Is my husband being unreasonable - grandparent input

[Periclymenum]

Yesterday my 3 young kids and I went to my parents’ house for a family birthday celebration. My husband joined us later. As he arrived my 2 oldest kids were riding their bikes in the drive with my dad. My mum then put a bike helmet on my 2 yr old as she’d asked me earlier if he’d like to try an old balance bike they have at their house - I’d agreed. He wandered around with it between his legs a bit - didn’t really get the idea 😂 but had fun anyway.

I walked to where my husband was further down the drive, expecting him to be enjoying the moment too. He seemed emotional but was smiling slightly, and said ‘I can’t believe this. I feel disengaged from my own kids…This isn’t making me feel like a very good parent’. I said, assuming he just needed some reassuring - ‘ah it’s okay, we don’t have this kind of (any!) flat driveway space at home to ride bikes’. He said, ‘NO, we can go to the park’. Then seemingly out of nowhere he cruelly and coldly said ‘they’re both meatheads aren’t they’…I actually said, ‘who are meatheads?’ as I was so taken-aback. I had to walk away from him as I knew I’d get upset, so I went inside the house. He followed a minute later carrying our youngest inside, saying ‘I had to take him in, it was upsetting me too much.’

My husband has reacted like this before, starting about 5 yrs ago. He has a bee in his bonnet that my dad in particular jumps in and does things, eg teaching to ride a bike, that he should be doing. I can’t think of an example where this has actually happened…but I’m sure my husband would say it would’ve done if he hadn’t stopped it. Even my parents singing songs from their childhoods to our kids, reading books to them, all ends in him looking upset. He ruined Christmas by petulantly blurting out just as we were about to leave ‘I can’t stand your silly little father. I find him so irritating.’ My parents are 10 mins away but we barely visit once a month as I dread the bad mood from my husband.

The 2 main contributing issues I can think of are 1) he’s 18 yrs older than me so much closer in age to my parents than me. His own mother is in her 90s and isn’t that interested in kids generally and 2) he grew up without any living grandparents himself, so has no precedent for ‘sharing’ his kids and thinks my parents are insensitive and showing him up by being too involved. There is no reason for this - he’s a great dad and does loads of activities with them. I try to make sure he does milestones, eg he took them to the cinema for the first time 2 days ago.

We didn’t speak for the rest of the day. I feel like he doesn’t care about me as he can’t find a way to handle my only slightly annoying family. They’ve never said a nasty word to him and we’ve been together nearly 20 years. I concede they are both very active and ‘organiser’ types, so tend to schedule us for events before we’ve really thought what we want to do…it grates on me sometimes too. my dad is an engineer, possibly a little on the spectrum so can miss social cues. On the other hand his mum told my eldest he was a ‘bad boy’ amongst other nasty little negs to me also (I need elocution lessons, my breastmilk tested) and I put up with it because she’s his Mum and we can’t change that…why can’t he do the same for me?

Genuinely starting to read around divorce. I think he’s trying and laughing it off, then he gets really vicious and angry again. Wider issues…bedroom is totally dead, he mainly talks to me to moan or rant.

If anyone ever spoke about my parents like that who was supposed to be close to me, I would burst into tears. What awful things to say.

If my DH said that, immediate divorce.

He sounds awful.

Is he jealous that your parents are more natural, active, engaged and show more initiative than he does? I feel sorry for you having to constantly try and smooth over his fragile ego; that must be exhausting. Add on the dead bedroom - what does he do that actually makes you happy?

That comment about your parents is an immediate divorce card for me.

Sorry @Periclymenum - hope you are ok.

Id like to hear your husbands side of the story. I’ve read so many Mumsnet posts from women talking about their in-laws “overstepping boundaries” in the way you say your husband feels and people are very sympathetic. I think you obviously love your parents but you can’t be objective. He may be right, they may be overbearing. Also there’s nothing wrong with not wanting outside input in raising your own children, it’s weird you talk about it as sharing your children with your parents. That makes me think they have a lot of input.

Christ your husband sounds like my father. He is 5 years younger than my mother, but was always so jealous of the fact that she had a large family who wanted to be in our lives. His family was limited to his parents and his younger brother...they had no contact with any extended family...his parents had him late and I think all sets of grandparents were dead before he was born.

When we were living in the same city, we saw my maternal grandmother once a week and when we became teenagers one of my maternal uncles used to take us out shopping after school once a week. But to hear my father talk, you would have thought they were living with us! My mother swallowed his bullshit whole and we moved to the other side of the world when I was 14...we had no contact with her family for 7 years afterwards. My father left my mother for another woman when I was 21 (he'd been unfaithful their whole marriage).

It's only since I've been an adult that I've realised how fucked up my family was growing up. I see friends with families, how their children see their grandparents far more often - some on a daily basis - and how that's considered 'normal', particularly when you live so close to them! Sadly my relationship with extended family never recovered and now all of my grandparents are deceased, as are all but one of my 8 uncles and aunts. I now feel like myself and my brothers missed out on a lot, due to my father's jealous ways.

This is a fair point, actually. From your OP, your DH sounds awful; like a jealous, petulant child. But there are countless posts on here from women who resent their MIL and her involvement with their family and those posters are given a more sympathetic hearing.

In laws are always difficult; all families have their own ways of doing things which are perfectly normal to them and often very strange and grating to others. That said, there’s no excuse for your DH being rude and unpleasant. So he doesn’t like your dad? Tough. He needs to suck it up (bar extreme circumstances) for the sake of you, the kids and family harmony. And that’s a conversation worth having for starters…..

Meatheads?!? Bloody hell

It must be hard for your parents not to bite back and say something, it's really not very nice what your husband is saying and doing.

I'd also be quite upset if my daughter chose someone double her age to marry, upset because that big an age gap is so significant and what would a near 40 year old have in common with a 20 year old ??

Your husband probably see alot of himself in your parents

Hmm, he was OTT actually removing your dc from the bike, but it’s a big first, teaching your child to ride without stabilisers. Is your dad overstepping? Is your Dh rightly annoyed at them doing something he thinks is his right to do? If your mum took your dc for their first haircut and didn’t tell you, you’d be upset (according to lots of posts I’ve read on here). Similar first?