Seeing both families equally

My daughter prefers to spend time with her husbands family. Its a big family because his siblings have children and his parents are from big families.I totally accept this as her siblings don't have children yet.She is the only one married but has 2 young children .I do understand where your parents are coming from though.i don't mind unequal but the level of unequal can be hurtful.I dared to voice this to my daughter and she felt I was so negative she won't see me at all.Please don't be that person.Try see if you can find a way to spend time with them not equal necessarily but time.Life is too short

No you don’t owe them equal time. Sounds like they are hard work and your brother has an irrational fear of a dog.

Keep enjoying your life.

I'd love to hear the Brother's perspective on this. It's always so hard to have an opinion when you only have one side of a story.

Sorry but if my sibling said they didn’t want a dog around their baby/ child I’d respect that and wouldn’t take my dog when I went to see my niece/ nephew. You have frozen yourself out by not compromising.

I do think yabu for the dog situation. But not unreasonable for the time spent situation.

Leave the dog at home or with a dog sitter or somewhere safe that you are satisfied with to be able to see your family properly. You are closing a dog over your family at the moment.

Time spent with your in laws doesn't owe time to anyone else. You are certainly correct. Your mum probably misses you..although you know best as its your mum. Maybe suggest other things to do?

Is it cocker rage? Or did I make that up
just now. I’m sure I’ve heard of a breed with known “rage”

You don’t have to see each side of the family equally, we don’t and everyone is fine. When your Mum says it looks like you had a lovely time you can just say that you did.
If she starts to moan that you don’t spend as much time with them as you do your DP side of the family, you can just say you enjoy spending time with them outside etc The dog is a bit of a red herring, you don’t enjoy spending time with your family regardless, and if that’s the case then you don’t have to feel obligated to spend time with them.
We are a doggy family, if we are meeting up with family members in a dog friendly place ie national trust, the beach etc we take the dog. I don’t ask other members of the family we are meeting, if it’s ok for him to come….He is fully under control at all times and it makes no difference to them if he’s there or not. If someone asked me to leave him at home and I was wanting to see them, I would leave him at home however if it was someone I wasn’t particularly bothered about I wouldn’t.
None of my family have ever asked if the dog will be coming, if he shows up, the kids are always pleased to see him and if he doesn’t and we’re somewhere where dogs are allowed the little ones normally ask why we didn’t bring him, even the children of my sibling who isn’t an animal person like my dogs so I think it’s more you and your brother don’t get on and he is using the dog as an excuse.

Cocker Spaniels are known to be aggressive so I understand why your brother didn’t want your dog there. I don’t understand why you have to take your dog everywhere though. You don’t owe your family time, but if this was an are you the AH post I would be saying yes for not compromising.

12% of Cocker Spaniels are more aggressive than Rottweilers and my friend who works at the Dog Trust was the one who told me they were a dangerous breed, even if not recognised in law.

Does your mum realise how hurt you were with her lack of support after you left an abusive relationship and that it has damaged your relationship with her, probably irrevocably? She also took your brother's side about the dog so it just feels like sour grapes on her part as she only started wanting to see you more to try and stop you seeing your in-laws so often.

If your mum wasn't supportive and was too busy to see you when you left an abusive relationship, she doesn't have the right to get upset because you have managed to build a great relationship with your in-laws and it makes her feel excluded.

But OP's mum was fine not seeing much of OP until she found out that OP was spending more time with her in-laws.

This is a terribly depressing thread. Either block your mom on Facebook or tell her to stop whining or be kind and hang out with your family sometimes. You are allowing yourself to get annoyed by something you have no intention of changing so just… stop

for what it’s worth I think it’s really sad that you find your parents boring so therefore want to avoid them. Unless there’s some horrible backstory that’s just awful.

YOU decided it was ridiculous not the baby's parents. So you need to stop complaining. No you do not owe your family equal time but stop moaning about it being boring because you haven't got your own way. You sound quite petty really. Surely you can go to some events without your dog and see all your family together.

Either OP keeps changing the narrative to suit the situation or that's a different OP with an extremely similar story 😲

Both situations are very sad for OPs parents.

Only a couple of posts ago you were so close until you were “frozen out” ie you refused to leave your dog behind so you never seen your brother. Now they are so unsupportive even though in your OP the reason you won’t see your parents more is because they are “boring” and you want your brother to attend too!

It’s scientifically proven having animals ( especially dogs) around babies and children can have a positive impact on their health and development, including boosting immunity.

Im a cat person and my cat and DS who is 10 months old, are the best of friends. The rest of my family all have dogs of various breeds and when visiting I always encourage them to bring their dogs and when going to others houses I never encourage the dogs to be locked away etc. I’m in my eyes, pets are family too.

My sister in law has a cat, since the birth of her DD the cat pretty much lives outside now and he daughter is petrified of dogs and screams if shes near one because SIL won’t let animals near her.

Each to their own but animals are a big part of the world and children need to get used to them instead of running the risk of being frightened of everything!

It sounds like your Mother was happy with the amount she was seeing you, and favoured brothers family, until you got a partner and a family to have good times with?
If so then it's her hard luck. She should have been there when you were alone

I have an (ex) friend a little like this. Its as though you are low value if you have needs but become high value if you have a life. She ignores you when things are not good but expects to be included in fun times, and doesn't like you having fun with anyone else. It's why she is an ex friend

look at this @whodafish on several posts you've alluded to the fact that

"When things fell apart with my ex my family weren't there so I doubt I'd be missing out on anything"

if that, for you, makes you unable to forgive them, then that's fair enough.

Your original post suggests that your family are not happy that you're spending more time with your partner's, despite you saying

"My family were close up until my brother and wife had their kids. At that point I found myself frozen out"

"They weren't bothered to see me, I left an abusive relationship and was left feeling desperately lonely because they were all too busy. They wouldn't care now apart from my mum sees x and therefore thinks she is entitled to the same and she sees days that look "instagrammable" and wants the same"

May be not punishing them per se, but certainly letting them know, they are not important to you, because they were crap when you needed them, when you had your devastating break-up?

I, obviously, could be totally wrong wrt your feelings@whodafish

If it were simply a case of answering
"Do we have to spend the same amount of time with both families?" then obviously, YANBU, as of course you don't.
But, YABVU to refuse to see your brother, sister in law and their baby, because you are choosing not to, by refusing to leave your dog at home.

You've literally said "I don't want to leave my dog behind, she's my family". You've created all this drama because you were asked not to bring your dog into other people's homes. Exactly what narrative am I making up? You've already categorically proved by your own words that you create big drama when asked not to bring your dog along.

Indeed. Somehow I can't imagine OP just bringing the dog to the park portion of the meet up. I expect she'd also want her dog included before and after. And I imagine there'd be an almighty drama if she was expected to take her dog home after the walk.

And, tbf, there's a big difference between some dogs metres away in a park, and one with your family group, directly with you.

I'm a dog lover and dog owner. But I 100% understand and would respect the wishes of someone who didn't want me to bring my dog along because they had a young baby.

Then you’ve chosen your dog over spending a couple of hours dog free with your niece/nephew. Which is your choice. But you were not “pushed out”

some people are not comfortable with animals around their babies.

So do I. But I'd also be interested in hearing the brother's side of this.