Are all men selfish or just mine...

[mrsflems1]

Long rant alert, but I’m at the end of my tether with my husband and his selfish inconsiderate behaviour.

He works hard... yes.... but so the hell do I bringing in the same income. We have 2 boys, I work 4 days a week and also have my own business as well doing freelance PA work, I do everything for the boys and in the house and tonight he has tipped me over the edge.

He has been working constantly lately building a house for a friend, so late nights and every weekend for weeks. He finally finished the job yesterday and I thought we would get some normality back and could actually sit down to eat a meal together. He wasn’t in ten minutes yesterday and went to our friends house as he needed a drill, he was gone for over 3 hours. Today I made a lovely dinner and he was taking our friends son home as I was cooking the meal, I told him not to be long as it would be ready in 5 minutes. An hour later he came in, kids and I had already had our dinner and I had put his in the bin.

He thinks he’s perfectly entitled to come and go as he pleases and doesn’t think of anyone else. However on raising it when he came back I’m crazy and everything that’s wrong is down to my mental health.

I’m so angry and upset, I just feel so taken for granted but he can’t see when he does anything wrong - he’s always the victim! Still a mummy’s boy at 37 years old!

No, not all men are selfish. This situation can be improved.

It is a basic human trait in all whether female or male, to have a degree of selfishness..

what do you get out of the relationship?

The way I feel just now nothing....

However he’s been working constantly and I have hardly seen him.

I am questioning my own sanity... am I expecting too much from him to sit and eat a meal together?

No you are not expecting too much to want him to be involved in family life

Neither would it be too much to expect him to do household chores

Yes I think all men are selfish.
It is part of their genetic make up.
I call it the lamb chop effect.

Imagine, you are cooking dinner. You are cooking for your husband, your 10 year old son, your 8 year old daughter and yourself.
You have four lamb chops.
You give your husband the biggest and the nicest looking one.
You give the next two nicest ones to your children , choosing who needs the bigger one the most and giving it to that child.
You give yourself the last one. The scraggy one that got a bit burnt.

Now, imagine the same family set up. But your husband is cooking.
He gives himself the biggest and nicest lamb chop.
The other three are just put on plates , not specifically for anybody. First come, first served.

THIS is the basic difference between men and women, a man ALWAYS puts himself first but, in many ways , he has no control over it. His dna programming tells him he must be the hunter gatherer, the protector. He needs to stay strong so he can protect his family and so other women crave his protection and his seed.
However, modern training and programming means that some of them will be much less selfish and give you that last rolo. But ultimately I think yes, most men are selfish and more selfish than most women.
(Please, shoot me down in flames if you want to and tell me how wonderful your husband is but since every man I have ever met has been selfish I think you are either a)delusional b)kidding yourself or c)married to a bit of a wuss!)

mrsflems I would try to talk to him and find out why he thinks it’s ok to behave like a teenager when he is a father with responsibilities. And eating with his family is one of them.
Keep putting his dinner in the bin.
Go out, tell him you will be five minutes and leave the kids with him......while you pop out for a massage/ coffee with friend/ pedicure etc. With your phone turned off. Then roll in three hours later and see how much he likes that! Give him a dose of his own medicine. He needs some SERIOUS training - you can do it!!

Some men are selfish and so are some women.
It sounds like your husband doesn't want to be involved in family life .
You need to sit down and have a talk . Discuss a fair distribution of chores , childcare,etc....make sure you get some time to yourself and that you spend time as a couple and as a family.
If he's not interested in sorting this out then suggest relationship therapy.
Freeze his dinner or give it to the cat/dog...please don't bin it !!

PS; you shouldn't have to train a fully grown person...male or female!

@yorkshireyummymummy that's total uninformed, unscientific, rubbish based on your own experience. It is not fair to categorise all men in that way.
However, the OP's doesn't seem to want to your part in his family's life and it is justifiably annoying as hell to the op.

Plenty of women are just as selfish as men.

He's only just finished building the house....so maybe give it a bit of time.

You didn't need to put his dinner in the bin. The oven would have been fine. That was never going to help the situation .....leading him to focus on your MH issues.

Communication is the answer here...but it's best when you're not angry.

Let him know how you feel (calmly) ... try and share the tasks more evenly. It's not a case of 50 50. That may not work in practice.... It's about being reasonable and compromising.

But....as the genders go .... I'd say men lean to being more selfish... It's probably why they are more successful in their careers and in business....because they consider themselves first and foremost.

To clarify... I'm not saying all men are selfish or that women aren't successful

I would suspect cheating.

I too thought cheating. Id wager he's not been where you think.

I'm not a NAMALT apologist for shitty behaviour but my dh is neither selfish or a wuss.

Anyone can be selfish if they can get away with it and haven't been taught to be kind and considerate! It's about poor social skills not a genetic defect!

Parents who expect academic excellence in their DC but don't insist on kind or considerate behaviour will nurture DC with poor social skills.

If you want your son to be kind and caring then it starts early: helping out at home, giving him responsibility, teaching sharing while learning including cooking and cleaning and looking after things.

My df, dh and ds and dd's DH have all been brought up by strong feminist women and decent intelligent men and there is no way you could have a happy family or working life without good social skills.

If you feel he is selfish it shouldn't matter if everyone else on the planet is or is not. It's what you feel that matters so you need to communicate this to him one way or another.

''If you want your son to be kind and caring then it starts early: helping out at home, giving him responsibility, teaching sharing while learning including cooking and cleaning and looking after things.''
Please include your daughter in this advice. Girls are not born knowing trhese things they need to be taught too .

@yorkshireyummymummy As a man, can I just say bollocks to your pile of shite. Although, to be fair to you, you began by saying you think all men are selfish and as you went along changed it to most men are selfish. But I also accept this is based on your life experience that every man you've ever met has been selfish. Generally, on the relationships board, if someone complained about all their partners being X, most replies would say that the common denominator is you and why do/did you pick men like that every time?

Your lamb chop analogy pisses me off. Because I don't even like lamb.

The two most selfish people I know are female. It's nothing to do with gender but mostly to do with how children are brought up.

@yorkshireyummymummy what absolute rubbish. Maybe that's your experience of men but it's not true across the board. My DH is the most selfless person I know and would make sure me and our DS had everything we needed first and that works both ways as I prioritise them over myself. But that means we all feel respected and cared for.

By saying all men are selfish we are justifying their behaviour as it's almost something they can't help. Which is simply not true.... selfish men and women choose to behave that way . It's not inherent

@yorkshiteyummumummy and your comment about men either being selfish or a wuss is wrong on so many levels ....assigning negative language to positive traits is part of the problem. It's the same as calling successful men assertive but successful women bossy.

No wonder you end up with selfish men if you make it clear any other type of behaviour makes him a wuss.

And the hunter / gatherer thing....who do you think they were hunting and gathering for??? Selfish behaviour is learnt behaviour not an inherent genetic trait

Not true that all men are selfish as my wife and children always come first. I am by no means perfect but saying 'all men' is patently ridiculous.

Ooopps random typo in your name @yorkshireyummymummy apologies!

I genuinely don't think he is cheating, on both occasions he has been at a mutual friends house, yesterday it was my best friends house he was at, as our eldest is friends with their son.

I honestly believe that he just doesn't think, he never prioritises anything except himself. If I had headed out and knew I had to be back for something I would make my excuses and explain I needed to be back home, he doesn't seem to think that way.

He comes home from work every night to a home cooked meal on the table, I never ask him to chip in with washing, ironing, cleaning etc. Even the nights when he has been working till late I had his dinner plated up for him coming in.

I have told him how I feel and that I don't think he prioritises his family, but he is playing the victim and its all my fault, Im over-reacting to a small thing! Today I am going on wife strike, I will see to the kids and I and he can see to himself, I have even started his own separate laundry basket!

I think yorkshiremummy has a point, but not the reasons behind it. I use the baked potato analogy, because I think women do always give ourselves the worst bit, and the man the best bit. I don't think it's genetic programming, I think it's social programming. We should do our bit for feminism by giving ourselves the best bit.

Sorry OP but if he says he's popping out for 5 minutes and takes an hour I'd wonder what he's doing

Is the house building his main job so he'll get a few days break and them back to the same routine? Or sites he normally have more set hours?

I'd have also binned the meal btw, and if he thinks he can come and go at any time irrespective of family meal times I wouldn't be cooking for him our it would get plated and left on the side

Assuming he doesn't need to go to work I'd be tempted to tell him you're popping to the corner shop so leaving the kids trhen go out for a nice long lunch, coffee, maybe a mooch round the shops. If he calls give a generic "won't be long but make sure you feed the kids" then add on another hour. petty, yes. But it might just make him relaise

Sounds like confirmation bias to meyorkshireyummymummy