Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

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

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:
IDoDaChaCha · 31/08/2017 10:48

The "ideal life" story here on Mumsnet seems to be that you carefully choose your partners, spotting red flags, dodging cocklodgers, uncannily recognising potential cheats and coolly, speedily LTB whatever your age or fertility until you find a proper partner who shares your values to start a family with.Few of us live up to that ideal, though. And that's not the end of the world.

There's another alternative story, one I live. Got rid of DH, did not jump into having DC with anyone new as they failed to meet my standards of a responsible parent (not man child), waited until age 35 to meet partner on promise to self - have baby with donor sperm if this did not happen. DD from donor sperm is nearly 2 and I have been blissfully single for years. Will be trying for DC #2 next year, also donor route. I may have a partner in future but I don't have to rely on being in a relationship to have a child. To me having children was more important than waiting for Mr Right (and less infuriating than putting up with Mr Wrong...). There are alternative lifestyles that allow you freedom. Just a thought.

IDoDaChaCha · 31/08/2017 10:56

I am not interested in people saying I love you if there actions prove otherwise.

^^ This. With bells on.

IDoDaChaCha · 31/08/2017 11:01

You should post a link to the blog, then we can all comment "have you emptied the bin?" on every article he posts - brilliant

IDoDaChaCha · 31/08/2017 11:11

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?

Exactly. I stopped being attracted to EXDH for this reason. Was a sharp decline after that. Manchild are repellent.

FizzyGreenWater · 31/08/2017 12:22

I'm so angry reading this that I am going to post my imaginary and written in anger fully disclaimered bullter-pointed 'What You Do Now' below.

  1. Smash every unwashed dish on the floor.
  2. Make an appointment to get your eggs frozen.
  3. Text him a picture of the floor with the comment 'I am no longer interested in endless hugs and I love you when every action proves otherwise'
  4. Then text him a pic of your appointment confirmation with the comment 'You don't seem that interested in remaining married. I'm only a couple of steps behind you on that road by the look of things! Who'd have thought it! My guess is that the washing-up fairy had a good inkling...'

He's a waste of space. Men like this rarely change. As some of the logner and very incisive posts above detail, it's something quite fundamental - a genuinely rooted-deep misogyny which means that their brains are WIRED to think that they absolutely should be able to live their lives without having to make room for these menial tasks. It's YOUR JOB to do to shitwork which makes normal life possible, and to take it on for 'the family' That will include any children you have.

I am serious about the freezing eggs. You have limited time and I think it's more than likely he will soon be history.

FizzyGreenWater · 31/08/2017 12:23

Bullet not bullter!

expatinscotland · 31/08/2017 13:16

What IDo said.

IDoDaChaCha · 31/08/2017 14:12

FizzyGreenWater I considered freezing eggs but it apparently yields better outcomes to just go ahead and try naturally.

Maelstrop · 31/08/2017 15:01

He won't change. Pp are right, you will end up raising your children single handedly. Is that what you want? Are you so desperate for children that you're happy to be the person who does everything at home forever more?

I mean, I joke with my DH that he doesn't see dirt, he just walks over it, but he does all the finances, organises all the MOTs, does all the dog walking, virtually all of the cooking. I'm happy to change the beds, do the laundry, do the housework because we share, I couldn't whinge about how much he does. However, if he didn't do all he does, I would not be doing other stuff for him.

hellokittymania · 31/08/2017 15:08

Can I come over for dinner? I LOVE sweet potatoes, I don't have much strength in my wrist though, so I have to boil them for over an hour usually on the stovetop to get them to soften. Anyway, I love them. And no you are not being unreasonable. I like take it or leave it. If you tried to cook and really was bad at it, then maybe I would feel differently. But if he doesn't even try to cook and he complains, that's a different story

NearlyFree17 · 31/08/2017 16:22

en 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.

This is good to know. I had a lightbulb moment when I realised that if I delegated tasks to a colleague at work, they would get on and do it. They wouldn't "forget" and then complain about being nagged when reminded. They wouldn't strop off in a sulk complaining that I was hassling them. They wouldn't come back and ask where to find things or how to do it when they were perfectly capable of working it out themselves. If they had done, they would have got the sack.

I then started to realise that it wasn't anything I was doing wrong at home that was causing the problem. It wasn't that I was making unreasonable requests, of DH or asking in a demeaning or insulting way. It REALLY wasn't the case that I was "enabling" him by insisting on doing things my own way. I wasn't unreasonable in expecting the whole floor to be hoovered, all the washing up to be done, or whatever else. Because there was only one other adult in my life that I had this problem with and it was him.

ikeadyounot · 31/08/2017 17:23

Nearly - that's EXACTLY it. And my exP would have done those things at work, had he been asked too.

I think women are conditioned into thinking that, if men aren't listening, it must be because they're not communicating well enough. It took me bloody years to realise that whatever communication strategy I deployed I never got through. And also to recognise that he was the only adult who couldn't understand and react to what I was saying.

I think part of that is our lack of confidence, and part of it is that we sometimes don't want to see what is staring us in the face (I didn't, anyway). There is an act of selection, a choice that is being made in these cases. Lack of familiarity with domestic chores stops being an excuse after someone is given opportunity after opportunity to 'notice' what needs doing (or is even told exactly what to do) and refuses to take it. At the end of the day, that person is making a decision to allow someone else to take on the work that makes their lives liveable in order that they have more 'me' time. And that's really the definition of selfishness and abnegation of responsibility.

Ironically, some of the guys who do this are new men, who claim to be 'feminists'. My exP was like this. He'd spend hours arguing with someone about the gender politics of a film on the internet, while I washed up his dishes. Which made it all the more infuriating.

I think it really, really helps to see that waged work and social reproduction are mutually necessary. You can't hold down a waged job without some work of social reproduction - including maintaining a house where we can rest- and most of us can't afford to pay someone else to do all of it for us. Domestic labour is therefore necessary to capitalism, but unpaid by it - and the fair thing to do in the household is to recognise it as part of waged work. A SAHM who is enabling a man to have a lovely home life with children is entitled to a goodly part of the household wage (it is not 'his'), because he simply wouldn't be able to do his job without someone cooking, cleaning, washing, drying, and looking after his children; and in the majority of cases, he couldn't afford to pay someone even at minimum wage to do all that stuff! In the OP's case, she might be working slightly fewer waged hours than her partner, but she's doing a hell of a lot to enable him to earn his money (while he moans about sweet potatoes), and I'll warrant she's actually working longer hours than he does when this is taken into consideration!

Hope you are alright, OP.

expatinscotland · 31/08/2017 17:43

Look, being desperate for a baby is fine. Been there! But having a child with him means you are chained to him for life. Even if you split, you'll get to hand over your child to him and his new squeeze and whatever kids they have and have to deal with all that, too. Or put up with doing EVERYTHING and getting more and more resentful. If that's what you want, stay on with him. I'd go for sperm donor personally, but I see why you won't.

NearlyFree17 · 31/08/2017 19:31

These guys think they can pick and choose what domestic chores suit them and that they will receive kudos for.

For me, the crunch point came when DH was unwilling to look after the kids and house when I was seriously depressed I realised then that I could never rely on him; and that he felt that caring for our family was an option for when he felt like it, and that he should be rewarded for, rather then his responsibility

ikeadyounot · 01/09/2017 10:49

We should start a HOUSEWORK INSURGENCY thread for former victims of these bloke to help those still afflicted! Grin

NearlyFree17 · 01/09/2017 11:27

ikea I stand with you on the housework insurgency

Another choice memory. My ex claimed not to be able to make scrambled eggs. I must. have showed him how to do it about a dozen times over the years. I taught DS1 how to make them when he was younger -maybe 9 or 20 - and he could do it himself competently afterwards and didn't need reminding how. Both my teenage DS can now cook for themselves and will use YouTube videos for instruction if they get stuck. But a grown man couldn't manage that...

FuckYouLinda · 01/09/2017 12:35

You can be his mother or his lover. Not both.

There is no way you will retain respect for him when he forces you to nag him to do every tiny thing. Every unwashed dish or thing left for you to pick up after him is a "Fuck you, Tower, you can clean up my shit" from him.

If you want to save this marriage you need to give him a short, sharp shock. I would actually leave for a few days to show him how near he is to permanently jeopardising his marriage. Then from that point, maybe start working on a rota.

If you have a baby with him, you literally cannot do all of this wifework then all of the babywork too. He's the kind of man that will leave his baby sitting in a shitty nappy and wait for you to get out of your bath to change them or wake you up from nap to ask you where the fucking sudocrem that's right in front of him is Or forget to feed the baby or not remember to shake the bottle after the microwave. He'll forget the hat, or the suncream. Actually, in his mind he wont. You'll have forgotten to tell him to do all of these things, ergo it will be your fault. He wont remember to give medication on time or to chop up grapes. In short, he'll be so bad at being a dad that you will do it ALL. On top of what you do already. While he fucks about being Disney Dad on his blog for his adoring followers.

Ereshkigal · 01/09/2017 14:02

Every unwashed dish or thing left for you to pick up after him is a "Fuck you, Tower, you can clean up my shit" from him.

Agree. OP try explaining it to him in that way when you eventually have it out with him.

paq · 03/09/2017 07:56

Hope you are okay OP, you have had some good advice on this thread but some of it might have been hard to read.

Cagliostro · 03/09/2017 14:51

He's the kind of man that will leave his baby sitting in a shitty nappy and wait for you to get out of your bath to change them or wake you up from nap to ask you where the fucking sudocrem that's right in front of him is Or forget to feed the baby or not remember to shake the bottle after the microwave. He'll forget the hat, or the suncream. Actually, in his mind he wont. You'll have forgotten to tell him to do all of these things, ergo it will be your fault. He wont remember to give medication on time or to chop up grapes. In short, he'll be so bad at being a dad that you will do it ALL. On top of what you do already. While he fucks about being Disney Dad on his blog for his adoring followers.

Brilliantly put

New posts on this thread. Refresh page