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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

DH has done something lovely but I am furious with him about it. Can you help me articulate why???

482 replies

TeaFor6 · 05/07/2014 13:21

Brief background is we have been married 9 years, mostly very happy. 4DC DC aged 8, 5 and 6month old twins.

Previously we have always had at least 1 holiday abroad a year. With the (unplanned) arrival of 2 babies things are obviously a bit tighter money wise. So we agreed we would not go abroad this year but would do days out and maybe a long wknd somewhere for ‘holidays’. I can’t lie- I was a tiny bit disappointed about not going abroad. I know it’s a bit of a first world problem but I do look forward to getting away. But I didn’t make any kind of fuss about it and I am excited for what we do have planned.

Anyway, this morning DH sits me and DDs down and announces he has booked a ‘surprise’ holiday abroad. Due to fly in 3 weeks! He booked it over a month ago. I could just about get over him booking it without telling me but I am livid that he chose to tell me at the same time as the DC’s. I am NOT a bloody child. We are supposed to be equals, partners who make decisions about these things together. Surely I’m not wrong on this???

I KNOW he was trying to do a nice thing for me but I just feel so undermined and patronised! And he just doesn’t think things through. He’s booked us a villa. So has he thought about if its in a practical location i.e. easy to push a double buggy around? Close to restaurants/supermarkets? (self-catering of course, so will he be doing all the cooking/washing up? I doubt it) Are there things for the girls to do? Is the house practical with 2 young babies? No. He hasn’t thought about any of that. Nor the inconvenient flight times (fly out at 1am). Plus I will now have to cancel appointments for that week, and a party invite for DD1 that she had already accepted.

On the less practical side I’m upset because I would have liked to have some say in choosing the holiday myself. I love looking through brochures, choosing where to go and counting down the weeks until we leave and I feel a bit like he’s taken that away from me (very childish I know, but it’s how I feel)
I know some people will say I’m being ungrateful and maybe I am, but I suppose I’m pissed off because its just another example of him making a bloody great decision without discussing it with me and just expecting me to put up with it. (It's not that long since we had a big discussion about him doing this and I thought we'd got somewhere but obviously not. It's like he thinks my opinion doesn’t matter Sad) And it feels like he’s done all the fun bits on his own and just left me to think about the practical stuff as usual Plus it might have been nice to have the fun of telling the DCs together. Now he's SuperDad and I get no credit (again very, very childish I know)

I’m trying to explain some of this to him but I’m one of those people who, when I get angry and frustrated, I end up in tears Blush It’s pretty hard to sound sane and reasonable when your voice cracks into a sob every time you try and say something!

Am I right for feeling like this? He just can’t understand why I’m upset and I feel guilty for being so angry when he really was trying to do a nice thing Sad I'm just sick of always feeling like the miserable one who puts a dampener on everything. I don't want to always have to think about the practical side but somebody has to! How do I get through to him??

OP posts:
SolidGoldBrass · 09/07/2014 01:03

Thing is, the OP's partner has previously done similar things. The things he does might look like nice gestures, but they follow a pattern of causing her extra stress and a lot of extra work and she has explained this to him, repeatedly. He is not listening when she explains that his latest Grand Gesture is actually something that is going to inconvenience and upset everyone else in the family. He does little or no domestic work/childcare but what he does is to rev up and overexcite the children. He wanted to get a puppy and told the children that the family would get a puppy despite having been told that getting a puppy would be a whole lot of extra work for the OP, When she explained this to him, he didn't back down immediately. Now he has booked a holiday that is basically a whole lot more work for the OP and this time he has done his best to make sure that she can't put a stop to it or refuse the work.

That's abusive. Backing someone into a corner where they have to do a lot of extra work and smile all the time is treating them like an object or a servant.

AndTheBandPlayedOn · 09/07/2014 01:14

Well said, SGB. I totally agree.

WildBillfemale · 09/07/2014 07:26

He doesn't have to be abusive as such for Tea to decide to leave. Sometimes it's healthier to leave before the abuse starts and the abused is truly immersed in it, with low self esteem or with hardly any options

Good grief! some people have seriously lost the plot on this thread..

Lweji · 09/07/2014 07:56

People realising that they can leave because they want to is one of the greatest tools to be happy and to avoid being in abusive relationships. The pressure to stay regardless or because the partner is (often yet) perceived to be abusive leads to people being trapped.

Normal relationships give and take. Most people don't realise they are being abused until they are being severely abused.
Mostly because they are supposed to keep excusing, to make the best of things and just be grateful for the small scraps of goodness.

And it also helps for people to read sentences properly and read about abuse if you haven't been there.

I do get the feeling that this case can easily go either way, depending on how it's addressed. But it doesn't look good, I have to say.
I do hope the OH here was just misguided and things will get better, but becoming abusive or being a major twat is not good. Twats don't enrich our lives.

Lweji · 09/07/2014 08:01

Sorry, not perceived to be abusive.

squizita · 09/07/2014 08:26

See that is what kept me with my 'weirdo' so long...
...everyone told me he was lovely and so generous... made me feel like a bitch for objecting (much like some on this thread). He did 'lovely' surprise things like:
-Booking meals out (on nights I might otherwise be with female friends he disliked).
-Buying me clothes (so I would look like 'his' version of me, very different to me)
-Buying the ingredients for a very expensive meal which he'd "cutely" according to my mates not know how to cook so I would have to
-Turn up on nights out unexpectedly, how cute (!)
-Visit in the middle of the night (no not sexy, like "I could turn up at any time")
-Surprise holidays (no worries if it messed up my work or studies).

He would play very much on what other people thought of my ingratitude and made it very clear he could turn on the tears (and self harm in front of people) to compound this.

Now in NO WAY am I saying OPs situation is like this. Her DH just sounds childishly lazy and thoughtless TBH, but there are some elements of this here ... very tiny elements. So he NEEDS to be told why it isn't on (hopefully he'll be mortified) ... and she should NOT be told she is ungrateful, not at all.
I know this is an exaggerated analogy but it's a bit like telling someone with a stalker they should be grateful because you're single!

loopylady83 · 09/07/2014 08:52

just read all the other posts I take back the ungrateful comment I put

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