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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To expect my husband to visit my family three times a year

165 replies

Londonlassy · 17/08/2019 09:32

My husband never wants to visit my family who live two hours away. It’s not that they fight or there is tension rather my husband wants to spend his free time relaxing from his stressful job.

Husband works alternative weekends and feels his weekends off are precious. I get that he has less weekends off than most but when he works during the weekend he does get days off in the week.

He has been to my hometown once this year ( and complained the whole drive) I regularly go home without him and take DC with me so he gets lovely solo weekends to sleep/ eat take away /watch football without distraction.

I’m not asking for much just once every 3-4 month visit my family. I feel like I am beyond reasonable in my requests and his expectation that weekends are for his relaxation is crap. Everyone does things they don’t like on the weekend including visiting family

OP posts:
Lweji · 17/08/2019 19:06

Unless your relatives are the Trumps or the Johnsons I can't see why he has such problems going with you to visit them.

TheKitchenWitch · 17/08/2019 19:50

So if you don't visit your family then the only other option is you all stay at home all weekend? You never do anything else together?

Also - have I understood correctly that these visits are always over a whole weekend ie including overnight stay?

OnlyaMan · 17/08/2019 20:12

Not a bad answer from BertrandRussel which was-
Actually, my answer would be - it’s 6 days out of the year and I would like him to do it. I would most certainly do something I didn’t want to do for my partner for 6 days a year.
But if her husband agreed (or disagreed), surely he would be entitled to ask the question "Why?"
A refusal to explore that question reveals a potentially concealed bad attitude. We have not heard a convincing answer to any of that yet, in this thread.

Original poster
Londonlassy · 17/08/2019 20:46

BertrandRussell. Yes exactly 6 days a week I would like him to do something I would like to do. I would be happy if that included my family visiting us or we go out with another couple butBecause he is antisocial I have the burden to do the compromise

OP posts:
CendrillonSings · 17/08/2019 20:52

Yes exactly 6 days a week I would like him to do something I would like to do.

Nice Freudian slip! Grin

TigerDroveAgain · 17/08/2019 20:54

YABU

he isn’t stopping you doing anything: he just doesn’t want to go. DH never visited my (now late) parents because he found it boring. And I don’t blame him. And I don’t spend a lot of time with his family, why should I when I have lots of interesting alternatives

oblada · 17/08/2019 20:58

Isn't your nephew his nephew? Since you're married? My husband's brother's kids (his nephews) are my nephews through marriage. And my kids are nieces/nephews to both my brother and his wife. So yes I think he should go and see your family. Because it is his family too. Extended family but family nonetheless.

BertrandRussell · 17/08/2019 21:02

“But if her husband agreed (or disagreed), surely he would be entitled to ask the question "Why?"”

The answer to that is “Because I would like you to- it would make me happy.”

Butterymuffin · 17/08/2019 21:03

Ah, marriage isn't about making your partner happy, Bertrand. It's all about doing whatever most interests you and only you. I think that's in the vows.

Thehop · 17/08/2019 21:05

He shouldn’t have to visit if he doesn’t want to, I’m with him on that.

However you should get a weekend off too.

BertrandRussell · 17/08/2019 21:07

Could that be why i’m In a relationship that’s lasted pushing 40 years? Because we sometimes do things we don’t want to do because it pleases the other person?

LatteLove · 17/08/2019 21:10

It doesn’t sound unreasonable on your part, but he sounds quite dull anyway so just go on your own with the kids, sounds like you’d have a better time.

Sorry if I’ve missed it in the thread but does he go and see his own family?

Soconfusedandlost · 17/08/2019 21:10

We have this problem with my sister's partner. We live 40 mins away from them and his family live about 3 hours away. They (my sister, partner and their DD) visit at least once per month (some months they visit two or three times depending on occasions).

However, my sister visits us once every 3 months with DD or we visit her but only when partner is at work as he wants weekends to be their family time so we're not welcome.

My sister puts it as politely as possible but speaking as part of the family that is "boring" or not not good enough, it is very sad as we miss them even the partner who we try to include and invite but he is always unable to attend

Shelby2010 · 17/08/2019 22:17

Yes he should make the effort a few times a year.

Actually I think he sounds really hard work if he won’t do anything except hang around the house all weekend. I think you need to take a hard look at your relationship as you don’t seem compatible in the long term.

Trillis · 18/08/2019 00:58

OP I could have written your post. I have been married for nearly 19 years. DH used to come with me to see my family, but gradually stopped. They always ask where he is. I always felt embarrassed about his absence at events and thought I had to make excuses for him. I feel that he has driven most of our friends away by always saying no to things. When we are invited to a family event I always used to try and persuade him to come, both because they sounded enjoyable and so I didn't have to spend the whole event explaining his absence. My family have always been hugely welcoming and think family is very important. It really affected my enjoyment of events, being embarrassed if he wasn't there, and worried about him sulking if he was. I started turning down things I really wanted to go to, because of this.

One day I decided to stop bothering, and stop being embarrassed. I realised I had a better time without him at these events if he wasn't there. And when asked why he wasn't there, I started laughing it off saying he was anti social. Sometimes I add a caveat to that, if there is a vague reason for him staying away, but I just decided to not care any more. And I enjoy those things much more now I dont care if he's there.

The problem now is that more and more, I genuinely dont care. We rarely socialise with anyone at home either, and it really gets me down. I empathise so much with your comment about the lack of socialisation being spirit crushing. I try to persuade him to socialise when I can. Probably about 4 or 5 times a year, max. He always appears to enjoy himself, but it's such a lot of stress and effort to get him to agree to anything. I also think it sets a bad example to our kids, now all teenagers, and all with few friends of their own. Sorry this is so long, but I feel this is coming to a head now with us. I have realised that I am lonely and that I don't want to be socially isolated for the rest of my life. As a couple we still get on fine, most of the time, but I can suddenly see my life being very empty when children leave, unless I make new friends and do everything solo. Sorry I hadn't realised this was so long! Can only see 4 lines of text at a time on the app....

Original poster
Londonlassy · 18/08/2019 02:30

Trillis Thank you. Your post is my current life and your fears about a lifetime of social isolation are my fears too. I have a husband who loves me and my DC but never wants to socialise. I want to find away that we can socialise outside our nuclear family occasionally. The attempts to persuade him to come to anything are exhausting but I get that he is introverted but shouldn’t there be some compromise

OP posts:
AgentJohnson · 18/08/2019 05:59

If he was always like this, why is there expectation to be different. Why would you want to him to come knowing he would hate it? However, invite them to yours occasionally and he will have to make himself scarce.

Do you not socialise without your H because if you don’t or do so rarely, then that’s on you.

So to answer your question, you aren’t being unreasonable to have the expectation but you are unreasonable to have the expectation of someone who is socially anxious and has always been.

SolitudeAtAltitude · 18/08/2019 06:10

Selfish man!

What does he think, marriage is just for his benefit? A bit of give and take is needed

My DH is tired/stressed and has extensive hobbies he'd rather do at the WE, but he manages to visit my family 3 or 4 weekends a year

Socially, in our village, I have accepted socialising alone, going to parties alone etc. I like having friends and going out, so.I do.

It can be tough being married to an introvert, but there has to be a bit of a compromise surely!

rainandshine52 · 18/08/2019 06:16

I'm totally with him on this. Hate visiting relatives. DH visiting his mum today. I'm not. She's absolutely welcome here but we both work full time and I value every ounce of time off.

WereYouHareWhenIWasFox · 18/08/2019 06:21

Go alone, it is more fun anyway. It works both ways and gets you off the hook as well. I visit my DH’s grandmother because I love her, but don’t bother with the rest, unless I really want to.

TemporaryPermanent · 18/08/2019 06:49

I had major problems with this with my xh and some with dh. It is indeed soul crushing. You end up with constant knots in your stomach and feeling stressed and miserable, because you want to visit family from time to time. This completely normal thing! I've never met anyone except on MN who happily states that they never ever visit family. No it's not always fun. See my many agonised posts of the past about annual holidays with the inlaws. But jeez louise, three weekend visits a year??

In my case the biggest difficulty was that both partners were visibly miserable if i chose family over them (that's certainly how xh saw it - any time spent with anyone else was a betrayal). DH didnt think that but his physical reaction was sometimes to sit miserably alone in an armchair waiting for me to come back. He wasnt really well enough to go out alone or socialise, though he could manage the odd cycle ride.

I agree that if you stop caring about this, it's likely that you'll stop caring about other things. I would keep pushing but also tell him how you feel. The only suggestion i have is that you decouple the visits from big occasions - just visits rather than parties. Though my extrovert reaction is to bang my head against a brick wall that he would actually rather sit listening to the clock ticking and eyeballing your mum, rather than going to a nice relaxed event where there'll be a range of people and distractions and the kids will enjoy it more.

bumblingbovine49 · 18/08/2019 06:53

I would have less of problem with the lack of family vists though it would rankle that he NEVER visited but I would be very unhappy that I couldn't invitee people to my home sometimes to socialise there.

I appreciate he doesn't like company but it is your home too.

I would .give him a choice , either he visits occasionally with you or he smiles and is welcoming when you invite people over for a meal or a visit a few times a year. He could go out if he doesn't want to do the latter but it would save you travelling for a couple of the visits so you would at least have that.

clucky3 · 18/08/2019 07:16

I have one of these too. Visiting family is not an issue as mine are local and I have no desire to push him to visit his, but I do find his reluctance to socialise incredibly frustrating and limiting. It infuriates me to the point where I get mad when the inevitable "stomach bug" appears on the morning of a social event and he spends the day on the toilet. I know I should feel compassion that the thought of actually talking to people causes him so much stress that it unsettled his stomach but he's so fucking predictable and illogical that I it drives me crazy. The worst thing is he generally has a good time when I can get him out, and does actually enjoy himself. It feels like he chooses to be like this because he's anti social (and I do realise he's introverted, but he is also anti social to the point of rudeness). He's a senior civil servant, he knows how to talk to people, he just doesn't want to do it outside of a work setting where he has to. I have my own social life but like other posters I worry what my life will be like when the kids are grown and gone, and about the example he's setting them. We haven't visited his parents (a 3 hour drive away) in over a year, and he won't invite them to us more than 2-3 times per year.

I can only sympathise OP, I have no useful suggestions other than picking your battles.

MidweekObscurity · 18/08/2019 07:16

Honestly sounds like he's got into the mindset of you going to your parents = he stays at home.

I'm not wild on formal social things, nearly all are in-laws invites. I probably got to 95% with DH, with the occasional him going without me. and I'll take DC to in-laws without DH for a casual visit.

Lowlandlucky · 18/08/2019 07:34

OP, you say he only gets every second week off and some of those you go and visit your parents and he has peace to do as he pleases, when does this selfish prat every give you a weekend off ? Time to make him understand you are both equal