"Because I Have To Visit My Father"

[Anonymous]

My spouse's father is in assited living in Richmond. He moved in last May. We are in Bethesda.

Every other Sunday since that time, my spouses leaves here around 9am drives to Richmond, visits their father,l often taking him to unch and drives back here, arriving home around 3 or 4.

All of the other Sunday chores -laundry, grocery shopping meal prep for the week, cleaning etc fall on me. We have two dogs, a cat, two kids ages 4 and 7 and it's dawning on me that this isn't really 'fair.' When I brought this up the response was "Because I have to visit my father". Like that obligated me to be a quasi single parent?

I've tried to move the shopping and cleaning to other nights of the week but it just doesn't stick. We both have busy schedules, long commutes, our eldest plays soccer, etc.

We've talked about hiring out the stuff we can but neither of us likes having a stranger in the house and we are both pretty picky about our produce so Insta cart is a non starter.

I guess what bothers me most is their refusal to admit that I'm the one being shafted in this arrangement.

Please give me helpful suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Op, you're a pretty awful human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, you're a pretty awful human being.

No she’s not. DH should be taking the kids with him at least once a month. Grandpa needs to move to Maryland as well - dumb idea to move so far away.

[Anonymous]

I would support my husband doing this, but then he'd also support me doing something for myself on the alternate weekends. He'd also potentially take the kid(s) sometimes. And/or do some of the Sunday prep on Saturday.

[Anonymous]

This is the season of life you are in. Yes, it sucks, but do you think it would be better if your spouse never visited their father? Is that what you want to model for your children?

[Anonymous]

My Dh does this. The problem is that he never builds in reciprocal time for me to see my family, and if I push back against the burden it puts on me he plays the “but I have to see my father” card like yours is. Often DH tacks visits on to the beginning or end of work trips that require a Sunday flight overseas so he’ll miss an entire weekend of family time.

In my Dh’s mind, since many of these added-on visits are last-minute, they don’t really exist or have an impact.

It is a huge issue- he think it represents him being a good person but I can see that he’s being it as optics and it’s representative of how he consistently ducks obligations to our family.

I think you need to zoom out and look at whether this is representative of other patterns in your relationship and how Dh prioritizes your family, your time, and your labor. Only then can you really know if this is an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would support my husband doing this, but then he'd also support me doing something for myself on the alternate weekends. He'd also potentially take the kid(s) sometimes. And/or do some of the Sunday prep on Saturday.

I'd also say you have to be ruthless in your priorities matching your values. You can't have everything. It doesn't actually make sense at least to me to say we have to pick our own produce over him visiting his Dad. Dad trumps produce in my values. It's not that ideally I don't want to pick the produce, it's that you have to admit you can't have everything/everything cannot be optimized all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would support my husband doing this, but then he'd also support me doing something for myself on the alternate weekends. He'd also potentially take the kid(s) sometimes. And/or do some of the Sunday prep on Saturday.

This. We had a similar set up last year for a 2 month period when my MIL needed help. DH just picked up stuff elsewhere. He did a load of laundry a day because that's what he could fit in. He would do a mid week grocery run and then on Saturdays would do some meal prep. He'd often put something together for me to throw in the oven on Sundays. We did clean as you go so that there was no major cleaning to do on the day he was gone. And then he absolutely made sure that I got time to myself.
He did all this unprompted.

You both sound like you're not putting much effort into getting stuff done during the week. No laundry can be done during the week? Spouse can't go grocery shopping Friday after work? You cant spend 30-45 min a day doing a little cleaning?

[Anonymous]

The pickiness over Instacart and cleaners is ridiculous and y'all need to get over that. You seriously don't want him to visit his father, who may pass soon, because you don't want less-than-perfect apples?

He has to do half of the chores before he goes to see dad. If his solution is Instacart, let him do Instacart. This isn't that difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would support my husband doing this, but then he'd also support me doing something for myself on the alternate weekends. He'd also potentially take the kid(s) sometimes. And/or do some of the Sunday prep on Saturday.

I'd also say you have to be ruthless in your priorities matching your values. You can't have everything. It doesn't actually make sense at least to me to say we have to pick our own produce over him visiting his Dad. Dad trumps produce in my values. It's not that ideally I don't want to pick the produce, it's that you have to admit you can't have everything/everything cannot be optimized all the time.

That is a valid point and a good one, but, it is still, fundamentally, unfair that partener A eats bruised apples/wastes money because partner B wants to use 25% of every month's 'free time' visisting their father.

Could your father be brought to Bethesda for an entire weekend each month?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The pickiness over Instacart and cleaners is ridiculous and y'all need to get over that. You seriously don't want him to visit his father, who may pass soon, because you don't want less-than-perfect apples?

He has to do half of the chores before he goes to see dad. If his solution is Instacart, let him do Instacart. This isn't that difficult.

Yeah this. There are solutions in front of you. Hire some stuff out.

If his father is in assisted living, he's likely not going to live too much longer. Your spouse is not going to regret any of those visits.

Agree he should absolutely take the kids sometimes and maybe most of the time.

[Anonymous]

PP, is doing it right.
This is also the best time to train kids ages 4 and 7 to clean on Sundays!
Do this with your family, hire company to do deep cleaning once a month or twice a year!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRiQHAJwq0

[Anonymous]

Get Amazon Fresh delivery. They refund bruised stuff. So does Whole Foods delivery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My spouse's father is in assited living in Richmond. He moved in last May. We are in Bethesda.

Every other Sunday since that time, my spouses leaves here around 9am drives to Richmond, visits their father,l often taking him to unch and drives back here, arriving home around 3 or 4.

All of the other Sunday chores -laundry, grocery shopping meal prep for the week, cleaning etc fall on me. We have two dogs, a cat, two kids ages 4 and 7 and it's dawning on me that this isn't really 'fair.' When I brought this up the response was "Because I have to visit my father". Like that obligated me to be a quasi single parent?

I've tried to move the shopping and cleaning to other nights of the week but it just doesn't stick. We both have busy schedules, long commutes, our eldest plays soccer, etc.

We've talked about hiring out the stuff we can but neither of us likes having a stranger in the house and we are both pretty picky about our produce so Insta cart is a non starter.

I guess what bothers me most is their refusal to admit that I'm the one being shafted in this arrangement.

Please give me helpful suggestions.

Tell him to take a day off of work twice a month and do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My Dh does this. The problem is that he never builds in reciprocal time for me to see my family, and if I push back against the burden it puts on me he plays the “but I have to see my father” card like yours is. Often DH tacks visits on to the beginning or end of work trips that require a Sunday flight overseas so he’ll miss an entire weekend of family time.

In my Dh’s mind, since many of these added-on visits are last-minute, they don’t really exist or have an impact.

It is a huge issue- he think it represents him being a good person but I can see that he’s being it as optics and it’s representative of how he consistently ducks obligations to our family.

I think you need to zoom out and look at whether this is representative of other patterns in your relationship and how Dh prioritizes your family, your time, and your labor. Only then can you really know if this is an issue.

Agree. You’ll increasingly have to run the whole household as if he’s not there half the weekend or at any time. Sad.