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

[CountessDracula]

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

no rabbits or ferrets or poultry apparently.

I guess non-rabbit sex toys would be fine though.

moving, kew? tell all...

do you know what has struck me by this thread CD is that your DH is just like me! Been a real eye-opener to see his side of the coin. He always has a go at me for not being home when I say and he wants to go out. Yet when I go out he is always on time (talking of which we're doing an impromtu meetup tonight in Ealing around 8pm if you fancy it - you can get your own back).

I am terrible for leaving on time... just quickly finish this, just quickly speak to someone, just quickly ring someone... But if I have to pick the LOs up I have to leave on time as I will get fined a hefty amount if I'm late. Makes me realise how little I value my dh yet I should value him a lot lot more.

Thanks for this CD, you've really helped me to see things from his side.

Worst example here was when DH rang me and said he couldn't guarantee that he and DCs would be able to get the train as he was running late for work.

To bring them up to Leeds (from London) for my mother's funeral.

So Cd, the proof will be in the pudding won't it? If he actually DOES it rather than just saying he'll do it.

And re Anchovy "In my experience fathers are utterly capable at all the boring crap of parenting if they have to be. if they do have to leave work on time to pick up from nursery, or do the school preparation and drop offs." - absolutely, dh has to back away, jangling his keys, from anyone trying to talk to him at 4.59pm because he HAS to leave dead on 5pm to collect the children. And he HAS to make sure dd has sunscreen/ds has his lunch/dd has a hat etc etc because he is the person responsible for it 99% of the time.

Learned helplessness really really pisses me off too. I wasn't born knowing any of this boring tedious fking crap about washing machines and school routines and keeping children alive and well etc, I've had to learn it. Luckily so has dh.

Bloody hell BIWI, I'd be HOPPING mad at that.

Fennel, your dh and dd1 sound like my ds actually. Ds can't really be thought of as dyslexic (all literacy is fine), but he's definitely in the dyspraxic area - huge sequencing/self-organisation problems along with the memory difficulties.

(Eg: he has, to date, two if not three teeth just sitting about, & have been for weeks, waiting for him to remember to Tooth Fairy them - which is probably equiv to your dh's forgetting about windsurfing.)

Perhaps we should discuss tactics further some other time & not hijack the general dh deploring

WWW - hopping didn't quite describe my reaction!

He does school drop off 2 or 3 days a week and collects her on Tuesdays as he works from home

He is very very capable

(btw cd, was talking about men in general not your dh in particular wrt learned helplessness)

I was thinking about this last night. My DP is incredibly conscientious about his fatherly duties. He is also conscientious about making sure I get some time off, time for myself. He is remarkably emotionally supportive to all of us. BUT (and it seems almost silly to mention it) he never does any washing and wouldn't dream of booking a restaurant/sorting out a babysitter as a surprise. We are all real people. With strengths and weaknesses.

no Tuuter no house move (will be carried out of here in a box if I have any say in the matter) - covenant when I bought this place was no rabbits (or ferrets or poultry)...

I was taking ds to school the other day. We were a few minutes to the good, so I nipped into Pret for a takeaway coffee, leaving ds outside. When I came out, he said "But Mummy! I thought you were meant to be buying me a cereal bar for break, as we've run out at home?"

Hurray hurray

(I empathise with paralysis in the face of school skirts.)

Get him an Organised Mum Calendar Issy and if he doesn't transcribe the contents of every scrap of school-related paper onto it nightly, it is large enough to give him an admonitory whack over the head.

Absolutely re the trivia.

I am slightly curious to know if and when Mr Inferior would ever book a haircut for his offspring. Given that I only do it once a year.

And can also add a dh who more than does his bit school-run wise, both pick-up and drop-off, is good around the house, and still rubbish at telling me he is running late, or guaranteeing to be anywhere at any given time - except work, of course
Also given to standing at head of stairs bleating about PE shorts as I race out of the door at 7.20am. He does most of the drops because, put bluntly, I don't feel I can actually relax and rely on him to get home at the right time on most of the school week. Sometimes my fingers hover over the mobile to txt him to remember any deviation from the norm
Hope yours has learned his lesson CD, am wondering whether about 50% of Mn will be bookmarking this to set their dps as lines, now or in the near future.

DP used to take the toddler dds with him to the barber's. The barber once refused to cut 2yo dd2's hair on the basis they "don't do women". . despite DP insisting he'd be happy with a boy's cut.

DP's barber is in the city and gives him stock market tips (wtf?)

Gawd, Marina, had forgotten PE kit. I mean forgotten about it. I blame myself, dammit, I sorted it out, must Relinquish Responsibility.

Yes, my DP would give them crew cuts for washing and brushing ease. And tell me that it's easier that way and it's just my interfering controlling and perhaps even conformist gender-constrained nature (he knows how to wind me up which sees crew cuts as inappropriate for 3 small girls.

Similarly with the school skirt. He'd argue that the dd could go in pinafore on the first day of next term and skirt could be bought that day. And he's right. Sort of. But then again....

Issy - I completely agree with you re the difference between understanding. My dh is really very domesticated and organised but still does not understand that if a particular item of clothing is required on a particular day it's worth checking the night before when there is still time to get it washed and dried. He will have thought about what's needed as soon as the school note came home - it will be on a million different lists and timetables - but it will still be screwed up in heap on the bedroom floor or at the back of the wardrobe and consequently unwearable in the eyes of a 13 year old girl.

At a slight tangent (possibly more connected to that nice thread about the most ridiculous thing ever argued about) I did once try to explain things to dh by saying "think of parenting like a job-share" .... at which he gave me a long & heartfelt disquisition on how business theory has now discounted job-sharing as a viable commercial model

(and a bit )