We have been married just over 20 years. We live so far away from my spouses's family that almost every year of our marriage we have spent his vacation time from work visiting his relatives. (During these 20 years, we have had just two or three weeks that we took vacation by ourselves where we (and our kids) went someplace. Although we have gone for 3 or 4 day weekend trips to the beach maybe once a year, usually.) This summer we have a full week lined up and reservations made at a special location. My husband planned this for us, as he said at the time, so we could have a vacation for our family (us and our children). We recently just spent one week with his relatives and while there he invited one of his relatives to come visit us and go with us on this trip! I am very disappointed and feel offended that he didn't consider my feelings in this or think to ask me before inviting someone else to go. I am sad that he doesn't value our time together any more than that. It hurts me that he evidently doesn't think we need any time to ourselves. In fact, he told me I was selfish to feel that way. Any thoughts on this?

I think that you are absolutely right in feeling this way.<BR>Your husband has been totally insensitive to your feelings.<BR>I would suggest that you should have your husband call up the relative and tell him there is change of plans and that it is important to your marriage to have time to reconnect.<BR>If your husband refuses that I would suggest you tell him<BR>that you both need marriage counseling and that you have no desire to go on the trip and let him go with his friend.

I know exactly how you feel. My H is always inviting his family to go places with us. I always get excited when we get to go away for the weekend and then my H tells me that he has invited his parents. At first I did not say anything until it was all the time. Then I told him exactlly how I felt about this situation. He really did not understand, he thought that I just did not enjoy spending time with his family. I just explained to him that I did enjoy spending time with them but it's also nice just to spend time with just our family! I think you need to talk to your H and make him understand that you enjoy his family but want time to spend just with him and your kids. Sometimes people take things the wrong way. But you do not sound selfish at all. You have every right to feel that way!