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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [b]Other than ceremony and pictures, I will be free to support my wife in any way that she requires. [/b]

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. [b]She doesn’t trust them/they have had a tense and hostile relationship in the past.[/b] 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.)

[b]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.[/b][/quote]

On the first bolded--no, you won't be available outside of the ceremony and pictures.  You're the best man.  You will have stuff to do that will preclude supervising a toddler.  So your wife will be stuck in a hotel or guest bedroom with a newborn and a toddler.  Oh, and she'll get to deal with them throughout the ceremony.  Depending on the timing of the reception, she'll probably have to miss most of that, too, because it will be past the toddler's bedtime and she'll be exhausted.  And really, is your family going to miss her presence at the wedding that much?

On the second bolded--why doesn't your wife trust your parents?  What have they done or said that makes her unwilling to let her child be with them without her around?  (Let alone without you around, because someone has to watch the kid during the ceremony and photos and whatever other stuff you have.  Oh, and it's not going to be them.  They are not going to watch your kid while their son gets married.  They are going to watch their son get married.  Ditto for the rest of your family.)

On the third--way to hide the ball, buddy.  You want your six-week postpartum wife to fly with a baby too young to be vaccinated (oh, and 6-8 weeks is usually peak fussiness for babies) so she can spend Christmas with your family, "especially" your parents, with whom she has a tense/hostile relationship?

And--I do think that we all have to make an effort for family like this, but I would not fly with a six-week-old baby during cold and flu season.  I just wouldn't.  Maybe some parents would, but it's not unreasonable not to--in fact, my pediatrician strongly advised not flying before the baby had his/her two-month vaccines.

It's possible that your wife is saying no because she doesn't want to spend time with your parents, but there are reasons to say no that are unrelated to that.  My advice is not to make this a test of her love for you, but just to look at all the factors, many of which weigh heavily against her attending.  [/quote]

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