Family holiday - fed up already and not even got there yet!

[Stressedmumma88]

Going on holiday with dh and dc (8 and 5)

Dh is in a strop as i have had to bring my work laptop as a back up as a couple of things in my role that the person who is covering may not be able to do due to some family things, person is a close friend of mine so have taken it purely in case I need to do it (would be an hour max) I shouldn't need to and if i do have agreed with line manager I get a days holiday back

Then we both worked half days today, I've wfh and logged on early to finish at 11, also finished packing the cases, sorted the kids bags out, sorted the pets out, done the bins a load of other stuff. Dh got home from his half way (can't wfh) and has moaned that I've done nothing all day as he spent 20 minutes trying to sort thr hive out and had to carry 2 cases down the stairs. We both loaded the car.

Now on a train and all he's done is said how I don't travel well (I travel for my role a lot so know what I am doing!) And that I'm lazy.

Would rather be at work

Tell us OP, what exactly is the point of this 'man'?

My DH was a bit like this when we first got together and the day always ended up miserable and stressed.

He actually said it was supposed to be
lile this. He is a mildly anxious person, I am very laid back and relaxed.

I eventually got to the bottom of it, in his previous marriage, travelling and going off to events had always resulted in arguments and stress.

I told him well I am not doing that and he had to learn that it didn’t have to be like that and it’s not.

I am very organised and don’t do stress and lateness. Now travelling and setting off is a nice, calm affair.

Tell him to stop it and grow up!

I recognise this pattern all too well. It creeps up on you. It starts with the odd comment early in your relationship and you try hard to end the unpleasantness in the moment and going forward. Little by little you’re treading on eggshells and he’s behaving like your horrid boss and you the perennially disappointing employee trying to please him.

I remember going on a long journey with a three month old (my first born). I did the nighttime while he slept in the spare room (so he could get rest for work) dropped baby at nursery, packed the suitcases and the car with everything you need for a newborn- including steriliser, travel cot, buggy, sorted the house out, cleaning and organising everything, so it was quite a job, picked up the baby. Then I drove for seven hours (including breaks to breastfeed) got to the hotel, sat down for five minutes and then had to get back in the car as he messaged to pick him up. All he had done was go to work for half a day and then get the lovely picturesque train journey to the local station (his choice to work half a day, it wasn’t essential). I drove to pick him up (another thirty minutes) and he had a go at me and was very miserable on the journey back. Why someone else didn’t offer to pick him up (his extended family had been there for a while) or him get a taxi I don’t know. Why I didn’t tell him to fuck off I also don’t know.

This haunts me now: why did I do all of that without complaining or telling him to stuff it? I think I just must’ve been brainwashed. Getting divorced now after a series of miserable holidays and days out. But I regret not doing it then and sparing myself years of misery.

He won’t get better OP. Even if you issue an ultimatum he might improve for a while. But this is his nature. He’s entitled and self absorbed. It’s no way for you to live though.

Doing a half day of work before going away on holiday including needing to pack and sort house out is just exhausting. Your husband is a dick but why organise your lives like this?

You even packed his case! YABU for that.

He sounds sexist and his behaviour is nasty. Affecting you and the DC. As PPs say, only you can decide if / when you’ve had enough.

Was he moaning because you didn’t pack one for him? He realises you’ll use them during the whole holiday, right?

He sounds draining, and a total prick!!

Please step back and see what you can do differently here that will help.

Try to enjoy the holiday as best you can.

Safe (happy may be too much to wish for with him!) travels!!

I genuinely don’t understand these posts. I mean obviously, based on what you’ve said, he’s been completely and utterly unreasonable. I don’t know any husbands in real life who behave like this, or any women who would put up with it. Why on earth would you pack his case?

I get that maybe you just wanted a rant but doesn’t reading pages of people saying you’re husband is a prick just make you sad?

On another note, YABU to take a full day’s extra leave for doing ‘one hours max’ work to help out a close personal friend.

Not that it excuses his behaviour at all, but is your husband resentful about your workload? Your job does sound like a bit of a doss if you can do it ‘from home’ while looking after two children. Is his role particularly difficult or stressful or with very high levels of responsibility?

Does this whiny manchild ever stop carping? Don't pack for him or do anything like that for him ever again. He is presumably capable of doing things for himself. He sounds a misery.

I do pack for use both when we go away and I consider it that, packing for us both. In a
marriage, relationship, partnership, we often do things for each other.

I do not pack for my husband because he is a ‘man child’ . I do it also because I am very organised. He is not. I like it, he does not. My DH does many things for us both and for himself.

Really I have never resented packing for going on holiday. It is part of the pleasure and excitement of the time to come.

@MNLurker1345 If your set up is reciprocal overall, great. OP’s situation is clearly different.

@Dozer reciprocity should be a core tenet of a relationship. Surely it makes the difference between a successful marriage/partnership or an unsuccessful one.

Adding to the voices saying your DH sounds like a dick.

The people posting stuff that criticises you for taking your work laptop or for not packing him a water bottle or whatever are entirely missing the point.

The point is that your DH should not be saying this stuff about you or expecting you to somehow do everything perfectly. When we like and respect (and ideally love) someone, we don't treat them like dirt, and this holds true even if we are tired and frustrated and stressed.

I appreciate it doesn't necessarily mean that your DH is a dick ALL the time, or that he's never justified in getting annoyed (let's face it: it's not possible to be married to anyone without sometimes finding them annoying). I'm also really struck by what @Speakeasier wrote about how this sort of thing can start off as the odd little critical comment that you brush off to keep the peace / avoid making a scene, until a much heavier level of criticism and demandingness has crept up on you.

Some people just treat their partners badly by default. My suspicion though is that there is then another, larger, category of people, men and women, who capable of turning into rude critical tyrants in a relationship if conditions allow this to happen. A while ago I noticed my own DH criticising me in public in a way I found utterly humiliating. I tried to pretend it was ok but some time later told him how much he had upset me. We had a rare row and it was all very horrible, with him telling me all the things that annoy him about me and vice versa. It was frankly pretty horrible. But by the next morning, when we'd both had time to think about it, we had agreed to make more effort for one another and he had promised me he would be more mindful of how he speaks to me. A year later things are way better. I'm so glad I said something that day rather than continuing to bite my tongue because I saw in that really chilling moment how shit the future could be if I kept letting my confidence get eroded bit by bit and giving my DH permission to confuse me with a poor quality work trainee on probation.

Depends if he was programming lights to come on with it. Checked ours yesterday to ensure the heating was working as moving and don’t want the buyers to have any issues. Took 3 seconds to turn off.

I am in my 60s. I never realized that men STILL had cases packed for them. I probably stopped around 2000. Must have been because DH accused me of forgetting something. I just stopped. It just makes life so much easier.

DH once called me lazy. I still recall how it hurt. I knew it was not true. We are still together and have a solid relationship. There is however a lot that I don’t do. He would be shocked to know how I remember the lazy comment. My DD has been with her partner since 2018. They have a house and child. They are not married for numerous reasons but she once, in conversation said that she never wanted to get married because she didn’t want to get landed with doing everything like I did. I finally felt vindicated. The kids could see.

So OP I get what you are saying. Let this be your Damascus Road. I love the idea of weaponised incompetence- start that during the trip. Go back a new you. I’m pretty sure that being the beekeeper would be one of the jobs you can choose.

One of the things that I learned though, as I dropped things off my “todo list” and onto his is that you divide the tasks and leave them to it. When I told DH that he was perfectly capable of doing his own ironing he told me that people would think worse of me if he was wearing crumpled shirts. I just laughed. He now mainly buys non iron shirts. I had to accept that he was rubbish at cleaning the floor. But it was his job and I did not go around after him doing it my way.

Oh dear I have gone completely off topic, but the “lazy” comment brought up memories and I am angry on OPs behalf. Probably if there was mumsnet back then I would have LTB which would have been a shame because life is good. It was fixable with a bit of looking the other way.

@Speakeasier

The post seems to have brought up memories for you too. I hope that moving forward things get better

The hive is controlled by your phone so its not a big deal. You set the minimum temp and leave it. He’s being very overdramatic about that 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I am sorry but he sounds like a total pain in the ass. I would tell him to sod off and travel on his own and return when he can be pleasant to be around.

Have you given him a list of what you did yesterday morning compared with what he did and asked who's the lazy one?

@DiscoElysia, absolutely this! He is your DH. If he is an abuser, that is another matter but if this is your DH being a bit of an idiot, out of order, insensitive or lacking in self awareness, then have a very frank conversation with them, it may result in a row, but if both parties love and respect each other and genuinely want the relationship to work, both must make the effort and take responsibility.

If we can’t call these men out on their behaviour and make them understand that it is not acceptable and will not be tolerated then we become victims.

And yes I do know that some people have truama, issues with self esteem and are victims of DA. This is very sad and true.
But surely exercising agency is the aim of all of us for our peace of mind and well being.

If we cannot reach a state in our relationships where we both contribute, respect each other and are willing and able to do the hard work, then really we should seriously com why we are in these relationships. Life really is to short!

Why are you with this man ?

Oh thanks so much @Ilovemyfam. That’s very thoughtful of you. Obviously these things are more in my mind because of the divorce. I also get infuriated by some of these men that treat their partners like support animals. That’s why I post on MN as I didn’t have anyone to support me at the time when I was first going through it otherwise I might have left earlier. I either knew people who were in happy relationships or other people who had settled and decided you just had to put up with it.

If just one person decides to end it with a no hoper or notices the pattern early in the relationship and saves themselves years of heartache then it’s worth me and others sharing our stories. It’s wild how similar the patterns of behaviour are so reading other people’s stories is hopefully validating!

Incidentally in case anyone thinks I am bitter, I’m not. I think positive, respectful relationships are absolutely wonderful and I am over the moon for those people who have loving relationships with their partners. There are many wonderful men who are loving, caring partners and dads.

10 seconds..it’s quicker without Hive then …I push a button on the wall…done 1 second. Suggest dumping Hive. then next time he’ll have more time to carry bags.

I wondered what Hive was too..looked it up. Why do people assume everyone knows what they’re talking about? Why can’t you just say heating ?

Dump him too…nothing worse than a stroppy , moody Tosser going on holiday. Like having another child along. Why do people let them away with it? I’d be refusing to go on holiday with him again…well, I did. And our married days numbered because it’s usually happening other times too . Its a symptom of the disease that spreads

Why did he order something else for your child - why didn’t you say no that’s not what he wanted and correct it?

Why would any one complain about water bottles? We forgot ours on a holiday once and had to go rebuy some was so annoying!

He doesnt like you. And we minimise shit like this and say its frustration etc, but fundamentally if I like someone, im not calling them lazy when they've done what sounds like most of the grunt work, because id be so grateful they'd done it, and I wouldnt be needling them when we're all about to go on holidays because no matter how frustrated I am, I would want them to have a nice time! If he's got an issue he could bring it up a more appropriate time given its not urgent, so he's just choosing to be a dick. And presumably in front of his children too.