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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

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Original poster

Anyone else feel like "just the wife?"

39 replies

McMummy · 29/01/2008 21:48

Just a bit of a random moan...
How many of you lead a pretty separate life from your dh?
I only know 1 person he works with - and hardly any of the friends he goes out with.
He has gone on a holiday with some mates, and I am pretty sure I wouldn't be able to recognise 3/4 of them if I passed them on the street.
His facebook page is filled with people I don't know, and he has just posted a "happy birthday chick.." message to someone I don't know. And who he doesn't work with. I just spoke to hims, and he said he hadn't been on anyone's computer yet (who he went on holiday with) yet he did to post the message. He's called lots, but not sent us an email.

Any constructive comments?

OP posts:

purpleduck · 02/02/2008 19:08

Thats alright littlewoman!!
I think I have let him have alot of "rope" because he is 5 years younger than I am and I have had an opportunity to have alot of adventures before I met him. I have let him do his thing because I think its important. Somewhere along the line its gotten a bit much though, and its nice to know that my instincts aren't wrong here.

Original poster

McMummy · 02/02/2008 19:11

damn, forgot to change my name back

oh well

OP posts:

littlewoman · 03/02/2008 11:02

Omg exactly the same! Mine was seven years younger and we got together when he was only 19; so I thought 'let him live a bit. He'll settle down'. Did he bowlocks. I know that he loved me, but I gave him too much rope. All his friends were single, I wasn't even a part of his social life at the end, just someone who was meant to keep his house & kids in the way he wanted, should he happen to pop in from the pub. Reign him in love

delcymru · 03/02/2008 18:42

What excuse has mine got, he's 38 and not been in a really serious relationship , as in he has lived with women but not wanted to settle down .Romantically he told me he was waiting for me- we used to go to school together, I got married and had kids young and apparantly he always loved me .However in the meantime he's travelled loads, Australia, new zealand America etc, worked away in Winter resorts and in Ireland for years so he's lived and had many experiences. Maybe so many that now he can't settle!!

Shaniece · 03/02/2008 19:09

My friends DH is exactly the same. He goes snowboarding with his mates for a week, goes car racing for days on end, goes on stag do's abroad, goes out every Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights whilst she plays the good mum and housewife. He is the biggest chauvanist I have ever had the misfortune to meet. She puts up with it because he is loaded. She drives around in a £70 grand car, has nice hols, buys designer gear, etc etc..

My DH is a chauvanist in that he won't do any housework BUT he is a real family man, and his kids come before anyone or anything so I can't really complain - he is not interested in stag do's, watching football or rugby with the lads, going out weekends with the lads, he really would rather be with the kids.

I wouldn't put up with a man that spent more time with his mates at the pub, or on hols with his mates. A man should surely put his kids first??

delcymru · 03/02/2008 22:13

Yes Shaniece, family should come first. I have no problem in him having some time off or going to do something he enjoys now and then , but there is definately an imbalance in that I feel everything else comes first and I come down the list after work and other stuff as well. I don't want to be joined at the hip with him, we all need time apart but it's the thoughtlessness that gets me and the attitude that it's his right as a man to go and do what he wants when he wants.Good for your man, but I hope he wants to spend time with you too and not just the kids.

3kids1cat · 03/02/2008 22:36

OMG, I've just posted on here something so similar. Do not feel like I am part of my dp life at all. Glad to read I'm not the only one, but still have no idea how to make it better without coming accross to him like a desperate sad-o!

delcymru · 03/02/2008 23:11

Join the club when it comes to feeling like a desperate saddo . If I ever bring up the subject or moan about it ,I always feel that I'm in the wrong and end up apologising and then get really cross with myself. If I wasn't 8 mth prg I'd like to think I'd give him a taste of his own medicine , but with other children aroun then I probably would'nt as I'd feel guilty about not doing things with them! Can't win.

Doingitallagain · 03/02/2008 23:42

I've given up on not feeling like a desperate saddo! Being stuck at home all the time looking after his baby, plus being pregnant again, never getting out anywhere, while his life seemed to carry on much as before (work, hobbies, going out with mates every week), really just tipped me over the edge. So after a big row where I said if he wasn't going to include me and act like he was part of a couple now, he might as well leave, things got a lot better.

Part of what I insisted on was that if he was planning nights out with mates, he asked me if it was okay first, didn't just assume it was. If he was planning weekends away (old school reunion this was), then I had to be invited too (which had never even crossed his mind). Oh, and he had to get rid of facebook, just cos it used to drive me mad when I didn't know any of his friends on there, and most of them seemed to be women.

Maybe I was being a bit irrational, but god knows I've felt much better since - and so far he seems to be sticking to it.

Scramble · 03/02/2008 23:45

I used to be, hated being introduced as arsefaces wife, I would say yes and my other name is scramble, made a few people blush.

I am now arsefaces ex wife, don't tend to get introduced as that though .

Feel much better being just me now!

delcymru · 04/02/2008 11:34

Lol Scramble. Good for you.

delcymru · 04/02/2008 11:42

And I don't think it's irrational to be asked if you don't mind him going out /away etc. It's just being thoughtful, unlike going away for the weekend without even thinking you might want to go.Does anyone think that men have a lot of hold over us because they know we don't want to be a nagging wife type and try to be "modern" and then use it to their advantage , as in if you start to say something about them going out again then they turn it around to you "nagging" or being untrusting and why shouldn't they go out , and before you know it you're feeling guilty and wrong.

delcymru · 06/02/2008 16:45

Did I kill the thread?

littlewoman · 06/02/2008 17:30

I used to tell my husband to ask, because I always asked him if I went out. He thought I'd be there always, and was very lucky to have him. Why should he ask? He didn't care if the answer was yes or no, he was going out either way. It is not nagging to ask not to be abandoned for yet another evening/night/weekend. They use the word nagging because it has such negative implications - they know we will back down when we are accused of doing it.

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