DH makes me be the bad guy

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

The problem is that you feel entitled to have the evening go exactly how you want. It is obvious that, in your mind, you have the high ground because your husband has been traveling for work. And you seem to be extremely rigid about your plans. It doesn't make you the bad guy, but it's not as though DH's request was something crazy. But if you feel bad because you had to insist to get what you want, instead of your DH just silently going along with it regardless of what he wanted to do, then that's for you to figure out. I doubt your daughter or these family friends have given it a second thought. And frankly, it sounds like you've got a martyr complex and are really building resentment, which isn't good for anybody.

Also, you and others are making it seem like DH is just playing on easy mode, but traveling for work and then accompanying the daughter to the pool is not a vacation. And frankly, if you can't get basic household chores done and meals prepped for a week in the time that they were at the pool, it sounds like you are pretty inefficient. So, yeah, maybe OP is the bad guy!

You're right. I do feel entitled to have a few hours of the weekend scheduled the way I want it. That's because Sun-Fri or Mon-Fri (depending on DH's travel) are weeks when every hour of my day is totally dictated by other people's needs. From 6 am-10 pm, I am doing things on the schedule of others. DH has a lot of downtime during his travel weeks as evidenced by the fun photos he sends me of various places and his ability to work out and pursue his hobbies while on work travel. He flies first or business and stays in fabulous hotels. He would even acknowledge that. I am really uptight about my 1-2 hours per week of getting to go to bed early and enjoy a book.

OP, I think that is completely legitimate and I would feel the same way.

Were the birthday parties drop off? I went somewhere nearby and read in those days. Sometimes I walked in better weather. You have to take time that’s available even if it’s bite sized.

She said only one kid went to the party and she took the other kid back to the pool for the in-between time. It is a fair way to deal with the kid who isn't at the party, but a lot of packing up and back-and-forth.

Why does it have to be “fair?” One kid had a birthday party, one did not. OP could have taken the other kid grocery shopping. She could have left the kid to watch TV with DH. She could have take the kid a library or other calm place that doesn’t require her to be outside or in the water.

But she chose the pool. Nothing wrong with the choice. Lots wrong with complaining about it and your busy weekend where you made the choices of what to do.

+1 - it really seems like OP would rather have a grievance to wield than to take charge of her life and be happy.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

The problem is that you feel entitled to have the evening go exactly how you want. It is obvious that, in your mind, you have the high ground because your husband has been traveling for work. And you seem to be extremely rigid about your plans. It doesn't make you the bad guy, but it's not as though DH's request was something crazy. But if you feel bad because you had to insist to get what you want, instead of your DH just silently going along with it regardless of what he wanted to do, then that's for you to figure out. I doubt your daughter or these family friends have given it a second thought. And frankly, it sounds like you've got a martyr complex and are really building resentment, which isn't good for anybody.

Also, you and others are making it seem like DH is just playing on easy mode, but traveling for work and then accompanying the daughter to the pool is not a vacation. And frankly, if you can't get basic household chores done and meals prepped for a week in the time that they were at the pool, it sounds like you are pretty inefficient. So, yeah, maybe OP is the bad guy!

You're right. I do feel entitled to have a few hours of the weekend scheduled the way I want it. That's because Sun-Fri or Mon-Fri (depending on DH's travel) are weeks when every hour of my day is totally dictated by other people's needs. From 6 am-10 pm, I am doing things on the schedule of others. DH has a lot of downtime during his travel weeks as evidenced by the fun photos he sends me of various places and his ability to work out and pursue his hobbies while on work travel. He flies first or business and stays in fabulous hotels. He would even acknowledge that. I am really uptight about my 1-2 hours per week of getting to go to bed early and enjoy a book.

Your kids are at camp all day during the week, and you had Saturday to get stuff done (because I doubt that your "running the kids around" on Saturday took the whole day, and then you had all of Sunday, including it seems many hours alone at home while the rest of the family was at the pool. From your posts, it just doesn't sound like you have that much to do that you couldn't get it all done and still have some downtime. So you are trying to sound like a martyr, and now "the bad guy," but what you describe does not sound that onerous.

It seems like the real problem is that you feel like you are doing more work than him, and that he was not showing the proper acknowledgment and respect for that when he asked another family over for dinner. So stop making it seem like you spent all weekend at the coal mine, and just acknowledge that you are resentful that his work week involves travel, which you seem to think is easy mode. My guess is that everyone at your house is aware of your resentment and martyr complex.

My Saturday schedule, not that this hostile PP deserves it:

9 am kid 1 swim lesson
10-12 pm kid 2 activity
Packed lunch at pool because no time to come home
1 pm kid birthday party, took other kid back to pool to swim during that time
3 pm, birthday party pickup, took kids home
3:30 big grocery shop for produce/meat/perishables that can't be left out in the heat (everything else delivered during the week)
5:30 pm made dinner

I don't know what other people's Saturdays are like but that's what I consider "running around". I didn't have Saturday to get stuff done, because I was dealing with the kids so DH could sleep in and rest, as I said from the beginning.

OK, so presumably you don't have birthday parties to drive to during the day, and you said that your DH did laundry on Saturday. You did the grocery shop. Certainly other time in that day, plus ALL OF SUNDAY to . . . what? Meal prep. Maybe straighten up the house. I get it, you think you are working so hard, but it just doesn't read like that.

DP. I thought it was funny how much of her "running around" schedule was spent at the pool after she painted that as practically a vacation.

OP and my 6 year old was the one I had with me for free swim. I am required to be in the water with them at arm's length when they are in the pool for free swim until they are 8 per our pool's rules! We had an hour in the water by the time we got the older one to and from the birthday party. Two hours at the pool just chilling would be fun...by myself. Less so when it's arguing about sunscreen and generally standing around in the water.

DH did his travel laundry and slept in. I don't rely on him to do laundry for the entire house because he just wanders away and leaves the first load in the washing machine wet until he leaves on Monday. Sunday we went to church and lunch with DH's parents and that ate up most of the morning and early afternoon.

Now you're WHINING about going to the pool? You've decided to be miserable and there's nothing that can talk you out of it. Hopefully your kids don't know how much you hate them.

How can all you nasty folks be so mean spirited?

[Anonymous]

OP's marriage seems to have fallen into a pretty common dynamic - she's the "enforcer" parent - has to be the one saying no to spontaneous dinners, setting boundaries around bed time, and dealing with the consequences with camp dropoffs and how the day goes while ther DH gets to swoop in for the fun moments then leaves. It's an exhausting cycle where the enforcer does all the hard work of parenting but somehow feels like the villain at the end of the day.
What makes it even harder is that her DH isn't even around to see all the labor that goes into being a consistent parent. He gets to be spontaneous and playful because she is the one doing all the work to hold down the house. Of course, she's resentful. No one wants to be the enforcer.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

The problem is that you feel entitled to have the evening go exactly how you want. It is obvious that, in your mind, you have the high ground because your husband has been traveling for work. And you seem to be extremely rigid about your plans. It doesn't make you the bad guy, but it's not as though DH's request was something crazy. But if you feel bad because you had to insist to get what you want, instead of your DH just silently going along with it regardless of what he wanted to do, then that's for you to figure out. I doubt your daughter or these family friends have given it a second thought. And frankly, it sounds like you've got a martyr complex and are really building resentment, which isn't good for anybody.

Also, you and others are making it seem like DH is just playing on easy mode, but traveling for work and then accompanying the daughter to the pool is not a vacation. And frankly, if you can't get basic household chores done and meals prepped for a week in the time that they were at the pool, it sounds like you are pretty inefficient. So, yeah, maybe OP is the bad guy!

You're right. I do feel entitled to have a few hours of the weekend scheduled the way I want it. That's because Sun-Fri or Mon-Fri (depending on DH's travel) are weeks when every hour of my day is totally dictated by other people's needs. From 6 am-10 pm, I am doing things on the schedule of others. DH has a lot of downtime during his travel weeks as evidenced by the fun photos he sends me of various places and his ability to work out and pursue his hobbies while on work travel. He flies first or business and stays in fabulous hotels. He would even acknowledge that. I am really uptight about my 1-2 hours per week of getting to go to bed early and enjoy a book.

Your kids are at camp all day during the week, and you had Saturday to get stuff done (because I doubt that your "running the kids around" on Saturday took the whole day, and then you had all of Sunday, including it seems many hours alone at home while the rest of the family was at the pool. From your posts, it just doesn't sound like you have that much to do that you couldn't get it all done and still have some downtime. So you are trying to sound like a martyr, and now "the bad guy," but what you describe does not sound that onerous.

It seems like the real problem is that you feel like you are doing more work than him, and that he was not showing the proper acknowledgment and respect for that when he asked another family over for dinner. So stop making it seem like you spent all weekend at the coal mine, and just acknowledge that you are resentful that his work week involves travel, which you seem to think is easy mode. My guess is that everyone at your house is aware of your resentment and martyr complex.

My Saturday schedule, not that this hostile PP deserves it:

9 am kid 1 swim lesson
10-12 pm kid 2 activity
Packed lunch at pool because no time to come home
1 pm kid birthday party, took other kid back to pool to swim during that time
3 pm, birthday party pickup, took kids home
3:30 big grocery shop for produce/meat/perishables that can't be left out in the heat (everything else delivered during the week)
5:30 pm made dinner

I don't know what other people's Saturdays are like but that's what I consider "running around". I didn't have Saturday to get stuff done, because I was dealing with the kids so DH could sleep in and rest, as I said from the beginning.

OK, so presumably you don't have birthday parties to drive to during the day, and you said that your DH did laundry on Saturday. You did the grocery shop. Certainly other time in that day, plus ALL OF SUNDAY to . . . what? Meal prep. Maybe straighten up the house. I get it, you think you are working so hard, but it just doesn't read like that.

DP. I thought it was funny how much of her "running around" schedule was spent at the pool after she painted that as practically a vacation.

OP and my 6 year old was the one I had with me for free swim. I am required to be in the water with them at arm's length when they are in the pool for free swim until they are 8 per our pool's rules! We had an hour in the water by the time we got the older one to and from the birthday party. Two hours at the pool just chilling would be fun...by myself. Less so when it's arguing about sunscreen and generally standing around in the water.

DH did his travel laundry and slept in. I don't rely on him to do laundry for the entire house because he just wanders away and leaves the first load in the washing machine wet until he leaves on Monday. Sunday we went to church and lunch with DH's parents and that ate up most of the morning and early afternoon.

So when your DH was with the kids at the pool on Sunday, was that also work for him? You make it seem like he was just relaxing by himself.

The trickle of information about the additional burdens just seems like you are making things up. So your DH always fails at laundry? He really doesn't help with any of the other weekend chores when he is home alone on Saturday? I doubt he slept all Saturday, unless his job involves international travel and he was jet lagged.

I'm still not clear why having from lunchtime to 6pm alone at home was not enough time to meal prep for the week and handle other normal weekend chores. But I agree with the other PP -- have him take the kids to the pool on Saturday, or do the birthday party drive, or whatever. Maybe skip lunch with his parents on Sunday. It seems like you would rather be bitter than solve your problems. And when you hold onto bitterness, you end up feeling like the "bad guy" because, to most people, you are.

Are you writing up her performance review?

Back up.

I'm just puzzled how she can obviously waste time and yet be so totally stressed out. Maybe she should get on some Ritalin.

Because you’re not trying to understand. Can you go comment on a fashion mistake; or get hyper focused on one of the food threads instead ?I’m sure there is a special-needs family or a poor you can nitpick somewhere.

What is there to understand? I have three kids, older now than OP's, but I get what it's like to have a lot to do. But her kids are at camp most of the day during the week, and she has weekends -- which she chooses to schedule up with activities. The bottom line is, if you are so hopping mad that you freak out over one request to have people over for a casual cookout on a Sunday night, you need to reassess your priorities and your schedule. She obviously can't handle it, and yes, maybe she needs to have a talk with her husband about being more helpful. But OP sounds like one of those people who'd rather be mad.

I'm guessing you don't work, PP?

Yes, believe it or not, I can work all week and get tons of things done outside of work.

If you don't grasp the problem with the bolded point, then I don't believe you.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

The problem is that you feel entitled to have the evening go exactly how you want. It is obvious that, in your mind, you have the high ground because your husband has been traveling for work. And you seem to be extremely rigid about your plans. It doesn't make you the bad guy, but it's not as though DH's request was something crazy. But if you feel bad because you had to insist to get what you want, instead of your DH just silently going along with it regardless of what he wanted to do, then that's for you to figure out. I doubt your daughter or these family friends have given it a second thought. And frankly, it sounds like you've got a martyr complex and are really building resentment, which isn't good for anybody.

Also, you and others are making it seem like DH is just playing on easy mode, but traveling for work and then accompanying the daughter to the pool is not a vacation. And frankly, if you can't get basic household chores done and meals prepped for a week in the time that they were at the pool, it sounds like you are pretty inefficient. So, yeah, maybe OP is the bad guy!

You're right. I do feel entitled to have a few hours of the weekend scheduled the way I want it. That's because Sun-Fri or Mon-Fri (depending on DH's travel) are weeks when every hour of my day is totally dictated by other people's needs. From 6 am-10 pm, I am doing things on the schedule of others. DH has a lot of downtime during his travel weeks as evidenced by the fun photos he sends me of various places and his ability to work out and pursue his hobbies while on work travel. He flies first or business and stays in fabulous hotels. He would even acknowledge that. I am really uptight about my 1-2 hours per week of getting to go to bed early and enjoy a book.

Your kids are at camp all day during the week, and you had Saturday to get stuff done (because I doubt that your "running the kids around" on Saturday took the whole day, and then you had all of Sunday, including it seems many hours alone at home while the rest of the family was at the pool. From your posts, it just doesn't sound like you have that much to do that you couldn't get it all done and still have some downtime. So you are trying to sound like a martyr, and now "the bad guy," but what you describe does not sound that onerous.

It seems like the real problem is that you feel like you are doing more work than him, and that he was not showing the proper acknowledgment and respect for that when he asked another family over for dinner. So stop making it seem like you spent all weekend at the coal mine, and just acknowledge that you are resentful that his work week involves travel, which you seem to think is easy mode. My guess is that everyone at your house is aware of your resentment and martyr complex.

My Saturday schedule, not that this hostile PP deserves it:

9 am kid 1 swim lesson
10-12 pm kid 2 activity
Packed lunch at pool because no time to come home
1 pm kid birthday party, took other kid back to pool to swim during that time
3 pm, birthday party pickup, took kids home
3:30 big grocery shop for produce/meat/perishables that can't be left out in the heat (everything else delivered during the week)
5:30 pm made dinner

I don't know what other people's Saturdays are like but that's what I consider "running around". I didn't have Saturday to get stuff done, because I was dealing with the kids so DH could sleep in and rest, as I said from the beginning.

OK, so presumably you don't have birthday parties to drive to during the day, and you said that your DH did laundry on Saturday. You did the grocery shop. Certainly other time in that day, plus ALL OF SUNDAY to . . . what? Meal prep. Maybe straighten up the house. I get it, you think you are working so hard, but it just doesn't read like that.

DP. I thought it was funny how much of her "running around" schedule was spent at the pool after she painted that as practically a vacation.

OP and my 6 year old was the one I had with me for free swim. I am required to be in the water with them at arm's length when they are in the pool for free swim until they are 8 per our pool's rules! We had an hour in the water by the time we got the older one to and from the birthday party. Two hours at the pool just chilling would be fun...by myself. Less so when it's arguing about sunscreen and generally standing around in the water.

DH did his travel laundry and slept in. I don't rely on him to do laundry for the entire house because he just wanders away and leaves the first load in the washing machine wet until he leaves on Monday. Sunday we went to church and lunch with DH's parents and that ate up most of the morning and early afternoon.

Maybe the resentment is over all the work travel when you have a full-time job and young kids? Maybe last night was triggering, but the bigger issue is that you are "on" with your kids 6 days a week, plus you have a full-time job? That sounds hard, especially without help. Can you make any structural changes?

Yes, that's exactly what I am expressing! DH can't see how "on" I have to be while he's gone.

The structural change will come in 2-3 months when these facility openings are done and he is hopefully promoted and when school starts after Labor Day. Until then, the scramble will continue. I know it's a temporary phase but the days are long and I'm tired.

Nope. Not how promotions work in that field. Nor how they open facilities. Stop.

OP and you have zero idea what industry works in or what he's doing on these trips. Some of these comments are wild even for dcum. I think everyone had a weekend like mine and is coming on here looking for a punching bag. So I'm at least glad I could provide that.

Huh? Didn’t one of your many subsequent reveal posts claim he opens naval facilities around the Pacific Ocean?

Just based on that I can find out if he even exists. Maybe we had a cocktail in Palau to discuss all these apparently new facilities opening up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Next we’ll hear about the four sets of demanding grandparents who live 3000 miles away in every direction.

We have one set of living grandparents who are local. They are too elderly to help or drive but not so elderly that we couldn't enjoy a nice lunch out with them on Sunday, as I said earlier.

I think you’re mixing up your various troll OPs and posts. It’s certainly a lot of spinning plates these days in DCUM.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

The problem is that you feel entitled to have the evening go exactly how you want. It is obvious that, in your mind, you have the high ground because your husband has been traveling for work. And you seem to be extremely rigid about your plans. It doesn't make you the bad guy, but it's not as though DH's request was something crazy. But if you feel bad because you had to insist to get what you want, instead of your DH just silently going along with it regardless of what he wanted to do, then that's for you to figure out. I doubt your daughter or these family friends have given it a second thought. And frankly, it sounds like you've got a martyr complex and are really building resentment, which isn't good for anybody.

Also, you and others are making it seem like DH is just playing on easy mode, but traveling for work and then accompanying the daughter to the pool is not a vacation. And frankly, if you can't get basic household chores done and meals prepped for a week in the time that they were at the pool, it sounds like you are pretty inefficient. So, yeah, maybe OP is the bad guy!

You're right. I do feel entitled to have a few hours of the weekend scheduled the way I want it. That's because Sun-Fri or Mon-Fri (depending on DH's travel) are weeks when every hour of my day is totally dictated by other people's needs. From 6 am-10 pm, I am doing things on the schedule of others. DH has a lot of downtime during his travel weeks as evidenced by the fun photos he sends me of various places and his ability to work out and pursue his hobbies while on work travel. He flies first or business and stays in fabulous hotels. He would even acknowledge that. I am really uptight about my 1-2 hours per week of getting to go to bed early and enjoy a book.

Your kids are at camp all day during the week, and you had Saturday to get stuff done (because I doubt that your "running the kids around" on Saturday took the whole day, and then you had all of Sunday, including it seems many hours alone at home while the rest of the family was at the pool. From your posts, it just doesn't sound like you have that much to do that you couldn't get it all done and still have some downtime. So you are trying to sound like a martyr, and now "the bad guy," but what you describe does not sound that onerous.

It seems like the real problem is that you feel like you are doing more work than him, and that he was not showing the proper acknowledgment and respect for that when he asked another family over for dinner. So stop making it seem like you spent all weekend at the coal mine, and just acknowledge that you are resentful that his work week involves travel, which you seem to think is easy mode. My guess is that everyone at your house is aware of your resentment and martyr complex.

My Saturday schedule, not that this hostile PP deserves it:

9 am kid 1 swim lesson
10-12 pm kid 2 activity
Packed lunch at pool because no time to come home
1 pm kid birthday party, took other kid back to pool to swim during that time
3 pm, birthday party pickup, took kids home
3:30 big grocery shop for produce/meat/perishables that can't be left out in the heat (everything else delivered during the week)
5:30 pm made dinner

I don't know what other people's Saturdays are like but that's what I consider "running around". I didn't have Saturday to get stuff done, because I was dealing with the kids so DH could sleep in and rest, as I said from the beginning.

OK, so presumably you don't have birthday parties to drive to during the day, and you said that your DH did laundry on Saturday. You did the grocery shop. Certainly other time in that day, plus ALL OF SUNDAY to . . . what? Meal prep. Maybe straighten up the house. I get it, you think you are working so hard, but it just doesn't read like that.

DP. I thought it was funny how much of her "running around" schedule was spent at the pool after she painted that as practically a vacation.

OP and my 6 year old was the one I had with me for free swim. I am required to be in the water with them at arm's length when they are in the pool for free swim until they are 8 per our pool's rules! We had an hour in the water by the time we got the older one to and from the birthday party. Two hours at the pool just chilling would be fun...by myself. Less so when it's arguing about sunscreen and generally standing around in the water.

DH did his travel laundry and slept in. I don't rely on him to do laundry for the entire house because he just wanders away and leaves the first load in the washing machine wet until he leaves on Monday. Sunday we went to church and lunch with DH's parents and that ate up most of the morning and early afternoon.

Maybe the resentment is over all the work travel when you have a full-time job and young kids? Maybe last night was triggering, but the bigger issue is that you are "on" with your kids 6 days a week, plus you have a full-time job? That sounds hard, especially without help. Can you make any structural changes?

Yes, that's exactly what I am expressing! DH can't see how "on" I have to be while he's gone.

The structural change will come in 2-3 months when these facility openings are done and he is hopefully promoted and when school starts after Labor Day. Until then, the scramble will continue. I know it's a temporary phase but the days are long and I'm tired.

Nope. Not how promotions work in that field. Nor how they open facilities. Stop.

OP and you have zero idea what industry works in or what he's doing on these trips. Some of these comments are wild even for dcum. I think everyone had a weekend like mine and is coming on here looking for a punching bag. So I'm at least glad I could provide that.

Not really open to self-reflection, are you? Or to the number of comments sympathetic to you.

Some people are unable to be happy or just prefer to wallow. OP is clearly that. She comes here looking for sympathy, gets push back, and then immediately retreats to resentment about being "the punching bag." Lol.

That does seem to be where she is right now. Her poor communication and her husband's lack of consideration can both be true but are also resolvable with a little effort on both sides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH was traveling Sun-late Friday, and every other week since the first week of June. I was barely holding things together this week and spent yesterday running the kids around to their stuff while he did laundry and caught up on sleep. Today I had a ton of chores to do to get set for the week so he took DD to the pool.

He called me at 6 pm from the pool (was supposed to be leaving at 5 to come home to make dinner) and said DD was having fun with friends and could her friends’ family come over and they could just get some extra meat to grill and it would be no big deal.

We can’t eat outside, too hot, the kitchen is a wreck because I’m meal prepping for the week, DD needed to be in bed at 8 for an early camp wake up Monday, and I have an early meeting. DH knew all this but put it on me to be the bad guy and realize this “plan” was a non-starter. And he did it all on the phone in front of the other family and the kids.

I’m so mad! Why couldn’t he just say to DD “no, that won’t work tonight”? Why couldn’t he even think through anything more than an hour in advance?

I hate that I never get to be the fun parent and that I’m killing spontaneity, but I also know that I’m the one who pays for spontaneity and flexibility by sleeping less and doing more in the wee hours or by scrambling during the day. And I’m hot and tired and have been going full tilt for weeks.

You posted Saturday night Op.

Did the after pool dinner party happen or not? Where?

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

The problem is that you feel entitled to have the evening go exactly how you want. It is obvious that, in your mind, you have the high ground because your husband has been traveling for work. And you seem to be extremely rigid about your plans. It doesn't make you the bad guy, but it's not as though DH's request was something crazy. But if you feel bad because you had to insist to get what you want, instead of your DH just silently going along with it regardless of what he wanted to do, then that's for you to figure out. I doubt your daughter or these family friends have given it a second thought. And frankly, it sounds like you've got a martyr complex and are really building resentment, which isn't good for anybody.

Also, you and others are making it seem like DH is just playing on easy mode, but traveling for work and then accompanying the daughter to the pool is not a vacation. And frankly, if you can't get basic household chores done and meals prepped for a week in the time that they were at the pool, it sounds like you are pretty inefficient. So, yeah, maybe OP is the bad guy!

You're right. I do feel entitled to have a few hours of the weekend scheduled the way I want it. That's because Sun-Fri or Mon-Fri (depending on DH's travel) are weeks when every hour of my day is totally dictated by other people's needs. From 6 am-10 pm, I am doing things on the schedule of others. DH has a lot of downtime during his travel weeks as evidenced by the fun photos he sends me of various places and his ability to work out and pursue his hobbies while on work travel. He flies first or business and stays in fabulous hotels. He would even acknowledge that. I am really uptight about my 1-2 hours per week of getting to go to bed early and enjoy a book.

Your kids are at camp all day during the week, and you had Saturday to get stuff done (because I doubt that your "running the kids around" on Saturday took the whole day, and then you had all of Sunday, including it seems many hours alone at home while the rest of the family was at the pool. From your posts, it just doesn't sound like you have that much to do that you couldn't get it all done and still have some downtime. So you are trying to sound like a martyr, and now "the bad guy," but what you describe does not sound that onerous.

It seems like the real problem is that you feel like you are doing more work than him, and that he was not showing the proper acknowledgment and respect for that when he asked another family over for dinner. So stop making it seem like you spent all weekend at the coal mine, and just acknowledge that you are resentful that his work week involves travel, which you seem to think is easy mode. My guess is that everyone at your house is aware of your resentment and martyr complex.

My Saturday schedule, not that this hostile PP deserves it:

9 am kid 1 swim lesson
10-12 pm kid 2 activity
Packed lunch at pool because no time to come home
1 pm kid birthday party, took other kid back to pool to swim during that time
3 pm, birthday party pickup, took kids home
3:30 big grocery shop for produce/meat/perishables that can't be left out in the heat (everything else delivered during the week)
5:30 pm made dinner

I don't know what other people's Saturdays are like but that's what I consider "running around". I didn't have Saturday to get stuff done, because I was dealing with the kids so DH could sleep in and rest, as I said from the beginning.

OK, so presumably you don't have birthday parties to drive to during the day, and you said that your DH did laundry on Saturday. You did the grocery shop. Certainly other time in that day, plus ALL OF SUNDAY to . . . what? Meal prep. Maybe straighten up the house. I get it, you think you are working so hard, but it just doesn't read like that.

DP. I thought it was funny how much of her "running around" schedule was spent at the pool after she painted that as practically a vacation.

OP and my 6 year old was the one I had with me for free swim. I am required to be in the water with them at arm's length when they are in the pool for free swim until they are 8 per our pool's rules! We had an hour in the water by the time we got the older one to and from the birthday party. Two hours at the pool just chilling would be fun...by myself. Less so when it's arguing about sunscreen and generally standing around in the water.

DH did his travel laundry and slept in. I don't rely on him to do laundry for the entire house because he just wanders away and leaves the first load in the washing machine wet until he leaves on Monday. Sunday we went to church and lunch with DH's parents and that ate up most of the morning and early afternoon.

So when your DH was with the kids at the pool on Sunday, was that also work for him? You make it seem like he was just relaxing by himself.

The trickle of information about the additional burdens just seems like you are making things up. So your DH always fails at laundry? He really doesn't help with any of the other weekend chores when he is home alone on Saturday? I doubt he slept all Saturday, unless his job involves international travel and he was jet lagged.

I'm still not clear why having from lunchtime to 6pm alone at home was not enough time to meal prep for the week and handle other normal weekend chores. But I agree with the other PP -- have him take the kids to the pool on Saturday, or do the birthday party drive, or whatever. Maybe skip lunch with his parents on Sunday. It seems like you would rather be bitter than solve your problems. And when you hold onto bitterness, you end up feeling like the "bad guy" because, to most people, you are.

Are you writing up her performance review?

Back up.

I'm just puzzled how she can obviously waste time and yet be so totally stressed out. Maybe she should get on some Ritalin.

Because you’re not trying to understand. Can you go comment on a fashion mistake; or get hyper focused on one of the food threads instead ?I’m sure there is a special-needs family or a poor you can nitpick somewhere.

What is there to understand? I have three kids, older now than OP's, but I get what it's like to have a lot to do. But her kids are at camp most of the day during the week, and she has weekends -- which she chooses to schedule up with activities. The bottom line is, if you are so hopping mad that you freak out over one request to have people over for a casual cookout on a Sunday night, you need to reassess your priorities and your schedule. She obviously can't handle it, and yes, maybe she needs to have a talk with her husband about being more helpful. But OP sounds like one of those people who'd rather be mad.

I'm guessing you don't work, PP?

Yes, believe it or not, I can work all week and get tons of things done outside of work.

If you don't grasp the problem with the bolded point, then I don't believe you.

Since you seem unable to communicate, I'll guess that you mean that she has a work day while the kids are at camp. I'm sure that's true. I work very long hours, and yet, I manage to get all sorts of things done. Granted, I have a lot of control over my schedule at this point in my life. I can leave my desk when I need to and can work from home when I need to do that. It just seems like OP needs a long uninterrupted stretch of time -- without kids, work, Sunday lunches, church, etc. -- to get her stuff done, but then she schedules all sorts of things that stand in the way of that. And then she acts like she's some hard laboring martyr. She's just bad with time management and taking it out on her family. So, yes, she is the bad guy -- except in the eyes of other complainers who are bad at time management.

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

The problem is that you feel entitled to have the evening go exactly how you want. It is obvious that, in your mind, you have the high ground because your husband has been traveling for work. And you seem to be extremely rigid about your plans. It doesn't make you the bad guy, but it's not as though DH's request was something crazy. But if you feel bad because you had to insist to get what you want, instead of your DH just silently going along with it regardless of what he wanted to do, then that's for you to figure out. I doubt your daughter or these family friends have given it a second thought. And frankly, it sounds like you've got a martyr complex and are really building resentment, which isn't good for anybody.

Also, you and others are making it seem like DH is just playing on easy mode, but traveling for work and then accompanying the daughter to the pool is not a vacation. And frankly, if you can't get basic household chores done and meals prepped for a week in the time that they were at the pool, it sounds like you are pretty inefficient. So, yeah, maybe OP is the bad guy!

You're right. I do feel entitled to have a few hours of the weekend scheduled the way I want it. That's because Sun-Fri or Mon-Fri (depending on DH's travel) are weeks when every hour of my day is totally dictated by other people's needs. From 6 am-10 pm, I am doing things on the schedule of others. DH has a lot of downtime during his travel weeks as evidenced by the fun photos he sends me of various places and his ability to work out and pursue his hobbies while on work travel. He flies first or business and stays in fabulous hotels. He would even acknowledge that. I am really uptight about my 1-2 hours per week of getting to go to bed early and enjoy a book.

Your kids are at camp all day during the week, and you had Saturday to get stuff done (because I doubt that your "running the kids around" on Saturday took the whole day, and then you had all of Sunday, including it seems many hours alone at home while the rest of the family was at the pool. From your posts, it just doesn't sound like you have that much to do that you couldn't get it all done and still have some downtime. So you are trying to sound like a martyr, and now "the bad guy," but what you describe does not sound that onerous.

It seems like the real problem is that you feel like you are doing more work than him, and that he was not showing the proper acknowledgment and respect for that when he asked another family over for dinner. So stop making it seem like you spent all weekend at the coal mine, and just acknowledge that you are resentful that his work week involves travel, which you seem to think is easy mode. My guess is that everyone at your house is aware of your resentment and martyr complex.

My Saturday schedule, not that this hostile PP deserves it:

9 am kid 1 swim lesson
10-12 pm kid 2 activity
Packed lunch at pool because no time to come home
1 pm kid birthday party, took other kid back to pool to swim during that time
3 pm, birthday party pickup, took kids home
3:30 big grocery shop for produce/meat/perishables that can't be left out in the heat (everything else delivered during the week)
5:30 pm made dinner

I don't know what other people's Saturdays are like but that's what I consider "running around". I didn't have Saturday to get stuff done, because I was dealing with the kids so DH could sleep in and rest, as I said from the beginning.

OK, so presumably you don't have birthday parties to drive to during the day, and you said that your DH did laundry on Saturday. You did the grocery shop. Certainly other time in that day, plus ALL OF SUNDAY to . . . what? Meal prep. Maybe straighten up the house. I get it, you think you are working so hard, but it just doesn't read like that.

DP. I thought it was funny how much of her "running around" schedule was spent at the pool after she painted that as practically a vacation.

OP and my 6 year old was the one I had with me for free swim. I am required to be in the water with them at arm's length when they are in the pool for free swim until they are 8 per our pool's rules! We had an hour in the water by the time we got the older one to and from the birthday party. Two hours at the pool just chilling would be fun...by myself. Less so when it's arguing about sunscreen and generally standing around in the water.

DH did his travel laundry and slept in. I don't rely on him to do laundry for the entire house because he just wanders away and leaves the first load in the washing machine wet until he leaves on Monday. Sunday we went to church and lunch with DH's parents and that ate up most of the morning and early afternoon.

Maybe the resentment is over all the work travel when you have a full-time job and young kids? Maybe last night was triggering, but the bigger issue is that you are "on" with your kids 6 days a week, plus you have a full-time job? That sounds hard, especially without help. Can you make any structural changes?

Yes, that's exactly what I am expressing! DH can't see how "on" I have to be while he's gone.

The structural change will come in 2-3 months when these facility openings are done and he is hopefully promoted and when school starts after Labor Day. Until then, the scramble will continue. I know it's a temporary phase but the days are long and I'm tired.

Nope. Not how promotions work in that field. Nor how they open facilities. Stop.

OP and you have zero idea what industry works in or what he's doing on these trips. Some of these comments are wild even for dcum. I think everyone had a weekend like mine and is coming on here looking for a punching bag. So I'm at least glad I could provide that.

Huh? Didn’t one of your many subsequent reveal posts claim he opens naval facilities around the Pacific Ocean?

Just based on that I can find out if he even exists. Maybe we had a cocktail in Palau to discuss all these apparently new facilities opening up.

Navy wife was not OP, she was chiming in but wasn’t clear that she wasn’t Op so agree that was confusing.

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Anonymous wrote:Dad is still in I live in a hotel mode from travel.

I'm OP and that's really insightful and you've pointed to what's actually a source of tons of friction in our relationship.

DH forgets the amount of effort it takes to obtain and make meals, manage possessions, etc. because of "hotel mode."

During his weeks of work travel, he gets up early to eat room service breakfast because it's his favorite. A hot breakfast with multiple kinds of food plus coffee magically appears! No coffee pot has to be washed and filled and no timer set the night before. Then he leaves the cart behind and goes to work.

He eats lunch at the office or goes out with colleagues. He gets room service dinner or meets colleagues for dinner. All of his meals magically appear and he becomes blind to the time it takes to handle meals. And then there's the rest of stuff- kids' laundry, vacuuming, unpacking and repacking camp bags and pool bags and everything else- that he just doesn't see or do during the week. I think he has trouble grasping why it's so important for us to run a tight ship before and after his trips because he doesn't experience all the stupid repetitive time-sucking minutiae of our weekdays and forgets that our life is not like his hotel life.

I'm not saying you don't have a right to be upset about your set up, but I wouldn't use this excuse. Focus on the bigger picture stuff like the other stuff you mentioned. I get that washing a coffee pot out and setting a timer may feel like the straw that broke the camel's back, but it's not a good example of why you're so busy.

How much does he make for a job that requires him to be gone this much? I'm having trouble understanding why you don't have more help at home. (Hired, I mean)

Not 7 figures. This is probably a temporary travel situation- leading the opening of new facilities in various locations. Hopefully it will result in a major promotion that will finance more help, but we are not there yet.

There's a big difference between $99,999 and $1,000,000... In any event, assuming you absolutely can't hire help (and I would and did when my husband traveled a lot and we've never made 7 figures), then I'd ignore the pool example because there are too many ways for your husband to argue with you about that and just stick to discussing the bigger picture problems you have. I wouldn't care what the other parents think of you, since you don't seem to like them anyway. In terms of your daughter (sounds like your son didn't care much), I wouldn't throw your husband under the bus by saying it was his fault for the way he brought it up/didn't help appropriately, but I would acknowledge that it's ok for her to be upset about not being able to do dinner but it wasn't the right time and would she like to plan something else fun to do? I say no to my kids when it's the right answer. I don't then owe them something in exchange for the no, but I will sometimes try to come up with something that is doable and they would also enjoy. Life is full of nos, and it sucks to be the one saying it, but to the extent you can say yes to things that work for you, then I would do that. Give yourself a break, sounds like you're working hard and are wound tight and maybe for one week when your husband is gone you can put the kids in charge of dinner. You want to do cereal and waffles? Great! You want to do a picnic with cheese and crackers? That's fine. This time is short, it's ok to make things easier for you and for them when you can.

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

Why didn't you say you don't like the parents and the other children?

I try to say yes when I can but I have no problem saying no to people/things I don't like.

I don't mind the parents and I enjoy the kids in a neutral setting that's not my house/yard. But they do require a level of supervision, intervention and attention that I didn't have the energy for.

Ok, whatever. You don't really like them (not minding someone is barely one stop above disliking) and you don't want to host them whether you have the time or not. I was a PP who said sometimes you need to loosen up and enjoy your life, but I wouldn't do so for people I don't like. Or "don't mind."

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Anonymous wrote:He works hard and wants to enjoy the family he is providing for when he can be around. He is a bit insensitive, but you have lost the joy in life to the tasks already. You should assign some tasks to the kids or ask him if you can hire some additional help a few days a week, so you can enjoy your family again.

Your mental health is important too, try not to blame him for the challenges you are experiencing, he is not creating problems on purpose to be an ass.

I’m not OP but I’ve been in similar situations and it’s frustrating when it really demonstrates how much your partner doesn’t understand how badly you are struggling, even if you have been trying to express yourself. When you are at this point you don’t have the bandwidth to do the *extra* work to find and hire someone to help out.

I am guessing OP also works based on the description of early camp and getting ready for the week. If she’s off all week and can do those chores tomorrow I am slightly less sympathetic but none of this was ok.

I can get annoyed when my husband doesn't realize how busy I am, but it sounds like laundry got done on Saturday and OP was home alone getting stuff done while husband and kid were at the pool for hours. I don't think it's insane for her husband to think she was done so an easy dinner wouldn't have been a big deal. Maybe he was wrong, but OP is mad at him for ASKING.

OP and not mad at him just for asking but for how thoughtlessly he did it- he did so on the phone in front of others, at 6 pm which was an hour after he was supposed to be home with the kids, and with zero awareness of the things we'd agreed earlier needed to be done. Even if this was a good idea, it would have been 6:45 before the extra food was bought and everyone was at our house. The kids needed to be in bed but not asleep by 8 pm so they could be up at 6:30 for a camp that DH specifically chose for them thinking he would be taking them there but he'll be traveling and it's far from my office.

(both DH and DCs are lactose-intolerant and don't eat pizza, but I agree that would have been easy)

I am surprised by how many people are contorting themselves to make me out to be Mean Mommy. But I shouldn't be.

You said he was at the pool with your daughter...and now you're saying he was supposed to be home at 5 with the kids...

see original post. was supposed to be home at 5, called an hour later from the pool.

It's the one kid two kid thing. Her husband took DD but then she had multiple kids. DS mentioned later.

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Anonymous wrote:It made me sad to read this, OP. You're understandably tired and burned out, which has quashed your sense of joy and fun. Your DH does need to be more sensitive but you also can work on not sweating the small stuff quite so much. I guarantee you they don't care if your kitchen is a mess. If they're offering to pick up extra food and supplies, and your DH is grilling, doesn't sound too bad (and quietly tell DH he'll need to take on x, y, and z to make this work). You could view it as a kind of a break and focus on the nice, social connection piece.

OP and I love that I'm getting blamed for not having joy and not being willing to stay up an extra two hours to host people I barely know and that I'm supposed to consider events dictated by other people on their schedule as my "break". I'd much rather have a DH who is perceptive enough to see that I'm tired, come home on time, make dinner and clean up so I can have a break of my choosing and do something I actually find restorative.

Wasn't your husband grilling? And couldn't you put him on clean-up duty, too? What's the big deal? Truly.

I didn't want to postpone my meal prep until 9 pm and do it in DH's version of a clean kitchen, and I didn't want to have to hang out with a bunch of people and help parent their feral kids on a work night. I wanted to eat a quick meal at home, clean the kitchen, send some work emails and read in bed before falling asleep early. That's the big deal.

The problem is that you feel entitled to have the evening go exactly how you want. It is obvious that, in your mind, you have the high ground because your husband has been traveling for work. And you seem to be extremely rigid about your plans. It doesn't make you the bad guy, but it's not as though DH's request was something crazy. But if you feel bad because you had to insist to get what you want, instead of your DH just silently going along with it regardless of what he wanted to do, then that's for you to figure out. I doubt your daughter or these family friends have given it a second thought. And frankly, it sounds like you've got a martyr complex and are really building resentment, which isn't good for anybody.

Also, you and others are making it seem like DH is just playing on easy mode, but traveling for work and then accompanying the daughter to the pool is not a vacation. And frankly, if you can't get basic household chores done and meals prepped for a week in the time that they were at the pool, it sounds like you are pretty inefficient. So, yeah, maybe OP is the bad guy!

You're right. I do feel entitled to have a few hours of the weekend scheduled the way I want it. That's because Sun-Fri or Mon-Fri (depending on DH's travel) are weeks when every hour of my day is totally dictated by other people's needs. From 6 am-10 pm, I am doing things on the schedule of others. DH has a lot of downtime during his travel weeks as evidenced by the fun photos he sends me of various places and his ability to work out and pursue his hobbies while on work travel. He flies first or business and stays in fabulous hotels. He would even acknowledge that. I am really uptight about my 1-2 hours per week of getting to go to bed early and enjoy a book.

Your kids are at camp all day during the week, and you had Saturday to get stuff done (because I doubt that your "running the kids around" on Saturday took the whole day, and then you had all of Sunday, including it seems many hours alone at home while the rest of the family was at the pool. From your posts, it just doesn't sound like you have that much to do that you couldn't get it all done and still have some downtime. So you are trying to sound like a martyr, and now "the bad guy," but what you describe does not sound that onerous.

It seems like the real problem is that you feel like you are doing more work than him, and that he was not showing the proper acknowledgment and respect for that when he asked another family over for dinner. So stop making it seem like you spent all weekend at the coal mine, and just acknowledge that you are resentful that his work week involves travel, which you seem to think is easy mode. My guess is that everyone at your house is aware of your resentment and martyr complex.

My Saturday schedule, not that this hostile PP deserves it:

9 am kid 1 swim lesson
10-12 pm kid 2 activity
Packed lunch at pool because no time to come home
1 pm kid birthday party, took other kid back to pool to swim during that time
3 pm, birthday party pickup, took kids home
3:30 big grocery shop for produce/meat/perishables that can't be left out in the heat (everything else delivered during the week)
5:30 pm made dinner

I don't know what other people's Saturdays are like but that's what I consider "running around". I didn't have Saturday to get stuff done, because I was dealing with the kids so DH could sleep in and rest, as I said from the beginning.

I feel like you could have scheduled your Saturday better, if that matters. Place the grocery order while sitting at the pool for four hours and then just do curbside or run in and pick it up. Who spends two hours grocery shopping for meat and produce when you have two elementary kids, a full-time job, and a husband who travels for work? I certainly don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:or...you could loosen up the death grip of control, give in to sponteneity and have unexpected fun all while reinforcing to your daughter the value of friends and having fun. A week of regimented meals, a military time schedule and an uptight home doesn't sound like a fun place to be a kid.

This. Our twins are 12 (we have no other kids) and I've been realizing we are 2/3 of the way through our time with them at home. I'm trying to embrace saying yes and being spontaneous with things like this. It goes so fast and it sounds like OP has an only so once that kid is gone, that's it!

Does your partner leave town for extended periods of time ?

12 is a very adaptable age.

Sometimes he does. He works on the Pacific fleet so he's often in Japan, Guam, and Hawaii, which are all long trips. I rarely travel for work. I hate it when he's gone because it is more work for me and I miss him being around. I also do things differently when he's gone.

How old are your kids?

Seriously? Now you’re going to make that up?!

I can count on one hand who does that due to all my time at joint base pearl harbor’s. One fingerless hand. Even the special weapons guys don’t do that, or anyone who left the east side naval base in Oahu.

What on earth are you talking about? You're saying I'm making up where my husband travels for work? I mean, ok. What a weird thing to lie about. I don't have to tell you any more about what my husband does but I can confidently say that I know where he has been and when. I'm glad you know everyone who works with the entire Pacific fleet. You must be very important and yet also have time to post on DCUM. That's strange.