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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

Trying to be supportive but OH is driving me nuts

2 replies

Stinkachoo · 01/06/2018 16:41

I love this man very much and he is generally a great partner. I want to stop us heading to doomsville and am hoping for collective wisdom.

We've been having a rocky patch for the last 2/3 months.
He has started a new business, it's been really stressful and he is working hard.

I feel like I am constantly moaning at him so I've made a concentrated effort not to, but It's just getting harder and harder not to let rip and scream at him to sort himself out.

He's usually so considerate, but he's also dippy, forgetful and downright messy. I am all of these things too to some extent, but the difference is, I am the one who eventualy sorts it all out. I run my own business too and there is DD from a previous so have plenty on my plate as it is.

These are the things that have driven me insane in just the last week....the tip of the iceberg...

He left a griddle from a BBQ over the weekend in the middle of the patio. The next day my DD (6) tripped over it and really hurt herself.

He left a drink in the middle of the floor which DD fell over again.. Newly rented house. Stained carpets. Obviously DD needs to watch where she's going but he's a grown man and things are left out in the middle of the floor...

It's been rent day and bills week but yet again I am the only one making sure the money is there and where it should be

Some nice dishes that I've had years that an I'm really protective of because they were a gift and quite expensive, he's taken to work and not brought back even though I've repeatedly asked to be returned because I use them.

The strimmer and lawn mower, which he calls 'ours' also gone to work not returned when they are needed at home. Which actually pisses me off because I bought them before he moved in with us. When I was actually really skint and worked hard to get them. So that I'd have them whenever I needed to cut the grass.

A brand new set of bedlinen ruined within a week because he wears this bloody hair gel that ruins pillow cases in days and he keeps forgetting to just sleep on the plain ones underneath. He's never bought a set of bedlinen himself so it wouldn't bother him would it?

Washing the dishes is probably his only contribution lately, but even that has to be done again because they are not clean.

These are not things I appreciate being made to nag about. I'm not someone who usually gets precious about these things but I am getting to the end of my tether.

I need to be find away to talk about how depressing all of this is (depressing that it even needs to be said) without it turning into another argument about how 'useless' he is. Because that's what he thinks I think. Everytime I bring something up he looks like 'oh god, what've I done now'. I feel like a nag, but it never gets through to him for more than a day or so

OP posts:
Stinkachoo · 01/06/2018 16:44

to add...he's had a really bad week (another one). I've been simmering with resentment trying not to mention any of this stuff because I know it's not important right now and I don't want to make him feel worse.

Meanwhile, the list of stuff is getting longer and longer and longer

OP posts:
RatherBeRiding · 01/06/2018 16:52

I think you should show him what you've written. He needs to understand the knock-on effect it (the stress of the new business) is having on you and your relationship.

And being stressed surely to goodness doesn't prevent you from picking up a drink from the middle of the floor?

Is this likely to be a temporary blip - in that, is this business of his likely to get going and so the stress on him will slacken off? Or is he, consciously or subconsciously, using it as an excuse to behave like this?

The behaviour you describe would drive me crazy.

He may well be stressed, but HE needs to make a conscious decision to focus on other (important) things as well as his new business. Like remembering not to ruin bedding and bring the strimmer back home.

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