to think DH needs to grow up?

[LordVolAuVent]

Right, this is more a WWYD than AIBU I suppose as am pretty sure it is DH who is BU.

Not so DH refuses to change poo nappies. I think he's pathetic but as he's point blank refused it hasn't been worth the argument (we argue enough). When he's looked after him alone, he's tended to be quite lucky and DS hasn't done one, or has done one not long before I've got back, or he's got someone else to do it thedick.

I've got tickets to Wimbledon this year and want to go with my mum (dont want to take DH as he gets on my nerves too much and would like to enjoy it) but this means leaving DS. I could leave him with my dad and brother and DH gets a free weekend to getpissedandsleeparound have some fun with his friends, or I could leave him with DH. Obviously DS will poo. DH is refusing because of this. This has really got on my nerves, I think he's ridiculous.

So, the questions are, is DH ridiculous or is it a fair thing to not do it (he is really good with sick and deals with that, where I am completely useless)? Does anyone else have this problem? And AIBU to not arrange anything else and just leave DS with DH, forcing him to man up?

I once worked with a fella who got out of all sorts of overtime and such (none of us were professional level in the job) because he claimed he couldn't type. Needless to say, he was extremely unpopular in the office as his inability to type meant someone else had to do the typing overtime that was sometimes necessary, and it was often a single mum who worked in his group who absolutely had to pick up her baby from the minder by 6 pm, but little details like that didn't seem to faze him at all as he breezed through his 8 to 5 hours... He was eventually let go by the office manager -- the (male) bigwigs saw nothing crazy about having someone who was basically a glorified secretary on the payroll who couldn't type.

I think he is being a chancer, and a bold one at that. He's getting a free pass on the poo front just by saying he can't/won't do it, and because someone has to do it, he has realised all he has to do is keep on refusing and eventually someone else will, because someone has to or the DS will suffer. He's getting something out of this right now the prospect of a free weekend with no responsibility whatsoever for his own son is the payoff for his complete selfishness. It's working perfectly for him no poopey nappies on a daily basis and the promise of the odd weekend off whenever you get away too... He has a charmed life. You have all bought his "can't deal with it" lie and adjusted your expectations and lives accordingly.

Lordvolauvent mumsnet is being overrun with people who cry DIVORCE! and see abuse where none exists.

Ignore them

Your otherwise lovely husband is being a knob about this one issue. So what? Vent away

ENjoy your weekend away

I do most of the dirty nappies, DH said prior ti kids he would never do it. He does do it, not too often and grumbles all the way through but does it happily enough. Like you I am happy to do most of it.

Show him the thread and how U he is being then charge him $20 in future for say every 3rd or 4th pooey nap he still refuses to change and see who is being unreasonable then!

LordVAV, my dp will only do them under duress. ie if I've managed to escape the county and he can't find some other poor soul to do it for him.

I'd leave ds with your dad if you don't want to come back to a traumatised household.

Just quietly add up all the nappies you've changed and then when you want something extreme, you have all the ammunition you need.

Well if you're otherwise blissfully happy then the way you deal with this is to say

"no fucking way on earth is my father taking our child because of your refusal to be a parent. I'm going, you're looking after our son and that is the end of the matter."

tell your dad to butt out.

If you let this stand you are accepting that your DH can't be left alone with his son for more than the gap between shits.

That means you have significantly less freedom than most parents of 15 month old children. Don't accept that without recognising that it is a big deal that goes to the heart of equality in your relationship.

Also while the current impasse continues you should similarly refuse to care for DS alone for longer than one shit interval. See how that goes down.

You asked for non-divorce suggestions - here are some.

LordVolAuVent

My DH doesn't change nappies. He gags even changing a wet one. He also deals with the children when they are being sick because I can't.

But last half term I had to do a days work so DH had to look after the younger two dc, both in nappies and both getting over a D & V bug. I asked him if he wanted me to ask mum to help him, but no he wanted to do it himself.

He coped admittly he had to ask the 2yr to make sure the 1yr didn't fall of the changing table while he composed himself .

When I got home it was a tip and no dinner cooked and a shattered dh.

But there was no way he would stop me from doing anything.

Well, I think I was the first to mention the D word, but it was in jest, as I assumed this was a wind-up. I simply find it staggering that, a) there are still men out there who try to pull this kind of stunt and b) that the OP has allowed him to get away with it for 15 months

Sure he's being a bit of a twat. It's like spiders. I can't deal with spiders. Within the parameters of my marriage, DH deals with spiders and I don't.

However, DH is not always there when a spider is. On those occasions I often avoid dealing with the spider until a)someone comes round, b) dh gets home. I do have a secret weapon in the form of two cats, both of whom like eating spiders, so if said creature is in a place I cannot avoid, dh is not due back for a few days, no one is coming round then a cat is unleashed and the spider is dealt with.

I am a complete baby about this. I know I am being ridiculous. I am being a nob.

I would be very surprised if anyone were to suggest that dh divorce me over it.

If LordVolAuVent's dh has to deal with poo, he will deal with poo. He just wants to avoid it as long as possible.

Even I, pathetic twat/nob/coward that I am, have actually dealt with a spider. A couple of times.

But the fundamental difference here, Jux, is that this is the twat's baby son we are talking about. He seems perfectly happy to leave him uncomfortable in a poo-ey nappy, cultivating a painful rash, which is a bit different from you quaking on the sofa avoiding a spider, traumatic as that must be.

Sorry no way can you compare the op's son to a spider. That's just ridiculous.

Unless op's ds is the spider baby.

In which case I can quite see the problem - I'd run a mile from changing the nappy of an eight-legged toddler too.

More relevantly, my MIL never changed a poo nappy. I'd get back from work, find dd screaming, MIL saying "I don't know what' wrong with her" and find that the poo's been there for so long it's dried on to her poor little bum. But that's another thread.

LordVol, I really don't think that you need to worry. Go to Wimbledon, enjoy it, your dh will change the nappies because he'll have no choice but to do so, and he knows it.

YANBU your DH is a twat and if I were you I would take the next poopy nappy and hit him in the face with it!

fuck me, VolauVent I've just seen this...

and, umm... I think it is a MASSIVE jump for someone to read some (very definitely crap and twattish) behaviour from your DH and cry 'divorce'.

I think wukter put it clearly and concisely. You need to sort it out, he's being a twat, you know that.

And it is utterly bonkers that he can't look after his son without you for this reason. Ok, your Dad adores his grandson (mine is the same, used to sit up all night singing to ds when he was born) but it is TOO EASY for your DH to use this. He needs to get his head around the fact that poo will not kill him

And before anyone questions me, yes my DP changes nappies! Of course he does.

VolauVent, you needed a kick up the arse about this. BUT you obviously love your DH as does your DS. You DH has proved to be truly rubbish at something that is important for his relationship with you, and with his son.

So don't divorce him (yet ) Kick up a fucking stink and make him see this is important.

and erm, yes, he is a twat

Are you honestly asking this woman to DIVORCE her husband because he doesnt like changing nappies?

Probably knows he is unreasonable, and trying to push his luck for a weekend off. Not the worst thing in the world, and certainly not worth a divorce. OP didn't say he refused to look after DS, just that he'd rather family did.

flipping 'eck.

Just read the whole thread.

So - someone has a row in their otherwise happy marriage about an issue that's never been an issue before. She sounds off (haven't we all) and she's supposed to divorce him and she's a surrended wife or something????

huh?

Yes he's being a twat about it, divorce him - ermm nope.........

Although I think he needs a kick up the arse about it, I would also be tempted to take the offer of granddad looking after the DS...........but ONLY if the DH hasn't had a weekend off either since your DS was born........if he's had time off then he'll have to deal with it and stay at home with DS.

Oh no, wait she did say he refused. Well tough, stand your ground. Its his son, he'll have to deal with it.

Stewie is right.

What's more, you are talking as though divorce is something that just happens overnight - as though the OP should just flick a switch and be divorced.

The only way an issue like this could lead to a divorce is if the wronged party pushed it (as I have suggested above) and her husband STILL refused.

We are talking about someone who POINT BLANK REFUSED to do his bit and an OP who is talking about how she can't FORCE him.

She can force his hand by making it clear that looking after his child is a minimum expectation of parents in their family and that if he continues to refuse to comply they will have to reconfigure their family accordingly.

A man who will continue to refuse to do his bit if he knows his wife will not accept it and carries that refusal on because he knows (or at least assumes) that his wife won't divorce him is verging on abusive.

Leaving someone is ultimately the only leverage you have in a relationship where you are being treated like shit. I think the point several posters were making was that this issue is a big enough deal to use that leverage.

I really don't know how a parent could leave poo on a tiny little child's bum and think her was a good dad. It can be really sore and get infected.
Really, would he leave his own mother lying in her shit when she's as helpless as his DS is now?

How can he think he doesn't have anything to do with it? That it's not his job?

I'd relieve him of a lot of his ''duties'' also. Do you have sex with this man?!

Forbidding you to go eh? humm... interesting.. and you don't think you're surrendered?

I think you need counselling as a couple after he has put the work in in therapy about his selfishness.

One of my abiding memories of my childhood is of slicing the top of my thumb and there being a lot of blood, and my mother just leaving me to rinse it off myself as 'she couldn't stand the sight of blood'. Nowadays, I don't get on with her, as I feel this was indicative of her 'opting out' whenever it suited her. So she's not part of my life - I opted her out.

Your Dh needs to know that "life is messy, suck it up", and go and learn how to wash his hands, if he's afraid of getting dirty.

Skidoodly I think I would also run a mile if I saw a spider baby! nappy or not! LOL

I would be more concerned that your H thinks it is ok to use emotional blackmail to get his own way (by deliberately making you anxious that he would let your baby sit in shit)

but much more worryingly, that you seem strangely accepting of his blatant manipulation of you

he is a tit

you are foolish to allow him to choose which bits of caring for his son he wants to do

this trip to the tennis is, unfortunetly shining a rather harsh spotlight on his poor parenting skills

Can your DH wipe his own arse? Or does he need assistance? Does he vomit when he has a shit? I am intrigued.