to be sick of dh swanning off to this conference EVERY year

[morlando]

Ever since I have been married to dh he has swanned off to a 4 day conference every year. It's not work related although it is to do with his profession. Although there are talks and seminars every day its more of a 'jolly' with everyone staying in a 4 star hotel, going out for dinners and drinks every night.

When we didn't have dc's it was fine. Our first dd was 4 months old when he went to the conference for a 4 day overnight stay. At the time I was back at work full-time trying to manage work and a baby on my own. I suffered terribly with PND after a horrific 3rd degree tear and was in a lot of physical pain still. I asked him not to go but he still went.

DD is now 8 and he has been going to these conferences every year still. We now have a 2 year old dd and yep once again he has swanned off to his conference. I have been at home struggling with work and looking after two children while he is away. Last week was a nightmare juggling nursery and school drop off and pickups without him. I've had a few texts from him while he's been out enjoying meals and drinks with friends.

I am totally fed up. Hasn't helped that while he's been away I've also had to cope with the boiler breaking, dd's bedroom window breaking (due to severe wind, so it is hanging off the frame) and a poorly cat who had to go the vet.

I am raging. I told him this year I didn't want him to go as I can't cope with everything on my own but he went. His excuse is that its good for his professional development. He's never had a job offer or other opportunities resulting from his attending the conference as far as I can tell.

AIBU to tell him if he goes to the conference next year I will divorce him. It sounds harsh but I am sick of being left on my own to cope. He is meant to be going to another non work related conference next month although he hasn't decided yet if he's going.

He left Wednesday morning and wont be back til very late Sunday night. In the meantime I am barely coping . Trying to find a glazier to fix the window, a plumber to fix the boiler and entertaining two children plus a sick cat.

OP, I am normally an AIBU lurker and even I think you were given an unnecessarily hard time there.

The thing is it doesn't matter if someone else can cope with having 10 under 3's whilst running 3 multi million pound businesses and ironing husband's shirts or whatever, we all have our own limits of what we can cope with.

So to take it back to AIBU then of course you are not, you are finding it difficult and want support. End of. It doesn't matter why, it's just the fact that you are and therefore deserve help from the person who is supposed to be shouldering this burden with you. That 's even without potential PND. Is anyone supposed to say that working full time, juggling two children and being seemingly fully responsible for sorting out child care arrangements, isn't difficult?

Also why is this being left to you - I think your husband is being a twat to put it bluntly who is disregarding your job and career as not mattering and as you are the mother it seems to be your responsibility.

I am no feminist but think that is disgraceful in this day and age. I have a one year old and am going back to work soon and DH knows that it won't be just me doing the emergency child care / pickups - we are both going to have to rearrange work as required and as possible between the two of us.

You need to talk to him. It's not really about 4 days but the support. Next time
tell him you want a temporary nanny and then you'll happily drive him to the airport waving and smiling.

I think the main issue here is her husband's behaviour which is coming across as unsupportive and very selfish.

This is something OP may need support in addressing.

I once wrote a thread about me not wanting my fiancé to go to a festival because of my anxiety. All the responses I got were very nice and helpful. This is fairly similar and the op gets treated like shit! Very strange. Maybe the nasties just weren't out my night but Im glad I didn't get bullied like the op!

If you cant cope when he goes away on a 4 day non-essential trip, then he should be more supportive.

As for linking the thread to Facebook, which is a bug bear of mine, I think you should write a complaint about the whole facebook button.

the fb thing is VERY off, i have used it, but on both occasions i sent a pm asking the person who started the thread if it would be ok if could do so, i wouldnt do it if they werent happy about it, once it was fora thread re toddler girls and swim nappies (not allowed to have their tops uncovered) and i dont remember the other.

and yes i know people have always been able to cut and paste but the fb link button makes it much easier and it is done just to take the piss out of people which is not ok :(

I don't think you can link Relationships or Mental Health threads to facebook (?) so with the benefit of hindsight op would probably have been better off not posting in Aibu.

I started a thread late last night about the extremely odd amount of exposure this thread had had on facebook - but then I got tired and had to go to bed and didn't see mn's reply on my thread - and, surprise, surprise it has disappeared today.

Mintyy, it disappeared because somebody started discussing THIS thread on that thread. Rather than just deleting those comments, they deleted the whole thread. They warned first.

Sounds about par for the course! I still don't understand what was going on. Oh well.

If MNHQ are enabling talks about threads on FACEBOOK, they are pretty dis-ingenious in NOT allowing talk about a thread on ANOTHER THREAD ON MN.

Good point.

I don't understand this Facebook devil's bible stuff, linking and whatever.
But I do think the OP has been treated appallingly. I suspect those who treated her so badly have either a very supportive network to fall back on or they have never had to cope with PND.
hope they are satisfied with themselves.
Hope you are feeling better soon OP.

i dont think linking to fb is always bad at all, as i said i have done it after asking the posters permission, as that seems polite to me! :) and i was supportive of the op, which is a world away from what happened here when it seemed like it was linked just to take the piss and get others to come and have a go? we could be wrong but it did seem that that was the case?

I am not on FB, but think I am not wrong in thinking that there have been FB shout outs about MN threads ever since I have been here.

It doesn't make it right, does it, especially when the poor OP already feels beleaguered by a ghastly rout on a thread. I know that whatever is typed on here is open, but to know it is linked on FB and to suspect people are reading your tales of misery and are pointing and laughing is bloody horrible.

Then don't post it. Of course they do. And twitter and email text face to face.

Naiive

OP I am glad you came back, I am sorry if anything I said earlier in the thread was upsetting, it really wasn't meant to be.

It sounds very much like you are a coper and at no point have you given the impression (imho only perhaps) that you a)required b) relied upon a carer. I would hazard a guess that you are probably more the bread winner/ career driven of the partnership and this is perhaps why your dh takes you for granted. I see it with my friends, the really capable ones with good career prospects tend to have less driven dh's. BY this I by no means mean incapable or waistral husbands at all, I just mean that they are more "chilled" about what they are up to (they are still very nice, mostly loving, sometimes selfish, sometimes generous, sometimes idiots etc etc ). They are also the ones that are in awe of their wives but take them for granted and sometimes have to be pointed in the right direction. My bf dh the other day was chatting merrily whilst his stressed and over worked wife had both the dc with her, I had to point out to him that actually she would like a break and off he went - he KNOWS this but sometimes he just forgets because she is so brilliantly capable and he relies on her too.

Your dh has bogged off on a trip abroad/far flung places, the shit has hit whilst he has been away, you have a stressful new job and 2 demanding dc's. I should have been more sympathetic. However the mere fact is, you are capable and you have coped, you sound in better spirits today and that is brilliant.

Your dh maybe selfish, and this is undoubtably the wrong time for him to be away, but I stand by the fact that I am sure you don't really want to get divorced. And perhaps next year, you might be getting more sleep, you will be more settled in your job, and perhaps your dh might have a little further thought about getting some help for you with pick up and drop off, whether that is other friends or family. However if he wants to go, then he needs to have arranged the majority of it and not leave you in this situtation again. Good luck

Thankyou pooh

Glad you sound a little happier today, Morlando. Hope things pan out and your husband listens to you.