to want to spend the weekend doing something lovely with DH instead of going to this wedding?

[silverten]

Just received an invite to a wedding of DH's cousin, in a couple of months.

We're not close- in fact I barely know said cousin. We never speak or see each other except at family things, which is all fine for us, and fine for them, I think. Certainly the cousin has never really bothered to try and get to know me when they've had the chance, and the last couple of times has been I think a little bit bitchy towards me (in that 'Did you mean that, or are you just being thoughtless?' sort of way). I have no desire to fall out with them, but neither am I bothered about having a relationship with them either. They are just someone who happens to be related to me by marriage. My DH is also not particularly close to them.

Was rather surprised to receive an invite, actually- but I suspect that MIL may have had a hand in this- she likes to have everything organised her way if she can get away with it. When we got married we didn't invite the cousin, purely because of the total lack of any relationship between us, and various expressions of disapproval worked their way back to us.

I will be six months pregnant with our first then, and because of my job will not be able to take too much more time as holiday after the wedding. I'd rather not waste a precious free weekend at the wedding of someone who I'm pretty sure won't care whether we turn up or not, when I could be doing something more fun, or seeing someone I actually want to see instead.

I suspect that DH might choose to go out of convention, or be pressured into going by MIL. I could certainly simply not go myself, but that would mean that I miss a whole weekend of child-free time with DH, which I would rather not, as there are so few of them left.

Am I being unreasonable to want to spend the weekend in question doing something more fun with my DH?

Don't go. Let your DH decide if he wants to go.
But do it now so the cousin can get sometone who wants to go in.

But don't put any pressure on your DH as to what he wants to do.

no you are not BU. i thin k its a lovely idea to want to spend some quality time with your DH before happy event . do what makes you happy. its time to be selfish about it- you will have very little me time in 3 onths!!

Just don't go.

Thanks. I guess my dilemma is whether to make it clear to DH that I'd rather do something else with him, not to 'get back' at the cousin or MIL (we have history- but I am guessing about her involvement in this invite, I may be totally wrong there), but just because time is precious.

I could certainly be selfless about it and swallow the loss of a weekend, but part of me thinks "well why the flinkin' blip should I?" for the sake of someone who probably won't care anyway...

An alternative, of course, is for us both to go, and to do our best to be lovely guests for the wedding. But basically I can't really much be ar*ed to do that and would rather be a bit more selfish.

Of course you should go, I can't think of anything more important than a wedding and in an era where more and more people are living together without the formal commitment of marriage, it's even more important.

I don't think you are being unreasonable, but it might be worth considering family harmony before making the decision. If by not going, you'd upset your MIL and she'd have a go at your dh, then it might be worth going to the wedding for the sake of a quiet life.

You need to balance that against your feelings and your dh's feelings about the wedding and decide what is best for you, and then go for it.

You can have a nice week-end with your dh any time - why wait till you're invited to a wedding to decide that you'd like a week-end with your hubby. What about going away with your hubby on one of the other week-ends you have.

Can't quite agree with famished but where is this wedding and how fun is it likely to be? You might have a lovely time with nice food, good music and nice company, and you might get to stay in a nice hotel...could be fun!

famishedass: yes, I do see your point, weddings, marvellous, etc. etc... But in that case why would it really spoil it that much if two guests the bride and groom didn't give a monkey's about didn't go? I don't think so.
FWIW we thought long and hard about our decisions to invite people to our wedding, and chose to invite only the people we had a real connection to, rather than those we just happened to be related to. For us, this was quite an important point- our wedding was a celebration of our relationship together and as such we wanted to share it with the people who had had a hand in making it that. I don't quite know why we've been invited but suspect that it is probably mostly to do with us just happening to be related to the couple, not for any other reason. Therefore I doubt that our non-appearance would really make any difference to the couple in question or spoil the occasion.

I'm not sure what DH will feel about it yet- I wanted to try and work out what a reasonable way to behave about the situation was first. If it turns out that it is important to him that we both go I will probably go along with that- it certainly isn't worth falling out over.

I think I am just going to point out to DH that I would rather spend the time more fruitfully, because it is precious to me to have quality time with him before the baby comes.

..and famishedass: just as a PS to that- we are already booked up for practically every other weekend to do last-few-months-pre-baby things as well. I know it may seem odd, but there really aren't that many weekends left, and it will be a long, long time before we can do the couple thing easily again...

I may have 5 months to go, but my job will not easily allow us to do more far-flung things on weekends after about September. Plus, of course, the bigger I get, the less I will be able to do (we like to spend our time doing outdoorsy things, so getting dressed up in uncomfortable clothes and nibbling canapes for a whole day doesn't feature too highly on our list of mega-fun things to do). I don't want DH all to myself to the exclusion of anyone else for all that time (that would be selfish!) but I would rather spend the time seeing as many other friends and relatives we actually have real relationships with as possible.

I'm getting the feeling that I'm not being a total Wife-zilla about this, though, which is helpful- thank you to all for your opinions.

I would suck it up. It sounds a bit like there is a lot of background and previous to this with your MIL and cousin. You'll see the whole of your DHs family at this wedding, rather than just having it be about his cousin - and as it is your first, some of those relationships might become more important after your have your baby. They certainly might be more important to your baby in years to come so might be nice to build some bridges, if bridges are necessary.

Certainly not worth causing a row over.

True re:DH's family. And definitely not worth rowing over!

(MIL however is a separate problem, which I am working very very hard on...)

I don't know your dh and how he reacts to things but this is how i would react.

If my dh said : 'i don't want to go to that wedding because i dislike your cousin and Mil' i would at least appreciate his honesty.
If he said 'because i want to spent time with you' i would be pissed off and say 'do i look for fool?'.
Sorry but thats my honest opinion.

Not sure I quite understood that. But I'm not proposing to hide my (lack of) feelings about the cousin- and he already knows exactly what I think of his mother. And she may well have nothing whatsoever to do with this anyway, so I'm not going to bring that up myself. I would simply rather spend the time better, than standing around in a stuffy marquee, watching other people drinking champagne, wearing an uncomfortable frock.

They are both reasons that I don't particularly want to go to the wedding.

However if DH is really all that bothered about it, I will turn up and make the best of it. It might be an opportunity to try and get along better with MIL anyway!

Sounds like a "courtesy invitation" to me. Don't go!

it WILL be spending a nice weekend with your dh

go early, have a leisurely breakfast somewhere together on the way, enjoy the wedding and getting to know some more of his family, dh will enjoy catching up with his extended family, spend a nice night together in the luxury of a hotel and then have a day out somewhere different on the sunday before heading home.

OR
dont go, stay at home tidying up most of sat, have a bath, watch some telly and then go to B&Q on sunday

More likely to be:

start off tired from work on Friday

long journey down on Saturday, quick check-in to wherever we're staying and hasty change into wedding gear (remember I'll be 6 months pregnant so will probably have to waste cash on something that will fit..I'd rather keep the cash for something useful like a pram, TBH) at the last possible moment

quite dull ceremony (we don't do church unless forced to)

drinks, meal etc making small talk with various rellies- some quite nice, some not quite so nice. Smiling politely at barbed comments from cousin(s): eg pretending to forget my name, that sort of thing. I find small talk a bit hard work anyway- easier when I've had a glass of wine, which of course I won't be able to do... There won't be many rellies there we know, so this won't take long. Best for me not to say anything more substantial than small talk as lines of conversations concerning our life/plans/baby will inevitably lead to the tensions concerning the MIL- which I would rather not get into at someone else's wedding, really- there's a time and place for those sorts of conversations and I'd rather not run the risk of spoiling the day for anyone.

Not devastatingly terrible, I grant you, but enough combined to be rather trying. The possibility of staying somewhere nice is likely to be diluted by having to stay in the same place as the MIL, share transport, have breakfast together etc. Again, not the end of the world, but not exactly fun either- at the moment I prefer to deal with MIL in small doses, and an entire weekend is rather too much time in one go, really.

Alternatively, we could spend the weekend meeting up with some friends, going somewhere nice, not having to worry about suitable topics of conversation or daft clothes, or spending a bomb on accommodation and taxis.