AIBU to think our night was ruined and to be pissed off with DP

[lilacclaire]

Last night I arranged a baby sitter for my ds(4) so me and dp could spend some rare time alone. Hardly ever get a babysitter nowadays, so we went out to dinner at a pretty posh restuarant then decided to come home to have a few drinks and listen to music/watch a film/possibly get jiggy.....

Anyway dss (16) comes in at 10pm, plonks himself on the computer in the living room and is still there by half 12. I'm motioning to dp to tell him to tell him to sling his hook so we can just have some time alone, dp looks bewildered and mouths back 'why'.

FFS, what was the point in getting a babysitter etc, I finished my drink and stomped off to bed.

I feel a bit childish but am still pretty annoyed. Obviously I could have told dss to go to bed, but am annnoyed by dp who obviously thinks we don't need anytime alone.

Should probably be posting in relationships!

Message withdrawn

The point was to have a few drinks, talk shite, listen to some music, just some adult time to have fun.
I didn't want to go to my bed early, I do that every night.

sling his hook = get to your bed (in this case)

I presume DSS lives with you? Were you not expecting him home at 10pm? Would you have got 'jiggy' in the lounge with your 16 DSS in the house (if DH had told him to sling his hook, presumably you meant to his room and not out of the house??)....

Surely you paid for the babysitter so you could go out for dinner - which you did. Kind of not relevant when you got home, unless you only wanted to go out for dinner as a precursor to shagging your DP in the lounge and had told him so.

Maybe your DH thought you had had time to yourselves when you'd been out to dinner and that you could get 'jiggy' when you went to bed?

Sorry, I'm confused as to why this is all an issue with you when you live with a teenager - par for the course isn't it?

I am sorry if you feel that your DH isn't paying you enough attention or if you feel he's in some way neglecting your relationship, but I think you need to talk to him about what you need rather than trying to get him to send a 16 year old out of the room so you can make out like a couple of teenagers on the couch - save that for when he's staying at a mates .

Ds was staying at my mums, so out all night and long lie in the morning.
Probably wouldn't have 'got it on' on the couch with teenager floating around upstairs or otherwise, but the chance to talk freely without having to watch because the 'kids' are around and having a few drinks etc.

Am feeling disappointed and neglected I suppose, watched some crap thing on tv and then went to bed, not the night I was expecting.

Yes dss lives with us.

lilac - it's crap when it doesn't go to plan!

Still, if your DS is happy at your Mums and your Mum is happy to have him - then there's always next weekend . If you can't afford to go out for dinner again, then have a lovely (light) dinner at home

Make sure DSS has other plans - that involve staying at a mates - or tell him he's welcome to stay at your Mums as you two need a night home alone - that should have him running for the hills!!

My mum won't have my ds again for months, its really hard to get her to babysit, I had a lot of persuading to do. I guess that I feel I went to a lot of effort and we still didn't get any peace.

Im more annoyed at dp anyway and don't think i'll bother making the effort again. He obviously doesn't think we need any time alone.

Thanks for replying, im back off to bed for my long lie!

Next time make your DSS aware of your plans, it can be as simple as "here's 20 quid, don't come back until 2am". See? Not hard!

lilac - sorry it turned to mush.

It's a shame your Mum wont babysit again. I wish there was a better way to 'marry up' grandparents, parents & children - My Mum would have the grandkids living with her if she had her way and yet my stupid brother wont let them stay there - even though the kids would love it (SIL, if an evil stupid cow, my parents are lovely and adore the kids).

Anyway, back to the point in question - which is why do you feel your DH doesn't want time alone together. Do you think he is unhappy or is just happy to be with you & the kids.... how was he at dinner??

Hope you get a bit more sleep this morning - maybe there is still time to make up for last night before you go & get DS??

I'm still a little confused.

Why do you feel you need a completely empty house to be intimate - either talking or "getting jiggy" - with your dp?

And if you do, why didn't you/he arrange for him to stay at a mates?

Babysitters in our house are for when we're out, rather than when we're in.

And you have the unholy power of being really embarrassing - surely all you had to do was merely hint that you yearned for intimacy and your ds would have hidden himself away in his room with the music on low? Or couldn't you and dh have gone upstairs?

Or is it the fact that dh didn't respond to your subtle hints and just crashed in front of the T.V. instead of following you, excitedly, upstairs?

Sorry if I'm being dim and not getting something obvious.

Was this just "your" plan or did your DH actually KNOW that you were genuinely wanting comeplte and utter time to yourself in the room alone....

It sounds like an idyll you had imagined would be the perfect night but that doesn't necessarily mean that your DH knew that...

Did you not expect your DSS to be there at all..? Just because your DS had gone to his Grans, it sounds like you just expected your DSS to disappear and "know" to be gone...if you hadn't arranged for him to go out all night why are you resentful that he was at home in his own house...??

Unles you had said to DP and DSS that was how you wanted to spend the evening, then you cant expect them both to read your mind.

TBH, assuming your DSS has another home as well, I would have arranged the evening for when he wasn't going to be there.

tbh, all you needed to do was to snuggle up to your husband and give him a kiss and your son would have legged it to his room in 10 seconds flat!

I assume you have talked to your husband, communicated your feelings and your needs?

If your DS is still at your mum's, couldn't you go and get jiggy with DH now? Go on, bet you'll both enjoy it and it'll stop you feeling like the whole thing was a waste of time.

Dss doesn't have another home at all.
I didn't want him out the house, just last night it would have been nice if he hadn't hung around in the living room so late.

I know we're a family, but we're a couple as well and it would have been nice to spend some rare time as a couple.

DP knew, just didn't see the point, am trying to improve a crap relationship but thats another story.

I must admit that I don't see the problem with retiring to your room with a glass of wine to talk if thats what you wanted. I don;t see why sitting in the bedroom talking and cosying up together is so very different to doing it in the living room if your DSS is going to be in the house one way or another.

If you are having problmes in your relationship then I suspect you are unreasonably irritated for historic reasons not because of what happened that evening, which TBH really don;t sound unreasonable to me.

Try again, sending your DSS for a sleepover with a friend this time.

I totally understand your wish to be with your husband but I think you were unreasonable I'm afraid

If you needed a night free from kids around then you and DP needed to organise that. I'm not sure how your DP or your DSS were meant to know what was supposed to happen without you telling them?

agree with what chippingin said initially and what hbfac and thesecondcoming said.

I think you were being totally unreasonable. First because you expected your DP to understand something you hadn't explained. It would have been reasonable for him to be feeling downcast that you didn't want to spend much time alone with him because you wanted to come home straight after dinner to a house with DSS when you had finally got a babysitter for DS. DSS lives with you, he doesn't have another home - where did you expect him to be?

Secondly, you were being unreasonable to expect that you will have a significant amount of time alone with your partner when you have two children - one teenager and one young child, living with you. Presumably you don't all share a bedroom so you do at least have time alone with your DP every night, you can't expect to get any time completely alone IMHO. It is a nice bonus but I have to say normally quite a rare occurrence for most parents and I feel it would be better to try and work with what you do have than feel unhappy and long for more. Next time you get a babysitter make use of it to go out and be completely alone, maybe stay in a hotel if it is an all night babysitter and you want to be alone.

Lastly and most unreasonably, I feel, you were expecting your partner to favour his new girlfriend over his child and banish his child to his room. Big no, no... Big, BIG, no, no in my book.

Oh and BTW it is completely normal for grandparents not to want DCs for the whole night very often. My mum loves doing it but she has her own life and it means she rarely babysits or has them overnight (twice last year - one when I was giving birth and one when we got married). It is hard and tiring for people other than the parents to care for children for prolonged periods. Have you tried asking her to babysit for just a couple of hours in the evening? Sometimes we take our children to my parents and put them to bed then pick them up at after dinner (at the weekends). We have a key so we just come, put them to bed and then let ourselves in to take them again and the person in the house doesn't have to do anything other than listen to the baby monitor and not go out.

Ok, IABU, just felt disappointed.

DP DID know my plans.

I had suggested a hotel, so we could have a night out after dinner but he wasn't interested. (it was a special occassion).

Im not a new girlfriend by any means, we've been together some years.

Sitting in our bedroom and drinking is not practical.

The kids are always around us, disappearing up to his technology filled bedroom wouldn't have been putting him out in any way.

There's no way I would allow a (just) 16 year old out till 2am in the morning, certainly not in this area.

I dont expect dss to be 'banished' but one night out of months, well im hardly being the evil step mother and ds was 'banished' to my mums for one night.

Im probably not used to teenagers and the sacrifices you need to make with them, I have never got used to not having my own time with a partner.

Relationship has pretty much run its course anyway, was trying to make an effort which didn't really work.

Thanks for everyones input, even those who think im BU. Just reiterates what I suspected, big family life is not for me!

"Sitting in our bedroom and drinking is not practical."

Why?

I think I can get why you were disappointed though. I know this sounds mad, but you were after a mini-break -- in your own house. Was that it?

[Sigh] Bitter experience tells me you need to plan for those just like you would a mini-break somewhere else.

And prepare for your dh to spend a valuable portion of it not appreciating how precious that time is.

You sound really p. o.'d with the fact you don't get to be alone with your dh. You need to talk to him about it and plan for it. I don't think that time alone just happens when you have dc. Well, it doesn't happen for me and dh. I find I really have to plan for it.