to be pissed off with dh?

[QuintessentialShadows]

He has been away with work over half term, so from Thursday 31st until Saturday night (9th June). I had to do all the Jubilee stuff with the kids. I also work full time, so had to take the kids to kids club for wed-fri.
It was ds2s birthday on tuesday just gone.
I got up early with them on sunday to go for 9.30 mass, so he could sleep in. We then went out of London for a walk. I have done all his laundry. Today was an inset day, he naturally has been working from home the whole day, I have been trying to combine the kids, and work as I could not take the whole day off but work from home. Also do last minute home work with them.

Today he announces that NEXT weekend, he is going mountain biking with a mate on saturday, and to MOTO GP with the same mate on sunday.

It is ds2s birthday party on saturday. Once again, I will be left alone with the kids, and he might not even be back to help at the party. I can picture me, in a cab, picking up his cake and going to the party. (In a hall, mad science booked)

And again on sunday morning, me getting up early with the kids to take them to Church. Ds1s First communion the weekend after, so we need to go.

And then, organizing ds1s communion party, and having family coming on thursday, so there will be NO relaxation for me all of June it seems!

Tomorrow I have to be at a tradeshow, blardy hectic. Two days. And it coincides with both kids having play dates home after school tuesday and wednesday, been arranged for ages, so this means the next two days will be a nightmare.
Get the kids to school, go into central London for the show, get back after show, pick up kids and friend, go home cook dinner, take the other child who does not have a mate over for his activity, and repeat the same but with different kids the following day. And it all falls on me. Always.

You can see from the responses here that YANBU! Of COURSE you're not! Tell him he can't go unles he wants to seriously piss you off and dissapoint you too.

Well that's right hearts! Quint you'll be the one breakfasting the DC...dressing you and them..gathering the multitude of crap needed for a party and you shouldn't have to do this alone just so DH can saunter in at the start of the party (hopefully) and enjoy it like a guest!

He is not backing down.
He says he has no social life and no friends, and he has already declined the offer of mountain biking so many times because of doing stuff with the family that it got embarrassing. And so as not to lose this friendship he said yes when offered again.

The party is actually going to be quite easy I think, as it is mad science we just provide the bags and they get some slime stuff. And the venue provide hot food. So, that leaves paper plates and spoons for cake, and picking up the cake, and getting millions of haribos to add to the paper bags...

Life can be so shit.

Oh well, God forbid he should let his family embarrass him, poor thing.

No, not that. Declining got embarassing, not doing family stuff.

When my DH arranged his flight to the US for work to take off during DDs birthday party; I told him plainly that he had to rearrange his flights. No "do what your conscience tells you" just a "you can't go the it's the middle of DDs party". He even checks it is okay to go on business during our wedding anniversary. It doesn't matter how important Birthdays etc. are to him, he needs to understand how important they are to other people especially children. He isn't a JW or ex JW? I can't imagine anyone else wouldn't remember how important birthdays are to small children.

Next do you communicate? How can he have booked to see Moto GP the same day as first communion, both must have been booked for months?

Do you ever get a weekend all to yourself?

If you think you are not going to win this particular battle Quint, you should tell him that he owes you big time and you will arrange some time for yourself when he can make it up to you by having the children.

No, the moto gp is the day after the birthday party, so he is tied up BOTH Saturday and Sunday. The communion is next weekend.

He is not backing down. I have told him he will have to go by train, and sleep on the couch so as not to wake us up in the morning.

I do get to do things on my own at weekends. He frequently take the kids out cycling or something. Once he even took them camping on his own, and that was when ds2 was still in nappies, so he is a good and fun dad.

He has just left, had to go into work. And will do our grocery shopping on his way home.

He had no intention of cancelling.

He has no intention of getting to the party on time.

It's not that he's no good at scheduling, he just doesn't want to be there.

He manages to schedule all his work appointments ok? Caught his flight, books taxis, etc. What makes you think he will be 'late' because he 'underestimates' how long his biking will take. Thats just advance warning that you're going to be doing it all on your own again.

You are kidding yourself.

The last thing he said before leaving was that I was always stopping him from doing stuff.

I can do nothing right. He gets to do anything he wants, I never stop him doing anything, we are not like that. And now he turns around and tell me the opposite.

He does not think he will be late.

I think he will.

I also think it is not fair on the bloke he is going with. He will be losing his companion at midday.

He had originally offered that dh would spend the night at his, but he declined because he thought I would blow a fuse. I wouldnt. The only reason I am blowing a fuse now is because I have been on my own (and struggled) with the kids for two weekends, and now he is booking himself both saturday and sunday. And the next weekend is Communion!

I have just decided to NOT extend invites for coffee and cake at our house after the family lunch. Lunch at a gastro pub will have to do. Cheaper and less work for me.

Quint he does know he will be late. That was the point I was trying to make. He knows full well he will be late.

He is telling you he can make it but he knows he won't. He his fobbing you off, trying to get you to stop 'going on' at him.

Basically, he has had to choose between upsetting a friend and upsetting his wife (and possibly his son). He has made his choice.

That would really piss me off.

Saying that you're always stopping him from doing things sounds so childish. I doubt the friend would have been surprised to be turned down if he'd said it was his kid's party that day. Work and children don't leave a lot of room for a social life I'm afraid - obviously it should leave some, but two separate trips out in two days, after a time of working away from home? He needs a reality check.

Finally!! You're angry, yay

You sound like the least angry person I have ever 'met' but we all have our limits. You cannot keep giving and giving, you will exhaust yourself. You need to put yourself first sometimes Quint and there is nothing wrong with that.

I suppose your dh thinks that's the end of it, but if it were me I would be having that conversation again. He needs to understand that you need help. His friend would not really dump him because he went to his own son's birthday party instead of biking. His friend might be a bit pissed off at being messed around but he'll get over it.

It's all a question of priorities.

Btw why has he just gone into work now, is that his usual shift or did he just decide to go?

Hurra! I should embrace this anger and go crack open a bottle of wine. Yippee!

He is really stressed. I am not making excuses for him. I think his timing is really shit.

He is going biking with the husband of our former au pair. They are expecting their first child. I think in reality, he wants to chat about fatherhood. Not cycle. He used dh as a sort of father figure before proposing to au pair 5 years ago....
And dh, is showing himself as a great role model going off cycling on his sons birthday party.

We will see how this pans out.

He has offered to take the kids to and from school every day and take them to all the activities the entire week, to make up for it.

Yet, I still had it out with him, and now he is pissed off.

Well fuckadoodledo, so am I.

see, to me, the fact that he has offered to do the school runs and the activities shows that he knows that he is in the wrong, but doesn't want to back down.

Why is this biking so important on the day of his ds's party?

I would be seriously pissed off if DH did that, but equally, in your dh's position, I would find it really stressful trying to fit two things like that into one day and knowing I was being stressful. Can the biking not just be re-arranged? If the mate wants to learn about fatherhood, invite him to the party...

Does he have a point about having no social life? And has just chosen a really, really bad way to make that point (giving him the benefit of the doubt)?

He has a point about his social life. He does not have a point that I am trying to stop him having one! He works a lot, and unsocial hours, uprooted himself to go to Norway with me, stayed three years, and we came back. We both work from home so have little contact with other people, other than with business partners and clients. And that is not the same.

He is coming to the first communion, so will be plenty of opportunity to talk then, I hope!

An update for those interested:

He came to his own conclusions when he thought about it some more and did not feel pounded on by me. He felt bad because he had not seen the consequences and not realized it collided with ds2s birthday party.

He suggested that his mate could bring his bike here for an evening ride, leaving the morning and early afternoon to get together the party gear and pick up the cake. So we invited them both for dinner. Which worked fine.

We did ds2s birthday party, came home, had a bit of cake, and I started cooking dinner while he organized ds2s presents and built some robotic bug.

It was a pretty easy and straight forward dinner. A salad with fruity couscous and wensleydale cheese, and Penne al Tonno. Quick and simple to make. Berries with custard and more birthday cake for pudding.

A very enjoyable evening. Friends wife drove home, and he stayed over, as he and dh got up at 6 am to be at Silverstone for 8 AM. I tell you, they were like little kids preparing their motorbiking gear at midnight!

A great day in total.

It is Fathers day, the kids have not seen him, but ds2 is exploring his presents, ds1 is on his ipod listening to music, and later on we will bake for Ds2s communion next week.

Only stressing issue now is that my sister called me yesterday. Her GP says she might have cancer in the tongue, and she wont have time to get it investigated in Spain before coming to London, so I have need to find a private consultant on Monday to get her an appointment.

I'm glad you both managed to get it sorted in the end Quint seems like a reasonable compromise.

DH is away for the weekend and will not be back until 4pm for Fathers Day, but hey ho he is a decent father the rest of the year so there we go.

Sorry to hear about your sister, hope you manage to get her an appointment.

Glad it got sorted. Sorry to hear your sister may be ill.

IME accusations that "you are always stopping me from doing things" usually mean "parenthood / work are stopping me from doing things and I want you to take care of everything (and subjugate your own stuff) to enable me to do what I want". It deliberately plays on the pressure on women not to nag and to enable their man to "be themselves". The MN rule of equal leisure time should apply here!

Glad it was sorted. Im sorry to hear about your sister.