Is this unreasonable? Saying no to two trips?

[Anonymous]

I need an independent opinion on whether I’m being reasonable or if I’m stressed and overthinking this.

Next month my DH is going on an optional team building summit with some of his colleagues, for four days mid-week. It’s a fun trip, he isn’t obligated to go and is choosing to attend, but will be paid while there, and his hotel and expenses are being comped. It’s aLao in a fun city so they have dinner plans and golf tee times already set. All of this to say, it’ll be a fun, relaxing experience. He’s really looking forward to it, and I am happy he’s going and actually looking forward to the week—I’ve taken it off to just have the house to myself. But we do have kids and I will still have that responsibility.

Now, all of a sudden, he and a few of his good friends have been talking about driving to NYC to meet another mutual friend who will be there in June. They want to make it a long weekend, leaving sometime Thursday and returning late Sunday. Maybe I’m being irrational, but I’m finding this sort of selfish and I think it’s unfair he is trying to plan another trip away less than a month after his work summit.

I know you’re going to say, so plan your own getaway. That’s nice in theory, but everything has to align to make it happen, like DH’s often off work schedule lining up with a time my friends can take off and have childcare, too. Am I horrible to say no, if you can get a four day weekend off of work, it’s MY turn?

[Anonymous]

Why does your DH need to take time off work for you to travel? What is your child care set up?

[Anonymous]

Suck it up and plan better to go with friends or go somewhere yourself. Controlling someone else and preventing them from enjoying their life never ends well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does your DH need to take time off work for you to travel? What is your child care set up?

He has an often odd work schedule and occasionally works late into the evenings and/or weekend days. I work a normal M-F 9-5 so I’m the childcare when they aren’t in school/SACC. It just seems unfair and I don’t know if I’m just being unreasonable.

[Anonymous]

If he's doing this twice in quick succession often - like he'll do it again in two months, then again in another two months - I think you're fine to ask him not to.

If he rarely does this but wants to now, I'd try to make it work.

Could you take a long weekend to go visit a friend you haven't seen for a while? Or is part of the issue that you don't find it fun to actually plan a trip for yourself like that, so you're kind of upset he's leaving and also wondering why you've made a life/personality where you can't enjoy yourself with friends in New York too? (I might feel that way... I have so many friends I'd in theory love to go visit and somehow I just never actually buy the plane tickets to do it.)

[Anonymous]

I really try to encourage my DH to have as many fun trips as possible. And then I don’t hesitate to take as many as I need either. In this case, if you didn’t let him go to NYC, I can just see that weekend, he’ll be resentful, and for what? I don’t mind solo parenting at all, maybe if you have an infant and a toddler it’s a lot harder?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suck it up and plan better to go with friends or go somewhere yourself. Controlling someone else and preventing them from enjoying their life never ends well.

I see your point, but I’m not controlling him, just asking for balance.

[Anonymous]

I would have zero problem with this BUT it's very easy for me to be able to go away for a few days so that changes things a bit. I just went away for a 4 day weekend in January and the only thing DH had to do was block off his calendar to make sure he could pick DS up from practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Suck it up and plan better to go with friends or go somewhere yourself. Controlling someone else and preventing them from enjoying their life never ends well.

I see your point, but I’m not controlling him, just asking for balance.

Yet you’re trying to balance through control. You can find balance by hiring a sitter or housekeeper or chef or whatever and taking your own trip. This isn’t balanced.

[Anonymous]

This would not bother me at all unless my husband did it on a regular basis.the fact that two fun events for him happen to be four weeks apart isn’t his fault. He didn’t set the schedule for the work trip or pick the time the friend would be in NYC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If he's doing this twice in quick succession often - like he'll do it again in two months, then again in another two months - I think you're fine to ask him not to.

If he rarely does this but wants to now, I'd try to make it work.

Could you take a long weekend to go visit a friend you haven't seen for a while? Or is part of the issue that you don't find it fun to actually plan a trip for yourself like that, so you're kind of upset he's leaving and also wondering why you've made a life/personality where you can't enjoy yourself with friends in New York too? (I might feel that way... I have so many friends I'd in theory love to go visit and somehow I just never actually buy the plane tickets to do it.)

I think this is part of it. He doesn’t have to think, he just goes, because I’m there by default. I wish I could just spontaneously be like, you know what, I’m going out of town. My thing is, he just will have gone on this fun work trip with colleagues who are friends, too. If he can figure out how to have a four day weekend in June for himself, why can’t WE do something? Or why can’t I do something? If I want to do something, I have to make it work around his schedule.

[Anonymous]

Do you want to do a weekend away? Have you even asked him to make his work schedule work for you to take a long weekend away? I don't know you just seem to be talking about fairness and about it being your turn but it doesn't seem like you've even talked to him about it. For all you know he could say "sure, I can work my schedule out so I you can go away for a few days"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I need an independent opinion on whether I’m being reasonable or if I’m stressed and overthinking this.

Next month my DH is going on an optional team building summit with some of his colleagues, for four days mid-week. It’s a fun trip, he isn’t obligated to go and is choosing to attend, but will be paid while there, and his hotel and expenses are being comped. It’s aLao in a fun city so they have dinner plans and golf tee times already set. All of this to say, it’ll be a fun, relaxing experience. He’s really looking forward to it, and I am happy he’s going and actually looking forward to the week—I’ve taken it off to just have the house to myself. But we do have kids and I will still have that responsibility.

Now, all of a sudden, he and a few of his good friends have been talking about driving to NYC to meet another mutual friend who will be there in June. They want to make it a long weekend, leaving sometime Thursday and returning late Sunday. Maybe I’m being irrational, but I’m finding this sort of selfish and I think it’s unfair he is trying to plan another trip away less than a month after his work summit.

I know you’re going to say, so plan your own getaway. That’s nice in theory, but everything has to align to make it happen, like DH’s often off work schedule lining up with a time my friends can take off and have childcare, too. Am I horrible to say no, if you can get a four day weekend off of work, it’s MY turn?

Yes, you are horrible. You don’t actually have anything planned and just want to be a controlling PITA. Being married to you sounds grim.

[Anonymous]

These “optional” team building trips aren’t really optional if you want to climb the ladder and advance in your career.

Yes, these trips seem perfectly reasonable to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you want to do a weekend away? Have you even asked him to make his work schedule work for you to take a long weekend away? I don't know you just seem to be talking about fairness and about it being your turn but it doesn't seem like you've even talked to him about it. For all you know he could say "sure, I can work my schedule out so I you can go away for a few days"

You’re right. I think I’m realizing now that my issue is that he doesn’t ask, he just tells, because his going away doesn’t affect my schedule at all. I’m a little resentful of that, I think.