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

On the other side, I see my partner's mother without him knowing, sometimes! When he finds out later, he's always delighted that we get on so well. When we did live very far from her, she and I used to talk on the phone all the time, and he only found out a year or two later - and even then, he was also just thrilled we were so friendly.

You say that if you knew you wouldn't have asked to go / wouldn't have asked questions etc but is that really true?

Also, some people are just quiet about meeting up with others. I've had loads of occasions where two family members or friends etc have met and not said a word to me. I can't bring myself to care.

She’s annoyed about the secrecy?

Oh yes, nothing remotely unusual about the MIL making a 9 hour round trip to meet her son who's lied to his wife about it, when the whole family is going to stay with the in laws in a week or two anyway. Absolutely nothing to see here 🙄

Right @bigboykitty? At least there are enough sane folks on this thread to keep it from being completely derailed.

I couldn't be bothered to waste any energy on this.

I don't need to know and if there is something significant that I do need to know I trust that he will mention it.

Well I find it bizarre that he wouldn't mention that he was changing his day because his Mum was in town.

But I would have waited for him to have come home and said 'come on DH, what's going on here?' and been serious that he needed to explain an omission that has left you feeling he is acting behind your back.

Your disquiet is understandable, I think you jumped the gun and over-reacted n sending messages about ducking out of half the half term trip,

Or could it be that DH know OP doesn’t like his parents so wanted to avoid an interrogation ? This is such a non-issue.

OP, i tjink it is very strange.
He has rearranged his work week, inconveniencing you, spends lunch with you but doesn't mention this.

He lied by ommission IMO.
There is something both dishonest and sneaky about it and I would be unsettled by it, as you are.

I too wouldn't care less if my husband meeting family one on one, I encourage it.

But doing it this way, when he has form, is not good.

If he triescto make it a you issue, it would irritate me even more.

Yes, but if you needed to move your stuff to accommodate him changing his wfh day so he could see his Dad, I'm sure there'd be a conversation along the lines of sorry about this, mum's coming down today. It's not only that he didn't get round to telling her, but there were multiple points where it would have been more natural to say than to not say.

I think the people saying you are overreacting are the same are the ones that come on here and say my DH has left me and I’m blindsided. Happy marriages don’t keep secrets and definitely don’t lie. Make sure you get to the bottom of it.

Why would you trust he would mention it? He clearly had no intention of mentioning the meet up with his mother and the OP has explained he often doesn't share other information so there's nothing to suggest he would have said anything.

There's a huge gulf between not happening to tell someone something and actively 'keeping a secret'.

Things I haven't told my DH that I've done today, but aren't a secret include walking the dog with a neighbour, making some glorious pimped up ramen for lunch, chatting to my DB on the phone, arranging to go for a swim with a friend next week... I'd say 'meeting Mum for lunch' falls in that category. It's not a secret, just not something that she and he need to talk about-a non-event.

It could be that, yes. But he still did it deliberately, it's clearly nonsense that he just forgot to mention it.

I understand him not wanting to mention it in front of the kids. And whilst I do see your point about it being weird he didn’t mention it when you were alone the day before this is definitely something my husband would do, for no reason other than he doesn’t tend to think more than 2-3 hour ahead of the moment. I.e what he’s doing for lunch tomorrow would never cross his mind the day before, so he simply wouldn’t remember he was doing it.
I wouldn’t read too much into it if this is the only thing that’s made you feel this way.

I wouldn't care if he didn't mention it TBH.
As I said if there was something I need to know (illness) then he'd tell me when he had time to process it.

There's a huge gulf between not happening to tell someone something and actively 'keeping a secret'.

He was actively keeping it a secret though. If he wasn't he would have mentioned it when rearranging his WFH days.

This is the core of the issue isn't it?

This isn't the only time you've been kept in the dark.

Information is power, and controlling the information is a form of controlling you. Your MiL doesn't have that trait, clearly, but your husband does.

And you're sick of it.

So when he asks how your day was later, you won't mention any of it? Of course you haven't told him if you haven't seen him since. The day someone said they wanted to spend 9 hours travelling to have lunch with you, you wouldn't mention that as a mildly interesting topic of conversation over dinner? It wouldn't come up as a reason for having to ask him to move his stuff out of the home office?

What do you talk about if that doesn't make the cut?

Yes, it is strange. My point is that there may be a perfectly decent reason why they did something strange and you're going to feel dreadful if you overreact. (This is premised on there being nothing else going on which you haven't mentioned.)

Honestly, in your shoes I think I'd just calmly say to your husband eg "that was nice of MIL to do such a long trip for your lunch the other day. I hope everything is ok." Then he can explain or not, or tell you that he can't tell you, or whatever it is.

Not going for half term would be petulant. Sue you have a work meeting, but you've presented it all here as a reaction to them having a lunch which you weren;t fully informed about by both parties, so be honest with yourself.

@Icannotwriteonit I'm going to repost here what I put on another thread, having read some of the bizarre out-there replies on here.

Just a word about Mumsnet - there are a proportion of posters who will deliberately try to be contrary in order to put the boot in. There are, in fact, some men who deliberately try to be downright nasty in order to make Mumsnet a place where people feel unable to post.
It's worth weighing the useful posts (which can include robust talking, but doesn't include deliberately misunderstanding or nasty posts) and just ignore the rest. On top of the deliberately unpleasant people, there are also many who pass comment on situations they've never been in and think 'oh this is how I'd handle it' without having the experience or insight to realise that actually being in a situation is often different from how you think it'll be.

I think it's expecting too much from the Op to say her reducing her commitment to the half term trip is petulant. You know what would be petulant? Not telling him in advance. On the day of departure, she gets up, dressed, grabs her things and gets in the car.
Or is it only alright if it's the husband behaving like that?

Mind boggles what people keep sometimes.

If it helps my DH has dual citizenship - his mum only knows about one. Why you ask? Because FIL never told MIL that he has dual citizenship (who the fuck knows why). Told the kids when they turned 18 so they could register their own dual citizenship but asked them not to tell MIL because she didn't know he had it and 'by this point it would be a whole big thing if she found out'. So all her kids and grandkids have dual citizenship (and obviously children's spouses know) and MIL is the only person none the wiser.

It is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. It will come out some point, one of the grandkids will spill not realising. I refuse to tell ours its a secret from MIL. It's the dumbest thing to lie about, FIL is otherwise lovely and very normal ...

Guess what I'm trying to say is people keep the most ridiculous secrets sometimes with no real reason.

Sounds about right.

Recent posts have relieved my feeling that I was in an MN parallel universe reading the earlier posts. Plus all the people with reading comprehension problems saying 'you're punishing them!' 'You're cancelling the trip!'

As @Completecare said, there were points where mentioning this - as a perfectly reasonable plan- would have been so obvious, the conclusion has to be that he deliberately didn't mention it. Lying by omission. It's also noticeable that MIL thought she'd know. This is on the husband.

@Icannotwriteonit There are three reasons I can think of that someone would do this:
A, he knew it would cause trouble or get a bad reaction. B, he's keeping it secret because there's some part of it he doesn't want you to know. C, he likes the control of being able to hold information back and you not knowing mundane things about his activities. You are best placed to work out which it is, and then what you want to do.

You've overreacted @Icannotwriteonit so own it.

You say "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" and then try to backtrack (you were already not going to the work meeting on the 30th so why do you suddenly need to attend?)

It's fine to feel hurt, the even feel a bit petulant about it but you posted what you posted so there is no point trying to make excuses!