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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

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To think Dh is totally out of order?

564 replies

Geordieminx · 05/03/2012 08:03

Wil try and be brief.

Trip to shopping centre yesterday lunch time. Dh who was been there as many times (dozens) as I have gets into wrong lane, starts stressing, I try and tell him (not very sympathetically) which lane, he gets cross, I apparently (not sure) spoke to him like crap.

Anyhoo, he tells me to fucking shut up, in front of ds (4). I tell him to apologise, he refuses. I get ds out of the car, and tell him to give me a ring once he has calmed down as ready to apologise for speaking to me like that. He tells me if I get out of the car he is going and I can make my own way home.

Thought he would calm down, things would be frosty but it would be ok. Only not. He didn't come back, rang him once, no answer.

So ds and I had to make our own way home. (didn't even have any house keys), bus then train then lift from friend, in the rain without any coats. We managed though.

He rocks home at 7.30, goes straight to bed and has made it clear he isn't speaking to me.

Argument aside I can't believe he just drove off and left us. Not quite sure what he expected us to do/get home/in. Thankfully my friend has a key.

Just seems like a total shit house thing to do, esp to a 4 year old who was totally aware of the situation and kept asking why daddy had left us, why he wouldn't come and get us Sad

Did I deserve it?

OP posts:
LunarRose · 06/03/2012 10:24

"I tell him to apologise, he refuses. I get ds out of the car, and tell him to give me a ring once he has calmed down as ready to apologise for speaking to me like that. He tells me if I get out of the car he is going and I can make my own way home."

No I'm wrong you don't give him an ultimatum, you actually tell him to leave.

desperatenotstupid · 06/03/2012 10:25

I don't drive myself so I am always the navigator, im very good at it [proud], but it IS stressful to have someone nagging in your ear when you have missed a turning and the OP should have actually been quite calm about saying that the turning was missed. She wasn't, she says so in her OP - so i can picture the scene in my head - if it is a big shopping precint they were visiting, i am picturing maybe a motorway, multiple lanes, traffic lights? Roundabout, etc - not sure which lane to go in, partner doesn't communicate to you in time, then starts having a go at you, in the form of "nooooooo!!!! over there over there, you've missed the turning now oh my god!!" when you have a young child in the bck of the car, lanes of traffic - its a potential disaster and actually i think would take a saint not to get totally stressed out and utter sme profanities.

Then to have the whole "stop the car i'm getting out if you can't talk to me in a civil tongue" drama like something out of a 1970's sitcom

Now im not saying that this is what happened, but im just trying to say that maybe the DH was feeling on a knife edge (i know i would be) and the nagging was the straw the broke the camels back.

Also, lets reverse this - OP comes on and says - I was driving, my DH was navigating and got really stressed at me because i missed a turning. My nerves were already fruaght so i snapped and swore at him. THEN he made me stop the car, Took my son from his car seat, told me to apologise or he would take my son away (not permanently but still), can you IMAGINE the response?

The classic phrases of "controlling bully" and "leave the bastard" along with the number for womens aid would have been handed out before we got to the end of the first page!

diotima · 06/03/2012 10:28

For what it's worth, I think the problem here is hurt feelings and pride on both sides! I think OP and her husband should be grown up and admit it. Then she can explain to him all the ways in which he hurts her feelings and offends her pride without trying to hurt his feelings and offending his pride in the process. Then he can do the same for her. They can agree that if either screws up, the other will try their very best to bite their tongue, keep calm and discuss it later. It's hard but possible.

pictish · 06/03/2012 10:29

Well Lamb - that is a good question. What does one do with a man who issues the silent treatment for days on end, even though his wrongdoing FAR outweighed that of the OP?

Where do you go with a person that childishly chucks his toys out of the pram and behaves abysmally, but who then decrees that he has been hard done by, and is entitled to punish the person he has treated like shit, along with an innocent 4 yr old?

I don't think there's an awful lot you can do with someone so self absorbed!

desperatenotstupid · 06/03/2012 10:29

"I tell him to apologise, he refuses. I get ds out of the car, and tell him to give me a ring once he has calmed down as ready to apologise for speaking to me like that" OP are you are school teacher?

diotima · 06/03/2012 10:30

desperatenotstupid You are a wise person.

ComposHat · 06/03/2012 10:33

That might be what YOU do after a tiff with your other half....but that's your problem

Now you are projecting wildly. I certainly wouldn't be as infantile as either the op or her dickwad husband.

Don't let your determination that the OP brought this on herself, get in the way of what actually took place, will you?

Or your selective reading that allows you to canonise the poster as St Minx and absolve her of responsibility for escalating the situation.

LunarRose · 06/03/2012 10:37

pictish - are you talking about the OP of her other half there I can't tell....

It appears both threw their toys (the child?) out the pram

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 06/03/2012 10:38

OP... Just a question.. In your OP you say that your son was asking "Why has Daddy left us"? You did reassure him that everything was alright, didn't you?

It obviously was alright because you headed off for lunch and some leisurely shopping but I wonder if your son, from what you've said, really understood the situation at all.

desperatenotstupid · 06/03/2012 10:39

They are both in the wrong - the wrongness did not start with the altercation about the missed turning and the swearing, because i wont pretend that voices haven't been raised in our car due to missed turnings, this happens. However the wrongness began when the OP performed and got out of the car with her son. It continued when the DH did not swallow his pride and ring her up and catch up with her to have the rest of the day. It continued when she demanded an apology like she is the fucking queen. It continued when the DH acted like a 6 year old and refused to speak to the OP,and on and on..

Is he talking to you now?

You know you were both in the wrong, and despite me thinking that the DH is the biggest twunt for carrying this on - If i were the OP i would maybe be thining along the lines of peace offerings now, or is she, fuelled by the Mnet massive going to stand her ground and not back down until she gets an apology.

Just admit your part of it, apologise for when YOU were a twat, do not qualify it by saying, but you were a twat too, he knows this - make it up and plan a family day out together next week, but maybe consider taking the train Wink

Whatmeworry · 06/03/2012 10:44

Bah. I am beginning to think those who say there aren't 2 in this tango either have Agendas or zero understanding of relationship dynamics.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 06/03/2012 10:48

yy... Desperatenotstupid. It's very easy for posters here to say "Leave him". They have no emotional investment in the OP's family situation and they don't have to live with the consequences of their 'advice'. I think a poster should be entitled also to have a back-story without posters jumping in to mention it to bolster the 'Leave him' directive.

clam · 06/03/2012 10:49

The argument: six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Him driving off and leaving you and HIS SMALL SON 20 miles from home: bang out of order!
Him stropping until you ( Hmm ?) apologise: arse.

lambethlil · 06/03/2012 10:52

Does anyone have any advice?

We can argue all day exactly where the blame lies, but what should OP do now?

Lemonylemon · 06/03/2012 10:52

I would certainly remove myself and my child from a car which had a bad tempered person driving it......

desperatenotstupid · 06/03/2012 10:59

lambethlil - yes - the OP needs to mke her DH a nice dinner, or whatever will clear the air, and move on. Seriously. Unless there is a back story that i have missed or we haven't been told and this is normal behaviour for this guy to talk to his wife then it is being escalated out of all proportion.

I have just read an awful awful thread in relationships that puts this firmly in propspective.

There is not abuse here, just two immature people, who need to grow the fuck up and move on.

bibbityisaporker · 06/03/2012 10:59

I think Geordie needs to speak to her dh when her ds is not around. She can talk to him even if he is not talking to her. She is angry about the way he has treated them both and I think she needs to start with this.

Whatmeworry · 06/03/2012 11:02

We can argue all day exactly where the blame lies, but what should OP do now?

Grow up and make overtures of reconciliation.

Geordieminx · 06/03/2012 11:14

Make him a nice dinner and clear the air????? Seriously???? Are we in 1936???

He isn't speaking to me, he fucked off out last night as soon as ds and I came in at 6,30 and didn't come back til 9. He slept on the sofa last night. Since Friday evening he has spent less than 3 hours with ds abd now isn't gonna see him until Sunday.

But hey I'll make him a nice dinner and go back to being a good wife.

Unfuckingbelievable

OP posts:
ladydepp · 06/03/2012 11:15

YANBU - you might have slightly been in the wrong about telling him to change lanes but that is on a totally different level to his language in front of his child and to leaving you. He acted like a total arse and if this is indicative of his normal behaviour then you have some serious thinking to do.

My DH can get very stressed in the car, and I never drive with him as a passenger because that is a nightmare. I try to stay quiet when he is stressed but would go mad if he spoke to me like that and if he left me and a child he would regret it for a very long time.

Has your DS mentioned it since?

RhinosDontEatPancakes · 06/03/2012 11:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LunarRose · 06/03/2012 11:18

Nice meal
"look we both behaved like twits, perhaps we need to discuss how we can argue in a more healthful fashion in future, but for now can we put it behind us."

P.s.
Nice guy response - "yes you're right I'm sorry too"
Shitty guy response - silence

desperatenotstupid · 06/03/2012 11:18

No, we are in 2012 and you are both adults, your DH is being a prick, you were a twat - Actually it doesn't matter what year it is, who is in the wrong - but this has potential to end in a separation if one of you doesn't back the fuck down and try and make things right, there are times when being the better person is better than winning the argument.

As i have also said, if this is a pattern of behaviour on your DHs half, that is a very different story.

Do you love him? Is your relationshiop normally good? If it is, put your fucking apron or whatever it takes - seriously, it is a way of putting an end to all the crap without having to argue it out. Stand there naked with a rose up your bum waving a white flag if it makes him laugh.

Yeah it is galling to have to do that when you know he is being an arsehole, but otherwise its stalemate or leave. Those are your choices

LunarRose · 06/03/2012 11:20

But your doing the same! Have you tried speaking to him?

desperatenotstupid · 06/03/2012 11:20

LunarRose Exactly - if he doesn't respond appropriately then the conclusion that he is an utter cunt can be drawn, but to not at least try is sad.