How would you handle a partner repeatedly forgetting important safety basics?

[Scouser44]

Need advice as I’m ready to pull my hair out. I have 2 young toddlers aged 1 and 2. I am not long back to work full time, husband also works full time.

i am so stressed because my husband is so, I don’t want to say useless but that’s how I see it sometimes. He never seems to think about how to do things right or safely. A few recent examples- he doesn’t close the stair gate, ever, always ‘forgets’ so I’m constantly checking its closed or catching our children half way up unsupervised. He forgets to lock the front door so when i come home from work I realise the house has been opened all day. He doesn’t lock the door when he is in and the kids have tried to (and on one occasion got out) which leads straight onto the road. When these things happen he just says sorry and he will remember again but then never does.

how would you genuinely deal with this if this was your husband or partner?

What does he do for a job? Presumably he manages to adhere to basic health and safety when he's at work?

Yes he is a manager of a large team in work and a successful one at that

Total dealbreaker for me. He doesn’t care about keeping his children safe = useless negligent father.

Not locking the front door is a typical British thing to do. Absolutely crazy but it's the norm here.

But he needs to close the stair gate.

Weaponised incompetence
Not sure what you do about it though - sorry…

Could he try and adopt aide memoirs? E.g., attach bells to the stair gate. I think I'd want to insist that trying to remember doesn't work, and he needs to get more creative in how he causes himself to remember?

Assuming he's genuinely trying, I'd also get an automatically latching front door.

He’d have left me by now because I doubt I’d have stopped going ballistic about it. Then I’d have changed the locks, found a good nursery and assembled the court documents.

Has he always been like this or is it new?

I literally couldn’t live with someone like this, I’d be in a constant state of stress.

As suspected.

I think quite often men have had a lifetime of mentally filing such things as house, children, shopping etc as "stuff that just gets done by a woman". They think "I forgot" is a genuine excuse.

He's choosing not to remember. He shouldn't have to bother his man brain with such female trivialities.

Put massive typed signs up all over the house. He sounds like a fucking idiot a bit like that american guy who left his child to die in a hot car while he watched porn.

Presumably he can and does manage at work

Therefore I would assume he is using weaponised incompetence because he regards everything within the home as your sole job. He is not a good husband nor father to his children if he is not bothered about their safety. Such men do not change because he cannot be asked.

This. Lalalalala I can switch my brain off because it’s pathetic to care about the house and children.

I’d be livid. From a practical POV though, alarms on everything, change the locks to be ones that lock automatically. Typically when I threaten DH with me doing DIY he acquiesces.

I think put it back to him. Ask “What are you going to do to make sure you remember in future”
Get him to actually come up with some steps himself.

You have a firm word with him that he either sorts himself out or he ships out. He needs to find ways to “remember” to do safety critical things or he goes to the doctor if his brain can’t retain certain information. He’s being pathetic.

I bet he doesn't forget things that are important to him.

We couldn't have a stair gate (at that time) as they weren't wide enough and other restrictive conditions! We taught our DCs to come downstairs every time on their bottoms. It was really funny when in a shop they would sit down on the stairs to descend as it was the natural way for them.

When at home we never locked the front door ever and our DCs never bothered going out. People next door did and had bolts top and bottom. Their DCs were always trying to escape all the time!

Ask him if he is trying to sabotage your return to work by being so incompetent as a parent that you will be forced to reconsider the benefits your income brings.

Or if he thinks proper care for his own children is work that is beneath him and should be done by you. Or he has observed you doing it all as if it's second nature to you, and thinks it requires no thought or mental effort, no headspace. I guarantee this is his problem.

If he claims more than once that he genuinely forgot basic safety details, tell him an evaluation by a doctor is in order, and until he gets a clean bill of health he will be organising a babysitter and paying for their services.

He doesn't care enough.
It's that simple.
My husband isn't a bad man but he was like this.
It killed a lot of respect for him.
I became the parent and it took absolute fury on my part for him to buck up, but the damage was done.

Start texting him every time.
So you have a record he cannot deny.
Do not have anymore children.

Him putting your children in danger will kill your marriage.

You need to document it.
Mention it to your GP.

Signs up all over the house that others can see.
Embarrass him.
He cares so little he will risk the children.
Mine at least was horrified, but it was still very annoying and stressful.

My husband has a very big job too.
It has taken 95% of his brain and what's left isn't great to be around.

I'd suggest he goes to the doctor to get his memory checked out because it simply isn't normal to forget to do things that keep your children safe.

When he refuses to do that, I'd ask him how on earth he manages to do his job when he forgets things all the time. Havn't his memory problems caused issues at work? Whats if he looses his job because he keeps forgetting important things?

When he tells you he doesnt forget things at work is when you ask him why he doesnt care about the safety of his children.

I will never forget a post on here by the mother of twins whose husband couldn’t be bothered with reins, no matter how many times she warned him, and as soon as she wasn’t there to check, he ‘forgot’ again and one was killed running into the road

I’d leave him. Genuinely. I could not live the rest of my life looking after a grown man, making sure the door was locked and my child wasn’t dead. I just couldn’t do it.

He’s never going to be able to look after them alone. He won’t be able to take them to football when they are ten because he can’t do ordinary things. So it’s just going to be you, looking after them whilst he is basically sabotaging it.

Oh God how awful, but this can and does happen. Id be seriously concerned for your childrens safety OP.

MrsPresley I believe was her name. She has saved lives, I am very convinced. I know I kept DD on reins after hearing all the ‘dog’ comments on here, with confidence borrowed from her. I wish her the very very best.

My ExH was like this and it was like parenting another child. I always had to check he’d locked the front door at night, mostly he hadn’t after he said he had. I tried everything to remind him about the basics and eventually left him.
In his first house on his own he continued this and was burgled and had his car broken into 5 times as he never locked it. Of course insurance didn’t pay out as he hadn’t followed basic safety advice. But it wasn’t my problem anymore. My DC’s both have house keys and manage to lock the door when they leave, he still doesn’t.
He’s very intelligent and holds down a good job, but he’s never had any common sense. We get on well but I’m glad we’re never going to live together again, my life is far less stressful now.

Our doors are always locked because you just don't know who could try to wander in. Someone walked into my husband's flat when he was a student and put a knife to his throat and robbed him. Senseless children with no impulse control or sense of fear could easily end up at the mercy of the street with nobody to protect them. So our doors are always locked and they have never tried to get out.