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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

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Original poster

Longstanding row with DP

51 replies

QueenofallIsee · 19/01/2015 08:23

We have been together 14yrs and have 4 children. Things are not perfect but we are very much together. We have been arguing about the same behaviour for many years and it is getting me down somewhat, though it will surely sound v petty. Here is this mornings example but it happens often

DP: The cat is in
Me (checking emails etc ahead of school run): Oh
DP (comes through from kitchen): You have left the top off the butter, the cat will get it. Come through and put it back on, or would you like me too
Me: I am sending an email, you walked passed the problem, why not just put the lid back on yourself, that it what I do
DP: How will you learn if I do everything for you?
Me: ...you are not a teacher, I dob't need teaching...I need help in the mornings to get everything done
DP: You should get things ready the night before.
Me: angry expletives

It drives me insane. He is constantly making me feel as though his help is conditional or only needed as I am rubbish. For absolute openness, i am very messy indeed but I do my fair share of picking up after everyone, cleaning etc. To me, he thinks that I only qualify for help if I ask for it, or do things properly. He thinks that I should want to make things easier and better so he is duty bound to comment so I don't make the same mistake again.

What do you think?

OP posts:

clam · 19/01/2015 08:30

"How will you learn if I do everything for you?"

I presume you told him to fuck right off!

Disclaimer: it does actually piss me off too, when dh leaves the tops off things in the kitchen, and dumps yoghurt lids/Dairylea wrappers on the surfaces, but I wouldn't dream of making such a patronising remark to him about it. although that might be why he still does it after 20 years together. Hmm

NeedABumChange · 19/01/2015 08:30

I think you should put the lid back on the butter when you're done and not have a cat that goes on worktops. And if he points something like that out I would have said, "sorry dear/babe/darling, can you pop it back on for me". But I get that what he's doing is annoying, my dad used to tell me I'd left a light on upstairs and make me go up and turn it off instead of just turning it off himself. So... I think you're both being deliberately awkward. Does this happen when you're both stressed and rushing around or when you're chilled and having nice days?

AnnieLobeseder · 19/01/2015 08:31

You have been very restrained if he isn't already under the patio. He is a patronising twunt who is infantalising (sp?) you.

You handled it the same way I would have, except I would have said I'm not a child to be taught, nor is he my parent, and that I expect him to be a partner in getting the necessary work done instead of criticising my contribution.

anonacfr · 19/01/2015 08:33

I think anyone who deliberately refuses to tidy something to prove a point and uses it as a 'teaching aid' (???) instead is a bit of a prick.

Why is it up to you to get everything ready for the kids the night before? Why can't he give a hand in the mornings?

NeedABumChange · 19/01/2015 08:33

Sorry but OP does say she's messy. On MN posters are always told not to pick up after messy husbands or they'll never start doing stuff themselves. How is this different?

She acknowledges that it's a problem but doesn't take any responsibility for causing the problem or attempt to rectify it or apologise for causing it.

Original poster

QueenofallIsee · 19/01/2015 08:34

Oh def when we are on the clock, one of the reasons why it winds me up! It is exactly like a parent thing, I don't deliberatly make a mess but I am chided like a child. Though I should have put the top back on granted...it was one of those, make a lunch put in the school bag, see something else that needs doing, forget kitchen

OP posts:

NeedABumChange · 19/01/2015 08:34

Oh, hang on... Did you leave the lid off or did the children?

LadyLuck10 · 19/01/2015 08:44

Honestly you say you are messy and your attitude would piss me off as well. Why should he clean up your mess just because he notices it, won't that make someone even more oblivious to problems because there's someone doing it for them. Take a second and look behind you when you leave a room.

MinceSpy · 19/01/2015 08:48

Stop checking emails first thing when you should be doing other things.
Put the lid on the butter.

Tyzer85 · 19/01/2015 08:49

If I make a mess and for whatever reason I don't clear it up the missus will ask me to, I don't see how this is any different?

Original poster

QueenofallIsee · 19/01/2015 08:49

I did. I make the lunches for the children, I carried the box through to put into school bag and saw that the pe bags weren't out, I got those out, saw an email from my boss, was replying and buttergate started. I AM messy, no mistaking that. I feel that he would have a justification to quibble but not in the way he does. I also am not a Mumsnet messy husband exactly as they tend not to help their wives at all, whereas I pull my weight/do more

OP posts:

clam · 19/01/2015 08:52

So, you were working and he was doing....what?

And what time does he get up? I'd be pissed off to be told to get up earlier if he was still in bed and wasn't going out to work that day.

Ragwort · 19/01/2015 08:53

You both sound a bit petty to be honest .

I can never understand threads like this which take ages to write, think and get cross about when it would take - what? - two seconds to put the butter lid on.

Don't sweat the small stuff. .

DeliciousMonster · 19/01/2015 08:54

But it is not YOUR mess, it is the mess that is made when one parent has to do ALL the kid work. What exactly is he doing in the mornings, or evenings, towards the morning rush?

clam · 19/01/2015 08:56

Oops sorry - ignore last post. Wrong thread.

Flimflammer · 19/01/2015 08:58

In a way he is right, it is easier to spend a calm 15 mins preparing bags and lunch the night before, and if this argumentative morning is routine you need to change how you get ready. However, it would be worth pointing out that you aren't the only adult in the house with a working pair of hands. As he is so good at butter dish lid control, perhaps he could be the one to prepare the lunches.

slithytove · 19/01/2015 09:00

Why don't you put the lid back on the butter? DH does stuff like this and it feels sometimes like I exist to pick up after him, that I'm walking around the house correcting his laziness.

I also don't see the link between you needing help and you being unable to put the lid on the butter.

But I am a tidy person who would do my buttering and put the lid back on immediately.

And the how will you learn is patronising yes, but does he have a point? If he is always tidying up your loose ends for you, what incentive do you have to bother? Having said that, nothing has worked on DH in 5 years.

slithytove · 19/01/2015 09:04

Few more examples

Food not put back into the fridge when used
Rubbish left on counter not in bin
Nappies left without the bags tied / left at removal site
Tea towels left on floor
Washing left around the house instead of in washing basket
Lights left on

I am not here to do extra work on behalf of someone else. I already do the laundry, I'm not going on a laundry hunt before I have the privilege of washing it.

Maybe your DP has similar issues and maybe I'm projecting just a teeny bit

CatsClaus · 19/01/2015 09:11

put the lid on the butter and stop making work for other people!

no wonder he is patronising and sick of your habits! You are being chided like a child as he is picking up behind you like a three year old.

And, you should finish one thing at a time. aside from the fact that the children could be making their own lunches, they certainly could be putting stuff into their own bags and you ought not be starting emails until you have finished what you started in the kitchen.

CaptainAnkles · 19/01/2015 09:17

I think if my DH ever said something like that to me, about 'how will you ever learn', I'd be tempted to pick up a handful of the butter and stick it on his nose. How incredibly patronising!

Moniker1 · 19/01/2015 09:18

My DH is angry or condescending to me on occasions, it effing infuriates me but.... it is, I'm pretty sure, because something else has riled him and he is either deliberately or untowardly taking it out on me.

So possibly your DH was peed off at being late in the morning, or some other annoyance, but rather than admitting to that just rattles your cage instead, it's as if he is thinking, well, I'm late and annoyed why should she sit happily on the laptop.

I could be wrong. I also don't have a solution because if I say anything to my DH he denies being cross, grrrrrr. I have learned to ignore it because it isn't really about me at all, but his prob.

Also is I was v busy I would rehome the cat.

Moniker1 · 19/01/2015 09:20

Should say 'if' I was v busy.

FriedSprout · 19/01/2015 09:26

In all fairness, if your dh has had to pick up after you for 14 years and has lived in a mess created by you for 14 years, then expect to be treated like a child.

schoolclosed · 19/01/2015 09:29

Are you me?!

I'm currently trying the 'sorry, babe' approach. He does have a tendency to ratchet up, though, so he then gets: 'are you my mother?' And it's downhill from there.

Earlier this week I asked him to pick up some bits from the supermarket on his way home from work - salad, painkillers, deoderant. When he got in, dinner was on the table so he sat and ate. As I was clearing up from dinner (while he bathed the kids) I found the shopping on the kitchen worktop, so I put it away. Later that night he went to get painkillers from the bathroom cabinet. I had put the painkillers away but had not 'rotated' them with the existing half-packet (i.e. the full packet was at the front). I got a mini-lecture about putting things away 'properly'. I said 'sorry babe,' and bit my tongue - never argue with a man with a headache. But ARRGGH! The psychic pain! WHY AM I ALWAYS IN THE WRONG!? And breathe...

In summary, you are not alone - but I have NO IDEA how to make it stop!

kaykayred · 19/01/2015 09:31

I don't think there is really a reason to be so fucking patronising to your partner.

It might be though that your husband's behaviour reminds me a lot of how my ex used to speak to me. Yes, you need to put the lid on the bloody butter if there are cats around. But all he needs to do is to say "Put the bloody lid on the butter or there will be cat hairs in it".

Not some bizarre passive aggressive , patronising lead up.

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