Feeling defensive, but is she right that I need a reality check here?

I think there's room for discussion with your partner - the easier issue seems to be fewer trips away from home would work better for you. Maybe you'd be better organising trips for when you both have enough annual leave for the whole trip.

The bigger / harder issue is around whether he can do less paid work and more parenting which might be more helpful overall than the current position.

Is there enough scope within your salary and the money he's giving you to have a cleaner / gardener etc? Outsourcing stuff you don't have to do personally might help.

Three year olds usually sleep enough that you should have free evenings - do you have a non-sleeping child? Or something else that means you're not getting free time each evening?

Three year olds are also hard work on general - it gets easier as they get older.

On the face of it it seems ridiculous so what is it really about?

Do the trips always involve one or both of you working so they are more stress than they are worth?

Spending time together surely doesn't have to be trips away?

Days out or just a trip to the park or something?

Do you ever just relax at home as a family or is your relationship built on always being busy/doing something when together?

It’s not your sisters problem whether the start was rocky. Seeing now why she thinks you’re a spoilt brat.

Be thankful you can take trips every few weeks.

Wholeheartedly agree with your sister. Can’t understand why you have an issue of having your daughter for three days on your own!
I had four children with my husband, who continuously went on work trips including one for over 8 months.
You have no financial concerns a partner who wants to help out and generously so.
I’d be irked listening to your nonsensical issues.

If you can't have a good moan with your nearest and dearest - who can you with? I agree with you. Sometimes you just need to let off steam x

I looked after my 2 7 days a week ok they went to nursery but are 5 years apart so still had one full time till they were in nursery and a house to look after

But you said you mainly do mornings amd bedtime, not all of it.

This so many people would kill to be in your situation.

As a single mum I'd swap in a heart beat! Not really but the comparisons show you are over reacting.
Just stop the trips

Oh no you had to pack! Dear Lord how will you ever manage with ONE kid. Your sister was spot on. You get on here and complain about vacations when some families haven’t been able to go on vacations for years. You’re just ungrateful.

We call them ‘threenagers’. Three is a tough age. You’ll get through it.

Gosh. When my children were young, my do had a very intense job with lots of travel - Singapore, India. London every week (we live in Norfolk ironically). I don’t drive (through choice), we’d moved 500 miles away from our parents for this job. I hardly knew a soul but I had to get on with it, take my kids to two different schools, make their meals, do homework, housework. It’s just the way it was.

You are being unreasonable considering you get a day off a week from parenting Thetes plenty to do in Norfolk. Enjoy having the time with your child, one of mine now lives in Australia, they aren’t ‘ours’ for long.

I think we'd have all liked to, though?

No, most people with a young child do not get time to themselves. Reality check needed

Excuse me? How dare you? This is the post of an absolute melt. I resent that my husband doesn’t understand my position. But this is a compromise that we have agreed on. We have reviewed it many times since our eldest was born, and have both concluded that it remains the best option at the present time. That is why I only resent his lack of empathy for the vagaries of being default parent - not him. This is our decision.

Your mistake is to equate making grown-up decisions in which you accept an element of compromise so that you get the best situation you can for the maximum number of people with lacking agency because someone doesn’t do whatever the hell they like. This should not be a mistake that any parent, hell any decent human being, should make.

I don’t see any difference with the OP really. The OP has had to compromise (btw my husband and I each solely own our own home and we have separate finances but jointly pay for children, so don’t see the difference - except I didn’t have to compromise on not being married) on being married. She has accepted that she is default parent. Not seeing any greater or lesser agency there tbh.

What I hoped would change was our situation - but it hasn’t. It is still the case that him working away is best. If you think that is only a compromise for me, then your lack of insight and empathy is even greater than your horrible, judgmental post suggests. I honestly can’t understand what prompted you to use your time to type out that unpleasant attack on a person you’ve never met, who was just trying to give some perspective and support to the OP.

I hope you are ashamed not only of your unpleasantness but of your lack of reading comprehension and ability to make not merely jumps but world record breaking leaps to completely wrong conclusions.

I suspect this thread is a wind-up - because it contains all the usual triggers that set people off ranting on this site. If it's not, the OP hasn't been around for long - because if she had, she'd realise well-off people aren't allowed to moan about anything on here.

This is a wind up, surely. Otherwise, of course you're being unreasonable.

I don’t think you are being a brat. Just because someone sees your lifestyle as ‘good’ doesn’t mean it’s not stressful for you. You’re also allowed to moan. I have a good job, that pays well and is flexible, does that mean I can’t moan because my job could be seen as privileged?

I think your sister is being a brat tbh

I can see how this would be hard op. I think you should tell him to take some leave and spend it with his dd at home looking after her the next time, instead of a holiday. If he’s done a couple of days of parenting you can take a day off and go on the outing he organises.

What do you think other parents are doing? Looking after your own child for 3 days while on for 8 days is nothing,

It sounds as if a) the reality of parenting doesn’t match your expectation b) you possibly moan a lot to your sister and she’s sick of it c) you’re extra grumpy in this heat (if in the UK).

in short though yes, you are being VV unreasonable.

But she's your daughter. Surely if nursery staff can manage you'd be okay too. I'd absolutely love 3 days with just one of any of my kids.
Don't go away if you don't want to. But complaining about looking after your own child whilst away does sound so entitled. Having a whole day to yourself every week is so much more than majority of families get. If you have every Saturday to yourself and Sunday is family does your partner get any time to themselves?

I think the term I’ve heard used recently is “humble bragging”

Ah yes, the typical 'first world problem' Mumsnet thread where you're not allowed to feel any stress or negative emotions because you've 'got it so good'.

I am in a very similar set up as also had a child less than a year after meeting and split my time between my home with DS and DP's home so not your conventional family set up. (We are working towards changing this but it's hard with our jobs) I really struggle to make ends meet financially, don't ever get a day off and don't have an extra 1k coming in. So yeah, count your blessings I'd say.

Hard is being a single parent and earning 1k or less and having no support.

Count your blessings OP.