To think visiting DP’s family doesn’t count as a holiday?

Visiting in-laws is not a holiday. I totally understand that you want a real holiday. However, I would not be impressed if my partner suggested that I reduced seeing my family to once a year. It wouldnt even be a discussion. Id love to go on locely holidays, but unfortuantely I love my family and therefore i want to use time and money to see them more than i want to go spain. I don't think you need to go with him. He can go by himself or with your child. You need to ait down a budget so that there is money for him to go visit family and you to have a holiday. Or find a cheap flight to a beach from Hungary.

I think going once a year is OK, so if you are going at Christmas, I would go somewhere else in summer and next year because you're not going for Christmas, go their in summer. Also could look at going to a tourist resort in the country for 4 days and going to families house for 2/3 days.

Foot down time OP. He can't take more than his share of the family resource to do what he wants. If he can't see and be ok with that then do you want a life with him?

They should come to you this year or you should all go somewhere less stressful together? Young babies are exhausting and time to reconnect as a family on holiday is important.

It's not a holiday for OP though. That is the whole point.

Yeah check your privilege OP. Apparently many people would love the opportunity to travel for hours to the middle of nowhere to watch a bunch of people getting drunk and talking in a language you don’t understand. Personally having British relatives that live in the middle of nowhere was bad enough, I would honestly rather stay at home.

I havnt been on holiday for two years other than to visit family and there is no way I would ever tell this person to ‘check their privilege’

they have come with an issue to and they are looking for advice.

you clearly have access to the internet which a lot of people don’t so please check your privilege

To many people this (me included) this would be the only break they get. I can't afford a holiday this year. Check your privilege. If it's really that bad, don't go.

I hope you take from this thread that you are not being unreasonable and it gives you the strength to put your foot down. One visit a year - fine. Another visit where he goes alone or with DC, ok. But sufficient funds left for you to have a holiday as a family/ you and child.

My kids spent many trips sitting in their grandmother’s front room, bored out of their skulls. My DH realised he couldn’t inflict that on them - or me - in the long term. And for those who say ‘Learn the language’, I did but when everyone has had a drink, there are ‘in jokes’, verbal word play, cultural references, regional accents, slurring … believe me, it’s really isolating.

He’s a grown man who chose to leave his homeland years ago - he’ll survive.

So he's stubborn is he?
His word is law?
Be glad you are not married.

I would be telling him to head off on his own.
Start rethinking this relationship.
Sounds like you may be vulnerable if you are tolerating this.

It's not normal or healthy for one person to insist on this.
He needs to go on his own.
You need to reach out for support if you do not feel you have agency in your own life.

You can stop going twice a year. If you go at Christmas, don't go in the summer and don't put any of your money towards the travel budget for going to Hungary.

Your DH can say it's Hungary or nothing but he can't make you go and he can't make you donate your money towards these trips that only he wants to do.

You need to put your foot down OP. Tell him he can spend his money going to Hungary and you'll be spending yours going on holiday. He's all take and no give and that simply isn't fair.

It sounds like DH is refusing any sort of compromise and that OP has suggested many.

Considering that you are solely funding one of the annual trips, OP, I think you are within your right at this point to refuse to do that until a mutual agreement has been made. He's calling all the shots, and that is not fair to you or your child, as you are his family now too and he is not being even remotely flexible or honoring the fact that 1. you work hard and need to sit somewhere with a frozen drink and zone out or at least have that to look forward to once a year or even every other year 2. you would like to make memories with DC on a proper holiday

He seems to be dictating everything regarding this matter, but I don't think he can dictate how you spend that money if it's coming from your hard-earned salary.

Yes, @KarmaKameelion. Someone upthread suggested that the OP stop contributing to the Hungary trips savings pot. If she does this, presumably there won’t be enough saved for her airfare as well… that might be the way to go, tbh, he can save for his trips and their DD, she can set her contribution aside for something else (maybe a future holiday for the three of them)?
Surely that would be a win-win, he still sees his family and she can take them on a relaxing holiday in say three years?

Lack of compromise is definitely an issue - especially as OP is footing half the cost!

you mentioned about the car that he has passed his test last year. Is it that you can’t rent a car under 12 months after passing your test? When will he be able to rent a car?

exactly.
He wants to go to Hungary twice per year, you don't - you go.
You suggest a compromise that let's at least go to Budapest - he says no. SO you don't go.
He could go by himself - he would be sad. So you go.

You suggest that parents could visit you instead, they say no.
You could go at a cheaper time - but you again accommodate and go when his cousin goes.

Etc etc. Not once have your wishes been accommodated.

The thing is you say DH would be ‘sad’ to go on his own, but you are also sad that you don’t get a proper holiday.

He needs to compromise. Whether that’s part of the time in Budapest or he does the summer trip on his own is the discussion to be had.

I think a week once a year to visit his family is reasonable. I can see why your partner would want it to be part of a tradition and why he doesn't want to give up the summer trip even when you visit at Christmas. Can you couch it as, it currently isn't a holiday for you so you need to agree a compromise so that it is. E.g. spending 4 days with his family and four at lake Balaton as a family of 3. There needs to be some give on his side. If there isn't I'd be saying that you won't go at all. As your daughter gets older you could also stay at home and he takes her on his own, then you can take her on a break another time.

I have a lot of sympathy for you, OP. Compromise is essential for fairness and contentment in a relationship.

I used to live abroad and I considered it an emotional essential that I returned to the U.K. annually to see my family and friends. I did not consider it a holiday as it involved a lot of work traipsing anout to see elderly relatives etc. However, it was more important than a holiday to me, and I LOVE my holidays.

My partner, from the same country, didn’t feel the same as me, and refused to travel home annually and I felt bad meeting up with his parents and explaining that he “was busy with work”. I saw it as his choice however, even though I encouraged him to come back with me.

it is uour choice where you travel. Ypu have limited time and resources and you have been very generous to date, but you no longer wish to continue to the same extent. Your DH ought not to ise emotional blackmail to make you do things you don’t want. You, as you know and demonstrate don’t have the right to make him feel bad for visiting his family.

So as I see it, it is important that your DH goes home at least once a year to visit. If he can save the extra money, he could take DD along. You could go occasionally when you choose to afford it. You probably don’ mindf he goes multiple times a year it does not take away from an annual family holiday.
If
If you pull apart the travel budget, and explore possibilities, each person should go or refrain from Hungarian travel once a year as they desire, and there should be a family holiday to an agreed destination. Anything extra might be allocated to an extra Hungarian visit.

I also used to travel out of season because it halved the air fare. It might not be ideal but it is possible.

you are not unreasonable to want a relaxing foreign holiday of your choice once a year with your DD.

Maybe he could read up about Fear, Obligation, Guilt - sounds like there's a lot of guilt.

Do you know any other mixed country couples? What do they do? In my experience it's very common for one partner to go alone or with a small child.

Perhaps invite DP’s cousin living in Western Europe over to visit you - or at least talk to them, because perhaps they too dislike these family obligations.

I'm from a small village abroad - he needs to leave his small village 'but I've been there before' attitude behind. Visiting my parents is not a holiday, and I would never subject a partner to it. His complete unwillingness to compromise is childish.

He should either go alone or with your daughter. It might even work out better for your daughter - a week's 'holiday' with dad, and a week's real holiday with mum.

Precisely.

The OP is willing to compromise; her husband is not.

I'm bewildered at the posters who have castigated the OP: IMO, she is being entirely reasonable.

I'm trying to think of a comparison so that people can understand. My mother's side of the family lived in a small hamlet outside a Fife coalmining town. My aunts' families used to come up from England to stay with their parents.

Can you imagine, however, if their husbands from London had been placed in a situation where they had to stay in that hamlet all the time? "No, we can't take a trip into Edinburgh: we're here to see my parents and family - and that's the only 'holiday' that you're going to have for the rest of your married life! What do you mean you're fed up? You can go for walks across the fields, can't you? Look - that hut at the bottom of the hill is a shop!"

There have been many suggestions on this thread but it seems that OPs DP just says flat no to everything but sitting in his rural village.

Could you go to Hungary for a bit then get a flight from there to another place for a bit of a holiday? I did that a few times when I was with someone from another country. Saves on flights.