DH and I have been together for 13yrs, married 6. We have 3 children aged DD4, DD1 and DS 10 weeks. He’s from a town an hour away. He has a dad and grandparents who live in the town where he grew up and a sister who lives three hrs away.
When I gave birth to DS 10 weeks ago my husband and I had a big disagreement on how he handled sorting out a date for us to take DS to meet his family.
He and I agreed on two weekends that would work for us, and he let them know. A few days later we were talking about it and we agreed that actually the first weekend of the two options we sent over would be better for us. I would be 10 days pp but baby and I were fine, and he wanted his family to meet him when he was brand new, plus our girls had no coughs / colds at the time (cant visit with sniffles as grandparents vulnerable) so he let them know and his dad, auntie and grandparents said no problem. Anyway, FF to two days before and his dad msgs him and asks him to move the date we go up to the weekend after as this would work better for his sister, and she wanted to meet the baby. I told DH that I wasn’t keen on changing the date, and that I had since arranged for friends to meet the baby on the next weekend. My husband was faffing over this, asking me to move arrangements with my friends. I reminded him of the reasons HE chose the date, which he still agreed with, and said tell them we will still go the weekend we have agreed and invite his sister to come to our house to meet the baby the weekend after since she will be down our way, so no one misses out. He kept pushing back at me which really pissed me off, and I ended up saying if we don’t go the weekend we had already agreed we won’t go until the end of the month. (Probs very hormonal as well as pissed off! I also know his dad massively panders to his sister which I hadn’t the patience for 😂)
I felt like being the new parents in this situation his family might be able to do what works for us?? It’s not like the pregnancy came as a surprise, they all knew the due date all along and that we would visit in the first 2/3 weeks like we did with DDs.
My husband eventually txt his dad to tell him we would rather stick to the date we’d mentioned which resulted in his dad calling him at 11pm at night (his dad literally never ever rings him) to ask him again if we could do the weekend after so his sister didnt have to drive an hour to see us as it would be difficult for their child’s naps etc (errrm hello we also have a one year old who naps and a 10 day old baby). They had a long conversation and my DH did stand his ground in the end and his sister came to visit us.
Anyway, we went to see his grandparents last weekend for Easter, but his dad had gone to see/stay with his sister so wasn’t there.
DH surprises me today saying we’re going to see his grandparents next weekend as his sister is coming down. I said it’s only been a week since we there (we usually go once a month at most) so could they come to us again as it worked out fine last time. He then went off on a tirade saying that he feels upset that I must have a problem with his dad and sister, we’re only ‘popping over to see them’ and what’s the problem with back to back visits since his grandparents are very elderly and he doesn’t know how long they will have left (pure blackmail). This led to a bigger argument later on. I just feel like he’s scared to say what works best for him and his family and will go along with what his dad/sister wants to make life easy, and I told him that. He even said himself that he would have probably chosen a weekend later in the month but his sister preferred a certain weekend so that’s what they’ve gone with.
Am I being unreasonable to think that as new parents, with a 10 week old baby, I should at least have a say in what dates Im being committed to, to drive a two hour round trip with three children??
I don’t want him to feel like he can’t make spur of the moment arrangements or for me to have to have a certain amount of notice for him to make plans, but I’d like some involvement before dates which clearly cant be moved are ‘pencilled’ in the diary. I have all my children on my own almost all week, so weekends when my husband is off work are a time when I can let him take some of the physical and mental load. (Not the baby as Im EBF so days/nights are all on me). Weekends are really quite precious to me at the moment.
I suppose I also feel quite sensitive about this as DHs father has only ever visited his grandchildren at our house twice (only the eldest). He’s been invited but never made the effort to come. We always go there as we have to, to see his grandparents anyway, but it feels like such a one way street all the time. Im 8 years older than his sister, so we are very friendly with each other but not close as such.
My god what a ramble. I don’t expect anyone has made it to the end of this thread, but it actually feels better to have shifted some of this off my mind 😂