Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

'I'm not doing the school run'

400 replies

Quattrocento · 20/02/2012 22:44

Announced DH, ten minutes ago. Tuesdays are his day, and not mine. I take a deep breath, for I am booked on a 7am flight (which means check-in at 6am and getting up at 5am) which he knew all about, well in advance.

I ask him why. He tells me he does not have to explain himself. Which I think means that he has no good reason for not taking them. Before you ask, there is zero public transport, it's 8 miles away and too far to walk/cycle and all available lifts seem to be taking extended half-terms.

He is being a twat of the first order, and I have no idea why. I've booked a taxi for the DCs, so that problem is solved, despite it not being my problem to solve. But I am concerned about DH's general twattishness here.

So tell me why my husband is being a twat. I'd like to know.

OP posts:
dontlaugh · 22/02/2012 22:34

Quattro, you must be so sooo tired from all this appeasement. I know I would be. He was banking on that tiredness/distractedness when he pulled this trick, as he knew you were travelling and would have lots to do, and obviously he bet on you caving and earned himself (in his head) a victory.
You need to have a long chat. With yourself, to be honest. Then with him.

Chubfuddler · 22/02/2012 22:36

I think the problem is you don't say stuff Quattro. You keep the peace. I would say"why ate you acting like a twat?" "why would I want to go and stay at a hotel 30 minutes away?"

DoMeDon · 22/02/2012 22:37

By avoiding the conflict and not having the conversation you are not facing up to the reality of the relationship. You are unconciously (yes un - not sub) being protected from the scary reality that the relationship is not healthy.

sincitylover · 22/02/2012 22:37

yes mine would do this constantly.He's now my exh and now does nothing - it's all up to me.

So for example very soon I will have to leave house at 8am (so dcs will have to get to school on their own) and I won't be back til about 7 leaving them to cope after school.

This is not the norm but at least I don't need to have the conversation with him about whether he will step up and do it!

When I had dcs I thought that our jobs would be equal in terms of work responsibilities - unfortunately by default mine came second! It now comes third as he has new w and dts who come first!

garlicfrother · 22/02/2012 22:38

Please choose one reply to each question from the options given.

Q: "Are you cross, dear?"

  1. Cross isn't quite the word; contemptuous may be closer.
  2. I am fucking steaming. Have you come up with an explanation for your utter twattishness?
  3. When a team member backs out of a responsibility without good reason, I am very cross with them and put them on warning. This is yours.
  4. Did you want me to be cross, dear?

Q: "I've booked us all into a rather ordinary hotel for the weekend! Isn't that great?"

  1. I hope you have a nice time there, by yourself. I'm taking DC to [insert spectacular event] followed by a pizza blowout. In Paris.
  2. If this is supposed to make up for being a non-parent, it's a lousy effort.
  3. Have you checked that anybody ^wants a weekend in Hotel Ordinaire?"
  4. As [1] but without advice. Just drop it on him the night before.

hth :)

lambethlil · 22/02/2012 22:38

FFS OP, you're obviously intelligent, why are you being so meek? why did you book the taxi? I feel frustrated with you- and also on your behalfWink

OlympicEater · 22/02/2012 22:41

Yes Quattro do show him this thread. He was a monumental arse and deserves to be told.

It was a very unpleasant thing to do - he caused you much unneccessary stress at a time when you didn't need; let down your DCs and for what? To score points? Provoke a fight?

Friends DH is much like this - stormed out of the house half an hour before her 13yo party when 30 odd teens were due to arrive "because he needed head space" so went sailing.

TheFallenMadonna · 22/02/2012 22:44

Why aren't you having a direct conversation about it? I don't understand.

Don;t show him the thread.

Tell him what you think about his behaviour and ask for an explanation.

I don;t understand why you are not being direct.

But then, calm is not an emotion often seen in this house...

Original poster
Quattrocento · 22/02/2012 22:57

You are right in that I am not very direct.

Sometimes I do feel sorry for DH. He is expected to read every nuance when he is barely literate :)

Directness is such hard work though, don't you think? And potentially very demanding. Why wear your emotions on your sleeve? Much better to get people actively reading ...

OP posts:
fuzzPigwickPapers · 22/02/2012 22:58

Ugh what a manchild. Too gobsmacked by his attitude to think of anything else to say!

Chubfuddler · 22/02/2012 23:00

I don't find directness hard work. I would find booking a taxi because my PA husband smugly announced he wasn't doing the school run the night before I went on a work trip hard work. I actually feel ragey thinking about it. I would have punched him in the face tbh.

Sneezeblossom · 22/02/2012 23:02

What a shit.

stealthsquiggle · 22/02/2012 23:02

but then again he is not very at all direct either. He didn't say "Quattro, I am really upset that you are going away" or "Quattro I feel threatened by your success" or "Quattro I feel like shit and really can't face the school run" - he said "I'm not doing the school run"

Directness not a strong point in your household all round, I would say.

foolonthehill · 22/02/2012 23:05

No, I don't think directness is hard work, the other is...take it from a confirmed conflict avoider. Directness is just scary!!!!

Am practising directness myself (reminds self of this for tomorrow)....no-one needs to be asked to read someone else's mind...now that is hard work!

A large white-board with your thoughts on his actions might do the trick? Power-point presentation? or just the old fashioned voice?

Go to it Quattro...it'll be liberating and at the very least illuminating seeing what he comes up with as an excuse.

foolonthehill · 22/02/2012 23:06
garlicfrother · 22/02/2012 23:06

Directness is such hard work though, don't you think? And potentially very demanding. Why wear your emotions on your sleeve? Much better to get people actively reading ...

Wow. You're a match for him in passive aggression.

Life in your house must feel like a chess final.

Original poster
Quattrocento · 22/02/2012 23:11

Well if one of us is playing chess, the other is playing football

i don't know if it's passive aggressive. I know I do passive. I didn't know I did aggressive.

And I still have no explanation for complete arse behaviour. He is trying to compensate by suggesting things that are slightly odd, which suggests that he is apologetic to some degree. But no apology and no explanation (I was tired and I had had a bad day would have sufficed).

OP posts:
Strawbezza · 22/02/2012 23:12

Either ask him why he refused to do the school run. Or forget about it and move on.

3littlefrogs · 22/02/2012 23:13

IMO he is deliberately messing with your head.

However, I am beginning to feel really worried about the psychological affect on your DC, and the life skills and attitudes they will be learning from both of you.

Too many mind games going on here. Sad

dreamingbohemian · 22/02/2012 23:13

Don't show him this thread. First, you need MN as a place to vent and get support, if he knows this he may well stalk you on here.

More important, it doesn't matter what a bunch of strangers on the internet think. You need to tell him what you think.

FWIW my DH grew up in a house like this (although his father never did anything quite this twatty). His parents thought they were keeping everything calm but all the kids picked up on the tension and it was still really stressful for them.

TheFallenMadonna · 22/02/2012 23:15

Being direct is only hard work for a short while though. You've been on slow burn over this for three days.

kodachrome · 22/02/2012 23:15

"Translation: "I offered to take them all away to a hotel for the night to make up for it and she turned me down. There's no pleasing some people, next time I won't bother". (Tribpot)

This.

solidgoldbrass · 22/02/2012 23:16

What would happen if you told him to leave? Would he ignore you? Become violent? It sounds like you are the one with the good income, so you wouldn't be reliant on benefits all of a sudden, and if he regularly pulls tricks like this you are obviously good at coping without backup. So why bother carrying him? You might find life easier and calmer without him in the house, even if he only sabotages things once in a while, the strain of being unable to trust him to pull his weight would be lifted once he's out of the house. You would also not have to stroke his ego or pick up after him any more.

Thumbwitch · 22/02/2012 23:23

Quattro - I realise why you problem-solved for him at the time, but as of now that has to stop. WTAF does he think he's playing at?

First off, give him another day to do the school run to compensate for being an almighty twat about tuesday. Tell him to shove his moronic hotel idea where the sun don't shine and in fact, try giving him a taste of his own medicine because you cannot go on like this!! It might be childish to do "payback" - but sometimes it's the only thing that penetrates the rhino-consistency thickness.

He's done it once, smugly and brattishly, and got away with it. Would you have let your tween and teen do that? No! Do you want them to pick up on his treating you like a fix-it-all doormat and start doing the same? No!

Do have it out with him. And if he refuses to answer with anything remotely sane, I'd cut communications to an absolute minimum until he sorts himself out. But that's me. I certainly wouldn't be playing peacemaker over this.

There IS no compensation for lack of a rational explanation. :(

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 22/02/2012 23:50

Quattro I'm finding this thread quite disturbing reading.

You have been pretty vocal on various threads recently calling yourself a feminist, castigating women who SAH and so on.
I SAH, I have no high powered career, but there is no fucking way my husband would speak to me like that and be so rude and disrespectful, none at all. Because he knows I wouldn't stand for it.

Your relationship sounds weird and sinister, and emotionless.