Wife work - no thanks

OP, I agree. My DH has a form for this. He invites his parents, who live abroad and have zero English, to stay, and then he fucks off to work. leaving me with them both and toddlers in a 2 bed flat. It's gotten worse, though. Now we have moved, as he still brings them over, and the kids are teenagers, not interested in sitting at home with the grandparents, and I am working F/T. I refuse now to look after them. They're very nice people, but have zero independence.

And I repeat, I never did, or would expect, my partner to entertain my house guest (family or not)

I think this is the crux of it, what you are describing would not bother me in the slightest, and it wouldn't bother DH either, we're all family and sometimes it's nice to spend a bit of one on one time with visiting guests, I like my MIL and probably spend more time with her on my own than we do together anyway.

I think you are being ridiculous referring to it as women's work and it actually says a lot about the state of your marriage that you would be offended by something like this IMO. Did he invite her against your wishes or something? Because calling your MIL and the grandparent of your children HIS house guest is quite telling, surely she is a guest of you both and doesn't require him to be there at all times (although you obviously require it!).

To be fair this does sound like you’ve done quite alot of wife work here! Which is fine if it’s your choice, but perhaps your title should be “I say no to any more wife work on top of the huge amount I’ve already done”!

Of course YANBU OP.

Of course he doesn’t invite his Mum or any other guest and then bugger off and leave them. That’s nuts.

Some posters just fall over themselves to be contrary.

I get a OP. But it sounds like the cinema trip could possibly have been the straw that broke the camels back, after all the other things you’ve done in preparation for this visit.

I’m also curious about your use of the word ‘wild’ in your first post. Wild in what way?

If I was the 85 year old mother who had just endured a long plane trip and now found myself in a house with a two year old and a bickering couple I'd be more than grateful if everyone went out and left me to have a nice sherry and a few hours kip.

I agree with you OP. If this were reversed it would be seen as odd than you buggered off out for the evening the day after your Mum arrived for a visit. He can go to the cinema anytime.

So you don’t do “wife work” and yet you’re still being landed with dealing with the the 2 year old’s bedtime and your husband mother visits and you “…cleaned the house from top to bottom, given up my bed, booked them a mini break together, only person who has planned activities for all of us that they want to do, gone to collect a 1000-piece jigsaw for her from my friend and got the cereal she likes in…”

Why did you do all of that? Does he do anything?

If that’s saying no to ‘wife work’, I suggest you try a bit harder.

& the reason you can’t imagine “treating a guest so rudely” is because you have been conditioned as a woman that a guest, even if they are one of your mothers, needs constant attention, entertainment and catering whilst men have not be conditioned to believe leaving your Mum chilling for 2 hours after 7pm on the second day of her visit is a heinous crime. That’s the real feminist issue at play here.

Agree, OP. My partner invited a friend who was travelling through our area to stay for a long weekend last month, then DP realised she was already booked to be elsewhere and assumed I'd be fine one-to-one with someone I had never previously met.

DP phoned the friend to say she wouldn't be here to meet up but I would and the friend, bless her, said she wanted to talk to me. She said 'This could be a nightmare for you: you don't know me and we're going to be spending 48 hours together. Can we make it work or shall I look for a hotel?' We had a chat and agreed it would be easier of she arrived on Saturday, not Friday. She also arrived with M&S food for the Saturday nigh and took herself out of the house for several hours on Sunday. Fortunately we got on well, but these things can be very intense.

My DP couldn't understand why I was so angry and why the friend was so concerned.

DH used to try this. His DM would come to stay and he would suggest we should go shopping or get our hair done (like it was the 1950s). She was hard work and hard to entertain/get on with.
He would try the same when we went to hers, he would try to go to his mates and leave me and DC with her. She actually only wanted to see him,

Surely it would be better if she went out for tea with SS and saw him too!

Wow - so your 85 year old mother comes to visit from abroad to see their child and you just bugger off to the cinema and leave her behind?

I couldn't imagine treating a guest so rudely.

Then you use your big girl voice…

& OP has stated several times she enjoys her MILs company.

Yes I would expect my DH to get on with putting our youngest to bed while my mother sat and watched TV with a cup of tea/read a book/did her knitting while I went to the cinema with my older son for a maximum for 3 hours after 7pm on the second day of my mother visit, after I had presumably been with her all day doing something nice together. Yes I would.

Not all families are the same. My MIL (and my mum for that matter) would wait for me to put my baby to bed and then proceed to talk AT me for the next 3 hours. No way could I unwind or watch TV, she'll talk over it and ask me a million questions.

The question is, would you expect your DH to entertain your mother on the 2nd day of her visit so you could go to the cinema for several hours? It is a bit rude especially as they could go to the cinema the following week.

This is so interesting…see you are a complete and utter mug for doing all that and utterly bizarre for drawing the line where you did 😂 That’s bonkers!

You're not wrong to say no but I honestly don't get that hanging out with inlaws is 'wife work-. If anything it's more often the other way round, the woman's family tend to be more dominant after children are born, often leaving the man doing more in law entertainment than the woman. Or maybe it's even but certainly not what I would consider wife work

I think you’ve missed the point, the point being dh leaving OP to entertain and keep mil company on her second day there while he goes out. I couldn’t imagine doing that myself.