Should I Feel Insulted?

[AnaKhouri]

My husband gave me some presents for his family and asked me to wrap them. As I did, I commented, "I always know what everyone else is getting, since I wrap the stuff you buy and I wrap your brother's stuff too."

He was like, "Huh? You wrap >Brother's< stuff for him?"

Now, our regular Christmas routine is to see my mom on Christmas Eve, and go to the in-laws' on Christmas Day. We go straight to his grandmother's house for the extended family lunch, then go to his parents' house in the afternoon. Shortly after dinner on Christmas Day we open presents.

Since we've been married (8 years) Brother-in-law has felt comfortable enough to ask me to wrap his gifts for him, since he hates wrapping and I like it and am skilled at it. So every year, after we return from Grandma's house, he and I disappear into his bedroom for 15-20 minutes while I wrap his gifts for everyone (except me; my presents from Husband and BiL always looks like they were wrapped by chimps ).

So basically my husband's wife and his brother-in-law sneak off together every year for a while, and in 8 years the husband has never once noticed.

Should I feel insulted by this?

[42_42_42]

He probably just figured you both had to use the bathroom or something, or maybe he's in the bathroom during that time.

[sms001]

That is pretty peculiar! I certainly wouldn't be insulted, but it would make me wonder what he did think you were doing. Is the house chaotic while this is going on?

[AnaKhouri]

You're probably right; he probably gets distracted and he trusts us enough to know we'd never do anything questionable. It made me laugh when I heard it though. Did he really think Brother could get those corners so tight and those ribbons so curly?

[flybye023]

The past couple of days I've been trying to learn a new piano song. Last night I was practicing for about 30 minutes while my dad played on the computer. Our house has an open floor plan so the living room and computer room open into each other so he basically was in the same room.

I got to a part where I just couldn't quite figure out what the song was supposed to sound like so I went to YouTube to check out a video I found where the pianist has recorded a nice overhead closeup of his hands as he plays. I was very intently watching the video which attracted Dad's attention so he came over to watch the video too. After a few moments he says: "That's really nice. You should learn to play that song."

Sigh.

[dalesys]

T... "That's really nice. You should learn to play that song."
Sigh.

We're dads. Getting our presence is possible. Awareness is an extra-cost option we didn't splurge on. It doesn't add any horsepowders.

[wolfie]

Also, degree of suspicion would depend on which "linkage" there is between your husband and his BIL. Since you described BIL in that way, I'd assume you're referring to your husband's sister's husband (for the other "linkage", you'd be more likely to say "my brother"). I would have guessed that he'd be more likely to notice the disappearance that actually happened than if you and your brother disappeared together.

Sounds like your husband has a case of the (sterotypical) "3F" male response to a family gathering this time of year - Food, Football, and Forget about everything else.