Am I being unreasonable?

[Skara]

D(**n)H was away last weekend on a boys jolly. That has meant I've looked after ds and dd (3 and 1) and the house and garden etc for 12 days on the trot without any help from him. When he was arranging it he was very quick to promise that to make up for it I'd get a lie in both days this weekend but now he's being all narky about it, making comments like 'well you'll be alright with your TWO lie ins' which I think is blooming unfair given that he was off last weekend in luxury surroundings while I got up at 5.30am with the children. Thoughts, anyone who is still up at this ridiculous hour? Am I entitled to my turn at having a relaxing weekend and if so, do I just ignore his carping or how do I handle it?

well now that you've started hmb... same here. My dh has to get up when he wakes (and is in any event lovely) so he lets me lie in both days on the weekend and always does bathtime in the evenings as well so I can have another rest. Got up at 10am today - he'd been up since 6 with the kids. He is very cheery about it as well so that's nice!

I am so glad to read this thread, at least it isn't just my dh. I rarely get a lie in, and get up every weekend with my dd's. Ihave started making darn sure that they go and wake him up however if he hasn't got up by about 9.30. I do try to go back to bed once I have my girls infront of the telly, but it ends up me going up and down stairs about 10 times until it's just not worth it. Then he says I really should relax This morning we were due to go out on a family day, it's my b'day tomorrow and I'm working, but who had the lie in?? The after we'd decided we were going out at 10am, he got on the computer and started playing solitare. I get all of us ready, 2 kids and me, and even packed his beach stuff, without him lifting a finger! It really irriated me that not only did I not get my promised lie in, I was the one racing around organising stuff for all of us without his help.

I know that's a new subject but that is another of my HUGE bugbears. They swan downstairs and can't understand why everyone isn't ready Yes course they can have a lie in, as it only takes them 20 mins to get ready, it takes me 3 times that as there's 3 people.......grrrrrrrrrrr

commiserations, everyone. reading (most of) these posts is so depressing

what do you think accounts for this imbalance? how did it arise? is it to do with relative earning power or with culturally defined roles? or just that men and women have different skills and/or priorities?

or "all of the above"...

My problem is Dh leaves home at 7am and arrives back at 6pm. He thinks I 'gallivant' around all day doing/going where ever I please. Which in effect I do, but not solely for MY benefit. I went away alone on a long weekend last March, thinking, great, he will now know life is bldy hard looking after a toddler all day. (At least at work you get a lunch break!)(No offence meant to anyone who works) On my return, he said it wasn't the same for him as I have my toddler groups and friends houses to go to!!!! I see his point, but pleeeaaasse. I would rather stay at home than go to work, for my sake as well as Ds' but he thinks life is just one long 'lie on the sofa all day reading magazines' Personally, I find life during the week easy, at least I've only got the one child to worry about!

I can't believe you all let this happen. I honestly I am. We have a very strict turn taking system, which is only ever broken if one of us is genuinely ill. Hangovers don't count I would honestly not stay in a one-sided marriage. I know that might sound melodramatic, but I wouldn't. And if someone called me a bitch, well, I can't tell you how ballistic I would go. Seriously. It just wouldn't be on. My dh is normal bloke, from Yorkshire, into music and football, but he bloody well does his share or more and I would NOT put up with less.

Totally agree with you Furball, except my dh works from home, so I have him ordering me around all week too!

Crunchie - sorry you are feeling bad. Hope you have a nice birthday tomorrow!

I'm with Aloha on this - my dh would not get away with behaviour like this - although I can see your difficulty if you have a depressed dh Skara. DH and I always take turns to get up at the weekend, and whoever has got up wakes the other one with a cuddlable baby and coffee at am, then goes off to make breakfast.
I think it may be easier where the woman works outside the home - men with SAHP seem to assume all childcare is the womans job - even at weekends. I also see more incompetence amongst partners of SAHM's - and I can see why men can have a lack of confidence in childcare when they compare themselves to an ultra competent woman. But I have to say I think teh only reason they act like this is because you let them.

agree I'm afraid. there is no way I would allow my dh to be as selfish as half of this lot sound. and it wouldn't cross his mind to be like that either, which is one of the (many!) reasons why I married him - because he is good and fair and treats others as he thinks he should be treated.

why exactly did you run around packing his beach bag while he played solitaire on his computer crunchie? completely bizarre behaviour which shows zero respect to you. and fairly bizarre of you to just accept it I'd have thought.

sorry, this is all a bit alien to me, mind you I do get a lot of my friends saying how great dh is with the children and how much he does to help around the house etc so maybe they all put up with lazy bastards as well.

I have to say that if dp ever called me a selfish bitch that would be it (seriously).

On the lie in side of it, we take turns and if I have a girly night out he definitely gets up with ds and if he has a night out with his friends I would let him lie in.

To all those poor sleep deprived mothers - why not go on strike? No sex, no washing his clothes, no cooking his meals until he starts treating you with a bit of respect?? I know it sounds a bit patronising but these guys sound like they need a good kick up the backside!

Ooh I've hit a nerve with everyone haven't I? Yes Aloha it's v difficult with dh suffering from stress/depression (which this weekend he has finally acknowledged) especially as he was always known amongst my friends as an ironing, cooking, 50-50 split of chores paragon. I had just decided he'd turned into a typical male but both my mum and his mum have told me this weekend they think it's the illness not a total personality transplant. Let's hope so...meanwhile while he flounders around finding a way to cope with how he's feeling I still have to get on with running the world. I just want a break - have spent the afternoon looking wistfully at the 'best hotels with childcare' reviews and convincing myself we can live with the credit card bill!

aloha, prufrock and pph

i would have made/did make the same comments as you have made on this thread...

until i read droile's comments here a while ago...

my previous attitude would have been that i just would not tolerate it and couldn't understand why anyone would, but it seems for some the only alternative is to split up, and i think whatever bravado is possible when you're not subject to the same situation... well, i've always wondered what i would actually do if put to the ultimate test.

unfortunately droile doesn't seem to be posting here anymore.

I do remember that bk - and wonder where Droile is. Part of me thinks "well I wouldn't have been so stupid to marry a man like that, and definately wouldn't have had his kids", but they change don't they - or they don't change, whilst we do.
I do think we sometimes bring things on ourselves though (not you Droile) by being too good at stuff. I have had to stop myself from telling dh how do to things correctly (ie, my way) so many times. On Sundays, when dh gets up dd has a couple of toys out (I tidy away as we go along),we have spent 3 hours playing together and the papers are unopened on the table. On Saturdyas, dd has been alternately cuddled and tickled to death by dh and put down to play on the floor with the entire contents of her toybox and the kitchen cupboards whilst he reads the papers. It used to drive me mad, but now I figure taht as long as he helps clear up the mess - who cares.

Agree with aloha, Princesspeahead and Prufrock. Bossykate, I'm not sure why men get away with it really (I read droile's points and couldn't do it myself but see her reasoning). Where I see friends with husbands like this, it seems to me to be a combination of the things you mention. Where the woman is the sahp it often seems to be expected that she's responsible for childcare at the weekends and in the evenings too since the dh seems to think he's had a hard week at work and thus deserves a weekend rest! Outrageous IMO. Some women friends put up with it for an easy life since they can't face the row about it, and others just can't stand to see something done badly so think it's easier to do it themselves (washing, cleaning, childcare). It isn't, I could tell them that. It's easier IMO to be with someone who knows how to do it! And if he doesn't, show him, it's not rocket science (apologies to the person on the grammar thread who said they hate that expression). I have one friend who is a complete martyr in all areas of her life so it doesn't surprise me that she is in this too. I suspect working outside the home does make a difference, in that some men perceive being a SAHP as one long day of sitting around doing nothing which we all know isn't true.

Although I do blame the men who are having the lie ins I do also think well, it's never happened to me because I simply wouldn't (and haven't ever, with ex dh or dp) tolerate it. We have 50/50 lie ins and do about half of everything else too. Skara, I do see that it's not quite the same if your dh is depressed/otherwise ill, but he did still make a deal with you and then renege on it.

PPH, those comments about how wonderful men are when they do anything ps me off. It seems that whenever men do 50% of the work or help with childcare in any way we hear "ah, isn't he lovely/good/helpful?" as if he's doing some almighty favour in doing stuff around the house or looking after children. (I put 'helping around the house' there to start with and then amended it - see, I'm guilty too of using language that describes a man doing something domestic as 'helping' ). You rarely hear the same said of a woman "ah, look at her spending time with/feeding/hugging her children, isn't she good?" do you?

Crunchie, I'm interestd too - why did you let him lie in and mess about while you were working? I hope you get a lie in or at least a lovely birthday tomorrow.

well, I have to say I did get an apology, and not a prompted one either (for a change!)
Aparently he couldn't remember calling me names (oh yea?).
He took us to hampton court yesterday and we had a boat ride down the river, so he has redeemed himself some what.

In fairness to him he does usually get up with ds at the w-end, but I usually get up pretty soon after as I tend to hear ds crying a lot which he never does with me, just to find him in his bouncy chair in the living room in front of the tv while dp plays on the pc - so, can't win really!

WWW I also agree that me should do thier fair share of the housework, childcare etc as a routine thing and of itself that is not worthy of praise, after all they eat, live in the house, have a 50% share in the kids etc.

The reason I called my husband saintly is that he gets up at 5.50 to go to work 5 days a week and then gets up every day over the weekend with the kids. And he is happy about it. I'm a real misery in the mornings so I can't help but see thei behaviour as saintly!

I think I was a bit harsh on my dh, he does take his turn on getting up with ds at weekends he just takes so long to do it so my sleep is well and truly broken.He doesn't get up through the week as he gets up at 5am but ds manages to wake just as dh leaves for work .
He does do a lot of the housework though so i suppose i can't grumble.

I think I was lucky in some ways as my dh already had a child when we got together and I was able to see how he was as a parent before we had ds. We also discussed how we expected each other to behave as parents beforehand - including our feelings about discipline, hitting kids, food, etc etc. It has really helped along the line. We row, certainly, but not about ds or his care. Mind you, he says windowcleaners are a waste of money, but won't clean the windows, so does anyone know a good windowcleaner in SE London as I can't see out of mine anymore!

I agree www - I'm always a bit surprised when people comment on my dh - i'm very much of the opinion that it is our house, our children and our marriage so we should play equal roles (which also involves him running around after me when I'm pregnant because I have to go through labour!!). I'm never too sure what he is being congratulated for though - enjoying playing with his children?
Mind you he is considerably messier than me, but that is just personality. I'm considerably messier than other people in turn, I'm sure, but being married to someone pathologically tidy would probably irritate me as much dh's "higher tolerance" for messiness does and I just see it as one of those things that you have to rub along with in a marriage.

I can see Droile's point - but I happen to believe that a person's attitude to their role in the house is inseparable from their attitude to their role in the marriage and I wouldn't accept being treated as the servile, second-class citizen that some of these stories suggest. Mind you my dh would have been NUTS to marry me if that was even vaguely what he wanted, because that certainly isn't what he got!

ps well done metrobaby - very difficult to housetrain a man who has been so spoilt by his mother - much admiration to you!

some of these posts are making me really angry.

no i wouldn't put up with it either, would never have got involved with a man who never expected to lift a finger around the house, oh and i don't subscribe to the "don't criticise their efforts" school of thought either, don't see why a man should be held to a lower standard of competence at household tasks than a woman just so they don't have an excuse to strop off and sulk.

well, bully for me! i can slap my own back and congratulate myself for my feistiness and good judgement in choosing a husband...

but i can't answer the questions droile asked below, and i don't see many of these posts doing so either, regardless of the high claims contained within them.

from the other thread i linked to below, quote from droile:

"I've tried serious threats - he says yes, then doesn't do it. So whats next, apart from leaving, which I teeter on the verge of constantly? What do I have to say to get through to you - I'm not letting him. You try and make a grown adult do something they have no intention of doing. It's impossible. You can tell, ask and threaten a thousand times, you just end up with no choice but to take the action that will hurt all of you, ie leave. Sometimes he concedes, if I've put my case particularly cleverly, and helps for a day or two, but then slips back into his old ways and we start the rows all over again. It's like Groundhog Day. BTW, I haven't excused my husband - there is no excuse for him. And I'm well aware that it's WON'T, not CAN'T. That book Why Men Don't Iron (or something) makes me see red, actually.
Beetroot. I don't understand how/why I'm in this situation either. When I met him, I thought it was because he was extremely busy, and he lost his cleaner when I came along (genuinely!). As I said, he had all the right patter. He was extremely egalitarian. Then it all slipped, as it does - we all put on a good show at the beginning of relationships."

what do you want us to say, bossykate? do you want us to dissect Droile's relationship, which she didn't post on this thread and which she isn't around to respond to? Do you want us to point out to you that she is clearly deeply unhappy and constantly considering leaving her husband and thinks there is no excuse for his behaviour? What are you hoping to get out of it? Seems rather voyeuristic of you, if you ask me.

This thread has thrown up some interesting issues which people clearly need to get off their chests - has given other support that they aren't around, has given rise to some amusing stories, and has given other people - including you - the chance to feel grateful for their dhs. none of which is bad.

Give everyone a break.

"others support that they aren't alone" I mean

No time to post right now but just wanted to say well put Bossykate.
I don't think voyeurism comes into it. If I read BK rightly she was quoting Droile because Droile had put it so well first time around.

Think the last sentence goes a long way to explain it - we all put on a good show at the start of relationships.