How do you react when your DH/DP does something stupid?!

[CatsAreDictators]

Posting here as quite frankly it feels relationship-threatening! We have recently redecorated a room - I say “we”, I actually did all the work (though he did keep the DCs out of my hair). Got it re-carpeted. Now changing some of the furniture. He assembled something today which needed fastening to the wall. Drill job, etc.

I have just discovered a load of brick dust on said new carpet. In a fairly unobtrusive corner but still. Turns out he didn’t think to use a dust sheet before drilling into a wall. And yes, I have tried hoovering it and so has he, and it won’t come out. He didn’t tell me, mind, waited to see if I would notice.

How would you react?

I mean, on the one hand, nobody died. Nobody’s hurt. But it is a new carpet. Brand new. Not white. But it’s visible.

I do think there’s a touch of laziness too though. My DH broke something of mine that I’d had a long time. Did he tell me he had broken it ? No, he turned it round so it would take some time to find it, instead of just fessing up. The fact that he didn’t tell me made me mad. It’s deception.

@Stillfunny , that’s it exactly. I have asked him to do two things in relation to this room that weren’t “keeping the kids out of my hair” and he has fucked them both up.

I suppose I am also irritated as this is the first room we have properly sorted out in this house for various reasons and the last one which we hadn’t done anything to before now, and it was a state. I was just pleased to have a nice carpet!

@Stillfunny This is just my general rule - if it hasn’t cost money to repair or replace it’s a shrug my shoulder moment. But it would have been nice if he had cleared it up - that I would have expected.

@CatsAreDictators I’m sure you realise this - don’t use anything wet on the dust. Brick dust may contain amongst other things, builders sand which stains everything if it gets wet.

This is 100% something my DP would do but I wouldn't think it was relationship threatening

@Alphabet1spaghetti2 , thank you - I did tell him not to get started with carpet cleaner on it…. I plan to try with a brush as well as the hoover again tomorrow, and perhaps try your tape trick.

He apparently tried to hoover it but it wouldn’t come up so he left it and decided to see whether I’d notice.🙄

I think if it's happened and can't be helped, I just leave it for him to sort.

My DH made me really angry a few months ago after I'd scraped my car on a gatepost. It was the topper on a pretty bad day and I was gutted. Nobody to blame but myself. My car. Did not affect him in any way. But he just couldn't be nice about it. Not that he was nasty, but he just kept asking how on earth I managed to do it, i've taken that corner hundreds of times, he's never known anybody else have any problems etc. It was really annoying.

@CatsAreDictators Of the famous he tried to hoover it! I have found that usually involves them looking in random cupboards
for the hoover and than waving it generally in the direction of the mess, but not actually on it.
Now this is an offence punishable by death, or being sent to the shop for cream cake - take your choice!

There's another thread at the moment about an OPs partner always doing half a job.

That thread plus this one are some of the the reasons DH is now exDH.

As a first offence, I'd just buy a pot plant, but it seriously starts to grate after a while 😡

I would be annoyed. My dh is incapable of drying our dog so he goes into kitchen filthy and next my brand new white units are black. ! I don't understand why he can't think before he does. Dh gets defensive if I have a go so I tend to save it for when I'm really annoyed

Ah, now you’ve made me feel guilty, @glamourousindierockandroll - I remain the only one of us to have pranged the car (parking-related, no other car damaged, just got into an argument with a pillar in a local multi-storey). And he could not have been nicer about it. So he does have his good points.

Though I maintain that if this was one of his devices rather than a carpet, or the TV, he would not be so sanguine….

I re-did our bedroom, DH helped in bits but I did the majority of the decorating. I asked him to trim the top part of the wallpaper - he completely cocked it up. I was heartbroken - but he hadn't meant to do it badly so I didn't get mad at him. It was an accident. The following week I was in the garage and moved his brand new bike (very expensive) and accidentally let it slip out my hands and scratched it. He didn't shout - it was an accident. We all muck up sometimes.

I accidentally left the keys in the car once. The battery died and had to be replaced 😩 a few weeks later I pranged the car in a car park. So I guess it's swings and roundabouts.

Some people are strategically useless in order to avoid being asked to do things. I only recently realised this about my own husband, it’s very clever how they go about getting you to do more and more while taking on less and less themselves.

@CatsAreDictators if it is well and truly stuck, you can give it a bit of a haircut with nail scissors. (Just trimming the very, tippety-top of each strand that’s affected.) While that sounds like a shit of a job, and suitable punishment, I’m not sure I’d trust him with that.

*If it’s a loop pile, don’t trim it.

I too think I would be well narked, because of the amount of effort that's gone into the whole job.

Yes I'd have been fuming. Always get annoyed at stuff like that. Until one day I left my make up mirror on the couch on a hot day and the sun hit it came upstairs to find a big smoking hole in our lovely cream couch. He didn't bat an eyelid and said good job didn't go up in flames. So if I get annoyed now the kids just say at least we didn't burn a hole in the couch haha. It's only carpet you won't be worrying about it on your death bed

The issue to me would be that it was hidden and if we'd known at the start it may have been easier to fix? /hoover up.