to do with age. He clearly has no zest for life with a kid. Was he more interesting before DC was born?

So he was ten years younger than the OP’s husband was when their DC was born, and you were between 10-15 when he was taking you to theme parks etc?
I don’t think that’s at all comparable to the situation the OP has described.

I’m the eldest of 4. At the same age my dad did all this with a 10,9,6 and 4 year old (and had been doing so for a decade!) so yes it’s comparable!

Ok then. If your dad was running around with you four, then all men in their fifties must have the energy to parent infant children to the fullest. Silly me 🙄

My brother is 53 and his son is 19 months old. First child. He adores being a dad and is very hands on.

so don’t let his age convince you there’s a problem, he just sounds like an arse??!!

Spme people here are talking ageist codswallop. I often look after my young gd, and I’m older than your DH. We managed to get her out and about and keep her entertained.

Imo he is not too old to have a child of this age - i have multiple friends in similar circumstances (one with dad MUCH older and youngest just turned 2) and they are all very hands on, active, give the kids every opportunity they can type parents.

He needs to step up
My ex was like this. Researched nowhere, went to same park on repeat and was just a miserable git who brought us down. In the end I realised he didnt want to spend any money. He was more inclined to come when I had paid for everything.... but doing stuff that required his petrol or pound - nope.
Like you, I started to do everything alone with the kids - everything. Set me up well for when I left him as I was used to flying solo anyway.
Hope you find a solution that works for you.