AIBU to hate being called darling all the time by DH?

[RantingMenoWoman]

DH won’t stop calling me darling. It feels like it’s becoming every other word, I fucking hate it! I find it inane and patronising! I’m sure he’s ramping up the darlings too, and he’s currently unaware of how much I dislike it (I was rather hoping it’d finish as suddenly as it apparently started.)

Before I snap, AIBU and it’s my hormones rather than my husband?!

Has anyone else developed a strong irrational hatred of what is generally thought of as a term of endearment?

Call me old fashioned, and I know it’s not the MN way, but I’d probably tell him I don’t like it.

he’s currently unaware of how much I dislike it

I think I can guess what the problem is

Of course it's irrational if you haven't told him! FFS.

He keeps forgetting your actual name..

Test him.

I'd quite like it. DH is Scottish and calls me 'hen' all the time, which I don't mind.

However, if he's unaware then simply say to him 'Please can you stop calling me 'darling' all the time? I'm hormonal and it's giving me irrational rage. Thanks'

If he continues after that then he's a knob.

You’re not old fashioned!

Why bring hormones into it?

Women are perfectly capable of being annoyed about something without it having to be hormonal.

But obviously the problem here is that you haven’t told him how you feel.

Weird

so strange how some couples operate

To be honest once I became perimenopausal even the sound of some people breathing can make me irrationally annoyed.

@ShitFacedShakespeare hormones as I think things, trivial things, wind me up far more easily than they ever used to.

I’ll have to break it to him; no more of this darling business, darling….

Ooof you sound like hard hard work

I've gone through lots of different preferences over the years and when I've got a bit sick of one being used all the time, or I've fancied a change, I've just told him and he's asked what I'd prefer. It really was that simple. Every now and then he throws in a blast from the past and it's really quite endearing!

It’s weird as I don’t think he used to use it all the time, but now it’s constant. Occasionally I wouldn’t notice or care or mind! I think that’s what’s annoying, it’s starting to morph into sounding patronising or passive aggressive. Bonkers as it sounds, I get the Hotel Inspector crop up when I am mindlessly doom scrolling and Alex Polizzi uses it all the time and it grates there too.

At least I’m not living with Alex Polizzi as well as DH! It’d be a darling overkill situation!

Small mercies, eh.

Oof, that would really annoy me but then I hate cutesy/romantic nicknames like that in the first place.

How you do suffer. Sounds like domestic abuse to me. LTB.

Do I need to contact Women’s Aid?

DH called me Babe once and only once early
on when we were dating. I nipped that right in the bud and told him in no uncertain terms not to call
me that again if he wished to carry on dating me!

I’ve never had ‘babe’, thank goodness! Just darling, every other word. It’s like he’s just discovered it!

Possibly a new patio.

Ha!

I like ‘darling’ and we both use it. If I didn’t, I’d tell him immediately. No drama.

I think I’ve been unrealistic with my optimism that he’d just stop it! Instead he’s ramping it up. There are that many darlings being shoehorned in, I’m starting to feel like he will also be patting me on the head soon too.

I might use different phrasing when I ask him not to though!

Why would he just stop it though? When you’d not given some much of a whiff of having an issue with it?

so many exclamation marks!

You don't like it, that is enough reason for you not to be called that. Not meant in a harmful way.