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wrychoice1

Feels like DH and I have crossed a line...

wrychoice1
14 years ago

...but I am not sure exactly. I will apologize in advance for the length of this post...As of this minute, I should be boarding an airplane to meet DH who is already at his son's home. He has been there a few days following a business trip. I was to fly there this evening for what would be the start of a week-long vacation. I have not had a vacation in about 18 months and I was really looking forward to the time. DH has already had some time by himself with son, daughter-in-law and grandchild. We were going to spend a couple extra days with them once I arrived --- hoping to combine time with them in some sight-seeing we wanted to do. After that, DH & I were going off by ourselves for some quiet time and visit some places we'd not seen before. I had researched places to stay; found some places with fun activities for the grandchild,etc...

Problem is DH wouldn't commit to any of this because he couldn't get a commitment from his son. This has been going on for several weeks...well, DH's son finally told him the only day he could get off was his regular day which is in the middle of the week. He never tried to trade days with any of his co-workers...just "this is my day off." With that being the case, there was no way to accomplish all the travel and sight-seeing I thought we both (DH & I) wanted to do. I knew DH wanted to spend time with his son and grandchild; I did, too...I was just hoping we could kill two birds with one stone by having the son & his family go with us on the first part of our trip...no such luck.

So, I am driving DH to the airport last weekend and he is still trying to figure out how to come up with a plan for how we could spend my hard-earned and long awaited vacation time. Now mind you, this is the son who, when I was trying to make plans for DH's milestone birthday, never had the courtesy to return my phone calls or email...and DH somehow cannot or will not understand that while I would love to have things be all Brady Bunch between this son and his family and me, I cannot make that happen all by myself. His son has to want some semblance of a connection with me...

Anyway, on the way to the airport last weekend (I was taking him to drop him off to catch his flight for his business trip), it became clear that this trip had become less about our vacation and more about his son's day off...and how we could accommodate that. DH kept saying, "But I thought you'd want to spend time with little Mary..." and I would reply, "yes I would. That is why the plan was to spend a day or two at their home, then spend another couple days with them sight-seeing. It is your son who is not willing to accommodate this." Finally DH said, when we are about 10 minutes from the airport, he thought it might be best if I canceled my ticket and saved my vacation for some other trip, some other time. And I did.

Last night, DH called. He was constantly distracted during the conversation by the antics of his grandchild. Put his phone on speaker function so I could hear; tells me he loves me and wishes I was there...and all I could think is "I do not want to hear this."

This has happened before, where he & I have had what appears to be an irreconcilable difference (the last time was several years ago and it was about how to arrange for transportation for one of his adult kids)...and the choice is either he takes the side of his child(ren) or he supports me. It happens frequently over little things...and only a handful of times over big things (that involve significant sums of money or in this case, how we spend our time together)...and he chooses his children over me/us...I guess I am thinking if we cannot agree on how to plan a vacation, how can we plan our life?

I know I am discouraged and depressed. I feel numb...I feel if we are going to go our separate ways in this instance, perhaps we should just go our separate ways, period.

It has been 14 years of this. I'm tired...and as I am 14 years older, I keep thinking my time is that much more precious...and do I really want to spend it like this?

It feels like a line has been crossed...

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