Dh didn't tell me about MIL 9h round trip just to have lunch with him

[Icannotwriteonit]

My ILs live 4-5h away, up north.

Dh usually wfh everyday except Tuesday, and i wfh on Tuesdays only. Yesterday morning he spontaneously announced he was wfh and going into the office on Wednesday instead, so I decamped all my stuff onto the dining table to let him use the home office corner, and did the drop offs as I usually do on Tuesday. But we got to have lunch together in the local caff which was nice, a rare child free moment together.

This morning I phoned my MIL because I wanted to tell her about something to do with DS, and also check that DH had told her about our Christmas plans. She says "oh he mentioned briefly, but I'll be seeing him later anyway". "What, seeing Ben? Today?" Yes, she says she's just getting on the tube on her way to lunch with him, didn't he mention it? Er, no he didn't... She says she's only in London for lunch. Because she barely gets any time alone with him.

What has thrown me is a) why wouldn't he mention that is mum is doing a lovely but eccentric 9h round trip just to have lunch with him, why keep that a secret and b) we are visiting the ILs for half term soon, so surely lots of opportunities for chats?

I texted dh "why didn't you tell me you were seeing your mum for lunch today" and he replied he didn't want to mention it in front of the kids because they'd be sad not to see Granny themselves. But we had loads of child free time yesterday, and he didn't think to mention it, he just made small talk about diesel and the weather and the Holborn by election. No "oh by the way im seeing my mum tomorrow". If he had, id have replied "ah that's so nice of her, don't forget to mention Christmas".

I feel like they both think that I keep him a prisoner or something? He goes out to see his mates of an evening sometimes, and he has lunch with various people, I never stop him from any of that or even ask questions about who he sees, there was no need to keep it a secret.

I now don't want to go up north for half term, I wish he'd just go alone with the kids if I'm so in the way. But the kids would miss me, DS is only 2.

I'm a bit upset, please talk me out of this, mumsnet

But you're not busy, and therefore unable to make it, which would be an entirely different situation. You are deliberately withholding your presence / attention as a form of punishment and control, and making sure they know it. Straight out of the abusers handbook. Consequences for displeasing you (even though they.literally did nothing wrong).

The point of you doing this is for you to keep them in line, and not dare to do something that displeases you again for fear of your reaction or other consequences.

Ah. Well if he's got form for it, then it really is nothing to do with MIL, so why so quick to blame her?

Op you are getting a hard time. It is extremely odd to travel 9 hours just to have lunch. It is also very strange to change wfh days for this and not mention it at all. It's also odd that she thought you knew but your DH did not tell you.
You are not controlling or unreasonable to be surprised and confused by these rather surprising things , put together. It's mystifying. It makes it seem like they really need alone time right now, too, and so yes if you can come back early and go to the meeting that seems logical.

But you’re withdrawing from the half
term visit in response to not being told about this lunch, you are being petulant about “being in the way”. Look, it is weird that he failed to mention it, but you are also being weird about it in response. Massive overreaction.

Off the scale fantasising here.

Not really. I'm sure you're all going to pounce on me for being an utter bitch but I only spend time with the ILs because my kids love their Granny and Grandad so much. We have very little in common. And right now I'm not feeling particularly affectionate towards MIL at all.

Literally this all came up because I gave her a spontaneous phone call, which is a nice DIL thing to do. No good deed, etc

You’re massively overreacting and demonstrating why he didn’t tell you in the first place.

But it would probably make a bad situation worse if she knew he'd pulled out of an outing because she'd manged to inadvertently offend him?

Thank you very much for understanding, this is exactly my thinking

I'm totally with you, OP. And it's interesting you're being told you're overreacting or being disingenuous about your views when others are saying you're unreasonable to think they can't have lunch together - which is exactly the thing you're NOT unhappy or pissed off about. You're annoyed that it wasn't mentioned, and I would be too (and I don't think I'm controlling).

It's an odd thing for your DH to hold back mentioning. And I don't think for a second that he forgot to mention it.

(To be clear, I'm not saying there's a big conspiracy or anything suspicious to worry about, but I think YANBU to say it's a bit weird he didn't tell you).

And presumably he didn't tell her that he hadn't told you because it wasn't a secret, it was just information he hadn't thought to mention?

If he was keeping it a secret, he would have told MIL to keep it quiet. He didn't. Because it wasn't a secret. He didn't mind you finding out, he just didn't think to tell you. That's maybe a problem of it's own, but I can't see that he's been deliberately 'secretive' here.

I would try and calm down a little bit. It's undermining your claim about how laid back you are/how free DH is to do whatever he pleases/how you wouldn't have minded etc.

She's not overacting. He didn't tell her because he wanted to keep it a secret for some reason known only to him. The OP probably wouldn't care at all that they were meeting up or want to go, it's the secrecy she clearly has a problem with.

I guess I'm an abuser then, because my reaction to my MIL being desperate for alone time with her son, is... offering to give her more alone time with her son.

Do you think, given the time of year, they may have cooked up a surprise for you for Christmas. Something that perhaps necessitated MIL being in London with DH? A special gift, a holiday, an experience day? Something that is a good secret rather than bad, but a secret nonetheless. Probably don't want to discuss on line because you might see the messages/photos/ideas?

I think maybe you're rushing to bad judgement here and your concerns may ruin a lovely surprise later on.

Have trust and faith in your family.

OP I get exactly why you're irked. Nothing to do with them spending time together, it's the weird secrecy from him, compounded by lying about why he didn't tell you, plus the unnecessary caginess from her.

I'd feel wrong-footed and unsettled by it too. They're being weird.

I don't think OP is at all unreasonable to be bothered by the secrecy. I do think her reactions are disproportionate and she's blaming the wrong person.

This reply seems to imply there’s far more to it OP. I think you know there’s nothing wrong with him having lunch with his mum and she clearly wasn’t keeping any secrets.

But here you seem to say DH is a habitual secret keeper ( control?) and this isn’t the only incidence. I’d forget about the MIL or lunch ( which BTW is completely normal, I love seeing my two adult DSs alone) and focus on DH and his lies by omission. What’s that really about?

You can't just keep secrets from your spouse for no reason

Why not? They're your partner, not an extension of you, they're allowed to have their own lives that have nothing to do with you.

Either he or his Mum wanted to have a chat about something, and didn't want you involved. For whatever reason, your husband didn't want you to know it's happening. Thats fine, there's nothing wrong with that, he's allowed to have a private relationship with his mother.

Admittedly, it's a little odd, but it's not wrong. And in your situation my first reaction would be worry, that something was wrong with his Mum. Instead you've gone for annoyance. That suggests that maybe he was right not to tell you whats going on before he's ready to.

So you're clearly not going to persuaded from your stance even though you said that you wanted a positive spin and that you need to come up with some good reasons that aren't to do with You. You've had plenty of them

Thing is, given the OP’s reaction I don’t think she would have been ok with the meeting. Maybe there is a good reason why he kept it quiet (which I daresay isn’t anything to do with his wife) Nobody owns another persons every thought.

I get it and I would definitely want to understand 'the big secret'!

So this isn't a one off, he keeps secrets?

Mil hasn't offended me. Dh has.

Anyway, it's a totally open fact that I dont enjoy visiting them. I do like them (truly), and i do crosswords with FIL etc, but they have multiple dogs and I'm not a dog-loving-person and I'm tense when I'm there.

I much prefer seeing MIL in London, and everyone knows this.

Am I pouncing on this as an excuse to come back to London early? Yes, yes I am. No, I'm not punishing her or anyone else.

OP, I completely get it. As someone else said, perhaps if she'd come for lunch on a day that he was in the office or whatever, fine. But he even rearranged his WFH day to make it work, which required YOU to rearrange YOUR work from home day and he didn't mention it.

But you made a slightly odd statement that jumped out at me: I guess he's just the kind of man who keeps everything secret by default, only divulging stuff on a need to know basis. It is an ugly trait and im sick of it

This suggests this isn't the first time he's kept some perfectly reasonable thing from you and it's a pattern? And if that's the case, then even more so, I would understand your frustration.

This seems to be quite telling