Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woman here and I totally disagree. It’s one weekend. You can arrange childcare. If it were a woman being fêted for some combo of 40th bday and making partner, she would be fuming that she had to ask, and that DH was giving her chores to do for her own celebration, and tasking her with childcare all weekend. And people here would be saying “tell him what you want.” OP, if you’re going to celebrate him, and people are coming in from out of town, do it right. Don’t be passive aggressive.

OP here. I don't think that parenting in our home for the 6 hours before a party starts is giving my DH chores or tasking him with childcare all weekend. He is implying that he should be able to/wants to basically be MIA the whole weekend and the party and the kids are my responsibility. As in, if he wants to spend the morning and afternoon before the event golfing with his college buddies, he should be able to, and the kids are my responsibility. AKA he gets to check out completely from any responsibility.

If his friends he rarely sees are traveling to see him, he absolutely should spend as much time as possible with them.
He shouldn’t micromanage how you achieve that.

I hire teenagers to decorate, assemble favor bags, serve food, and clean up at my elementary school parties so that I can socialize with guests.’ Yes you should absolutely hire a day of coordinator and babysitters for the weekend.

I'm trying to imagine a level of career advancement that would cause me to be such an a$$ to my partner. I can't..

He sucks.

I think it’s reasonable for him to want to be present and engaged with the people who are traveling to see him for this once in a lifetime occasion.

I think the way he phrased it was rude - this is his bridezilla moment. You’ve taken on everything for this and the scope creep has pushed you to burn out.

Arranging childcare for the kids is a reasonable request. It’s also reasonable that he could arrange that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m thinking maybe he got tenure? Idk. So curious.

OP isn’t going to say because then people will realize it’s actually something big that should be celebrated.

Tenure was my thought as well, but I also agree with this.

I mean… DH got me a cake when I got tenure. I didn’t get any time off from childcare, let alone some huge party. Most people don’t have a blowout celebration with people flying in for that.

My guess is DH is from a social class that expects this kind of thing. He sounds very entitled. Most likely he turned 40 and made partner, that’s my guess. He is probably headed for a midlife crisis in which he wonders why he worked so hard and doesn’t get to “enjoy” since they have young kids. OP report back when he has his affair and blames you. Sorry, but he just sounds like an ass.

Is this something you decided to do unilaterally? Does your DH want all the bells and whistles or are you dumping this on him and he doesn’t really care about the party so he resents being asked to do all this work? I personally would be pissed if my DH wanted to celebrate a big promotion with a huge party and then made me do any of the work for it. I would rather not have the party.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All so weird. I wish the OP had swapped the genders in the first post and the responses would've been so different

Yes, because we know if the genders were swapped anything short of a woman drawing a hard line in the sand would have her handling every detail of her own party and managing her family while her husband treated it as a time for him to relax and visit.

So true.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m thinking maybe he got tenure? Idk. So curious.

OP isn’t going to say because then people will realize it’s actually something big that should be celebrated.

yes. That is the point of this post. OP is refusing to celebrate her husband's accomplishment.

Glad you agree!

Whoosh!

Garbage. What an intentional lie. She is not refusing to celebrate his accomplishment and you know it. I hate these warped posts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m thinking maybe he got tenure? Idk. So curious.

OP isn’t going to say because then people will realize it’s actually something big that should be celebrated.

yes. That is the point of this post. OP is refusing to celebrate her husband's accomplishment.

Glad you agree!

Whoosh!

Anonymous wrote:My mother threw a retirement party for my father and had it catered. There was still a lot to do but she was able to enjoy the day alongside him. There is no way he would’ve been okay with her cooking and serving while he received everyone. Part of why he had such a good career is because they were a team.

+1

The celebration should include her. She's his team. What a jerk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it is one weekend and you said it was to celebrate him.

Of course he doesn't want to be watching the kids while he is trying to spend time with friends.

You are wrong here.

She might be wrong to want him to be on parenting duty that weekend, but every time she suggests hiring help, he shoots it down. At that point he moves into the unreasonable jerk category.

and everyone knows you can't count on people you didn't hire to do too much work. People will let you down. Her dh is a jerk and he would have been shut down the minute he suggested he wasn't going to do anything to help. I have a dh who did that to me the first year of our marriage. He socialized and had a blast while I was treated like the maid. I don't care that it is one weekend. If a celebration for one of us makes the other feel like a maid or hired help, something is wrong. Op's dh needs to be celebrating with her and her support of him through his endeavors. This selfish "it's all about meeeee" is something a 5 year old does.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it is one weekend and you said it was to celebrate him.

Of course he doesn't want to be watching the kids while he is trying to spend time with friends.

You are wrong here.

She might be wrong to want him to be on parenting duty that weekend, but every time she suggests hiring help, he shoots it down. At that point he moves into the unreasonable jerk category.

If she’s complaining about the expense (i.e., trying to guilt trip him), he may think he’s helping by suggesting alternatives.

My mother threw a retirement party for my father and had it catered. There was still a lot to do but she was able to enjoy the day alongside him. There is no way he would’ve been okay with her cooking and serving while he received everyone. Part of why he had such a good career is because they were a team.

Anonymous wrote:OP it is one weekend and you said it was to celebrate him.

Of course he doesn't want to be watching the kids while he is trying to spend time with friends.

You are wrong here.

She might be wrong to want him to be on parenting duty that weekend, but every time she suggests hiring help, he shoots it down. At that point he moves into the unreasonable jerk category.

hire a nanny or two or three--whatever it takes to get the coverage you need. Hire a caterer and whatever help they'll need. Maybe even hire someone to clean the next day. Then YOU can enjoy the party too!

Anonymous wrote:OP it is one weekend and you said it was to celebrate him.

Of course he doesn't want to be watching the kids while he is trying to spend time with friends.

You are wrong here.

+1