It’s fall break for my 3 small kids next week and 2 out of 4 grandparents have asked to split taking them for the week to give my husband and I a nice long break. Both of our parents are divorced and live within 30 minutes of each other but 3 hours away from us. The plan was that my mom would meet us half way on Saturday to get them and his dad would do the same to get them back the following Sunday. We made these plans over a month ago and honestly I went through hell to figure them out because nothing logistically is easy when it comes to pleasing out of town grandparents who want time with the grandkids.

I made the suggestion to my husband that we try to go somewhere to utilize our kid free time and he suggested that we just try to do a staycation on the weekends to try to save some money. I said I was ok with that as long as we used our time to do things rather than just end up doing nothing at home. All was well, we would have 2 full weekend days and a half weekend day to be kid free, go on date night, hikes, whatever.

Fast forward to today...his brother tells him he’s having a birthday dinner for his mom (just across town from their dads house) on our last kid free night. So now my husband wants us to drive the entire 3 hours there and back (instead of meeting his dad half way on Sunday) and go to that instead of utilizing our kid free night because it’s her birthday. Which would also take away one of his dads planned nights with the kids. He said even if his dad is “being stubborn” and doesn’t want to give up the kids he still wants to go to his moms birthday dinner without the kids, 3 hours away.

So here is my issue, am I being a jerk? I don’t want to give up our kid free night, yes we have a week kid free but we both still have to work so now we only would have 1 full weekend day to do something for us. This year has been hard on us so I want to be selfish and have the time for us, because we can and we deserve it. The kids already had plans as well and I don’t think it’s fair to take them away from an already planned evening they are supposed to have with his dad. We also just spent and entire weekend with his mom a few weeks ago. So I don’t really feel the need to jump through hoops and change everything. We don’t go home for family members birthdays unless it’s a big one because that’s way too much on us and this one is not a milestone. Coming in for his moms birthday also puts pressure on us with the other 3 grandparents birthdays to be there and we already travel there throughout the year the Max we can already do mentally and physically. For example this year we aren’t going hone for thanksgiving because it’s just too much on our family to make everyone there happy.

My husband is accusing of me of having it out for his mom and my feeling is I’m tired of jumping through hoops for those that don’t jump though hoops for us.