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AIBU?

Or is DH being controlling?

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babiesinslingsgetcoveredinfood · 11/02/2013 00:34

Me. Again. DH, normally lovely (bit flawed, has problems thinking things through, but true of most people?), & has been pretty good this weekend as I'm quite ill (on the mend a bit now). BUT:

It's half term, so no playgroups, pre school & other activities. Just 1 half hour swimming lesson. DD 3 & DS10 months old. Weather to be crap & soft play will be rammed, not a great deal else to do around here. I can fill a coue of days with baking biscuits, painting g, food shopping etc but decided it would be good to catch up with a close old friend who has a DS 3. Kids can play, we can chat & she lives at seaside (approx 45 miles away) so we can do bracing beach walk/shivery ice cream thing. I told DH & he went a bit cat bum mouth. I ignored it at first but then he said 'I know it's nice for you to see your friends, but...I'm thinking of the petrol'

My response was to explain how long a week with no planned activities can be in crap weather & that if he wanted to entertain 2 DCs (bearing in mind I have bronchitis & am getting 3/4 hours sleep in 24 due to cough), he could be my guest. He said, hmm, I think we need to talk about it, but not now (as it was bedtime).

I'm a SAHM. DH has good job, so although o.n one income it's a decent (although not massive) one. We (well him really) budget & whilst thi gs are tight (we think before we spend anything, have meagrely personal money & I sell anything that's not nailed down we no longer use, on eBay.

So aibu to do a 90 mile round trip as described or is he being a tight arse? Also for the first time in 11 years, feel he's being a little controlling.

My gut instinct is to say, I'm sorry you don't think it's important, perhaps you have some suggestions for what we could do? Then maybe you could have both DCs one Saturday whilst I take the train to visit x?

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lottiegarbanzo · 11/02/2013 16:22

Hmm, well read this earlier and quick thoughts, though I'm sure it's all been covered by now are:

He doesn't want you to go. You should probably ask him why. (From what you've said I'd blithely guess that he thinks daily childcare is easy if you're organised, certainly easier than his job and this is a frivolous extra, primarily for your benefit and he's a bit jealous of your freedom).

You're going to do a 90 mile round trip once, in half term, he adds a 'nice but uneccessary' 39 miles to every weekly swimming trip. Why is it your mileage being questioned? If you have a joint aim to avoid unecessary expenditure on fuel, you both know where the low-hanging fruit is.

Your very different attitiudes to money must create tension as, however much you both strive for a middle ground, there must be a tendency to think that the other will naturally stray in the opposite direction, so he has a built in assumption that you'll carelessly overspend if he doesn't keep you in check. Similarly (though your evidence for this sounds convincing), you assume he'll get obsessed with saving if you don't remind him that money is for the life you have now, as well as for an unpredictable future.

I think what you need to talk about is him doing a bit more with the dcs at the weekend, especially while you're ill and to give you a little break when you're better and can enjoy it. He needs to understand better what looking after them day after day entails, it sounds as though he doesn't. (I wouldn't be at all surprised, if, left alone with them for a week, they spent Friday out a succession of paid entertainments, amounting to gazillions of pounds, because he'd be exhausted and at the end of tether by then - but I hope recognise the lesson, not make excuses about how it's all right for you because you're used to it.)