Does your DH hate when family visit?

[Justwanttobehappyx]

I live an hour away from my mum I usually see her once a month and she will stay for 3 days or so. However since my brother has moved nearer to us and I’ve needed the extra support as he is going through a lot of stuff she has been coming up every two weeks.

DH would always moan when she visited once a month and now it’s every two weeks he’s even worse. It just makes me so miserable i feel so stuck as he never wants her here but I need her help with my brother.

is your DH like this? Or would he in this situation. It’s making me miserable and I love spending time with mum too. She helps out with the kids & chores it takes some stress of me.

You obviously don't understand ethnic families. We are very invested in family.

Try and out yourself in Dhs shoes. He probably feels like he comes last in your priorities, but also it’s a tricky situation for you. Your mum needs to find another way to get to you, taxi from train station or look at national express (really comfortable and cheap).

Maybe sit down with everyone and come up with a solution

DH sounds charming. You have an unwell brother in need of temporary support to get better. He objects to you helping your brother, he objects to you mum coming to help your brother, he is rude when she is in the house.

What would the situation be if it were DH’s sibling or family member unwell and in need of support? I’d have a bigger issue with the selfishness of someone who objected to me supporting an unwell family member.

Are you supposed to be devoting 100% of your time and attention to husband worship? Is that his problem?

If I were DH I’d be looking for a divorce.

Team husband.
We are just a bit older than your mother and visit one of our adult children every week to look after our grandchildren. It is about an hour away and we travel there and back in the day.
I would hate anyone staying with me six days a month. People over 70 are perfectly capable of changing trains. I am fairly LC with my mother, but when I do see her, it is only for the day and involves 2 changes of train and the trip takes about 2 hours, so 4 hours in the day. I think your mother just likes staying with you.

It all sounds very awkward to be honest.

Your mum is staying with you 2 weekends a month which would start to irritate any partner.

She won't get the train so you have to drop everything to play taxi.

She is no great age but doesn't drive, does she have some kind of medical issue?

She is coming to help your brother but he won't get her, does he even want her there?

You sound like a people pleaser with too much on, something has to give. I think you need to do less and other people need to do more, your husband isn't helping with your family, fair enough, but what else is he doing to help? If you weren't running around after your mother and brother they would have to learn to be a bit more self sufficient, at the moment you are enabling their helplessness.

Read the thread. The mother comes to support her son/OP's brother who has mental health problems. So OP going to her is irrelevant and pointless.

Given that the mother seems to only sleep at OP's house as she's at the brother's during the day, I doubt that the DH's weekend is affected that much.

Also DH moans when OP helps her brother, so he sounds like a prince.

She won't get the train so you have to drop everything to play taxi.

She does get the train, and OP picks her up from a station 45 minutes away. It's in the thread @Magenta82

And what's the point in questioning why she doesn't drive? It's not as though she can learn now to solve the problem.

The OP said:

"Mum is 71 she will only get the train to the nearest train station where she doesn’t have to change over which is 45 mins from me. So this is what we have been doing I don’t drive all the way to her."

She won't change trains. She will only get on one train and then requires the OP to pick her up. It's not hard to move to a different platform and wait for another train unless she has some kind of disability the OP hasn't mentioned.

I asked why she doesn't drive because it shows a pattern of behaviour. The mother is 71 and so was a teenager/young adult in the 70s when it was pretty normal to learn to drive, if she didn't do it then she could have learnt as an adult when she had children. It is understandable that someone might not have the money to have a car but why did she never learn? It is a basic adult skill it is unusual that she can't do it.

The OP is enabling her mother by facilitating her refusal to change trains and it seems like it has been going on for a long time.

I completely agree with you, but i also think its wrong of us to focus on this woman in her 70s. The onus needs to be on her brother to help people help him. That's why it would be useful to get a clearer picture of his situation: is this someone with learning disabilities? Is he just going through a rough patch? How long has this been going on for?

If your mum is in her 70s, at some point she may also need support.

Is is feasible for her to move closer to you and your brother actually move in with her?

What a helpful contribution 🙄

Given your mums various limitations, I can’t see how she’s much help? I don’t understand why a 71 year old woman can’t accommodate a change of train.

Maybe your brother should move near your mum? Why did he move near you? You don’t need to take him shopping, just arrange a food delivery. You appear to be the only functioning adult in your family. I would be really pissed off if I were your DH.

Tbh you (and your dc) seem to be at everyone else’s mercy, trying to make them all happy whilst they put all these stipulations in.
Dh doesn’t want your mum around but seemingly also won’t help you.
Your mum chose not to learn to drive (unless it’s for health reasons) and now is unwilling to learn how to get the train (even if you did the journey with her once or twice to get her confident with the routine and showed her how to use the apps etc?) I get that she’s 71 but if she’s able bodied and capable enough to help your brother she can probably catch a train. My 75 year old mil goes on holiday regularly and seems to manage to figure that out.

your DB won’t drive far and won’t buy anything other than pot noodles. As a grown man these are his choices. Does he really need to be taken shopping. Couldn’t you order him some food or leave him to eat what he chooses?

and you are running around trying to keep everyone happy. Is any of this benefiting your dc?

Could your brother find a house share that’s closer to your mam? Sounds like a tough situation

Oh I totally agree!

The brother has mental health issues, we don't know what they are but do know he can drive so could pick up his mum if he chose to, but he doesn't. Which is why I previously asked if he wanted her there.

If he is suffering from anxiety/depression part of the treatment is to actually do things, but it is hard.

I also think there are better ways to help then OP picking the mother up and having her stay 2 weekends a month so she can take him shopping.

Online delivery, video calls etc can all help, but the main issue is that OP seems to be the only capable adult in her family and has fallen into a pattern that supports their learned helplessness.

What a load of ridiculous behaviour from everyone. Get a regular online shop for the useless brother if you must, and tell your mother to get a bloody grip and change trains for visits, otherwise just visit her for the day every month max.

Job done. Don’t enable this helplessness. I bet they would all do fuck all to help you @Justwanttobehappyx so stop being such a mug.

My mother can drive but won’t drive out of her town, she won’t even try a different supermarket because she is “scared of the car parks”. We take no notice, if she won’t get in the car and visit then visits are limited to only when I can go there- which is about every 6 weeks plus family celebrations. It’s her loss. She’s perfectly capable but refuses to try anything and I’m not enabling it. If she was ill/disabled/lost her license that would be different and I’d be there in a flash, but she’s just taken this ridiculous stance and because of her personality she hasn’t backed down for decades. I love her dearly but she is an absolute idiot in this regard.

Re the food shopping, if the brother just eats pot noodles when left to his own devices, does he actually cook the food OP and her mother buy?

I've had something minor similar to this, you can do everything except put the food cooked in front of them and hand them their cutlery, and you come home and they've been to the chip shop. If they can't be arsed then that's their choice, he'll survive.

I think it is a helpful contribution. Regardless of whether posters here think OP's husband is being unreasonable, he has his own opinion and can choose to leave the marriage if he's seriously unhappy.

I personally would hate having a house guest every other weekend. I would feel like I worked all week, had no rest (I'm an introvert, I can't relax properly when guests are over), and then went back to work for a week. I'd be miserable.

Equally, OP can decide having a partner who doesn't help her with the children or housework, and doesn't support her family to help her brother is unacceptable to her.

I wouldn't want to have the mother in law stay regularly either - certainly not for entire long weekends. It's difficult enough to find time to spend with one's significant other at the best of times, but having a Mother In Law staying multiple times a month is quite the imposition.

An hour long drive is nothing - doesn't really matter what the traffic situation is, if it's an hour long drive then it's really not onerous - and if she's that bothered she could drive during less busy times (early in the morning, later in the evening. Absolutely no need for her to be staying multiple days at a time. And if she really wants to then she can start staying at a hotel or AirBnB.

I totally understand where your DH is coming from - I wouldn't like it either. And, iI suspect, you wouldn't like it very much if you were in his shoes and had a mother in law saying with you for long periods of time every month.

MN is such a funny place.

Yesterday a poster started a thread asking what would happen as her parents and in laws got older and she and her husband don’t provide any help. She was told she was cold, a horrible person and a sociopath - "but they’re fAMiLy"

This thread oh no Op you’re being so unreasonable and helping waayy tooo much!

Maybe it was different people replying to the different threads? I have responded to this one but didn’t see the one yesterday. MN isn’t a hive mind and different people will (obviously) have different opinions.

The mother and brother here aren't elderly and are doing very little to help themselves, by doing so much OP is actually harming them in the long term as it keeps them dependent.

I didn't see the thread you refer to, but I assume the situation was different.

Your “d” h is abusive and controlling and trying to isolate you from your family is my view! Why can’t your mum come for a few days a month?!? God if my mum was still alive she’d have been moved into with my dh and I as she was my best friend and my kids would have loved having her to stay with us. Point out to your husband the main reason she’s coming is to help you because he isn’t!

I wouldn’t have my MIL to stay for 6 days a month and I don’t think I’m abusive, controlling or trying to isolate my husband from his friends and family. I adore them, I just don’t want other people staying in my house for 6 days out of every month. That’s 20% of the time.