Top places exH sulked - can anyone top these! (semi-lighthearted!)

[heliosoftroy]

Currently going through a divorce from my super sulker ex, and often find myself thinking, with incredulity, at some of the sulks soon-to-be-exH pulled in the most inopportune moments! Top sulk moments -

• On a beach in the Florida Keys. Also a beach in Miami (separate occasion)
• Sitting in the 3rd row of the stalls at Hamilton on Broadway
• At my birthday dinner out in a fancy restaurant
• All the way on a 3hr train journey to a romantic weekend away I planned for his birthday
• The first Christmas I went to stay with his family
• At Peppa Pig World in the very long queue for a ride
• DC's birthday party
• On a cruise in the middle of the Caribbean
• Looking round wedding venues...

I'm sure there are more, but anyone got any crackers from sulking partners to make me feel better?!

I’m another who finds this reply bemusing.

So what, John, that you wouldn’t like to queue for 3 hours. Literally so what?
Presumably if you could communicate you would eventually get out that it made you feel resentful that your time (and money) was being used in a way you wouldn’t choose, but felt manipulated into because you couldn’t communicate a No before it happened.

But what that ignores of course is the complete obliviousness to the fact that no-one likes to queue for three hours, but other people handle it differently. It seems inconceivable to you that there is any other response possible to the feelings you experience.

The reason other people behave differently is because they are emotionally more mature than you are. They experience the same emotions, with the same intensity and are able to recognise and deal with them in a constructive manner. The have the emotional resilience to deal with life’s minor vicissitudes, whilst you apparently do not.
Do you know what common word is used today for an individual who cannot deal with life’s minor vicissitudes? Snowflake, John. We label that person a snowflake.

Be under no illusion, that one post is more than enough to let the whole of Mumsnet know you are not @Johnthesensible, you are JohnTheSnowflake

Not my DH thank goodness, who hasn't got a sulky bone in his body, but my father was an epic sulker and could keep it up for days at a time. He once didn't speak to me for a week because I washed my hair when I had a bad cold.
He had some very peculiar old fashioned ideas.....

Three days in Rome.

Like other posters, most of my ex’s sulks were at events like weddings, birthdays etc where I felt obliged to try and placate him so that others didn’t notice. Looking back on it, he needed to be centre of attention and didn’t care how he achieved that.
One memorable New Year’s Eve in Krakow he refused to speak all night because his football team had lost.
One of the worst was on holiday in Cornwall. We had driven to a lovely town and parked in a large car park, planning to have a meal before looking round. Our baby son was in the back of the car and I had gone round to remove him from the car seat. Whilst I was leaning into the back of the car my ex slammed the open door closed and hit my ankle which had been sticking out (don’t think he’d done it deliberately though can’t entirely rule that out). The pain was excruciating and I screamed. Rather than apologise or show any concerns, my ex through an epic sulk because I was embarrassing him in the car park by having screamed. It was a boiling hot day and he got back into the car and refused to move or speak. I ended up getting baby in pram and hobbling to the nearest cafe to feed him and get food for myself. Ex never apologised (typically).
He went on to have an affair and leave. Now married to affair partner and behaves in exactly the same way with her.

Have you missed the common theme here that most these sulks are happening at events paid for by someone other than the sulker?

In any event, if there's an issue with costs - say that there is an issue with costs. Have a conversation like an adult. Don't sulk or tantrum; how is that going to resolve the issue?

My father - one of the many christmases he sulked. My cardinal sin - I’d bought my just-pre-teen kids mobile phones. They aren’t toys, I’m clearly a fool. And he took himself off to bed in a rage.

Sulking is childish, manipulative bullshit done as a way to try to control other people. It's learned in childhood and they keep doing it because it keeps working. Most of us grow the fuck up and start to communicate like bloody adults but some people for whatever reason don't.

the "other side" is that they are control freaks who are incapable of having an adult conversation about their needs and feelings and are incapable of taking any responsibility for themselves (and often it seems they want all the attention all the time too.)

You talk about the other side but in every one of the posts people have said exactly why the person was sulking. Didn't like the friends, wanted something, didn't want something, wasn't the centre of attention, wanted to lock the front door themselves (that one was a doozy)
So we already know why.
They weren't getting their own way and they never grew out of the child's way of dealing with that.

My exH didn’t drink coffee during the day. EVER. Had one in the morning but then drank cold drinks throughout the day. Had a massive strop and left without saying a word because I’d made myself a coffee and not offered him one.

also threw strops on all holidays, our engagement party, our wedding reception, friends weddings and any car journey over 15 minutes.

omg just awful! Feel v lucky with Dh. We went on holiday he was taking part in a sporting event there. Really big deal to him trained for it etc. I developed terrible tooth ache. Dh spoke language I didn’t. He missed his event as we went to local dentist instead. Not one word of a moan or a sulk or even eye roll. I kept saying how bad I felt he just said “don’t be mad!”. These men would have exploded in that scenario!

That's horrendous. It must have been a very hard time for you after the birth - I'm so sorry 💐

on our honeymoon. Married 4 days. Wanted to count down into the new year (as we had done so other years when we were dating). New hubby sulked and refused to budge. We were on an idyllic island with a cool party... nope. New hubby threw a wobbly = even made ME apologize to HIM!!!! Ghastly time.

One day in November outside my family's house (refused to come in) because I'd bought a poppy for myself and not him and he thought they would judge him for it (?). Two days postpartum when I gave him a shopping list and he took three hours and came back in a horrible mood because of 'weird stuff' on it which he couldn't find. When I was nine months pregnant and had to go to bed with a bad headache and he had to stay home one Saturday afternoon and look after the kids. When I was heavily pregnant and went to bed at 9pm to read a book and relax. There are reasons these men are exes let's face it.

Echoing PP where holidays bring out the sulking. Many years ago, pre-kids, I had a brief period of miraculously earning a lot of money as a freelancer. I'd always wanted to go to Andalucia, so after months of very hard work and a chunky invoice, I researched, booked and paid for an amazing week staying in beautiful hotels in Seville, Cordoba and Granada. He sulked for the entire time, no idea to this day if it was because I had paid or something else. It has become a pattern - silent treatment every holiday, from South East Asian luxury to the Italian Riviera to the Cotswolds. Many birthdays and Mother's Days also. His memories of all these holidays are, incredibly, good - he apparently forgets that he doesn't speak for days and generally sucks the joy out of the occasion.

I used to try and placate him or cheer him up, now I just ignore it and go into full Mary Poppins mode. But I'm sure it affects the kids. His poisonous sulks can last days, including taking himself off to the spare room to sleep, locking himself in his home office, occasionally punctuated by furious outbursts but mostly quiet seething - you can feel the righteous anger steaming off him.

Many of his sulks now centre on our older teens not 'consulting' him about stuff that's literally none of his business and affects him in no way whatsoever, like ear piercings or going to gigs, normal teenage stuff – and they are really great kids. I get accused of 'siding with them' and 'deliberately cutting him out' like there's some kind of massive conspiracy, but it's always something where me and the child in question have had a brief chat, I've been cool with it while checking safety/logistics etc are sorted, hasn't occurred to me it's an issue but Victorian Dad sees it as 'disrespectful'. I think it's the sense of loss of control (which increases as the kids get more independent of course) and not being the centre of attention. If I could afford to chuck him out, I would.

Some of these are beyond outrageous 😳 Sulkers are theeee worst!

My husband was slightly sulk prone back in the day, learned behaviour from his super sulker Mum. Fortunately it ceased completely when he moved out of their family home.

My MIL however remains an utterly miserable sulker. She sulks every Christmas, birthdays, weddings - even funerals! She sulked the whole day at her own Mother's funeral, all because we opted to drive there by ourselves. She's single - she's never found a man who can put up with her!

This thread is eye opening, my ex seems quite mild in comparison (still crap, but not quite brave enough to be as mental as this lot).

My Mother was the champion sulker tbh. Even she didn't do it for no reason, still damaging to experience but I can empathise a bit. I did try sulking on for size as a teenager, it's really hard frigging work though and I decided it wasn't for me

Oh these holiday ones are bringing flashback. Me and the kids were once treated to an epic tantrum in a five star boutique hotel in Paris that he screamed was “a shithole” because he had it didn’t have a terrace and he wanted a terrace.

I once had the temerity to have terrible food poisoning, D&V, at a beautiful hotel in Tuscany and he dragged me out to a tuscan hill town in 40 degree heat as he could possibly look after 16 month old DS by himself.

Massive strop at his best friend’s wedding (we’d travelled from NZ to London to attend) because he wanted to leave and I was enjoying chatting to people. (He was suddenly very concerned that we were keeping the babysitter up although I had texted her and it was fine). He grabbed the back of my arm and twisted it so hard it was black and blue the next day. It took me another 7 years to leave him 🤯

I look back and CANNOT BELIEVE what I lived with.

God in heaven, how do you stand it? I'd have to take the piss out of him mercilessly, which I guess would make him sulk more.

God @HelloTreacle9 please leave him, it’s no way to live. I left in late 2022 with a 4 y.o and an 8 y.o. No more business class or boutique hotels in Paris for me but I am 100000000000x happier and so are the kids.

@HelloTreacle9

If I could afford to chuck him out, I would.

Personally, I would be stashing away funds in an account he knows nothing about and has no access to, to make this happen. 🌹

Because we arrived by train in a small French village and I dared to ask the information desk for a local map and directions to our accomodation. Apparently I should have known the way intuitively.

I’d like to extend fulsome thanks to everyone who’s posted about their pathetic sulky blokes. You’ve really made me appreciate dh, who I probably don’t appreciate enough. I will even try in future not to get irritated when he does those massive explosive sneezes, like a bomb going off. 🙂

Oh the Holiday Sulk! The Birthday Sulk! The Going Into Hospital Sulk! The Meal Out Sulk! My ex did them all - sulked in Dubrovnik because he was 'bored'. Made me pay for my own birthday meal and then sulked because the restaurant was expensive and I should have been able to cook these food at home. Sulked when I was in hospital having an ovarian cyst removed, because our house sale had fell through and he wanted me to ring the estate agent - from my hospital bed.

My only warning is that I put up with his shit for far so long because my father was a champion sulker, and I had somehow internalised the idea that this is what men did. It's taken me a long long time to get rid of this programming

@HelloTreacle9 That sounds like a toxic, horrible life for you and your teens. I really recommend starting a thread in relationships asking for advice on how to gather enough money to throw him out, from figuring out how much you really need to how you get it. So, so, so many women on MN have been through every possible iteration of divorce and they’re often willing to help with advice.

NOT related to any post, but does anyone else think there’s a link between having low self-esteem and ending up with a sulking partner? It seems that so many people, my biological mother included, either start up with a sulking partner because they already have low self-esteem and feel like it’s the best they can do, so they don’t leave after the very first time they’re treated badly, OR then the sulker goes to work at breaking down their self-esteem even more, making it that much harder to leave. I hear of so many situations where someone was married to a “sulking” (shorthand for the kind of emotional abuse mentioned in all these comments) partner and didn’t leave for 20 years.

Is it because we teach that emotional abuse isn’t as important as physical abuse, or that we don’t teach what emotional abuse is at all? I just think it’s so sad that so many lovely women (and often their children) are stuck in these relationships. (And I understand there’s the same financial reasons for not divorcing as always; I just mean beyond that).

😁

Bravo!