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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to want to flick my sister for saying I should have ironed DH's shirts

30 replies

assumetheposition · 03/02/2010 14:44

My husband started a new job this week which involved a training course. He has been out of work for 3 months.

On Sunday morning, I always have the morning to myself. Dh takes the boys out and I generally stay in bed until 10, get up, have a shower BY MYSELF and get dressed, all in one go without anybody asking me a question.

As DS2 is waking a lot in the night and I'm averaging about 5 hours a night during the week this is sacred.

Anyway, I rang my sister on Sunday morning to ask if she would be in in the afternoon as we were going to pop round. I told her DH needed to get his things together for his training course, iron his shirts etc and I would leave him in peace.

She was going out.

Anyway, apparently she went on at my niece for ages afterwards about how outrageous it was that I hadn't ironed DHs shirts for him that morning instead of laying in bed and how unfair I was to make him do it.

Now, I will add that I did actually iron his shirts in the end anyway as DH took them to his Dad's instead, leaving just me and Silent Witness. So it's not like I object in principle to helping him out.

I would also add that DH has NEVER got up to DS2 in the night.

DH didn't mind the prospect of ironing his own shirts although did ask me very nicely if I would do them for him.

Anyway, now I've written this all down it sounds incredibly petty but I'm going to press post anyway as I am disproportionately insensed!

OP posts:
Original poster
assumetheposition · 03/02/2010 14:46

incensed evem

OP posts:
MoChan · 03/02/2010 14:50

My sympathies. I would be completely incensed, myself. Why shouldn't he iron his own shirts? Honestly. I have occasionally ironed a shirt for my OH, but only because he was pushed for time.

mrsruffallo · 03/02/2010 14:51

She sounds like my mother
You need to practice a forbidding look when they say such silly things

Firawla · 03/02/2010 14:58

its none of your sisters business, so yanbu to feel annoyed with her.

nickelbabe · 03/02/2010 15:01

yanbu: he's been out of work for three months he had plenty of time to iron his shirts!!!

your sister is a moron!

RhinestoneCowgirl · 03/02/2010 15:15

I don't iron DH's shirts.

I reckon that (like you) that as I get up to the baby in the night and also do most of the cooking and cleaning, he can do his own ironing. I also think lie-ins and time ALONE are pretty important.

(mind you I don't iron anything else either...)

mnistooaddictive · 03/02/2010 15:30

Sorry but what is an iron?

blacksmith · 03/02/2010 15:34

non-iron shirts - brilliant invention, wash, hang, dry, ta da

no-one needs to go anywhere near an iron

EssenceOfJack · 03/02/2010 15:35

YANBU. Mil once asked me what temp dh's shirts should be ironed at, i nearly wet myself at the pure speechless horror on her face when I told her I hadn't got a frigging clue.

I then pointed out he had moved out of home 4 years earlier and so he obviously knows how to do it himself. I don't do ironing. I also don't do any of DH's washing, he's 32 and able bodied, he can wash his own skanky pants.

BlauerEngel · 03/02/2010 15:38

I've never ironed DH's shirts in my life. Goodness me, if he lived alone he'd have to do it himself anyway. Like RhinestoneCowgirl and mnistooaddictive I don't iron anything at all. It works if you just hang trousers and tops straight on the washing line. Shirts are the stuff of the devil for creases, but it's not my problem.

Your sister clearly has a 1950s idea of what a relationship involves. I hope your DH was immensely grateful that you were kind enough to iron for him after all, and rewards you by getting up for your DS at night sometime.

moondog · 03/02/2010 15:38

What we think is irrelevant.
What works for you is fine.
I don't however understand the heavy symbolism of ironing a man's shirt.

I iron my dh's because I am quite good at it and I love him.
That's all.

thedollshouse · 03/02/2010 15:43

YANBU. Dh irons his own shirts and he irons my clothes too. I am a SAHM and dh works full time. I would happily iron them but I am not up to dh's standards.

MIL is not happy with this arrangement. When we go on holiday she uses her spare key and comes in our house, takes dh's shirts away and brings them back ironed. She isn't really saving dh the job of ironing as he still irons my clothes.

RhinestoneCowgirl · 03/02/2010 15:47

Actually even DH has stopped ironing his work shirts now, and has started wearing a jumper...

BrahmsThirdRacket · 03/02/2010 15:54

He's a big grown up boy now. He doesn't need a mummy to iron his shirts.

potplant · 03/02/2010 16:00

WTf has it got to do with your sister?

YANBU (although a bit petty to be so annoyed about it)

Original poster
assumetheposition · 03/02/2010 16:02

I know that really potplant. That's why I'm postl.ing on here rather than going round and actually flicking her

OP posts:
mum2all · 03/02/2010 16:10

Aaaaw sisters! DOn't we love them? Even as grown ups they always know exactly the right thing to say to p**s you off and then leave you sounding like a fool trying to explain it to everyone else.
(BY the way my DH irons his own shirts as apparently I don't do them right but he was in Army so everything has to be done just so)

bunnymother · 03/02/2010 16:18

YABVU. You should have wanted to kick her in the shins instead, very hard. Your arrangements are your own, and I think it's outrageous that she thinks fit to judge you on them. So much for the sisterhood. When you are less incensed perturbed, you might want to mention how unnecessary her input in your domestic arrangements are.

Original poster
assumetheposition · 03/02/2010 16:25

Thanks Bunny.

I wouldn't mind but when her children were little (20 odd years ago) both my Gran and my Mum were still alive.

My Gran used to do ALL of her ironing. She even ironed knickers and t-towels. Used to take the poor woman hours.

And my Mum used to look after her children while she went to work.

She did however get very short shrift when she said she disagreed with childcare vouchers as she'd never got tax breaks

Maybe I have issues greater than the ironing

OP posts:
TheArcaneMommy · 03/02/2010 17:12

I do not iron!! Unless I'm going somewhere special!

I am on maternity leave at the moment, and dh is working, and if he wants his stuff for work ironed, he does it his damn self!

Mind you, I have to get up in the night with the baby when she wants feeding, up in the night with the toddler if he wakes, I have not had a full night sleep, or even a stretch of sleep longer than 4 hours for over 2 years..so I repeat...I DO NOT IRON.

I get a lie in on a Sunday too, and nothing, repeat, nothing is taking that away from me!!

Luckily for me, my sister is an even worse housewife than I am, so she thinks I do too much!

lisianthus · 03/02/2010 18:11

YABU. For not actually flicking her. Good grief.

lindy100 · 03/02/2010 18:18

lol at not ironing - I don't even know where our iron is.

DH has seen me iron once. Mind you, he says he's NEVER seen me use the hoover, in nearly 4 years of living together.

Re MIL's and their high standards: when MIL was waiting in for a delivery for us once when we were both at work, she took our jeans out of the wardrobe and IRONED CREASES DOWN THE FRONT OF THEM!!!

Sorry for shouting.

lindy100 · 03/02/2010 18:18

Oh, and YANBU. Sorry.

pranma · 03/02/2010 18:43

my dh bought me a fridge magnet which says 'The ironing fairy is dead,welcome to the world of creases'.We hardly ever iron anything at all.YANBU at all.

MrsC2010 · 03/02/2010 18:45

Ironing? Ironing? Hmmm, I have heard that word somewhere...what could it mean...nope, it's escaped me.

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