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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To expect more from my dh

25 replies

cali · 24/09/2008 20:23

He knows that I have started this discussion, well he will do when he opens his email

At the moment Dh is at sea and the only contact we have is by email and I try to email him a couple of times a day.

Have not long sent him a nice long, chatty email, telling him all about our day, how awful/lovely dd1 is being etc

His response came about 15 mins ago
"Give them both cuddles from me"

It took longer to open the email than it did to read it and he sent it when he knew both dd's would be in bed.

Wouldn't mind all that much, but I had asked him loads of things, in fact the same things I've been asking him for days, and he just won't/can't give me a response.

So please back me up here, and tell me that IANBU as have promised to show him the results when he comes home

OP posts:

kt14 · 24/09/2008 20:27

yanbu if that makes you feel better

but - could it just be that he has very little time to write mails and wanted to send something quick in a spare minute while he was able to do so?
dh works away (not even at sea!) and I often have to make do with a rushed call or text. It irritates me too.

missingtheaction · 24/09/2008 20:30

that is pathetic! my DP wrote me a letter every day on PAPER from afghanistan (except when he was off doing unplesant things to The Other Side). OK it was very early days in our relationship (started as penpals, ended as partners) but still! if he went back now I would expect an awful lot more than a single line!

2/10 Must Try Much Harder

Original poster

cali · 24/09/2008 20:30

kt, that is true sometimes but I know this evening he said he wasn't going to be doing very much.

He's coming home soon, and the way his brain works, he probably thinks he'll speak to me when he gets back.

OP posts:

Original poster

cali · 24/09/2008 20:35

When he was out in Iraq last year, I would write, send emails, eblueys, parcels.

I got 2 handwritten letters for the 6 weeks he was out their before he was casevac'd back home (only a retinal detachment but they don't deal with eyes out there).

OP posts:

FourArms · 24/09/2008 20:36

I don't think that you're going to get particularly balanced views from people whose partners aren't in the Forces. I'm sure something like that would be pretty much unimaginable.

DH is currently away too. He's been gone for 4 weeks, and we've had a total of 12 minutes on the phone (2 calls) and a few emails. I will now have no contact at all for 6 weeks. However, I've learnt not to be too upset if I don't get long emails from him. However, he's not on a ship, but is underwater, and I know that he really doesn't get much, if any, downtime to write chatty emails. I do make the questions he needs to answer clear at the start though, and he does usually answer these. Perhaps your DH just wanted to get you a quick reply if he thought you might still be online?

So, I would say teeny BU for expecting long emails, but YANBU for expecting your questions to be answered, if you've asked several times.

FourArms · 24/09/2008 20:37

MTA - I hope for you that your DP doesn't change, but my DH used to be much better in the first flush of love.

Original poster

cali · 24/09/2008 20:40

He used to be underwater too, and I found that easier to deal with as you knew there would be no contact for the duration of their deployment.

I don't expect long emails from him, but I am being hassled by his family, who never get in touch with me normally.

that's probably why I'm fed up, as I have asked him several times to get in touch with them and I know he hasn't.

OP posts:

Mum2OliverJames · 24/09/2008 20:42

i think its a bit of a piss poor effort really, ffs, its only taking me not even a couple of minutes to type this and this is longer than that email!

There isnt really an excuse unless he is being fired at and he is trying to type with one hand whilst shooting baddies with the other

Tell him he need to just pay attention to your emails and give a proper reply! how hard can it be

LittleMyDancingForJoy · 24/09/2008 20:46

DPs family harass me when they can't get hold of him, and he doesn't even have the excuse of being in the Forces!

The only thing I could do was to say 'Look, I don't know any more than you, I can't make him get in touch I'm afraid, I do pass on your requests but that's all I can do.'

It's rubbish though.

Original poster

cali · 24/09/2008 20:51

dh saw his family before he left and said that they would be able to keep in touch by email, his dad got in touch with me and said he wasn't going to bother sending dh emails as he didn't think it would work

I keep contact with his family to hardly anything as I do not trust them not to twist anything I say.

OP posts:

sb6699 · 25/09/2008 11:09

YANBU to expect a little more if this was his only contact during the day.

However, my dh worked away for years and I NEVER had an e-mail or letter just a quick telephone call at the end of the day - his excuse men aren't as good as women at putting things down on paper!

No doubt you will have a 1000 word e-mail by return after he sees this

mayorquimby · 25/09/2008 11:52

i'd be the same as him.
the oh is currently off in far off lands and despite long gloowing e-mails full of questions from their side, i can only seem to muster 2/3 lines resonses at most.
probably because for the most part life is mundane so while chit chatting about it in person over dinner or tv is fine and i can be interested. actually typing out what i've been up to for the day is slightly depressing.

mumof2222222222222222boys · 25/09/2008 12:08

Last time DH was away underwater I got a couple of post cards when he popped up for air (roughly coincided with his rare phone calls - which I never knew when to expect as the programme was always changing). Emailing wasn't an option and tbh if it was I wouldn't have expected much. Life in a sub isn't full of exciting events that you can talk about.

Having said that, I'd be annoyed if I was you and he'd not bothered to read/ respond to questions I'd asked him.

I tried the ebluey thing and never quite sure it works - perhaps the Army is better than the RN (particularly subs). It might be operator error, but when I sent a cuple of letters to a friend in Afganistan he never got them.

TeaTime · 25/09/2008 12:23

Please don't take this the wrong way but it seems to me that if after all your questions, all he can muster is one line, then there has to be a reason. Either you give him the benefit of the doubt that it is a good reason (too much to say, couldn't think of the right words, much rather say it in person, missing you badly all the same) or a bad one (lazy, doesn't really care, guilty about some misdemeanour, in a bad mood for some reason..). For your own peace of mind PLEASE think the best of him!! Feeling annoyed and resentful will hurt you both in the end. If you don't want it all to be one way communication (which I'm sure he's enjoying as there's nothing better than news from home when you're away) why don't you put some of your letters to him on paper and save them till he gets back. If he knows that you are doing this out of frustration he might start to give you more of what you need... But you must tell him that's what you're doing and why - he won't guess!

Mumi · 25/09/2008 13:00

An XP who went abroad for a couple of months used to do something similar. I'd see him online for ages having plenty of time to talk crap to other people on social sites we both use but wouldn't think to log onto MSN to talk to me or to send a quick e-mail/PM even just to let me know when he'd next be in touch. I found it all the more insulting considering he expected to be allowed to move straight into my house when he returned

Now in an LDR, but thankfully with someone far more communicative! YANBU, but stop chasing him. When he realises you haven't been in touch so much or at all, maybe the penny will drop.

scaryteacher · 25/09/2008 14:06

God, you're lucky - dh spent his time at sea underwater, and nil communication at all until they were back.

You don't know what was going on - there could have been an exercise he didn't know was going to happen; he could have just come off watch and been knackered; he could find the contrast between work and home too much to deal with at this point; he may just not have had much to tell you; they could have been closed up at action stations.

Just tell him his family are hassling you and that he needs to get his finger out and deal with it; and, keep e-mailing him...dh used to get back from patrol to a pile of letters that got him up to speed with what had been going on when he was away, and whilst he never used to comment on a lot of it, he said that it meant a lot that I'd bothered to write...and so that he knew what I'd spent in his absence!!!!

Original poster

cali · 25/09/2008 21:41

scaryteacher, he was actually better at keeping in touch whilst he was underwater, despite working 6on/6off, he would write to me most days. It didn't matter that his letters all used to arrive at the same time and usually once he had also arrived back home too.

mumof22... do they still have familygrams whilst subs are operational, i found them really difficult to write after a while, 40 words aren't a lot and it's difficult to know what to say week after week. Maybe I shouldn't have moaned about dh

In the last few weeks, I know he has not been busy all the time and I suppose I had hoped for a little bit more contact and he promised dd1 that he would write to her/send postcards etc, he has done nothing.

I think it was just his fathers comment, of not believing that his email would actually reach dh onboard a ship so wasn't going to send any, but I was to keep him informed of what dh was up to, that annoyed me a little bit.

Ok maybe more than just a little bit as most things his parents do or say annoy me and poor dh bears the brunt of it.

OP posts:

mumof2222222222222222boys · 26/09/2008 08:46

Cali - I'd be very annoyed re FIL. My PIL sent the odd letter to DH, but don't interfere. I'd always call them if I had any news though. I think yourPIL are BvU, but know your DH is in a difficult position although I would want him to back me up if he were mine.

Yes, 2 years ago they had familygrams. They are not the easiest to write (For those who don't know the 40 words you send 4 x during a deployment have to include Rank Name Dear X and LOL Wife, and they are not private (Squadron and CO read them and will censor). Mine read "Missing you, exchanging contracts, baby walking, saw PIL...LOL Mumof 222." And that is all he'd get - as we were buying a house and I had Power of Attourney, there was lots he needed to be told, not that he could do much about it!

scaryteacher · 26/09/2008 08:48

I once had 3 familygrams for a patrol, so was nice and gave one to his mum. We used to get 2 20 word ones for 8 weeks, and then when he did his WEOs job, it was up to 2 x 40 words. My sil used to get loads more for db, but he was on the big buggers that ran out of Fas Lane, not on real boats from Plymouth!!!

Just tell his Dad that you could tell him what dh is up to, but then you'd have to kill him.

Lemontart · 26/09/2008 09:06

If there is absolutely no reason why he would not have access to a computer/post box and/or five minutes to himself to send a letter/email, then he damn well should.
As for your FIL -what a sad excuse not to spend a couple of minutes writing down a few lines to your son. Pathetic.
Sounds harsh I know but I come from a family who has various members long distance and know that it is important to make the effort or wider families drift apart. Starts with the odd forgotten birthday, fewer phones calls and eventually people know so little about each other?s daily lives that they stop even being interested. So sad and so unnecessary.
If you are printing this/sending it to DH - my msg to him would be "get your arse in gear and start making more or an effort to keep that personal link going every day with your wife and family. It takes less time to send a friendly caring email to your child than it does to smoke a fag or drink a mug of coffee. So what is stopping you?"

Lemontart · 26/09/2008 09:07

Just read my post back (I was talking about wider families not suggesting your family is going to split up just thanks to rubbish correspondence Cali! Just talking from my own experience and more complicated than that - sorry)

Original poster

cali · 26/09/2008 11:14

it's ok lemontart, I knew what you meant, we have family 1000's of miles away and it is very easy to slip into the habit of not keeping in touch.

Actually had an email from him this morning , he's coming home earlier today than expected, so will be able to speak properly tonight.

scaryteacher, don't tempt me!

OP posts:

Lemontart · 26/09/2008 14:12

great news he is coming home and you will be able to spend time together

Original poster

cali · 28/09/2008 09:39

little update, dh spoke to his father yesterday.

dh did eventually email his father, after I had asked him several times.

Turns out that he did get dh's email, but chose not to reply to it but instead expected me to pass on any information.

I would like to know how he thought dh and I were keeping in touch

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SmallShips · 28/09/2008 10:28

God your FIL sounds like hard work lol!

If it helps, my DH sends very long emails/letters/phone calls most of the time, he usually gets a couple of lines off me, usually "bugger off, watching Ugly Betty/putting DC to bed/drinking wine" I am a very bad forces wife.

My DH is on a small ship, alongside, doing very little, when hes at sea, i am forgotten.

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