DH has never been totally relaxed around my family and I think he finds my relationship with them threatening. I don't need him to love them but them problem is he tries to sabotage my time with them and I need it to stop.
He's an only child and his parents are both NC with their own siblings so he hasn't had his own experience of family outside his Ps, who live 15 mins away from us (we see them almost every weekend). I have a DSis and a DB who I am quite close to and they are married with DC - neither live nearby. We lost both our Ps in the last 5 years.
DH was quite fond of my Ps but has never enjoyed our big family gatherings (which I totally get, though these have only ever been a couple of times a year) but in the last few years he has become increasingly inclined to put obstacles in the way when I suggest meeting up with my siblings, either with or without him. We probably see each other 4-5 times per year for a day or two - hardly excessive. Usually just a night or two staying at each others' homes - occasionally a family weekend away.
I have suggested sometimes that he doesn't need to come if he prefers not to, but then I am made to feel mean that I don't want to spend the time with him, so he comes along and then we get low-level sulking. I have a couple of times in the last year arranged short visits with the DC during school holidays when he can't get time off - and that has worked well, though he wasn't overjoyed about it.
The type of thing he says can be 'but I wanted to do X that weekend' (never anything he can't move to a different weekend) or 'can we just go for 1 day rather than 2'. Talking about Xmas and fitting in a visit to them, he's now started saying he'd rather go on holiday.
Once, I planned to spend 3 nights away with my DSis, sorting out our Mum's house when she was terminally ill (the first time we'd ever gone somewhere together just the 2 of us), and he threw a wobbly the night before we went, saying he 'didn't approve'. I was so shocked, I wish I'd told him to fuck off but instead I cried for a couple of days. Then another time it was DSisIL's big birthday and he basically sulked and said he'd rather we didn't go because it was around the time of his (non-big) birthday and he 'might want to do something else'. It caused real pain as I felt stuck in the middle and had to tell DSisIL that we weren't going. Again, I regretted not standing up to him.
So now I am anticipating the next time this happens, which will be coming up as my DB has suggested the three of us siblings going away for a few days next year - which I really want to do. I literally daren't tell DH because I know he will come up with several reasons why I shouldn't go and I worry I won't be able to stand firm - or if I do I will lose my rag and scream at him.
I don't think I am being unreasonable to want to spend some time with my siblings (we're talking around 10 days of the year in total). And seeing as I now don't have either parent, they are more important to me than ever and I feel like if anything he should be happy for me that I get to see them. Tell me I'm right and that he doesn't get to obstruct our plans or be stroppy about it! I have lost all sense of what's reasonable.
For context, he is not mean in other respects and I think it comes from jealousy and lack of understanding than from a general bad attitude. He's only like this about my family, not about me seeing friends or having hobbies etc.
Thanks for reading this far!