Mummy's Boy???

[Kabbage]

I have been with my partner for over 10 years and we have two children aged seven and nine. From the start of the relationship we spent most of our free time with his parents, which was fine as I'm not that close to my family.

When his father died three years ago he started to spend all his free time with his mother - who also has two daughters that live close by to her and we sometimes see them when we visit.

The children and I go with him to visit her every weekend, sometimes the entire weekend and most days of the school holidays.
Now the children are getting older I said to him that I think we should be doing more as a family of four - days out and so on, but he's not keen.

Recently, I had to put my foot down and insist that we take the children to the seaside. He reluctantly agreed, but we were only there for a couple of hours! He was miserable the entire time and on the way back we had to stop and see his mother, where his mood dramatically improved.

I'm very fond of his mother but I think the time we spend with her is excessive.

Am I being unreasonable?

YNBU to want to spend time just the 4 of you. But I guess the problem is that the precedent has already been set that you spend all your time with his parents / Mum and he doesn’t seem keen to change this.

So bloody odd. I love visiting my mum. But every day of the school holidays?!?! What the actual F op. He's got some kind of weird attachment issue. Very off putting.

It could be that he feels responsibility since his dad's passing to look after his mum and grief has maybe made that a bit excessive. I would try to get gently curious about how he feels about his mum, what drives him to see her so often and why he can't relax when he's not with her. It could be that he feels misplaced guilt about how much time he spent with his dad and he's overcompensating with his mum. It could be that he's really afraid of her passing away after experiencing the pain of losing his dad. And maybe he doesn't have the words or self reflection to explain any of that yet.

I think you need to be honest with him that while his mum is important to you and you're very fond of her, it's starting to impact on the children and your family time and you need to find a compromise that allows him to spend time with her but that still allows you to spend time as a family and have adventures with your children and make lots of fun memories with them. You could suggest bringing his mum with you sometimes but I think it's important that there is time alone as a family in there too. I would suggest to him that if he's worried about his mum being lonely, he could coordinate more with his sisters to make sure someone is visiting each day between the 3 of them rather than all 3 visiting most days.

It sounds like something is lingering from his dad's passing and to be honest, if he is absolutely unwilling to meet you halfway then I'd tell him quite clearly that you've noticed this, that you're worried he can't seem to see the kids needs in this which is unlike him and suggest that he goes for counselling to get to the bottom of his anxiety around his mum. I'd make it clear that you really care about him and you want to support him but that you and the children also have needs and they need to be factored in as well.

not being unreasonable at all! I love my mum but that’s a lot 😂

My DH is a Mummy's boy but yours is too much. That would give me the ick. He's not happy until he sees his Mummy! The same as my 3yo.