Childfree Lady Feels Guilty For Inviting Her Partner To A Family Trip That He Can't Bring His Son To, Gets Supported Online

"He hasn’t texted or spoken to me for a couple hours"

Maryjane

• Published in Interesting
• September 24, 2023

A person's parenting style can be influenced by a variety of factors in their life. A few aspects include the manner in which an adult was raised, parenting books, and other manuals.

Another significant factor is a parent's particular concerns and aspirations for their child. Gender roles, the neighborhood where the family resides, politics, religion, social status, and ethnic traditions are just a few examples of cultural elements at play.

Children receive conflicting messages from their parents when their parenting approaches are different. Children may become confused about how to behave and what to anticipate as a result of their actions.

Parenting differences can exacerbate conflict in a relationship because even when parents agree, parenting may be time-consuming and challenging. When they don't, parenting strategies can lead to near-constant argumentation.

OP is dating a guy who has an 8-year-old kid who is rambunctious. Some of the time, the kid is pretty extreme and hard to deal with.

Also, OP's partner and the kid’s mom don’t get along, and their parenting styles sort of conflict. If they ask the kid not to do something or that his behavior is inappropriate, he’ll sometimes go into a full tantrum about how his mom lets him and all that.

The OP has a trip coming up, and her uncle told her that only her partner is allowed to attend, as the kid always has meltdowns whenever he is invited to their trips. This didn't sit well with the OP's partner, and you can read the full story below.

The OP writes

It was heavily implied that it was just OP's partner being invited

OP wasn’t sure if that was part of her uncle’s plans

OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the AH:

I might be the AH for inviting him when he won’t be able to bring his kid

And the comments roll in...

The OP needs to make it clear

No one wants to deal with constant meltdowns

Planning another trip with the kiddo

The OP revealed this in the comments

The kiddo is a handful at times, but the lack of co-parenting does seem to be a large portion of the problem. It is meant to be more of a vacation than funeral to be fair to him, but there is some fairly serious context to it.

I’m hoping he’ll be ready to have a more in depth conversation about it all in person later today and hopefully we can clear the air a little bit

Creating a separate event

This is not the OP's fault

OP's boyfriend doesn't need to come

It's an invite to him only

That is perfectly fine too

He's giving the OP the silent treatment

Even when their parenting approaches clash, parents can still get along and provide a consistent message to their children. In fact, many parenting philosophies can even support one another but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

This is a trip to spread the OP's grandmother's ashes and it implies that it's an unrelated kid friendly trip. The OP was declared not the AH and that's a wrap!

Maryjane