DH is constantly vanishing in the house

[towardstheocean]

Sounds ridiculous and probably is; I’m semi anticipating being roasted to a crisp here but does anyone else have a DH like mine?

We have two very young children and obviously they are a lot of work. We have definitely fallen into me being the default carer and I have to admit I’m not sure this can be changed. But what’s currently driving me insane is DH vanishing. For example earlier, the children were eating dinner and I really could have used some help but he’d gone. I was calling to him but no answer. He came back some half an hour later and said ‘oh sorry, I was sorting out X in the garden’ Point out if t wasn’t a great moment and I get huffy ‘when else can I do it?’ But I somehow have to do my things around him.

He WFH twice a week and is always sat in his study for hours while I struggle with the children in the next room, fuming. He disappears at bath time too.

I do think it’s partly deliberate and also partly that lack of forethought - he doesn’t need to worry about their dinner as I’ll sort it and of course I can’t very well not because they have to eat.

It is so frustrating.

I also realised that many men are a tiny bit frightened to deal with their own kids, they imagine them crying, arguing or not knowing what to do, so they just avoid them a lot and let you take the lead role. They need upskilling, and the only way to get them actively parenting is to leave them to it. I have a friend who has three boys and never, not once, has the dad ever taken all three out or even looked after them at home, ever; they are now adults. Don't give him the chance to opt out, it will be better for their relationship in the end anyway.

Look. You came on here with (legitimate) grievances

So don't back track

What are you going to do about them?

And then attempt to do something about it

He's either not pulling his weight or he isn't

You are either willing to facilitate that or you're not

How's your pension?

It's clear who's making ALL the sacrifices in your family

I hope it ends up worth it in more ways than one

I've had this problem with my partner to an extent. What I've started doing is not giving him an option. Saying "can you.." is your first problem. You're not giving that option, you're just expected to do it. So start telling him instead. "You're doing bath time tonight, I have to do x y and z" for instance. He will soon get it :)

I think it’s normal to get annoyed at your partner!

@Blimey97 yeah that works if he’s there. He just did the amazing disappearing act again when I was making lunch 🤦🏼‍♀️

So he's doing it regularly.

Make sure the kids are safe. Turn everything off and demand he comes back now.

You're being walked over.

What is stopping you from saying ‘you’ll have to do dinner and bath tonight, I’m going out soon’ ?

The fact he’s vanished? Sorry, I know I sound sarky and I don’t want to but everyone is missing the point. I don’t want him doing a solo bedtime, I want help at lunch time. I don’t want to go to the cinema, I want a hand at dinner time. I don’t want to go to counselling, I want to be able to have the children on the bath while I put some clothes away.

Tell him that then.

And if he dissappears again, dissappear from his life for a short time so he knows how god damn frustrated you are. Because right now you're in martyr ville.

I think it’s normal to get annoyed at your partner!

Yes, it is. But persistently frustrated, upset, or angry at your partner’s inability to make changes?

No. This is unhealthy and is likely the result of a maladaptive coping mechanism you developed as a child which is showing up in your adulthood, but you are seemingly unwilling to reflect on.

You needed to vent about his actions - everyone agrees he is crap and your current set up is really unfair.

But you can’t change someone else. The only thing you can change is your own actions and boundaries, which generally transforms a relationship since you make up 50% of it. So what are you going to do?

Herc - I have, many many times. It makes no difference at all.

So it really IS - this is how things are. He won’t change and if I decided it was just totally unacceptable I would be looking at divorce. But as I said earlier, it’s a huge thing to break up an entire family unit. And doing it for this wouldn’t strike me as right, at this time.

Be frustrated but that’s how it is.

I want a hand at dinner time

Why a hand? Why can’t you relinquish control and let him do the whole thing? You don’t have to go out but you do have to be entirely absent so that he can’t vanish and the kids can’t seek you out.

He won’t learn unless he’s left entirely to his own devices with them so they can develop their own ways of doing things.

And I fucking hate the way not wanting my children to grow up here and there, at mums this week and dads the next, split finances, split attention, disagreements, misery, step siblings - yeah, if that makes me a martyr then I am. I’d rather be a martyr than a selfish shit thinking purely of my happiness.

It’s a turn of phrase. But yes it is a hand as I’m cooking so need him to watch the kids. That’s it.

I feel like I’m on trial at the stand here you know.

A recipe for misery is resentment and a burnt out mum

It’s deliberate. Unless you agree definite responsibility for childcare duties he will always slope out of it. It’s your job not to facilitate this.

It’s genuinely pathetic that he can’t cook for the kids, but surely he can reheat something you have prepared.

Sit at table eat together. Every day.

Why do you need to cook? Why can’t he cook his children dinner and you vanish.

Interesting that you feel you are on trial.

You are highly defensive and deeply in denial about your role in this relationship.

How was your childhood?

This! So incredibly important for connection, modeling, positive associations of food. Tonnes of research on it.

@towardstheocean my dad was like this. It got worse as we got older and into our teens and we never had a relationship or real rapport with him. We knew that our mum did everything and that she was the only one who would be able to keep track of what was going on in our lives.

I love him dearly and he has improved since he retired but I still resent the lack of effort he made to know his children or be there for the little moments, the daily family drudgery, the bath times, story times and activities at home and out and about.

it was like he was just a lodger in our home. my dad also worked away in our childhood and that would have been ok if he had made the effort when we were all back under the same roof.

I’m 50 now and my relationship is still strained with my dad as I just don’t know him as a person nor him me.

It’s alright saying you will just crack on etc - but your children will realise that he isn’t part of the family. He‘s also modelling what a father/partner behaves like. I’d really try to push for a ‘under this roof’ meeting as to what expectations are fit when he’s home.

Whereas growing up in a household where two people resent each other leading to a lifetime of them accepting being second best is so much more healthy for your children.

Hi OP, this is a competitive sport in our house, haha! I often go upstairs to sort kids clothes etc or even just for a nap and leave other half with the kids downstairs. Have you tried just announcing that you will disappear for an hour or so and leave DH in charge? If he isn't used to using his initative, just give him instruction, e.g. to make a spaghetti for dinner. I know that is still mental load for you, but at least not the physical one on you.
Honestly, I would try to approach it from a lighthearted point of view and carve out the same luxury of vanishing to yourself too.
Your post also reminded me of a funny thing my friend mentioned, which is kind of the same sport in reverse. Whenever she tried to leave baby with DH to get on with other things in the house, her DH walked around with baby in hand hunting her down and saying to baby: lets find mummy and see what she is doing! She nipped it in the bud 😂

This reply completely misses the point. It’s during the prep time before and immediately afterwards that I need all the help I can get. And I know that’s the wrong word but I’m too tired to even care 😂

Herc yes, is the short answer to that. I don’t walk around a simmering ball of rage all the time. This particular habit of DHs is endlessly annoying. I am sure I have some too. It is certainly preferable and I would say normal to have two parents who annoy one another from time to time than to experience divorce and all of the long term repercussions from that.

@Crampulet to be fair I do do that myself. I think a lot of the time it’s when he does just vanish with no ‘heads up’ and I don’t know if he’s upstairs, in the garden, dead, New Zealand or what!