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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

Original poster

I’m the only adult in the household

30 replies

Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:05

Bit of background...
DH married 10 years. DD 4. All good usually. But I am the functioning adult in the household. He pulls his weight with childcare. Doesn’t moan if I go out. However all household chores are mine. Event planning - mine too. Organising social life - oh yes c’est moi. Organising holidays - that’ll be me then... all insurances... yep, menu planning and shopping ... why of course. For background, I don’t mind this too much because i’m pretty efficient at getting stuff done.
So as not to drip feed, I work 75% hours in a six figure salary job. He works full time in a less well paid job (but still reasonably paid) but to be fair it is more stressful/demanding.

Tonight he came home to a cooked dinner. Poured himself a beer and we chatted a bit. Mainly about xmas. I’d had present ideas for his family etc which he looked relieved at. We talked about catering. The in -laws are coming to stay - not a problem they are lovely. I went through what I planned to cook as bird needs ordering. He announced he couldn’t talk about it tonight. I asked him again whether I should order bird and he stomped off upstairs leaving his beer.

I’m not being unreasonable here am I? Its Dec soon and I want to have a nice Christmas and not be buying stuff the day before etc. We’ve already missed out on tickets for something DD would have liked because I couldn’t pin him down on it.

No LTB s. please. 99% of the time he is awesome and my best friend. But he is absent minded (think driving to work with DDs school bag still in car - this kind of thing happens all the time) and I am unable to pin him down about stuff.

Any advice..?
Any the other burning question is
Is it acceptable for me to drink the beer he left behind.... Confused

OP posts:
Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:11

Before anyone suggests that something has happened at work, I know it hasn’t and he has form for this kind of strop...

OP posts:
Shambu · 22/11/2018 22:13

Drink the beer and tell him it's his turn to organisE Christmas. Then take a bath.

MickHucknallspinkpancakes · 22/11/2018 22:16

Give him some tasks he is completely responsible for, starting with ordering the turkey.

Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:16

I’m drinking the beer.....there’s no sound from upstairs. It’s quite frankly tedious and he needs to grow a fucking pair.... Hmm

OP posts:
HollowTalk · 22/11/2018 22:16

If you're on a great salary I would pay for other people to do as much as possible, to be honest. Yes, he's very unfair but I can't see him changing.

dontalltalkatonce · 22/11/2018 22:16

Tell him you don't appreciate his ducking out of lifework and then storming off so he'll do the Xmas catering and if he doesn't pull his weight, it'll be him who gets the blame. Mean it. Tell the ILs. Then leave him to it. Gift buying, too. Tell him you're sick of carrying all that and his walking all over you. Fuck that.

festivellama · 22/11/2018 22:17

If you always do all the menu planning and shopping, why did you need to discuss ordering the turkey with him? I can't really see why he would need to even know about it.

And yes, drink the beer.

Rachelover40 · 22/11/2018 22:18

What HollowTalk said.

Quartz2208 · 22/11/2018 22:19

why didnt you just do it - I would have just ordered tickets for two

Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:20

To be fair to him, he will probably do the lions share of the cooking at xmas whilst I sip Prosecco with his DM, and he loves the end result but he can’t accept that without planning xmas just doesn’t happen. DD is having a relatively cheap present but that requires a lot of effort on our part (think design/building/assembly) and he was initially enthusiastic about the idea but now stuff has started to arrive he’s typically less interested. And I know that my ability to use a drill is SHITE... Confused

OP posts:
PickAChew · 22/11/2018 22:21

Pay for a cleaner, since his dick gets in the way.

And put him in charge of entertaining his own family, reminding him that he's no longer a teenager

Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:22

Quartz I know. I’m full of regret about that now. It needed a bit of diary coordination. I should have taken her on my own.. Sad

OP posts:
Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:26

We do have a (shit) cleaner....but she doesn’t clean everything...

he’s a man child. He’s never going to cope. If I died tomorrow, our daughter would be safe, loved, but sent to school without crucial clothing/equipment. No homework/reading would be done, they would eat hummous and pita bread every night and her xmas presents would be bought the day before as an afterthought. She would never go swimming, to clubs, to one off fun events that require pre planning...

OP posts:
Karwomannghia · 22/11/2018 22:28

Does he ever complain about decisions you’ve made alone when he’s opted out? If not I’d just go ahead without him as you know the family diary anyway not doubt. Save yourself the stress and do what pleases you. And drink the beer.

Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:34

Kar woman
No he doesn’t complain. It’s just that I don’t have the headspace for completely everything either. I have the headspace for about 80% of the organising and I fully recognise that as the part timer here and the person with more organisational skills I ought to pick up the lions share, but there are still decisions to be made. I work 3

12 hour days for extra information.
We had an extension last year and I almost had a nervous breakdown running that on my own... Hmm

OP posts:
DragonFire99 · 22/11/2018 22:34

God, tralala, that worries me too.

Your h sounds like a lazy arse. Yanbu.

Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:39

For the avoidance of any doubt, the beer has been drunk....

OP posts:
Grace212 · 22/11/2018 22:39

he had a hissy fit because you wanted confirmation about food ordering?

I can't excuse the lack of adulting of course

however, is he in a fit state to talk about stuff after work? I know I've had jobs where I couldn't even grunt after work, so just wondering if you need to schedule in a life admin session on a weekend or something....and then he can start actually doing some life admin as well!

just seems a really odd point for him to lose his rag. Is it because he was being asked to make a decision? he does sound like he desperately needs to grow a pair.

Karwomannghia · 22/11/2018 22:40

It’s just it sounds like you do everything anyway and that trying to get him to take some of it on is actually more stressful than just doing it. Or is he sometimes better than this and able to do some?

Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:46

He does occasionally function in a more productive way. I suspect i’m guilty of spending my day organising and organising and then borbarding him with decisions about stuff when he gets in. Tonight, I deliberately waited until after we’d eaten to broach the subject so it’s not like I jumped him the minute he walked through the door. He’s great at 11am on a Sunday morning on a family dog walk, but you can’t order a fucking turkey at 11am on a Sunday.

OP posts:
Shambu · 22/11/2018 22:48

Sometimes I wonder how the hell men managed to organise world wars.

Original poster
Tralalalala1 · 22/11/2018 22:52

.... I totally agree Shambu

Sometimes I think he resents the complications and organisation that being a family bring. Previously his mum would get a bottle of wine and his Dad would get a bottle of whiskey. All his family have commented positively on the change in present buying since I arrived on the scene...

OP posts:
timeisnotaline · 22/11/2018 23:00

Just let them go back to a bottle of wine and whisky. Plan at least one thing while in laws are here that is totally up to him. Book tix for something extra with your dd without him. And explain you only have so much time either , so you understand . You can’t make him find the time , so the best you can do is take you/family socialising time off his plate until he’s done x y z and assembled dds Christmas present. Don’t spend fun time with him until he’s done this or very seriously changed his tune. I did this once with my dp , I meant every word at the time. He had majorly failed in being a partner in life admin and I was over it. I didn’t feel like being there for the fun stuff with a guy who left me all the shit, I wasn’t going to grin and go along with it.

Luckybe40 · 23/11/2018 09:30

Its called deliberate incompetence and it’s pretty fucking nasty when you start stripping the layers back. He’s not incompetent ( he sounds like he can hold together a fairly stressy job?) he’s lazy, and thinks ALL life-work has a wife-work and unfortunately you’ve enabled him by stepping up. The more you do, the less he does. He’s NOT a good dad nor a good husband NOR a good man. He’s mysoginistic and selfish and most of all, really fucking lazy. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Search Incompetent husband-what happened next in mumsnet, unfortunately the first thread was deleted but rest assured, you are not alone.

Luckybe40 · 23/11/2018 09:33

Seriously, he’s not what you think he is. He’s far more manipulative than you give him credit for. Sorry to call a spade a spade but he’s got you exactly where he wants you. Running his life so he doesn’t have to.