Why is dh being so inconsiderate

[Tom]

So we can discuss Mum2boys original message:

I put ds down for a nap this afternoon and I wanted him to have a decent sleep, because he hasn't been sleeping all that well the last few nights and I knew he was tired. Anyway he'd been asleep for about 1/2 an hour when dh came home at around 1.00pm, and much to my irritation he went around the house making just about every conceivable noise, even though he knew ds was asleep. I didn't say anything for a minute and then when he started to get louder, I asked him if he could try to be a bit more quiet - which I thought was reasonable - and he started shouting at me right outside ds' bedroom, saying "I'M NOT GOING TO GO AROUND IN SILENCE JUST BECAUSE HE'S ASLEEP, WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO BE QUIET IN MY OWN HOUSE" etc etc etc. I was so furious that he had yelled at me right outside ds' room, let alone that he didn't give a crp about waking ds up, that I called him a selfish d*khead and stormed out of the house for a couple of hours. Not the nicest thing in the world to say, but I cannot understand why he can't keep the noise down for 1 HOUR out of his entire day - I mean he doesn't even try. I just feel he's being so inconsiderate, after all it's me who would have to deal with ds being tired & cranky if he got woken up. I do just about everything for ds & if I want any help from dh, I have to ask for it.

Can anyone understand my feeling about this or is it really too much to ask? Perhaps if dh had to spend as much time taking care of ds as I do, he might think differently about what he does. I just can't stand men sometimes... b

My reply:
Sounds to me that you need to get your bloke to understand your baby more. The most effective way of doing that is to leave him in charge on occasions (particularly when it involves putting the baby down for a nap). I'm not sure if you're b/fing or not but if you are, you can express, if not, it's easier. But you should talk to him about him being in charge of the baby for about half a day or better, a day. Say you've got to go away to see a relative or something. Put him in charge so he HAS to learn about the baby's rhythms and patterns through the day. Also, in a position where HE has to deal with the consequences of not getting things right, not winding the baby, settling the baby to sleep, changing the nappy on time, being quiet when the baby is dropping off etc etc.

The problem for most men is that we get very little time on our own with the baby when it's very small, so we don't learn parenting skills as quickly as women, and we find it hard to understand what our partner is going through. It's also quite hard for our partners to trust us with the baby.

If you leave him alone with the baby for a day, or half a day, then it will tackle all three of these things.

My other thought is that he might feel resentful of the baby for some reason (not sure why)

And my final thought is that I have heard that babies who learn at a very young age (under 6 months) to sleep in noisy environments become much deeper sleepers than those who are always put into a quiet space to sleep.... so it's not all bad

Tom I had heard that bit about babies sleeping amidst noise if you started out that way and did not tiptoe around them...sadly it didn't work with mine although I did try! They were all very light sleepers and easily wakened but are better now.I know some parents who swear by the noisy approach.

Mum2boys sorry if I may be stating the obvious but is your dh a generally noisy person?
It's just that I can't understand what kind of noises an adult would be making just moving around the house. Was he doing it to wind you up? Was he in a black mood at the time of the last incident and you asking him to be quiet just was the final straw that lit his fuse?(I'm not defending him)
Have you discussed this issue before? (him making a racket when your child is asleep) Can you sit him down when you are both in a good mood and talk calmly about what is bothering you?

Tom's advice is good (although I see from the other thread your child is a little older than some of us assumed) - could you leave dh in charge for a full day (or more) so he can understand more of what it is like to be the main carer? ...then you could come home and start shouting...Just kidding
Hope you get things sorted.

I dunno- both mine have slept far better in nosiy environments. DS2 especially.

Think if you are having problems getting him to understand baby things leaving him alone with the baby for a day is always a good idea.

Ummmm, except when he is likely to smack DS for being tired, as happened yesterday.
Mum2boys, I'm not surprised you were so upset, and really sorry that your frustration caused the thread to get bogged down in other stuff, you must have been really doing your nut at the time.
It does sound as if your dh has a wider problem with lack of empathy for other people at the moment, lack of care for sleeping child, lack of understanding over what it's like for you, and then complete lack of sympathy or sensitivity around tired DS.Does he feel his self-esteem is undermined in some way? Is there anything in particular that might be making him want to throw his weight around? It sounds as if the problem needs teasing out a little further....
Hope things have at least calmed down to give you a breather today.

Sorry Mum2boys, actually meant to post that on your own original thread, I do understand and suport Tom's general point in the grander scheme of things, (as you may well do,too) but think you have a right to have YOUR post responded to in terms of the particular issue you raised, and that it was YOUR perogative to change the title of the thread!

Tom, i do not say this because you are a man, i would think the same of a woman, i think it's very arrogant of you to change someones original thread! However offended you may be!

had tp pop off there but hadn't finished MY rant! I have often read things i don't neccessarily agree with on here but i wouldn't dream of taking it upon myself to change the thread "so we can discuss original message". I have never argued on here and have no desire to but personally i think that was out of order! Or was it supposed to have an "irony" to it because of Mum2boys' title?

TOM are you bit up yourself - retyping the original and then answering??!! You are not the Headmaster of MN. If you wanted a new thread then start with your own question. Why are YOU so annoying. I think someone should start a new thread!!!!

is mumsnet sexist .........maybe the question you should ask tom. or is everyone just menstrual this week?

Tom why dont you tell us what the problem is so we can give you some advicethats if you want too.

because I don't want to moan in pubic about my wife.

Unlike most people on here, I'm not anonymous.

fair enough tom

Tom - "don't want to moan in pubic about my wife" - but you could always moan in public about her (was this a Freudian slip - a clue to your difficulties?)

What intrigues me about all this, is the ease with which some people on here do moan about their dps. We've always lived in small communities, where dh has been known on a professional basis by most people. I have therefore never felt able to bitch about him, even to close friends. But on here too, I have never done this (I think) - tend to avoid those sorts of threads as much as possible.

But sometimes it seems that complaining on here about your dp seems to be an alternative for talking to him/her about the problem, and I'm not sure it's healthy for relationships ...

Does anyone have the same point of view as me on this? Or should I duck now?!

When a child enters a man's life - and it doesn't matter how many times he's done the 'father' thing before - he may feel the need to reassert his status.

Usually, when your dh is a reasonably loving and rational man (no jokes, ladies!), he will quell this urge, knowing that it is selfish and neolithic. Unfortunately, when the other stressors in his life - work, colleagues, dw... - build up, his resistance to the urge starts to fall and he might snap.

Assuming that he usually IS a pleasant and loving man, then your best response would not be to shout back and flee the scene. This will escalate his stress and worsen his mood. He will probably break something.

I recommend, de-escalating the situation by giving him a big hug, telling him that you can see it's been a tough day, month, year etc etc. This will shame him into realising how selfish he's been by yelling. For severe cases, an offer of a cup of tea works wonders. He should calm down, return to his usual state and apologise for his behaviour before going and doing the washing up to make it up to you.

No, really.

dh40k ... LOL ... do we have to put a ribbon in our hair and put some make up on for when he comes home from work too
I agree with KMG ... I find it very hard to bitch about DH to anyone, even on mumsnet, even when we are having a bad time. Last night we had the mother of all rows (started by me I have to say - I was prime bitch witch from hell) that left us both reeling ... because lots of things built up - mainly my frustration at DH's inability to listen when I need to talk and his inability to open up when he needs to talk ...
But however pi$$ed off I get with him I just can't talk about it to other people ... he is my husband and I have to be loyal to him. Yes he can be a selfish prat when it comes to childcare and often has no idea about disciplining DS effectively but he loves us and works f*ing hard for us and often he comes home to the grumpiest cow on earth and the stroppiest toddler on the planet ... and I feel bad about that. Marriage and parenting are the two hardest jobs to do IMO (my life was so much easier when I put my son into nursery and went to work) and we all of us have to keep working at it ... constantly to make it happen.

BTW - Please give Tom a break here ... I could see why the original thread offended him and I thought it was a good thing that he changed the title ... why is everyone so down on him at the moment?

Mum2boy ... I would have been fed up with my DH had he behaved like that when DS was asleep ... but it does sound to me that he is under a lot of pressure ... is it possible to sit down over a glass of something after your DS's bedtime and talk about it?

'Fraid I don't agree with you Ghosty... Tom's comments really annoyed me in Mum2boy's original thread and I totally agree with Blu, Angeliz and Queenie. I think it was arrogant and a little childish to start up another thread just to suit himself - he could have just made his feelings known in the original thread and left it at that.

Kmg1 and Ghosty, sometimes people find it 'easy' to moan about their dp's/dh's because they have been pushed to a certain point and feel that they need an outlet for their feelings. I don't see anything wrong with that, provided they're not publishing their partners' names and intimate details for all the world to see. How do you know they haven't already tried to talk to their partners about their problems? Perhaps their partners just don't want to listen or don't care enough to change anything. Sometimes people just want to know if their feelings are valid. I think it's going a bit overboard to say that people are being disloyal to their partners by whining on here occasionally.

I find it very therapeutic to sound off about my dh on mumsnet and have changed my identitiy to do so as some people here know me in real life.
I completely agree with Tom that it is out of order to generalise about men as a group being inconsiderate , just as you would not dream of talking about , say black people or old people being inconsiderate.
Having said that, any time I have discussed problems I am having with dh among women friends ( a rare thing as I really do feel I am being disloyal) I am struck by how many of them relate to what I am going through, ie their husbands do the same things to upset them . I would not however extrapolate our collective experiences to assume ALL men did such and such.( I am sure Mum2boys did not mean this either.)

Tom why not come back in a few days under another identity to talk about your current situation? I really do think mumsnet is invaluable for real life advice and support.

Thanks Jasper, but I think it would be a bit too obvious now

fair point Tom. The interesting thing is you could "come back" as a woman and reverse your situation but you would not really get a true response as people DO have inbuilt prejudices about what applies to men and women ( especially on mumsnet )

All of this makes me so uncomfortable. I adore my DH, but that does not mean that we don't have our share of problems...this is normal. I am not sure if I have ever posted anything awful about him, but if I did, it was just in the spirit of trying to resolve my feelings on an issue, much the same as I would do with a girlfriend in real life. I loved Mumsnet because I felt like it was an open forum to gather lots of intelligence--not a crap throwing competition. I really want to have more fun next week, OK? Can we put this week behind us?

Lethal ... I did not say that 'people are being disloyal to their partners by whining ... '
I wrote '... he is my husband and I have to be loyal to him'
Whether other people want to vent their feeling online is up to them ... I just meant that I personally couldn't do it in any great detail - it feels wrong ...
DH and I aren't actually talking at the moment but as much as I would like to I could never discuss it on Mumsnet ... it is just me ...
Still don't agree Re. Tom, Lethal ... He admitted to reacting badly to Mum2boys original post and felt he should start up a new thread so that helpful advice could be given to Mum2boy rather than it be a slanging match between men and women ....

Hope you and dh start talking again soon, Ghosty. Am confident it's all his fault- . Seriously though, I hope things work out.

p.s. Is there a Jekyllslib/Hyde Hydeslib/Jekyll thing going on?

I wish I had your scruples Ghosty, but I think I lost them when I came home after a c/section to a toddler and a neanderthal.

I seem able to diss my H up hill and down dale, as most of you well know. I wouldn't like to do it to my sons, though, so I can see the point of remaining loyal. It's illustrative of the difference in relationship between partners and children, I suppose. You love your children whatever they do (usually) and they really feel like part of you. It's a different feeling with your chosen one, perhaps because you chose him/her. (I am aware that some of you out there don't feel this way).
Expectations are also different too, as we expect adults to act responsibly most of the time.
Love, conditional and unconditional - it could be the start of a whole new thread.....................

Here is Tom's attempt at trying again, and yet again gets sl**ged off for doing so.