AIBU to expect a girlfriend medal for attending a Fox Hunt with DPs family?!

[CosyTeaBags]

Yesterday I attended a Fox hunt with my DPs family.

I have been vegetarian for 25 years. I work in conservation, and feel very strongly about animal rights. I'm a country girl, so I appreciate that sometimes predator control is necessary, but I HATE the idea of it being a sport. In my experience the real sheep farmers just go out and deal with foxes, they don't get dressed up in fancy clothes and toot horns all day. I used to hear the hunt go past my house as a child, I would stand in the garden and scream at them when I heard the horns. Suffice to say, I have strong feelings about this...

I'm also a working class socialist and feel a slightly disporportionate inverse snobbery against the whole fucking tally-ho red coated brigade. It just makes my blood run cold.

I've always been aware that DPs family are into fox hunting, it's been a subject we agree to disagree on, I would never discuss it with them - I respect their feelings and that's fine. DP however, is a bigger animal lover than I am. I always assumed he felt the same way I did.

Until yesterday. DP had arranged for us to join his family to follow the hunt. We discussed it weeks ago and I said I wasn't happy with it and didn't want to go. He said that was fine, and we would make arrangements to meet them afterwards for dinner. Fast forward to Christmas eve - I asked DP what the arrangements were for Boxing day and he told me we were meeting them first thing to follow the hunt. I went ballistic - I felt that he had totally disregarded our previous conversation and had no respect whatsoever for my feelings. His solution was that I could "Just sit in the house on your own while we go out" and that would be fine...

I was now in a position of being damned if I did and damned if I didn't - I could sit at home and look like a stroppy cow, or I could suck it up and go for the sake of being a good girlfriend.

I chose to go. I thought I shouldn't judge until I've seen it for myself. Fucking hell it was hard - as the riders rode out, all 70 of them I burts into tears and had to hide myself. I'm a pretty emotional person and it just overwhelmed me. It was just so alien to me to be standing there while everyone was cheering them off to go and chase foxes...

We then followed the hunt, and to be fair they didn't actually do anything bad, they were just out for a nice ride. I get that, I really do. But I'm also mortally afraid of horses - fucking terrified of the bastard things. My dog is quite frail, and he's not as quick on his feet as he used to be. MiL grabbed him and paraded him past all the massive horses and I was terrified that he might get kicked or trampled on.

We placed ourselves right in the path of the hunt and stood by as they all thundered past us. I was friggin terrified for myself and my dog. (and I admit it, I was judging all the people as well, they're just so not my type of people). MiL and family had no idea of my real feelings, they thought I was enjoying myself.

So far, so good daughter-in-law, right?. I was proud of myself for going through that for the sake of my DP and to make his DM happy.

But he didn't acknowledge this. He said a weak "thank you for coming" on the way home, but that was all. I sat and brooded all night, then exploded with him that he ought to have been bloody grateful that I went through that for him, that I fucking cried and was terrified and not once did he ask me if I was ok. He should have apologized, told me he loved me for doing that for him, told me how grateful he was. Instead I got a half-arsed "Oh but I said thank you..." and that was all.

This morning he has said all the right things, but AIBU to expect a bit more gratitude and praise?!?!

I don't want this to be a debate about fox hunting - there are other threads for that, and I really don't care what other people do. I'm just pissed off with DP (again) for his selfish attitude and need someone to tell me if I'm right or whether I should get over myself!!!

[harriet247]

You might as well start offering to become their family doormat. In your position I would be utterly ashamed of myself.

[CosyTeaBags]

OK, IABU - I can take it. Thanks everyone!

I am needy, and need to get over myself. I just needed to hear other people's perspective!

I will indeed refuse to go next year, but I just thought I ought to see what the fuss was about and be good to him and his family by attending rather than sitting at home like a sulky child.

[Featherbag]

Are you for fucking real?! You want praise for deserting your principles and joining in with a barbaric tradition?! As for them being 'so not your sort of people', remember that to anyone observing/driving past, you WERE one of 'those' people. You can't possibly feel as strongly about hunting as you say you do if you went along with this, no matter how much you 'hid and cried.'

[SnakeyMcBadass]

I don't really understand why you went? You're an animal lover, don't agree with fox hunting, dislike the people that take part, and are afraid of horses. So why exactly did you go? Not being arsey, genuinely curious. What is this 'being a good girlfriend' stuff?

[FannyFifer]

My being there you were adding to the support so no you don't deserve a medal.
You should be disgusted with yourself, I couldn't be in a relationship with someone who supported this disgusting sport.

[mrsjay]

but you don't agree with it why would you want to go and see it the tally ho brigade might be in your life for a long time you need to decide if you can cope with your partners extended family or not or it is going to endless threads of Inlaws did this inlaws said that inlaws want to pay for my babies boarding school. blah blah

[SilverApples]

Your alternative was sitting at home like a sulky child?
Couldn't you have done something more useful, productive and in keeping with your ethics?

[FannyFifer]

Basically you don't seem to have any principles.

[CosyTeaBags]

See I would dump a man for even suggesting this; I once dumped someone for turning up to a date in the wrong shoes. I could never ever go out with someone whose principles were so vastly different

I think that's part of why I'm pissed off. I've never seen DP as the rah-rah hunting type (we've been together for nearly 4 years). I know his mother is like that, but I thought he'd left it behind him.

It shocked me to see him like that, and I didn't like it. Much like how I would feel if he turned up in 1970s loafers really....

[YouAreMyRain]

Sadly girlfriend medals do not exist. Compromising your beliefs to please a man is a total waste of time, unless you are desperate to become a doormat.

Do not have expectations of the results of your actions on other people because that is simply setting yourself up for disappointment. Expecting gratitude, likewise.

[AttackOfTheKillerMonsterSnowGo]

I'm actually quite gob smacked at the tone and contents of your OP. You come across as being very young. The behaviour you describe (yurs, not do's) is not disimilar to that of my 3 yo if he doesnt get his way. As an adult, if you really feel that strongly then you don't go, you dont need to make a fuss, you just simply say you'd be very haopy to stay home with a book.
I'm assuming that your bf was probably mortifyingly embarrassed by you, which is probably why he didn't say thank you before being prompted. As for chewing hm out and expecting a medal for going...grow up, you chose to go because you were too worried about looking silly in front of your in laws. your choice, not his.

I realise this post is harsh, but I'm not going to apologise for it. Having principles is one thing, and I can respect you have yours, but it doesn't entitle infantile behaviour.

[MamaMumra]

I think you should also apologise to your DP for all of the above. Especially if he has been so nice in the face of not very mature behaviour. Glad it's sorted now.

[silkknickers]

you wouldn't have been a 'sulky child'. you would have been being strong, assertive and sticking to your principles.
You now may well appear weak and needy.

[MamaMumra]

Cross post attack. I agree, but you put it so much better than I did.

[ToffeeOwnsTheSausage]

wanting a medal is immature so you are still acting like a child, just after the event rather than during.

next year you will have the same situation unless you make it clear you won't go again.

[YouAreMyRain]

BTW, you do realise that now you have been it will be 10x harder to refuse next time?! Doh!!

[SilverApples]

You don't usually leave all your family traditions and attitudes behind you, they just get compartmentalised and brought out at certain times.

[CosyTeaBags]

Your alternative was sitting at home like a sulky child?
Couldn't you have done something more useful, productive and in keeping with your ethics?

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. We went over to his DMs for the day - so yes, if I had refused to go to the hunt, the alternative would have been to sit at his mother's house alone. Or stay at home and refuse to visit his mother for Christmas at all - which would have been unreasonable I think.

I don't really understand why you went? You're an animal lover, don't agree with fox hunting, dislike the people that take part, and are afraid of horses. So why exactly did you go? Not being arsey, genuinely curious. What is this 'being a good girlfriend' stuff?

For the reasons above I guess - I didn't want his DM to think I was being stroppy by sitting alone at her house while they all went out for the day. I can't stand stroppy people. With hindsight, I should have done that really...

[BohemianGirl]

I'm not getting into the debate about fox hunting other than to say it is something people tend to have a strong opinion on.

(a) you abandoned your principles
(b) your DP sounds like a complete twat.

I felt that he had totally disregarded our previous conversation and had no respect whatsoever for my feelings

I'm just pissed off with DP (again) for his selfish attitude

I wouldnt be made to do something I detested just to ingratiate myself with the prospective in laws.

[ComposHat]

I'm not sure why you think you should be proud of yourself for going against everything you believe in for the sake of pleasing a man. And if he had anything about him he wouldn't have wanted you to either

I agree. He has no respect for you or your views. Probably even less so since you capitulated so utterly on boxing day. I am a lifelong vegetaria & my wife loves meat. There's no way she'd force feed me a mix grill or trick me into eating meat.

[Floralnomad]

But you wouldn't have been stroppy or sulking ,you simply had to say I don't agree with hunting I will have a lie in and then walk my dog .Nothing stroppy or sulky about that . You really do need to grow up .

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

There's a saying: "A person who pays an ounce of principle for a pound of popularity gets badly cheated"

YABU and I think you're just bolting on to the hunt thread yesterday.

[silkknickers]

If they were half-decent people then they wouldn't have had a problem with you staying at home. They would have respected your feelings.

[MrsFassbender77]

YABU, totally,.
You chose to go, he suggested you may want to stay at home so really, you have no leg to stand on moaning about what you saw there.
FWIW I hate inverse snobbery and I think that a lot of anti-hunt feeling is just that, rather than true concern for animal welfare.

[CosyTeaBags]

I suppose I feel a little ashamed that I was 'one of those people' yesterday. You're right in that anyone watching would assume I was totally OK with it too.

I suppose my attitude was I should see what it was like before judging. And it was actually not that bad - but I still object to the principle of it all.

And I was joking a little about needing a medal (unless they actually make girlfriend medals? If so, then I do want one). but I am a bit disappointed in DP for his selfish attitude.

But I can accept I am being immature. (I'm not young, I'm old enough to know better)