Do you "thank" your dh for stuff?

[halster]

Dh and I have an ongoing issue about if, or when, we should "thank" the other one when we have done something for each other that is over and above our normal day to day routine. I would appreciate some honest views.

When he goes away or stays out till late seeing his pals (i.e leaves the house at 8am and then does not return till midnight, meaning that I have put the small and demanding kids to bed on my own after a long day with them, cleared up, cooked dinner, cleared up again, run up and down the stairs, etc etc )- I would like him to show that he appreciates this as I find it very hard. He thinks this is ridiculous. And that nothing should be said.

It also cuts both ways. For example, I went away for 3 days on a girls weekend recently and when I returned I said something along the lines of "thanks for looking after the kids I really appreciate it". My dh thinks that I should not have said thank you at all.

I am really struggling to understand his point of view. I feel that not acknowledging efforts like this means that they are somehow being taken for granted. He feels that it is just the normal give and take of family life. Any thoughts?

Day to day, DH says thanks for his dinner when I hand it to him, thanks for a drink if I make him one, thanks when I ironed him a shirt for a funeral last week.

He doesn't say thanks when I look after the kids so he can go out at the weekend with his bro or whatever as I am their mother, but if he does it for me I might thank him as I know he finds it much more challenging than I do.

Well I say thank you everyday to my DH.

It is important IMO that you don't take each other for granted.

I look after our small kids all day (one is still only 9 weeks old and the other is 19mths old), he comes home and baths the older one (I do the other one and then breastfeed her) and then sits me down on the sofa with a glass of wine and cooks me dinner. He then, more often than not, clears away and cleans the kitchen down so that it is tidy for when I wake up the next morning to look after the kids again. I thank him everyday for this.

If he wants to go out with his friends at night he doesn't say thank you, but he certainly does not take it for granted ie he will sometimes come home beforehand and do the bath and bed thing, then cook for me and then go out. Other times he will simply stay out after work but will always ask me in advance and not take it for granted that I will always be over the moon.

It is probably how he has been brought up by his mum.

I'm with sophie on this (and I suspect most others)

Dh and I are always polite to one another, its a natural thing not forced in anyway. If one of us makes a cup of tea the other says thanks etc etc An unexpected bonus is that ds1 does it automatically too and people often comment on it. To us its basic courtesy.

The bigger things yes we do say thank you for also but its for making 'time away' possible rather than for looking after the kids which is not a 'job' or 'chore' that requires thanks, in our house anyway

Very important not to take each other for granted and saying please and thankyou are small but important ways of making sure that does't happen imo

We thank each other a lot. DH is of the opinion that when we do chores we are doing each other a favour. I disagree, e.g. I don't have to thank him for doing the washing up, because I cooked dinner. But I do thank him anyway, even for things like putting the baby to bed. I don't necessarily agree with it but it makes us both feel better I suppose. It does feel a bit empty sometimes but if it makes him feel appreciated then it is worth it.

What Squonk said.

I say thank you a lot more than dh does. I feel that I have to thank him for things that he does with the children and around the house, eg at weekends when we are sharing the load equally I will thank him for changing a nappy but he wouldn't dream of thanking me for something like that. I know that the thank yous shouldn't be one way but he obviously expects to be thanked and he is pretty good about sharing chores so I think it's the price I have to pay. Sometimes I do think 'for f's sake putting your son to bed wasn't a personal favour to me!' but mostly it just comes as second nature to me as normal polite behaviour. I am SAHM but it was just like this when I was WOHM