I feel like I am being unreasonable but this is a common event so advice appreciated.
DP has 2 DC and I have 3 DC. My DC are young teens so not particularly into going to the park or family dog walks anymore. His DC are 8 and 11.
As we have a young, super energetic dog, we need to go on daily walks.
DP likes the DC to get out of the house on weekends and the DC like the park so he wants us to all go on these walks together.
This is where it all starts. They always want to take a bike or scooter, so if we are going in the car we have to get all the large items into the car.
Then when we get there they don’t want to ride the bike after 10 mins so DP has to carry it. they complain about walking and it can take us 45 mins to walk one mile. During this time the dog is getting frustrated by the slow speed.
They always expect to go to a play ground park on every walk, FIRST before the dog gets walked. So if we go from home on foot, the dog just gets walked less than half a mile round trip to the play park and back.
Then the dog is attached to the railings getting upset whilst we are stuck inside a park pushing on swings and doing monkey bars (they won’t play in the park without one of us being right there)
Or I am standing outside the park with dog while the dog goes loopy as hasn’t had a proper walk yet. I can’t get the dog to leave them in the park to go walk as she can see them and she refuses to go.
When we convince them we need to leave to walk the dog, they complain the whole way home about having to walk.
This weekend we used the break between the rain to go to good parks that had both play equipment and space to walk the dog. Twice I was stuck there for 45 mins standing still with the dog going more and more loopy as she can’t get to them inside the park, she wouldn’t come with me either, and eventually I said come on can we just go for a walk now? They did not want to come out of the play park to walk the dog, so I said enough now, you have played for ages, we need to walk the dog before it rains again.
The dog got half a mile around a field walk in the end with both DC trailing hundreds of meters behind us in a mood, and both DC have been sulking with me since. DP got all stressed with me saying it’s not a big deal.
I also think it’s good for DC to get out of the house but I find this so stressful as neither the dogs needs or the DC’s are ever met and someone is always unhappy about something.
I think he should let me walk the dog on my own and take the DC to the play park separately unless he’s going to set a time limit on the play equipment so the dog gets a proper walk too, or we go to the play equipment at the end of the dog walk. AIBU?
When we talked about getting a dog I warned him that his kids are not good dog walkers as they are too slow and reluctant for this breed and he was all cocky that it would ‘be fine’.