Is it unreasonable for my husband to play cricket in a different county every weekend?

[Weekendwidow]

Hubby wants to join a different cricket team. One that is two hours away.
this means him commuting down to his parents every weekend of the cricket season next year (April-October) and leaving me with two kids age 3and 5.
he works full time in a demanding job where he goes out at 7am to go to the gym and home 6pm.
he also often works abroad for days at a time. I look after the kids but also work two full days a week.
he wants to travel down every Friday from work and come back Sundays.
he also wants me and the kids to go with him every other week.
this means us staying with his parents and my mum having to look after our two dogs every other weekend.
I don’t want to do. I’ve told him this and he’s become insistent, saying he misses his family and wants the kids to be involved and that he doesn’t think his parents have long in life left.
I understand and agree with this, it would be lovely for the kids to see more of their grandparents but I think every other weekend away whilst they are still at school is exhausting and excessive. We will go from three times a year to every other weekend.
their family dynamic is shocking and so much drama between them and his brothers I don’t really want to be involved in it every weekend. Every time we go I come away exhausted and unsettled.
I don’t want to be a nomad ever other weekend. I won’t be in my own space, unable to go where and when I like as I’ll be tied into family plans I don’t want to be apart of. His parents are exhausting and very set in their ways. Very house proud and I’ll be on edge with the kids all weekend. They refuse to go to the cricket as they had a fall out so I’ll be stuck between the drama.
I just don’t want to go. I’ll be exhausted and so will the kids.
am I being unreasonable? I feel like I’ll be giving up my life for bloody cricket as when I’m at a weekend in my own at our house I’ll be solo parenting every weekend too.
mum so unhappy with this.

There must a closer alternative that can work as a compromise. Even within an hours radius there has to be another option to play cricket. This is crazy.

OP, I think he’s trying to go back in time, to when he got on with his brothers and the family was part of a cricket community that they loved.

But that’s all gone, and he can’t. If he wants that he has to create it at his current club, or move. The old club’s argument with his parents and his arguments with his brothers can’t be undone. And it’s completely unfair to ask you and the DC to travel so much for no benefit to you.

Also, are any of your DC girls? Do you want her to learn that her role is to watch, applaud and make tea? While missing birthday parties, her own hobbies, play dates etc.

I can't believe what I am reading. He's absolutely checked out of his life with you all. He's not a great parent or father at all - how can he be?? What are you getting out of this relationship, it's no life at all.

The thing that strikes me, if you join his parents, they are still doing the work, of you all there tho older.
He wants he’s childlike dream re created, which of course isn’t happening, plus leaving 2 dogs at home with someone else looking after them.
so if they become physically unable to cope, or any of you have a life changing accident, things change dramatically.
He's expecting you to fit in, don’t

It sounds like he wants to pursue his hobby and expects the rest of you to just fall in with his plans! This is not how family life works 😕 you are already doing the lion's share of childcare and house stuff and I think expecting you to give up every other weekend to stay with his parents is too much. Your children will want to do their own activities at the weekends as they get older, with their own friends locally. You are not being unreasonable to expect him to participate more in family life. I think you will have to dig your heels in. If he chooses to go against your wishes and sign up for a cricket team so far away, he will have to see far less of you and the children. You will have to decide if you're willing to accept that.

I actually can’t believe he’s taking you to his parents house and his own parents don’t go to the cricket!! That’s just beyond ridiculous. Say NO

He’s very selfish. He has a family, he doesn’t get to do what he wants. We’d all like to fuck off every weekend and do what we enjoy doing but we can’t, because we have a responsibility to the children we chose to have.

We are a cricketing family. I would not countenance this, even as someone who has embraced the cricketing community and spend most of my weekends either watching or playing.

If the club he has joined isn't working for you as a family, he needs to find another that does. Plenty of local clubs will have a junior section that your kids can get involved with. Look for a club that runs All Stars, they can start from age 4. Get H signed up as a parent helper, then he can get trained as a coach and continue his love of cricket through to the next generation. We have coaches whose kids didn't love it, but the parents stayed on and are developing other peoples kids instead, as well as the ones whose own kids love it.

It is a great way to build friendships, getting stuck into something like this, but not 2 hours away, which is completely impractical.

As an aside, how old is your H? Mine has found since mid-40s, all his old sporting injuries are catching him up and he won't play nearly as often anymore as the recovery in between takes too long! Are his parents very elderly/unwell or is he just tugging at heart strings there?

Thanks everyone.
I knew it was totally unreasonable but just wanted to check I wasn’t bonkers before I said something to him.
i know it will go down like a lead balloon if I say no and he will resent me for saying no so I need to tread carefully.
there are plenty of local clubs around here he’s just holding on to nostalgia of his childhood at the club. I get it and knowing how hugely up and down his family can be I understand him holding on to the good bits and I sympathise but he just hasn’t thought this through at all.
I’m hoping over the next couple of weeks I can drop seeds about how precious the weekends are now our eldest is going to school and how we need the weekend to prep for the next week. I’m hoping the penny drops and if not and he’s still going for the pipe dream then we will have to have a serious chat. I’d just rather he manage to come to this conclusion himself so I’m not the bad guy. Selfish I know but it’s the best way to get get a happy summer next year.

Why are you so frightened about approaching this directly OP ?

It's a ridiculous request, apart from anything else presumably the DCs have their own weekend sports/activities that need to be attended.

If he is away every week and is proposing he is away every weekend, you might as well get divorced.

I don't understand why you need to tip toe around him either. Just have a conversation and state your feelings about the whole thing.

I’m glad you can see what everyone is saying @Weekendwidow. But this has made me pause:
i know it will go down like a lead balloon if I say no and he will resent me for saying no so I need to tread carefully.
Be careful of martyrdom or tiptoeing around your husband. Why is he not worried about you resenting him for pressuring you to accept such an unreasonable request?

i know it will go down like a lead balloon if I say no and he will resent me for saying no so I need to tread carefully.

But if he's a nice man who is a good dad and husband, then why do you need to tread carefully?

We're not going up there every other weekend - it's far too much and the kids are going to start having their own hobbies and stuff to do like birthday parties etc. So by all means you go up, but when exactly are you planning to see the kids?

If he's a decent bloke then he'll quickly see the problem. Unless he's not a decent bloke and he views you and his DC as extensions of himself, who serve no other purpose than to trot about dutifully behind him?

Kids cricket training sessions are most often on a Friday evening around here. If he wants his kids involved, they need a local club, not somewhere they are being dragged to 2 hours from home, where they will know no one. They will rarely be picked for matches at weekends once they are old enough as they won't truly be part of the club, won't be available for winter nets training etc. Our club also has regular week day fixtures for kids from U11 onwards, which they would never be able to play. He needs to understand the impracticality of his pipe dream.

I do understand his nostalgia, my H always speaks fondly of his club from childhood and I anticipate that my sons will both be regular guest players here at our local club once they have left home. My older one now helps the grounds team and runs the bar for the ladies matches. He wouldn't be able to do any of that two hours away. He is off to uni next week, and will find a local club there. But his home club will always find a spot for him if he is around.

In the here and now, it will be too exhausting for your kids to be schlepped on a 4 hour round trip that often once school starts and they have parties and other weekend activities.

Compromise ....

He can go down Friday straight from work and travel home Saturday night so you can spend Sundays together as a family. You, hubby and the kids go one weekend a month/6 weeks to stay with parents.

Perhaps he could lessen the gym to just 3 days too!

He will end up resenting you huh?

I would resent the fact he thought he could even ask this.

As a pp said, this is not a marriage, you are a single married mother op, he contributes nothing but financially.
He has no consideration for anyone but himself.

When do you get your free time?

@Weekendwidow reading this through is so sad because it speaks volumes about your relationship and your role in it and how you feel selfish because of the impact his poor behaviour will hsve

I imagine this is a statement throughout your relationship he is always first. But now he also expects his children to be put out as well with no thought of how their school life will be

Or the impact on your mum, his parents or the dogs. Just wants it his way and everyone has to move around stuff for it including his MIL!

what a selfish selfish man

No way

It wouldn't be long before you're pulled into making the teas for the team too ... because that's women's roles in cricket. A very sexist set up

Yes it is unreasonable but you already know this I think.

You say he’s a great dad and a lovely husband, but also that you need to tread carefully.

If my DH suggested something as bonkers as this (he wouldn’t, because he’s not a selfish twat) then I’d be able to tell him exactly what I thought of his plan, I wouldn’t need to pussyfoot around him.

@Weekendwidow so he really wants you to go down there just to see his parents, seeing as gran doesnt do the sandwiches for the club now??? that would be a big fat no from me! cricket is such a long game and really, an hour for a cup of tea would be enough for you!!! this is HIS guilt from moving away from his parents, not yours.

Because he hopes to get agreement when it isn't imminently happening.
Then it'll be a done deal for next summer.

YANBU, OP.

Your "hubby's" hobby (sorry for pun)
would be enough for me to divorce him.🤢
But then I don't have kids.

And also, when I hear in the middle of these atrocities that he's a great dad, wonderful husband....but you have to "thread carefully".
UGH.