Indirect family more important than partner???

[ifonlylifewaseasy]

Good morning all. I will try and keep this short as possible.

So I have been with my partner for just over a year. We do not live together.

He is 49 and I am 47.

This morning we were in the midst of arranging to meet up and have a walk today via messaging. Various areas were discussed. It is looking like a beautiful day after all. We had talked about it last night but left it to today to organise.

Then abruptly he rang me and said "bad news".

His mum had a birthday event to go to and one of my partner's cousins was staying behind as he was not old enough. My partner's dad was meant to look after the younger cousin but had a headache so did not feel like looking after him. There is no one else to look after him, so his mum had rung my partner to ask if he could look after him. He said yes without even contacting me.

Hence then him ringing me to give me the bad news.

He cancelled the whole day now as the event will take up most of the day.

We ended up having heated words because he said his family comes first. AIBU to think he should have rung me to discuss the options or see how I felt about it before he gave his mum the go ahead???

Another 20 minutes and he would have been on the way.

Why aren’t his cousin’s parents sorting out the childcare? It seems a bit odd to be left to the grandparents.

i’d be annoyed that he didn’t check with you first, even if it was a formality. It’s hardly an emergency as it sounds like the person originally doing childcare had a bit of a poor excuse to get out of it (most women would just take a couple of paracetamol and get on with it if we had a headache and OP didn’t say it was something like a migraine)

Fair play to you @ifonlylifewaseasy . It's really refreshing to see someone take it all on board and admit they were wrong. Doesn't happen often here. I hope you manage to have a great day despite the cancelled walk.

Jinx!

Would have been worse if he had turned up with a small person in tow...

The guy would go up in my estimation in that he's willing to step up and help family out. He's a good one.

@ifonlylifewaseasy you don’t have to offer a personal mea culpa to everyone on the thread!

But really, he’s just a new-ish boyfriend - you’re very far from being partners.

Assuming he was telling the truth, it’s a shame the young cousin couldn’t have joined you both on a walk. I guess you’re not that close yet?

I too wonder if you’ve met any of his family yet.

Obviously if you don’t think he was being truthful about the reason for cancelling your date that’s a whole different matter.

Different view here. The favour wasn’t for his parents but his cousin who’s babysitter had fallen through ( OPs partners dad), therefore the cousin needs to find another babysitter for their kid or else not go to the event. That’s life. OPs partner isn’t his cousins last minute baby sitting service. OPs partner had committed to spending time with OP. Doesn’t matter what they’ve got planned whether it’s a holiday or a walk.

100% agree!!

Yes, that sounds perfectly okay from his perspective. He’s helping his dad today who is poorly. That takes precedence over a fun day out. Only time I’d expect my Dh to run something like that by me would be if it meant he couldn’t care for our own children (you have none by the sound of it) or if it meant I’d also have to look after them (we obviously live together so another child at ours would mean I’d also be looking after them or would have to cook for an extra person, etc).