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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

Sweet bloody potatoes and DH attitude to cooking

170 replies

toweroflearning · 30/08/2017 06:58

I am currently feeling really pissed off with DH attitude and not sure if AIBU or not?

I got in from work last night slightly later than DH. I'd been to Tesco on way home from work to pick up something for dinner.I start preparing to cook this as soon as I get in as it's nearly 7pm. DH neither asks what I'm preparing nor offers to help make it. That's until he sees I've bought sweet potatoes and goes "oh, sweet potatoes?" In a tone that clearly indicates his displeasure at the fact. It seems like such a throwaway comment, but it triggered something in me and I responded he is welcome to make his own food if my meals aren't up to standard. This descended into an argument that basically lasted the rest of the nightSad

AIBU to feel so pissed off? I prepare 99% of the meals in our house, along with doing all meal planning and most of the food shopping. DH even had the frigging nerve to say during the argument that I always cook the same things!! I feel like I'm living in the 1950s right now and not even sure how I got hereConfused

OP posts:
Cambionome · 30/08/2017 21:07

I understand what you are saying, op, but be careful. It sounds as if he holds most of the cards here because he basically cares less than you. Don't let yourself start tiptoeing around him worrying about what he thinks and what you ought to do to keep him happy. Sometimes you have to be a bit tougher than seems right in order to get the result you want.

LisaMed1 · 30/08/2017 21:18

Why should he change? If he cared enough about you he would have changed already and right now he's happy with you taking the strain when it comes to keeping the household going.

You seem to think that if you use the right words then he'll understand He already understands. And he's happy with how things are.

TestTubeTeen · 30/08/2017 21:38

"If he would like to remain married things will have to change. It's as simple and serious as that."

That is a good clear message. Currently he does not care enough about you to make things fair. Make it clear that in the same vein you do not care enough about him to carry on as his skivvy.

TestTubeTeen · 30/08/2017 21:43

And as for your fertility friendly diet definitely stop ttc until he shows he can pull his weight domestically.

This will be 100 times worse if you have a baby.

Tell him why you are putting a stop on ttc.

Mysteriouscurle · 30/08/2017 21:56

He cant cook? Well he can eat what you give him or starve

And who doesnt like sweet potatoes? HIBVVVVVVU for that aloneGrin send them my way

toweroflearning · 30/08/2017 22:18

He won't be as happy when I actually carry through on my threats. Atm I just rant and rave, but then just go back to the status quo.

He's off work this weekend. We will be sitting down and drawing up a list of expectations and chores. If he doesn't stick to it then I have my answer don't I?

OP posts:
fluffiphlox · 30/08/2017 22:24

When we were both working, one person would do the menu and shopping list for the week, the other would do the actual shopping run and whoever got in first cooked supper.

RunRabbitRunRabbit · 30/08/2017 22:30

If he won't sit down and write the list with you then you have your answer. Don't do the bloody list all by yourself!

user1493059174 · 30/08/2017 22:36

Your post literally made me shudder. I must be married to your husbands brother. Should have started how I meant to go on years ago, - didn't and have basically cooked every meal that has ever been consumed in this house and done all the shopping. Well, things have changed here, children have grown up and mostly do their own thing and I actually choose when I am going to cook, and if I don't want to I simply don't. He will wander around for hours looking for any signs that he might get fed and then finally, about 10 o' clock he will make a sandwich or go get fish and chips (for himself only). Try it - best thing I ever did! It is not just your job!!

toweroflearning · 30/08/2017 22:58

user My DH brother is only 18, so I hope you're not married to him (lovely as he is)

I'm sorry to hear your DH is so useless. Well done for making a stand, but I cannot believe he goes out for fish and chips and doesn't get you any. So utterly thoughtless and disrespectfulAngry

OP posts:
Hillfarmer · 31/08/2017 00:19

I've done infertility and worn t-shirt etc., but really and truly you should consider whether you really want to have children with this chap

He will only get worse. If he treats you as if your work and time is worth less than his NOW, then it will be even worse when you have a dc. You need to be a team, he will need to look after both of you - not just by earning money. Will he do that do you thin? Or will expect to carry on doing his stuff, blog etc., regardless of your needs.

I think you would be expected to do most of the parenting without complaint, and if you did complain you'd be accused of whingeing.

Plus this man has mother issues. The piece of advice I would give my daughter? Find a man who likes his mother, as he's unlikely to be a secret woman-hater. Secret woman-haters come out of the woodwork when you have a child. Mine did. And it's not pleasant.

Hillfarmer · 31/08/2017 00:20

Typo: think?

TheSparrowhawk · 31/08/2017 01:12

He's said sorry but if you text back saying you're still annoyed because he's still not listening then he'll say you're childish. So basically he isn't actually sorry, he just wants you to shut the fuck up.

squeekums · 31/08/2017 01:45

Dp knows if he wants anything out of my usual offerings, he can cook himself and he does. He a better cook than i lol

Hope your dh enjoys his toast and noodles op

NearlyFree17 · 31/08/2017 02:50

God it's so depressing there are so many men like this out there.
My ex was like this and I totally lost respect for him, he was just a big man baby. Who can fancy a man who expects you to be his mum? He also had a terrible relationship with his mother. But looking back it was after she died that our relationship really fell apart.
His new girlfriend is already mothering him :-/

ikeadyounot · 31/08/2017 07:56

tower - your plan is great. I think, for your own mental and emotional wellbeing, you need to sit down and have that calm chat with him. However, I think that is almost as much for you as for him. You need to know that you have explained as clearly and simply as possible what the problems are, as you see them.

Some relationships can change. Some men can listen and be unselfish. However, as I've explained on this thread, I come from a place of trying for years and years in every conceivable way, to reach an exP on these issues. Like your fella, he was fun and emotionally demonstrative. But when it came to housework he was truly, truly selfish. I tried literally everything to get him to listen - from rational talks, to begging, to pleading, to yelling and screaming, to asking to see a counsellor (he flat out refused). He would huff off and do the job for 2 minutes, and then we'd go back to a normal where he had to be cajoled into lifting a finger.

Every time there was a job to be done, I'd have to manage his emotional reaction to being asked. I'd find treats that he could have afterwards, I'd wheedle, I'd beg. It was like a constant emotional drain, trying to find creative ways of avoiding a row over the smallest thing.

In the end, I ended up in a place where all of the love I'd had for him was just exhausted. And I do mean exhausted - it was like it was burnt out of me by having to repeat the same thing over and over.

When I left he was absolutely devastated. Really upset. And couldn't understand it. He asked me over and over again why I'd ended things - and every time I told him the truth: primarily, the housework. He still refused to believe that this was the reason it was over, and instead invented a whole series of imaginary mental health problems from which I was supposedly suffering to 'explain' it. (I was depressed. Over the housework). I think it was only at that point that I realised that, for whatever reason, he simply couldn't hear me on this issue. Something in him, something really entitled and dismissive, just refused to acknowledge his responsibilities and duties towards others in a household. Writing long, bad reviews of movies, playing the guitar incredibly badly, watching TV were always going to come not just first but second and third as well. And it honestly didn't matter to him that this meant that someone else was washing his pants and cleaning his shit off the loo. He just felt that he was owed that by the universe. He claimed that it was only me who 'wanted' the house nice, that he just didn't care, and therefore it was my bad if I wanted a clean loo. Yet he wouldn't have kept his job, or been able to function, without someone doing those tasks for him.

When I left, I was emotionally all over the place. I was hurt, terrified, I doubted myself no end. But as the weeks went by, I started to feel relief. Life was SO much easier without having to cajole someone into doing their fair share of work. There wasn't an atmosphere of conflict and frustration constantly hovering over me. I didn't feel exhausted looking after two people instead of one.

Then I met my DH - who is brilliant at housework!! He works longer hours, in a far more responsible job, than my exP, and if I ask him to do anything around the house, it's done instantly and without fuss. He notices when we're low on loo roll, and goes to the supermarket and picks stuff up. He notices when the floor needs hoovering, and does it without asking. Sometimes it's me telling him that, at 10pm at night, he really should try to sit down and relax rather than mending the lamp. I cannot tell you how much more mental and physical energy I have for everything. I haven't been depressed for years. Men like this DO exist.

How do men end up like my exP? Partly misogynistic entitlement that is in our culture. Partly mothers. If you listen to the tones in which sons are sometimes talked about by some mothers on here, you hear this odd note - protective and spoiling - and, when they get a bit older, even competitive with other women in his life. Clearly, some parents are raising these boys in such a way that they never lift a finger around the house. It's not healthy and I am not sure it leaves these sons as resilient, independent men who can take care of themselves or as decent human beings who can acknowledge the claims on others.

This is just a very, very long-winded way of saying: please, please be careful before you chain your future to this man. You may feel like you're up against the biological clock right now, but honestly, the burden of work that you would be carrying in caring for a child as well as a needy partner is fearsome. Please think carefully.

IfYouGoDownToTheWoodsToday · 31/08/2017 08:18

Two things jump right out-
He knew you are upset about him commenting on the meal, yet he then still went on to make a comment about something being "over spiced"Hmm
And he apologised for the argument last night, then leaves a load of washing up for you.Hmm

He's either extremely stupid OR he's deliberately aiming to upset you further. Either way, he needs to change his behaviour pretty damn quick or I'd be out of there.

birdsdestiny · 31/08/2017 09:15

Someone up thread said it is possible for men like this to change. I wonder. I have read a lot of these type of threads on MN over the years. I can remember hundreds of replies saying either this is why I left my ex, or my husband is like this and I no longer love him. The success stories I am afraid I don't remember.

Cagliostro · 31/08/2017 09:35

He's said sorry but if you text back saying you're still annoyed because he's still not listening then he'll say you're childish. So basically he isn't actually sorry, he just wants you to shut the fuck up.

Yes. This. :(

magoria · 31/08/2017 09:49

Please stop trying to have a child with this lazy arse until this is resolved. Otherwise he will see all things DC related as your job along with the stuff he already does.

At the moment you can fairly easily escape a shit marriage. Throw in kids and it becomes much harder.

Slimthistime · 31/08/2017 09:51

He's not sorry
You're flogging a dead horse
Are you prepared to raise baby alone? It's that or have the child and the man child.

79andnotout · 31/08/2017 10:09

Hi, my boyfriend was like this but he has improved massively. As I mentioned before, we have a list of tasks that are "ours" and then shared meals/washing up. I used to get really annoyed because I was doing everything, but now I've realised that two things were stopping him from doing stuff.

  1. I did them before he did. He lets things get messier/dirtier and likes to do the cleaning in the morning, not evening.
  2. Me whining. If I told him to do stuff, he wouldn't want to do it. Childish, but no one likes a dictator.

These days I've relaxed my expectations a bit - I can deal with the kitchen being a mess after he's cooked as long as it's tidy before I have breakfast in the morning. I pick his shoes up from the hall, he cleans the toothpaste I always leave in the sink, both without complaint, etc.

I always thank him for dinner and cleaning and doing whatever tasks around the house that he does and I notice, and he does me. Positive reinforcement works more than chastising and nagging. I've learnt this from training my dog!

Sometimes I still want to scream at him but I refrain, and feel better for it myself. It has improved our relationship no end.

I used to travel a lot for work, and he said I'd get home and the first three things out of my mouth would be criticisms - why is there no milk, why are the dishes not in the dishwasher, etc etc. Which was probably true. Now when I get back from business trips he's usually got some nice food in ready to cook a nice meal to welcome me home, and I try to always come home with a good attitude. The dishes are usually still by the dishwasher though. But you can't have everything.

ravenmum · 31/08/2017 10:12

I have an "it'll-never-last" boyfriend (50+) at the moment; visited him at the weekend and as usual he offered me a drink and food, cleaned up the plates himself, and this time even asked me if I was bored with him making the same stuff all the time (I said no, duh!). He's a confident, tough, responsible adult man who thinks about what I might like and what he might do. I have no idea what he'd be like as a committed partner, but this has really confirmed to me how totally unreflective my ex was. I wish I'd got around more before I met my ex, just for comparison.

My ex got on well with his mother, and she was the main earner in the family. I thought with that role model he'd be a modern thinker. Over the years I realised that actually his mother still did all the housework, even though her husband worked much fewer hours. And though my ex loved his parents, he was the family clown, the one who always made mistakes for the others to laugh about. He was desperate to be taken seriously and (as I see it anyway) tried to achieve that by taking on a 1950s respected head of family persona.

IDoDaChaCha · 31/08/2017 10:33

OP I used to be married to a manchild like this. To get him to do anything required prod prod prod. I even reclaimed bank charges for him as even though he was being charged £100 every time he went overdrawn (regularly) he still did nothing about it. He won't change, neither will your DH. Either continue being his mum or get rid of him. Some men are just useless. Echo what pp said - don't have children with him. You'll just end up being everyone's mum and DCs will take their lead from DH that you are there to do all the graft. Welcome to slavery. Harsh but true.

Loopytiles · 31/08/2017 10:41

Very sorry about your fertility problems and miscarriage. You have a lot on your mind at the moment. Flowers

Sounds like he has some sexist, entitled attitudes. This is a good time to address his behaviour, since if you do have DC it'd bring lots of new domestic work and be harder for you if, as seems likely, he didn't pull his weight.

I would immediately stop cooking and doing laundry for him. Cleaning rota, including things like cleaing out bin, and/or cleaner.

Couples counselling is costly, but much cheaper than ongoing conflict or divorce.

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