DP's annoyances - is this just reality and what all men are like?

[elsaisnotatiger]

My DP is very sweet, kind, attentive and helpful. He loves our little son and is a great father.

However when it comes to real life he is a basket case. Leaves clothes lying all around the house, wet towels on the sofa, plates everywhere. If he starts a DIY job he will leave bits and tools all over the place. He has no common sense whatsoever (eg leaving the baby in a bumbo on the roof of the car once, and said the baby could not fall out of the bumbo. Could not understand why I went mental). He forgets to buy food, lock the house etc. We have a bath mat that says "hot" when the water is too hot for the baby and yet he put him in regardless. He just doesn't NOTICE things. He will let the baby play with a bottle of paracetamol, saying it has a childproof cap and therefore is perfectly safe....
When we go away I have to double check that he has remembered all the basics, because if I don't, some vital item will have been forgotten.
I get really frustrated with all of the above and end up snapping at him and feeling like I have two children, not just one.

Am I being overly fussy? Are all men like this? Or will these annoyances end up being a deal breaker in time (we have been together two years)?

I hope I'm wrong, but seems to me that it's he knows what he doing:

Act slack, put the baby in these situations

He'll act "oblivious" or minimise it

Then you'll eventually make sure that he's never left in charge of the baby as he can't be trusted.

Easy life for him, job done

What was his childhood like?

It isn't so much the doing of each thing (although the car roof was serious enough for me to leave on it's own) but the defensiveness over thinking his neglect is acceptable. I'm wondering whether he has a "my parents neglected me and I'm alright" attitude which is underpinning his defensiveness or whether he is just emotionally immature and prioritising his pride above his child's safety.

This man is so far from being a good father, he is actually a danger to his own child. Is he ever in charge without another adult there to follow him round dismantling his baby traps?

Sounds like ADHD to me ( I speak from experience....) my OH sounds very similar to yours.
He is HIGHLY intelligent and kind, but he lacks any sense of danger, is incredibly untidy, starts 100 tasks at once; finishes none and it is like having an overgrown infant partner at times, but once I realised (I researched it to death) that he ticked all the boxes , I learned Icould work with it, not against it.
And imagine HIS relief.It can't be easy being him.

Google NHS Direct for ADHD symptoms.
It was when you said he's wandered off to do the gutters etc. that it clicked.
Many adults go un diagnosed and understanding the condition will enlighten you no end.
My OP shunned meds and we manage it fantastically. It is like a light has gone on in our relationship. Now it all makes/ made sense.

I may be wrong, but thought my thoughts might help you.

He's oblivious to things that might hurt or kill his child but he's a great father?

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all.

If he's someone who finds remembering things difficult, then he needs to come up with his own strategies for dealing with that. If he's intelligent then he is more than capable of using the internet to look for techniques and methods for improving his memory or organisational skills.

If he refuses to do that, then it shows that he would rather endanger his own son than put in a bit of work and effort. And that's a million miles away from being even a good father, never mind a great one.

Yes, that is different - a consistent lack of baby safety is more worrying. Is there any chance your mil could talk to him too?

I've seen women put babies in car seats on car roofs. I've known highly intelligent women be incredibly scatterbrained and potentially dangerous when it comes to looking after their toddler.

So, no, it's nothing to do with someone's gender. But often women wipe away other women's behaviour with "well they are so busy and stressed being mums, you can't expect them to be perfect" or (even worse) "oh it's baby brain"

He sounds a very decent guy, I do not doubt that.

But you ask whether this is normal behaviour. Yes, from someone thoughtless and essentially quite absorbed. No, it is not normal behaviour from a loving, sensible and thoughtful father and husband.

DH has a tendency to be like this.

I call him Frank Spencer when I'm really annoyed with him

The leaving wet towels, clothes, plates around is "just" lazy and disrespectful - presumably he just expects you to clear up after him?

The neglectful/dangerous stuff with the baby is totally unacceptable though. Just on this thread you've listed 4 occasions where your baby could have been seriously injured or killed! Of course many parents have one or two near misses where they drop the baby/rolls off a bed/pulls a cup of hot tea on itself - but the difference is most people care that they've done it, accept their mistake, and don't do it again!

I personally could not raise a child with someone who was such a crap parent.

Below is a list of symptoms associated with adult ADHD:

carelessness and lack of attention to detail
continually starting new tasks before finishing old ones
poor organisational skills
inability to focus or prioritise
continually losing or misplacing things
forgetfulness
restlessness and edginess
blurting responses, and poor social timing when talking to others
inability to deal with stress
taking risks in activities, often with little or no regard for personal safety or the safety of others

I am not excusing your DH from his highly risky and quite frankly irresponsible behaviours but do the above apply in your case?

Our kids survived ( thank fuck) numerous dangerous hours whilst being looked after/ entertained by their father eg. Pretend camping trips using carrier bags as sleeping bags (age 2) , prize giving for who could hold their heads under water in the baby bath for the longest (ages 4-6 )in the garden at our sons Birthday party ( his response, it's the same as apple bobbing...?!?!), wandering off to take photos leaving them playing in a mushroom strewn forest ( ages 2 and 5) etc. etc.

In turn this ramped up the volume re my danger anticipation radar and I nearly went mad watching and waiting and almost willing him to fuck up. Not a nice place to be for any of us but I researched, informed him and we worked as a team.
Our kids are balanced, love their father and have survived into teen hood with no ill effects.

My DP is like this and it is extremely stressful to live with. Talking to him, explaining the dangers, asking him to be more attentive....all that just doesn't help and I wait for the next visit from the fuck up fairy.

I'm not saying LTB but I know how frustrating and difficult this is to live with on a day to day basis. I'm in the process of trying to decide if I can put it with it for much longer

My DH looked after our DS full-time from 9 mths through to 15 hrs' nursery at age 3, and he is still the predominant carer. Never in all that time have I had one moment of worry re: the quality of his attention and DS's safety. As has been noted above, all men are not like your DP. In fact, I have to raise my own game all the time so as not to lapse into letting him do everything too much. Sounds to me like your DP knows he doesn't really have to bother because you will step in, and of course you keep having to step in

Xh was like this. Ds1 almost drowned one holiday when he let him run off and go down a giant water slide on his own. (He was 3 and couldn't swim, I had to abandon the pushchair, thrust baby ds2 on a complete stranger and go in fully clothed to get him out - terrifying)
Other incidents included leaving them near a lit BBQ while he mowed the lawn, not holding hands while out and about so ds1 legged it near roads.
The stress was totally hideous to live with.

I think you have to separate out the different issues. The untidiness and forgetfulness around holiday packing, are matters that you can just ignore. I know you don't want to ignore them but as long as you act like his mum and fix everything for him then he will not change.

The lack of care around your dc is much more worrying. Does your dp have poor risk assessment skills generally? eg does he take unnecessary risks with his own safety?

If he does, then at least you can see it's a bigger issue than being a neglectful parent. I think it's important to see the cause to try to work out a solution.

If his sense of risk only leaves him when he's looking after the dc then it is a parenting issue.

If he never has a good sense of risk then it's part of his personality and he'll have to try to find a solution to that broader problem.

Carlywurly, can I ask how your XH deals with having the dcs for access?

hmmmmm my ex was like this.too stressful to lve with - I believed he was of the I just can't be bothered school which is extremely hurtful.
one of the reasons he is my ex.ime they don't change.

But look, seriously, he can't be this incompetent and lacking in common sense generally. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to hold down a job, he'd injure himself constantly and be incapable of driving a car.

You don't put a baby in ANY kind of contraption on top of a car. WTF? It's not even a flat surface and babies aren't inanimate, they move. You wouldn't put a laptop or other delicate thing on top of a car so why would you put a baby there?

Not wishing to scaremonger but there was a thread here a couple of years back where the poster's DH had put petrol on a bonfire and (accidentally, of course!) set fire to the child's buggy with the child in it. It was utterly horrific and upset me for ages.

KateAdie is right. If it just affects issues to do with the DC then it's a parenting issue, NOT a personality issue.

Do you want your son to grow up thinking that this is what men are like? No? Then do something about it.

And YY furlined. "I just can't be bothered." Sums it up. When you care about your children's safety and wellbeing, you MAKE yourself bothered. I'm clumsy, but I was distraught when I hit DS' head on a door frame when I carried him as a baby. Probably happened a couple of times. I catch myself on door frames, cupboards etc regularly but funnily I don't seem to injure DS accidentally anywhere near as often.

I did try to speak to him about this yesterday. He was outraged and said I was over-reacting and that he'd never allow anything to hurt the boy. He was still adamant that toddlers cant open pill bottles and that he could not possibly have fallen from the Bumbo. Etc etc. I'm pretty depressed about the whole thing.

So what can you do then op? Honestly. I've been so shocked by the car roof thing I was talking about it at a party last night. Everyone was shocked, before I finished the story, after I'd explained what a bumbo was and that he'd put the baby in it on top of the car and gone to do the gutters my mum jumped in and said "oh no was the baby killed?!"

He is outraged at you pointing out his terrible parenting, verging on criminal neglect in this case, he remains a serious risk to the baby.