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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 have ONE fucking thing a week I do for myself and dh repeatedly lets me down by being late home

222 replies

CountessDracula · 25/06/2008 18:56

and tonight "he forgot"

I have been so supportive to him lately and he can't even be fucked to think of me

This is becoming a pattern
I am beginning to think he is a selfish cunt who doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself.

In fact I have thought it for a while

He is compounding it with repeated selfish behaviour

I never let him down
never

OP posts:
Alfreda · 25/06/2008 22:26

It is annoying.
As a Mum that is always late home from work while SAHD gets pissed off, could I suggest you just bok a babysitter to do the thing that you want, and the source of your anger will just melt away?
Dh will be paying, of course.

WideWebWitch · 26/06/2008 06:08

Hope you're ok CD and managed to talk to dh. (iptf, lol at cntdrac)

Buda · 26/06/2008 06:28

You have my sympathies. I now sit down with DH once a week and we go through diaries. I book babysitter for any nights out that he is def not around for and other nights he puts "DS-sitting" in his diary. Whenever I go out I tend to go around 7pm. Still each and every time he will be late home as he didn't know what time I would be going out. Or he leaves it too late to leave the office and gets stuck in traffic.

I think they go straight onto work mode and every thing else is put out of their little minds till they are home again.

SusieMc · 26/06/2008 09:16

I hear your pain! My usually adorable hubby does this ALL the time. He says "I'm just not good at planning" or "...can you remind me"..."can you call me half an hour before I should leave" etc etc. I do - foolishly. He is still ALWAYS late. I want nothing more than for him just to remember by himself. He is an intelligent man, it shouldn't be beyond him. And yet it somehow is. he thinks I'm 'anal' for wanting to arrive at parties on time (or at least not hours late as is his want), or stick to agreed arragements, or not consistently leave work hours late. I call his office at 8pm virtually every night to ask when he's coming home so I know roughly when he might need feeding; every night he says 'I'm leaving shortly'. This phrase is meanless. To me shortly in this contaxt means 5-10mins; to him it can be anything up to an hour or so...

So this doesn't really help you, but it adds to the 'you're not alone' message.

Oh, and Alfreda. You are a true pragmatist. I admire this as a quality. But for me at least, paying the babysitter to cover his absence wouldn't solve the problem. Sure it would let me go out, but I don't want him to just throw money at the problem, I want him to get off his backside and do something more personally involved.

S.x

Oliveoil · 26/06/2008 09:26

hope it all went ok CD and a rocket was placed up his deriier derier arse

I can't make the girls sports days so have told dh he has to do them

if I have told him the dates once, I have told him 75 times

brain like a sieve

however, I think it is just brain like a sieve, not him being a shit

is there more to this than him missing last night?

xx

fircone · 26/06/2008 09:26

Agree, SusieMc. Paying a babysitter just ends up being an expensive hassle.

I ROARED at dh long and hard a while ago, and at least now he knows he MUST call when he is about to get on the train. I don't care when he leaves, but just so as I know when to have his dinner ready. Beforehand he would waltz in at 7, 8 or 9 and then get crabby when his meal wasn't served within 5 minutes.

ggglimpopo · 26/06/2008 09:30

I was watching crap tv last night and there was this cheesy line 'There is a sleeping princess hidden behind the smile of every woman (barf), and a secret pig hidden behind every man...."

I tthought of my thread!

It is how you deal with the pig side of him, you see. He is being a selfish pig.

Innit?

I am so deep.

((hugs))

madamez · 26/06/2008 09:36

He does need a metaphorical good kick, because basically repeated behaviour like this is demonstrating that he thinks you are only a woman and therefore not very important - you shouldn't want to do things for yourself, mere woman, you exist to service man and children.
Ask him what is necessary to make him come home on time and take his share of the parenting.Point out that it is not going to stop being necessary and he is going to have to do it (ie you are not going to give up your hobby, which is undoubtely his aim).

Original poster
CountessDracula · 26/06/2008 09:47

Right

I suspect he won't be doing it again in a hurry

Yes of course there is more to this. It is not just Weds nights that are the problem. In fact last night it was a double whammy as he had said he was leaving early as he has been working v hard lately. Leaving at 5, home at 6. So he gets home at 7.30. Great.

Now I have always got very fucked off at this. It is pathetic. Why, if you say you will be home at a certain time, can you not call at the time you were going to leave if you know you aren't going to make it?

I never do this to him
If I am in an overrunning meeting I will text or call to say I am going to be late at the time I was meant to leave. It is basic good manners and respect in my book. He is fully aware of this.

Last night dd was excited that he was coming early and we were all going to have supper together. Not really fair on her.

Anyway he has agreed (I'll believe it when I see it) that he will call in future. I have had these promises before though. I think I managed to get across how it made me feel last night though (undervalued, unimportant, angry, sad etc)

I support him a lot at the moment
I think he now understands that that is a two way process

He did understand anyway I know but he seemed to have forgotten...

OP posts:
Original poster
CountessDracula · 26/06/2008 09:50

oh and reason for not calling - it might result in confrontation which he hates

errr
hello????

I have never ONCE given him a hard time for working late if he calls and lets me know on time.

Then only time he gets confrontation is when I call him at 8 and he is still at his desk when he should have been home at 7

I think he now understands this too

Men are freaks have decided

OP posts:
Bramshott · 26/06/2008 09:53

There is this secret male mentality which says "my work is so important that I have to stay at work until it is done" and of course the flip side of this is "your work is so unimportant that of course you can stop at the same time every day to pick up the kids from the childminder". I have come to the conclusion that my DH is so totally on a different wavelength and rarely has to think about anyone except himself and his work during the week, that it never occurs to him that he should leave at a particular time. That said, I think society also colludes in expecting that men who work will have a support system behind them and will not have to worry about the crap stuff so it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy!

This makes no sense and I am ranting (!)

Bramshott · 26/06/2008 09:55

I am interested in your troubles CD as I've been thinking recently that I must sign up for something like a choir so that I have one thing in the week apart from work which is for me and gets me out of the house. DH of course has work (from which as I ranted below, he does not have to be home at a set time, whereas I do), and a hobby which takes several hours at the weekend. Now I am wondering though if it would actually just be more trouble than it's worth!

SheherazadetheGoat · 26/06/2008 09:55

hi cd, hope he does remember in future. i thought i would share my email exchange with dh this morning

him:I have been invited for a meeting in the last week of August, can you remember when we go on holiday?

me:The last week in august. Should we cancel our holiday so you can go to the meeting?

him:No silly! It was just to see whether to decline it or not. I will check tonight.

me:No I think work should come before our personal happiness I will cancel the holiday forthwith.

last year we DID rearrange the holiday due to his work.

MehgaLegs · 26/06/2008 10:02

I had to give up choir because DH was always late and therefore so was I , couldn't cope with the grumbling old bats as I scurried in late half way through a warm up.

I have considered divorce several times over similar circukstances to yours CD.

My DH has no concept of time. He doesn't appreciate the time and effort needed to get 4 boys and myself ready for a party or an outing. He strolls up to the shower as we are all getting into the car and then pops down in a towel to ask if I have ironed his shirt.

However he does redeem himself by being a very fab dad and doing his fair share at other times.

I have come to the conclusion that he is a crap husband but a great father so I tolerate him .

QuintessentialShadows · 26/06/2008 10:06

CD. You are not the only one. Most women I know have given up long time ago, and just arrange a babysitter.Husbands are usually too selfish to ever contemplate their wives' needs!

margoandjerry · 26/06/2008 10:07

God I hate that "can't deal with confrontation" thing. It makes me rage.

If you don't want a confrontation, behave properly in the first place you knobber.

God. Sorry but that pisses me off. How childish is that? You want to behave irresponsibly but also you don't think you should have to face the consequences.

JEEZ.

Sorry CD, I am not helping at all am I?

I do think a lot of it is just about buckling up to being a grownup which means managing your life properly. Anyone can manage their career but managing a career and a family takes a proper grownup.

Libra1975 · 26/06/2008 10:07

when I first started working in London I worked in a very male dominated team. Thursday night was drinks night, sometimes the men would decline on the first " are you coming for a drink" but then say oh ok I will come along for one and then proceed to LAUGH and JOKE about how angry their wives would be when they got in late.
I would always ask why they didn't just ring their wives up and explain they would be late "oh so-so would be cross" was the answer. I would then try to explain the difference between the wife being slightly cross at the 5pm phonecall at the fact her husband would be late home and the wife being FUCKING FURIOUS when the husband rocked home stinking of beer gone 11pm whilst she had had no idea where he was, how he was, if he wanted dinner, if he was going to say good night to the children etc. They never got it.

Original poster
CountessDracula · 26/06/2008 10:07

Well I am not giving up
I don't see why he shouldn't pull his weight
he is not a baby

OP posts:
Bink · 26/06/2008 10:08

I like the ploy of mild social humiliation mentioned upthread.

As you aren't - of course - your dh's PA, I would seriously think about getting his actual PA in on the matter (or, at least, telling him I was going to).

I do realise that could be seen as letting him off the hook (because yet again somebody else does the reminding & the prompting instead of its being his own responsibility) but I think the public squirm factor is the real objective.

Separately - the significant thing, I think, about these events is how the perpetrator acknowledges what's happened: if you get an "I'm sorry BUT" that is not a sorry. A sorry, in my book (which gets read particularly, a lot, to my ds), involves a real intention to address the source of the problem, not just whatever the specific instance was. So he needs to say, not "I won't do it again", but "here is what I am going to do to make it as certain as I can that I am not going to do it again".

(I make dh put stuff on the kitchen calendar IN HIS OWN WRITING. I can't stress too much how crucial this is.)

Libra1975 · 26/06/2008 10:08

opps sorry about the swearing.

motherinferior · 26/06/2008 10:14

Ah yes, Bink speaks great sense. IN OWN WRITING very important.

I have been known also to print out emails and wave them in front of the beloved father of my children saying 'look, look, you sent this to me on such and such a date'.

Bran, the comparison I tend to make is to the first world war - so much skirmishing and bloodshed for such infinitely small, yet invaluable, gain.

I do realise this perspective is sometimes considered Petty and Point-scoring - am very relieved it's not just confined to me!

Oliveoil · 26/06/2008 10:14

what annoys me is having to remember all the little shitty household stuff

ie a Christening coming up, HIS relatives, HIS family...who sorts the presents out? moi

who remembers the stuff for school and playgroup? moi

who remembers that on X day, we need to do Y to sort out Z? moi

etc etc etc

I feel like a friggin PA, I may pay myself the going rate

motherinferior · 26/06/2008 10:16

I can rather recommend email, actually, as it means a definite written statement which can be brandished in evidence.

TigerFeet · 26/06/2008 10:22

I've just read the whole thread nodding sagely and empathising with every post.

It's just so fucking annoying isn't it?

I have just deleted a long diatribe on exactly why I am pissed off with being DH's social farking secretary.

[scream]

Bink · 26/06/2008 10:22

Did you ever see that very wonderful sketch (can't remember by whom) with a couple arguing, in a room lined with video boxes, and one is saying "But I told you" and the other is saying "No you didn't" and the first one says, "Yes I told you on Friday at 2.48 pm, and you said that was fine" and the other says "You did not, I'd have remembered" so the first one goes to the shelves & gets a video out ... and you realise that the whole room exists for the sole purpose of marital disagreement PROOF.