Husband: no fun allowed without him, and fun allowable only on his schedule

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Um, can't you do fun stuff in the DC area? I'm not grasping that there is no compromise here. I think you are being unreasonable. You are making a giant leap from "can't go out of town" to "must sit at home".

There are just so many times you can do the museums AGAIN. This is home, it gets boring... She wants to go away.

[Anonymous]

I have no kids but have a husband who works a ton so I get it.

He travels a ton so accrues a lot of points and miles.

Used to be I'd go to a ton of effort to plan trips but he'd often cancel at the last minute leaving me sitting at home alone and bummed.

Now my policy is, if we plan this trip, I am going on this trip, using your points and miles. You can come or not come. If you cancel, I am still going. I am not sitting at home alone while you work.

Anyway, more direct to op. If this happens all the time and you guys never get to go on vacation, you need to go on vacation without him. Have a discussion about that. For this wknd, travel on the fourth last minute is likely to be a pain anyway so I might just let that go IF you pin him down on specific fun staycation plans and he agrees to them.

So how many hours is he saying he is going to work? Schedule for those. Then say, here are some fun plans. Sunday from one to four I want to go to mt vernon. Friday we want to go to the building museum and then a movie. Are you in for those? If not, when and what can you do? If you are not willing to commit to plans, we a re doing something out of town without you.

I come from a family with a lot of workaholic men. The trend is that the women often vacation on their own (with friends while the kids are in camp) and with the kids. Or the women go to the beach for a few weeks and the men fly in for a few days a couple times. That kind of thing.

Workaholic dad who will not vacation much should NOT equal family stays at home.

Also....a lot of times my husband and I go on vacation and he spends part of the day working remotely. Can your husband not work remotely?

[Anonymous]

OP here. This is the only weekend this summer without an in-town commitment on the calendar. Not something I realized until I saw the latest sports schedule come out. We both work, so these weekends are precious to me.

I do want to go OUT of town this weekend. A short day trip can be done some other weekend. Actually leaving town really can't because of other commitments, unless we ditch those commitments (which he is reluctant to do, of course).

I am not claiming that it's either go out of town or be locked in the house. Sure we could do stuff around town, but I am looking for out of town as in out into nature, exploring, hiking, being away from the crowds. Not something we rush to do so we can cram it in as a day trip.

[Anonymous]

My Dh is exactly like this OP. I did draw a hard line on a vacation with my family last year. I wanted to go, he did not, but he didn't want us to be away from him for a week. He came and it was awesome. So, I'd recommend occasionally going the "you do your thing, I'll do mine" route and occasionally working with him to find a way to do both. My Dh is a homebody who loves staycations. He doesn't get that it can be hard to be home with the kids for several days when they're off their routine because he's not the one dealing with it. In this case, I'd recommend a 1 night getaway- leave it up to him to come or not. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. He is stressed out about work and I can understand why he's thinking that a couple of hours at the office out of the long weekend is not a big deal, because he has four days off. So a few hours out of four days seems like no big deal to him.

But here's his history: "I want to do fun stuff with the kids. I don't want to miss out. Why do you get to do fun stuff with the kids?" Well, I get to do fun stuff with the kids because (1) I make plans to do so and (2) I execute those plans. I am flexible enough that I can decide that if my ideal scenario is three hours at the office on Saturday morning, I can adjust my thinking and understand that three hours on Sunday afternoon would be fine as well, and would mean that the rest of the family doesn't have to limit their plans to fit around my fixed idea.

This is the same person who says "I need to spend more one on one time with [kid]" but never, ever makes an effort to do anything along those lines, but gets resentful when I do because then he's missing out. The net result: whole family misses out because he doesn't want to.

Again, OP, I think you need to work WITH him, not against him, which is what your current attitude displays.

So you are better at making plans and arrangements with the kids, things that they will enjoy. Congratulations; you win that race. I'm betting he's better at some things with the kids, as well. Can't you just accept that as a limitation he has, and work with that? Try telling him in advance -- hey, on Labor Day weekend, I'm thinking we should do XXX. Not a good time for him? OK, the weekend before is better. I'm calling tonight and booking the tickets, OK?

Go from there.

1+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. This is the only weekend this summer without an in-town commitment on the calendar. Not something I realized until I saw the latest sports schedule come out. We both work, so these weekends are precious to me.

I do want to go OUT of town this weekend. A short day trip can be done some other weekend. Actually leaving town really can't because of other commitments, unless we ditch those commitments (which he is reluctant to do, of course).

I am not claiming that it's either go out of town or be locked in the house. Sure we could do stuff around town, but I am looking for out of town as in out into nature, exploring, hiking, being away from the crowds. Not something we rush to do so we can cram it in as a day trip.

This really changes the whole situation. If this is the only chance you have to get the heck outta Dodge for the summer then take the opportunity and go. It sucks for him but that's life. As a parent, he can't play the "if I don't have fun, no one has fun" game anymore.

[Anonymous]

Why not have him go in for 12 hours on Friday (say, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) to bang out the work and then everyone takes a three day weekend?

[Anonymous]

Something here rubs me the wrong way. Why can't you help your DH? Yes, it is frustrating, but help him get from a to b.

"Honey, why don't you go into the office Friday morning then we will leave at 1?"

"Honey, I want to take Larla to the zoo just her and me Saturday. Larlo has been busting to go to blank playground. Why don't you go at the same time?"

I do a lot of the social planning in our house, and sure it is maybe sided a bit more towards what I want since I am doing it, I will admit, but for heavens sake I do think about and talk with my DH as part of that process. He matters.

And there are ways he compensates for things I don't do so well, so that is ok ultimately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This really changes the whole situation. If this is the only chance you have to get the heck outta Dodge for the summer then take the opportunity and go. It sucks for him but that's life. As a parent, he can't play the "if I don't have fun, no one has fun" game anymore.

Eh, I'm not really getting that vibe from the DH. What I'm getting is that for some reason he feels obligated to put some hours in at work. (I'm guessing he's the breadwinner.) And OP wants to go somewhere and if DH has to work, then screw him. Add to this that apparently the calendar is so crammed in advance that there is no other option for anyone to choose anything beyond what has been scheduled weeks in advance. This last part is what tips me towards DH. OP is saying that, "yeah this is the only weekend off for weeks but since you need to work we're leaving town without you."

I think a compromise is in order, and that if the calendar is truly that full then the family should stay in the area and do something together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This really changes the whole situation. If this is the only chance you have to get the heck outta Dodge for the summer then take the opportunity and go. It sucks for him but that's life. As a parent, he can't play the "if I don't have fun, no one has fun" game anymore.

Eh, I'm not really getting that vibe from the DH. What I'm getting is that for some reason he feels obligated to put some hours in at work. (I'm guessing he's the breadwinner.) And OP wants to go somewhere and if DH has to work, then screw him. Add to this that apparently the calendar is so crammed in advance that there is no other option for anyone to choose anything beyond what has been scheduled weeks in advance. This last part is what tips me towards DH. OP is saying that, "yeah this is the only weekend off for weeks but since you need to work we're leaving town without you."

I think a compromise is in order, and that if the calendar is truly that full then the family should stay in the area and do something together.

i know reading is hard but OP has stated she WOH full time.

[Anonymous]

Also, OP, when did you come up with this plan? Earlier this week? Sometimes people do need a little forewarning for their planning purposes, you know.

[Anonymous]

I would go with the kids and try to work out a compromise that let's DH work some too, be that leaving later, returning earlier, enabling him to work remotely or taking separate cars.

But staying because he can't go wouldn't work for me. We all make lots of compromises and life isn't the same for everyone in the family all the time. He needs to bend too.

As for the wanting one on one time with kids but not doing anything about it, next time he brings it up I'd be inclined to say some thing along the lines of I'd be happy to help home brainstorm / plan ways to make that happy, but I didn't want to hear any more whining if he wasn't going to actually try and change it. It's one thing to vent about things you can't change, but whining about stuff you can easily change is a No Go in our house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SO frustrated with spouse right now. Here's the scenario: long weekend. Two kids. I suggest we get out of town for some time away with kids and chance to enjoy being out of the city. He says I don't want to do suggestion A, B, or C; I want to stay in DC so I can go into the office over the long weekend. (He does not usually work weekends, so this is news to me.) I say okay, then I'm fine going somewhere with kids by myself. He counters with "but I never get to do anything with the kids and I don't want to miss out on the fun stuff!" Well, YOU DON'T WANT US TO DO ANY FUN STUFF. YOU WANT US ALL TO SIT HOME SO YOU CAN SPEND TIME IN THE OFFICE. I have no idea what the compromise position is here. The kids stay home and get to do nothing different than same old same old, so he doesn't miss out? There is no offer of going some other time; it's just "I don't want to, so no one should because then I might miss what I don't want to do anyway."

Help.

You sound really immature. Find out why he wants or needs to go into the office over the long weekend and make it clear that, if your family is going to arrange its schedule this long weekend to accommodate his, you want him to commit to fun family time outside of DC at specific dates this summer, preferably with him, but without him if necessary.

[Anonymous]

OP, are you sure his work stress is professionally based? What will "going into the office for a few hours" accomplish? You have a right to know what he's doing and why he's going in this of all weekends especially when he doesn't normally work weekends and has a family. As for going out of town other weekends, why can't you guys ditch those commitments? I dislike organized sports for my kids as I feel they are a time sink. I always see fun stuff I want to do on the weekends and sports means we can't go do those things. If you want to get out of town and these commitments are crimping that then realize that what you want matters too and make it happen.

[Anonymous]

OP sounds really petulant and immature. IDK, maybe DH is being unreasonable too. All I know is mature couples don't act like this. They work out their differences by communicating, seeing the other person's perspective, and finding middle ground. OP seems intent on winning, not compromising.