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

Magyar really is a very hard language to learn so unless you have tried there is no need to eye roll. It’s a category 3 language so it’s not like duo lingo is going to make you suddenly fluent. Even if you were to pick it up from self study there are a tonne of nuanced rules that make it particularly hard for English speakers to learn. It also includes ‘sounds’ that are difficult to replicate- kind of in the throat ect so hard to take practical learning and then converse with someone

my husband and I are both immigrants and there’s no great solution here. Fortunately (or not) we immigrated to Scotland from the states together so have very little time with any of our extended family but it’s comes with a lot of down sides. My kids didn’t grow up with grandparents and have never met any of their cousins and just aren’t comfortable in our home country at all.

I think in this scenario ‘you’ go once a year and your husband and child go twice. Or could you go once a year but for longer? Like you fly home first and they stay another week. Then you take the kid(s) away somewhere else.

also wondering how often you see your own parents as it does seem relevant

I haven't read the full thread but we are in an amazingly similar situation, down to me and DC not speaking the language.

We go to his home country as a family every other year and in the between year he goes on his own for a week. On the year he goes on his own we have a family holiday close to my family who live at the other end of the country.

YABU.
I am your husband (my DP is British but we go back to my home country every year). This year we can’t afford that and a holiday. DP would never dream of turning up his nose because he’s bored or doesn’t speak the language. It’s hard to translate every second of every day but he will play with the kids or find something he wants to watch. Food is universal and you bond over that and a card game. He’s also happy to use google translate between him and everyone (you can download offline language if you don’t have WiFi). From my perspective my family isn’t getting any younger and I only have limited ‘weeks back home’ until some of them disappear. YABVU to give him an ultimatum OP.

Appreciate that the drink and smoke isn’t to your taste, it wouldn’t be to mine either but it’s 1 week.

Suck it up for another year, book an all inclusive for next year on instalments and by this time next year you’ll have two holidays.

You’ve hit the nail on the head here! As you suggest, if you go at Christmas, then don’t go in the summer. Sounds entirely fair to me seeing as you pay jointly for the trips. Yes, you deserve a say and no, it isn’t fair if you’re not getting a say. You need to be able to afford other holidays, especially as your child gets older (‘mum, please can we go to Disneyland for a change this year? Everyone else in my class has been’ and so on) and you want them to have other experiences x

Oh dear! That is difficult.

I think he should go on his own with the kids. l'm of the opinion we choose our partners, not their families and we can do things separately to spend more time with our families without the other person sacrificing their wellbeing if for whatever reason it doesn't work for them. Especially in a situation like this. Surely he can travel with a child. Having said that, did you have this conversation before having children together? Did one of you move the goalpost? Not saying you can't change your mind, just wondering.

So what? He chose to leave. He chose to marry and have a child in this country, knowing that his family couldn’t/wouldn’t visit and there was fuck all to do where they live, and now he won’t even compromise on spending some time elsewhere in his home country on their sole week’s holiday a year.

He’s a selfish knob.

I wouldn't even go on a holiday a where that involved 5 hours driving with a young child. Let your DH do a summer trip if he insists and do the Xmas one. Although that will change too as DCs get older and you are travelling with toddler and infant. I used to have to spend summer holidays with mothers' side of the family to a First World country but in the suburbs there us nothing to do except by car . Yes a BBQ is nice but kids being dragged around to visit relatives, grown ups start drinking is BORING. We hated it as kids . Rather be in summer camps with our friends and days out with parents.
Add a language issue and I would hate it . It is too bad for DH parents but that is the reality of immigration. Your DH could visit outside of peak times in order to keep in touch . Everyone has to accept that things change once you have children .

It's tricky. Seeing his family is very important and you knew that before you had children with him.

However, as someone who now insists on at least one holiday just the 4 of us because as much as I like my in laws I don't relax the same if we go away with them, I think quality time just your nuclear family is important too. I agree it's not a proper holiday got you.

However, I think you need to be more flexible. You don't seem to have mentioned the option of uk holidays? You could do that for around the £800 extra the holiday abroad cost, particularly if you go in terms time or get a caravan (which little kids always love!) and then go to Hungary too. Most families don't get to go abroad every year. My 10 year old has only been abroad twice in his life. He's still had a lovely holiday that he and I have enjoyed every year.

Or how about if you don't go with him and dd every time he goes, to save on some of the costs to save up for other holidays, and give you a break from feeling left out. You could work that week and then have more leave to spend some one to one time with dd at other times?

Good idea!

Yes, you kind of did sign up for this when you started a family with someone from a different country, BUT he also signed up for making compromises when he started a family with someone who wasn’t from that country. He wouldn’t consider it a holiday if he had to spend all of his a/l in the middle of nowhere with your parents, would he? And he doesn’t get to dictate that’s how you spend all of yours either. Are you just never going to have another holiday until all your DC are adults?

There is a lot of compromising to be done in circumstances like these, but it seems you’re the one doing all the compromising.

@Ablondiebutagoody , @Calmdownpeople, spending a 2 weeks of your annual leave with in-laws is not my idea of holidays.
Add to that the long journey there and back,and that for those two weeks, OP is with people who speak no English, and she doesn't speak their language.

Not everyone finds it easy to learn languages, and even if she did learn the language (classes/duolingo/DP), she would probably not be able to converse comfortably.

@YearlySubscriptionRenewal ,10 minutes a day is not going to teach OP the language.
I studied a foreign language for couple of years, and when I was in a group of people who spoke that language, I couldn't keep up.

If you ever end up in hospital … get your husband to get you an English speaker.

Doubt there none in a Hungarian hospital.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that the years you go at Xmas you do something else in the summer.

It will be nice for you and your DD to build memories in a different location (and for your DH).

I appreciate he wants to maintain contact but he also chose to move from his home country and having every holiday used for visiting isn’t really fair.

It is a reasonable request for someone to see their family three times in 2 years. Do you currently have a credit card where you can earn points? I was able to use the points that I had earned last year to fly to Stuttgart for the Christmas markets. Flights and hotels cost a total of £2. If you look around you may be able to also get your £800 holiday.

You make it sound like you're doing him a favour. His family is your child's as well.

Yeah I’d be refusing to go.

have the row, let dh handle it. If he wants to go on his own with dd then he can. She keeps in touch with her roots, he pays for the Hungary trip, you go on a cheap beach holiday.

This.

the OP has said her partner won't do this.

I think that OP mentioned that she'd tried to compromise - have a few days in Budapest - but her DH has refused.

I think that, while what the money and annual leave is used for is important, its not as important as the principle of equal partnership - equal say over how resource, in this case money and annual leave, is used. It seems as though in this case and over the holiday fund and the leave use, the partnership is not equal. Not a good way to run a partnership.

Would they consider visiting you

No need for the all the details and excuses.

Visiting In-Laws and staying with In-Laws is - for most people - NOT a holiday in any shape or form.

Reframe it as visiting his family. Can you turn it into a holiday? Stay longer, visit family BUT spend a few days in a "holiday resort" of your choosing. Lots of people holiday in Hungary if that's where it is, there are so many options.

Is seeing your parents once a year enough? Not really, but that's the reality of living abroad unfortunately. Could he go more often but alone? And it's not much but you should at least take the children once a year.

YABU about the language and big eye roll. Do 10mn a day and watch tv in subtitle or something. It's half of your children's if not culture but cultural heritage, it's not that much too ask, even if it takes a long time.