Is wife being unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, OP here-

I will clear up some things. The wedding date was already set by the time we announced the pregnancy. My wife is the primary caregiver but I definitely contribute and coparent when I’m home in the evenings and on the weekends. I may not know exactly as much as she does with regard to parenting our son, but I’d imagine it’s pretty close. Other than ceremony and pictures, I will be free to support my wife in any way that she requires.

The issue with taking our toddler by myself- she doesn’t want me to! When I say she doesn’t like my parents, I mean it. I am not “allowed” to take my children around my parents without her present. She doesn’t trust them/they have had a tense and hostile relationship in the past. My wife plans to have her mother travel to our home and stay with her while I’m away for the weekend, so her mother can look after the toddler.

Look guys, I appreciate the feedback. I can see that most of you feel like I should be more sympathetic and supportive to my wife’s needs/wishes. If she has something unexpected happen to her or the baby during childbirth or after, of course I wouldn’t expect her to attend. I’m speaking strictly in the sense of assuming everything goes as expected, I think she should be willing to do this for me. And for my brother/his fiancé, with whom she has a great relationship. When we first discussed attending, she mentioned perhaps having her mother watch our toddler the whole weekend and she attends with just the newborn. I can live with this as well, but now she is no longer interested in that solution. (Her mother lives same city as my parents and is a one hour drive from the wedding location. So if her mother watched our toddler during wedding weekend, my parents could still visit with him in the days following the wedding.)

The wedding is the weekend before Christmas. So if we travel back for the wedding, we will stay through Christmas and visit all of my extended family who will be in town for the wedding, and especially my parents. I believe this is a situation she is trying to avoid.

Backing up to Christmas makes the whole idea worse.

You take toddler. Be firm with this.

Wife and newborn stay home. You give on this.

You and toddler travel for an extended weekend only, up on Thursday, back on Monday, home for Christmas. You both compromise on this.

Flying 3 hours post partum with a newborn and a toddler for a wedding followed by a week plus of doing Christmas, including driving around town to pass the baby around with various relatives is a horrible, horrible idea.

From here on out, expect to stay home for Christmas.

[Anonymous]

OP is delusional. Can't believe he even wrote what he wrote, what a bastard. 3 different entries all glorifying his A-hole parents and putting down his normal wife. Can't believe she is sane after living with him a couple years, and now trying to raise a family with this type of guy. Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking for a little perspective. My brother is getting married 6 weeks after my wife’s due date (toward the end of this year.) We also have a son who will be almost 2 at the time. The wedding is a 3 hour flight away. I am the best man in the wedding and so will be somewhat busy during the weekend of the wedding with various wedding party obligations. My wife is already saying that she doesn’t think she will be up for traveling 6 weeks after giving birth. She keeps bringing up how she will still be recovering (she had a natural birth with our first and recovered very quickly), she had low milk supply so we supplemented with formula the first time around, probably will do the same with this coming LO, so she is also complaining about having to pack bottles and formula and sterilizing them and pumping to try to get her supply up. I get that it’ll be a lot of work to travel with a 2 year old and a 6 week old. However, I am a little frustrated because people do it all the time.[u] And if it were her sibling getting married I know she would suck it up and go 100%.

Another thing she has mentioned is that she feels like she won’t have much help with the kids at the wedding because I am the best man. I told her I will make sure I am able to help her a lot, and especially my parents will help her but she wasn’t happy about that and in fact doesn’t want their help. She doesn’t like them and that is no secret. So I believe that she is using these excuses to get out of letting my parents see their grandchildren. Either way, I was curious what you all think. Is it reasonable for her to be saying months in advance that she probably won’t be attending my brothers wedding? (Which means my kids won’t get to attend it either? My brother has also invited my son to be the ring bearer but my wife wants me to tell him no. Again, I believe this is to limit my parents access more than anything.)

This right here is what makes you a jackass.

[Anonymous]

OMG
What a jerk

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:wait I only read the first few pages but I am guessing he didn't take to the idea of taking the toddler himself, non?

He wants to take the toddler himself but his wife wont allow it.

It's his child too and she cannot refuse to let him take child with him.

But she can question who will watch the child while DH and his parents, etc. will be focused on the wedding. She's entitled to know his plan.

+1 Plus the grandparents want the dad and toddler to stay for a week after the wedding so the wife won’t get to spend Christmas with her son. She’s fine with toddler going to the wedding but she doesn’t want him to stay for the week after. But this dh won’t say that to his parents and makes his wife look bad (again). Plus, there will be no one who will be 100% responsible for this not even 2 year old - it’s a stupid plan. This husband should be doing whatever his wife wants and telling his parents to apologize. His priorities are screwed up.

The DH is nuts but your facts are wrong. The DH wants to extend through Christmas if they ALL go. The DW doesn’t want the 2 yo to go even just for the wedding weekend. It’s all still bad, but keep you facts straight!

My bad - I stand corrected. However, I am still on the wife's side. Considering how dh's parents have spoken to the wife, if I were her, I would not want my kid alone with them without me either. Who knows how they will badmouth her in front of her kid and it is obvious (based on dh's responses) that he will not stand up for his wife. He is also ignoring everyone's points about how much danger would be putting the baby in by flying at that age (let alone at that time of year when it is RSV season). My kids were preemies and we barely left the house, let alone went on a plane.

[Anonymous]

OP, grow up and go without your wife. Let her stay home. She can arrange for someone to come stay with her.

I flew with a 5 week old and a toddler (and my husband), but I didn't get the plane tickets til the infant was 3 weeks old, and I knew what kind of baby she was, and that all looked good. And it was summer. No way in hell would I make a firm commitment to fly before I knew that the baby and I were okay. And even if everything looked good, I wouldn't fly with such a new baby at Christmas time, especially to family that was not supportive of me. Also, she had difficulty with nursing, and stress makes that so much worse.

Take a good hard look at how you treat your wife, OP. You need to be more supportive and understanding if you want to keep your marriage together. That counseling you mentioned is a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Invite DW's parents to the wedding so they can help out.

[Anonymous]

Okay guys, OP here. Again. I went back and forth on continuing this thread, but ultimately I decided to update.

Many of the comments have been extremely harsh. Honestly though, that is not that shocking considering I am posting to an essentially all women/mother forum. You ladies empathize with the wife’s side, and I get that. It’s actually the relatable and natural position for you to take. I was pleased to see there were some comments that really “heard” where I was coming from. I’m not some complete jerk to my wife. I’m not perfect and neither is she. She has many wonderful qualities, but she can also be unforgiving and hold grudges, so it isn’t the easiest thing to side with her against someone I love. (I also wouldn’t side with someone else against her.)

Anyway, I took the advice to drop the idea of my wife and newborn attending the wedding. You all were loud and clear on that point. I have accepted her decision to not attend. I told her I willl be traveling Thursday - Monday and she gave me the green light. The tricky part is my son. She is still refusing to allow me to take him. We had a spirited discussion regarding it and are currently at an impasse. I have spoken to my mom about the situation and she has assured me that she will be happy to help care for my son basically the whole wedding, anytime I need anything. Due to the issues between my wife and my parents, my parents have spent very very little time with my son. (He is their only grandchild at this time.) So they are very eager. There will also be several Aunts, female cousins and friends of my mother present, some of whom I’m certain would pitch in.

My wife is being extremely emotional and unwilling to even entertain a calm and rational conversation about me taking my own kid to my brothers wedding. Surely many of you can see that that is not right. Right? She has stated that if i take my son, it will do such irreparable damage to the marriage that we likely wouldn’t survive. How would you respond to this? To those of you who at least can see that I have the right to take my son with me. Help me out here. I’d love to hear how you would frame your argument, and if you’ve ever been in a situation like this before. (One where you disagreed on something regarding your child and how you came to a solution.)

[Anonymous]

Firstly, you've said your Mum, and "several Aunts, female cousins and friends of my mother present" who will help look after the toddler. Is this an all woman wedding? Are you going to be the only man present? Is your plan to arrive and dump your toddler with a group of woman, some of whom you don't even know all that well? Do these woman know his preferred foods? His allergies? Any medication he requires? Do they know what to do if he gets fussy? It sounds like your plan for this wedding is to bring your child as a toy or accessory and not be a parent.

Secondly, you need to take a step back here and look at this situation out of your mothers anus. Both. Of. Your. Parents. Have. Been Verbally. Abusive. To. Your .WIFE. AND YOUR RESPONSE IS TO DEFEND THEM AND TELL HER SHE IS IN THE WRONG. What guarantee do you or your wife have that your parents won't be verbally abusive to your son? Or won't spend the entire time telling his what a 'lazy evil' mother he has? Why on earth should she trust your parents to look after her son?

IF you had a history of standing up to your parents to protect your wife and child then yes, you should take your son. But the fact is you don't, and if fact agree with all of them, which means you agree your wife was lazy, could have harm your child and deserves to be shouted at.

If you take your son, expect to come home to an empty house. Your wife deserves someone who loves her and puts her and your children first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay guys, OP here. Again. I went back and forth on continuing this thread, but ultimately I decided to update.

Many of the comments have been extremely harsh. Honestly though, that is not that shocking considering I am posting to an essentially all women/mother forum. You ladies empathize with the wife’s side, and I get that. It’s actually the relatable and natural position for you to take. I was pleased to see there were some comments that really “heard” where I was coming from. I’m not some complete jerk to my wife. I’m not perfect and neither is she. She has many wonderful qualities, but she can also be unforgiving and hold grudges, so it isn’t the easiest thing to side with her against someone I love. (I also wouldn’t side with someone else against her.)

Anyway, I took the advice to drop the idea of my wife and newborn attending the wedding. You all were loud and clear on that point. I have accepted her decision to not attend. I told her I willl be traveling Thursday - Monday and she gave me the green light. The tricky part is my son. She is still refusing to allow me to take him. We had a spirited discussion regarding it and are currently at an impasse. I have spoken to my mom about the situation and she has assured me that she will be happy to help care for my son basically the whole wedding, anytime I need anything. Due to the issues between my wife and my parents, my parents have spent very very little time with my son. (He is their only grandchild at this time.) So they are very eager. There will also be several Aunts, female cousins and friends of my mother present, some of whom I’m certain would pitch in.

My wife is being extremely emotional and unwilling to even entertain a calm and rational conversation about me taking my own kid to my brothers wedding. Surely many of you can see that that is not right. Right? She has stated that if i take my son, it will do such irreparable damage to the marriage that we likely wouldn’t survive. How would you respond to this? To those of you who at least can see that I have the right to take my son with me. Help me out here. I’d love to hear how you would frame your argument, and if you’ve ever been in a situation like this before. (One where you disagreed on something regarding your child and how you came to a solution.)

My thoughts:

1) You have absolutely sided with your parents against your wife, and as long as you continue to have them in your life without them sincerely apologizing to her, you are continuing to do so.

2) Your previous posts indicate that you have never been responsible for your son. You just "help" or "support" your wife. Even when you were talking about taking your toddler to the wedding and demanding that your wife come along with the newborn "to do this for me", you did not assume responsibility for your son. You didn't say "and of course I'll be 100% responsible for my son on the trip, my wife will be responsible for the newborn but she won't have to worry at all about doing a single thing for our other son" like a normal father would do. You simply said that while your wife was there against her will with the newborn, you would "help her with the toddler as much as possible". That doesn't give us (or I'm sure her) even a small amount of confidence that you can competently look after your son when she's not around.

3) Will you be drinking at the wedding? You will need to have a responsible adult caring for your son at all times (even when he's sleeping) who is legally sober, and ideally totally sober. Unless you are prepared to not drink at all at the wedding (doubtful I'm guessing) then you can't claim to be the one responsible for your son.

4) A toddler isn't something to be passed around and played with on occasion like a stray cat. Someone (sober, as I said before) will need to be 100% responsible for him at all times. Someone who will be on top of him at all times hovering, making sure he is okay. He will still be 1 and something years old and in areas that presumably has no child proofing.

5) You said your parents have spent hardly any time with your son, they're not spring chickens anymore, and they probably have forgotten everything about raising babies since this is the first grandchild. You would be insane and completely irresponsible to depend on them for anything related to childcare.

6) What are you going to do when your son has a total screaming meltdown, especially at a really unfortunate time like right before or during the wedding? Refuses to sleep in a strange place? Doesn't want to eat? Comes down with some sort of illness? You can't just take a not-even-2-year-old away for several days without having good plans for things like this.

7) You seem to be seriously considering pushing this issue although your wife has apparently made it clear that she'll be considering divorce if you do. The fact that you're still considering this.... I don't think there's anything to discuss. Just take the kid to the wedding, get divorced, and understand that hundreds if not thousands of people think you've ruined your family for nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Firstly, you've said your Mum, and "several Aunts, female cousins and friends of my mother present" who will help look after the toddler. Is this an all woman wedding? Are you going to be the only man present? Is your plan to arrive and dump your toddler with a group of woman, some of whom you don't even know all that well? Do these woman know his preferred foods? His allergies? Any medication he requires? Do they know what to do if he gets fussy? It sounds like your plan for this wedding is to bring your child as a toy or accessory and not be a parent.

Secondly, you need to take a step back here and look at this situation out of your mothers anus. Both. Of. Your. Parents. Have. Been Verbally. Abusive. To. Your .WIFE. AND YOUR RESPONSE IS TO DEFEND THEM AND TELL HER SHE IS IN THE WRONG. What guarantee do you or your wife have that your parents won't be verbally abusive to your son? Or won't spend the entire time telling his what a 'lazy evil' mother he has? Why on earth should she trust your parents to look after her son?

IF you had a history of standing up to your parents to protect your wife and child then yes, you should take your son. But the fact is you don't, and if fact agree with all of them, which means you agree your wife was lazy, could have harm your child and deserves to be shouted at.

If you take your son, expect to come home to an empty house. Your wife deserves someone who loves her and puts her and your children first.

I'm sure there will be just as many men at the wedding as women. OP clearly sees looking after children as women's work, which is why he just "supports" his wife with the childcare and why she therefore has no faith in his ability to care for the toddler when she isn't there.

His sexism is dripping off his post... and we're only agreeing with the wife because we're women!

[Anonymous]

You need to get a better understanding of why your wife is so opposed to your son being around your parents. That is weird, even given the rest of y’all’s issues.

However, when a spouse tells you that continuing to insist on doing X will seriously damage your marriage and X is not a mandatory activity, a person who cares about staying married stops doing X. If it’s unreasonable, you address it together and figure out a compromise, but in the interim, you stop X. I get that this sucks for you, particularly since you will now have to explain to your mom, who will blame your wife and make the problem worse, but if you care at all about staying married, you need to listen to your wife when she says that pressing this issue will result in extreme damage to your marriage.

[Anonymous]

This wedding is many months away. Why is it being treated as somehow the ONLY chance for your parents to see your son? Arrange a separate visit with them at your home or theirs this summer or fall.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like your wife has made a personal choice to limit contact between your relatives and the toddler to (a select few) visits while she is there in person to supervise, because of the previous interactions she has had with your family (and your response to them). She may feel the child will be harshly spoken to like she was the minute they get frustrated, or that she will be bad mouthed while not around. Who knows - I'm reading between the lines.

And now your family is using this wedding as an opportunity to pressure you, to access your son without the (problematic, in their eyes) mother around.

This isn't a typical family situation where it's fine for the toddler to go to the wedding with dad while mom stays home, and I suspect you understand the underlying reasons perfectly well.

Your wife has made clear that she is willing to end the marriage over this so make your decision, eyes wide open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay guys, OP here. Again. I went back and forth on continuing this thread, but ultimately I decided to update.

Many of the comments have been extremely harsh. Honestly though, that is not that shocking considering I am posting to an essentially all women/mother forum. You ladies empathize with the wife’s side, and I get that. It’s actually the relatable and natural position for you to take. I was pleased to see there were some comments that really “heard” where I was coming from. I’m not some complete jerk to my wife. I’m not perfect and neither is she. She has many wonderful qualities, but she can also be unforgiving and hold grudges, so it isn’t the easiest thing to side with her against someone I love. (I also wouldn’t side with someone else against her.)

Anyway, I took the advice to drop the idea of my wife and newborn attending the wedding. You all were loud and clear on that point. I have accepted her decision to not attend. I told her I willl be traveling Thursday - Monday and she gave me the green light. The tricky part is my son. She is still refusing to allow me to take him. We had a spirited discussion regarding it and are currently at an impasse. I have spoken to my mom about the situation and she has assured me that she will be happy to help care for my son basically the whole wedding, anytime I need anything. Due to the issues between my wife and my parents, my parents have spent very very little time with my son. (He is their only grandchild at this time.) So they are very eager. There will also be several Aunts, female cousins and friends of my mother present, some of whom I’m certain would pitch in.

My wife is being extremely emotional and unwilling to even entertain a calm and rational conversation about me taking my own kid to my brothers wedding. Surely many of you can see that that is not right. Right? She has stated that if i take my son, it will do such irreparable damage to the marriage that we likely wouldn’t survive. How would you respond to this? To those of you who at least can see that I have the right to take my son with me. Help me out here. I’d love to hear how you would frame your argument and if you’ve ever been in a situation like this before. (One where you disagreed on something regarding your child and how you came to a solution.)

Dear Op,

Of course your wife is emotional right now! She is pregnant and you are stressing her out. You seem to think that 2 years old is a big kid but, really they are babies. Ask yourself this: Will your son be happy to be away from his mom? Has he ever been away for that long? What would you do if your son was inconsolable during the wedding? If your son doesn't know anyone not sure how they are going to soothe him.

So, instead of thinking only of your "rights" to bring your son and how you want to prove your wife wrong why don't you think of your son? Have you ever taken care of him for a weekend by yourself? Ie wife not even there? If your son was a bit older, say four I would say it would be easier for you. Also, your wife doesn't trust your parents. How would you feel if you didn't trust her parents and yet wife is asking them to take care of your most loved person in the world...your son! Add to the fact, that I'm assuming you haven't taken care of him solo so surely you can understand why she is reluctant.

I were you I would back off on the wedding discussion. Make plans for your parents to visit or you to take son to visit your parents before the wedding ( like other pps suggested) Get your parents to start being nicer to your wife and you all try to make amends. Then if that goes well and you can bring up the discussion about bringing your son to the wedding.

Personally, you will have a better time solo at the wedding. The two year old will not miss anything by missing the wedding. Heck we had our four year old nephew and he remembers nothing of the wedding! He is going to be out of sorts with the new baby don't make it harder on you or him and leave the kid at home.

Also, we support your wife because we have given birth and some of us have difficult in-laws. I don't think your mom is up to the challenge of taking care of a two year old and it isn't fair because she will miss most of her son's wedding if she has to. ( same with your Aunts, cousins etc.) Who wants to go to a wedding and then not see it?