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

Living in a different country doesn’t mean you have rejected your home country and don’t want to go home and see your family. This can also change once you have a child. Going home twice a year is not a lot. What personal insults by the way?

The DH has chosen not to live in their home country. The DH wants to earn more living somewhere else. The DH has rejected the lifestyle of their home country before even meeting the OP. They can visit anytime they want. But it’s rather feudal to insist the OP has to spend all disposable income on holidays there. Perhaps they should have come to a more flexible arrangement beforehand but that’s hindsight. There’s monetary control being exerted here giving the OP no choice in the matter. That’s not ok. And nowhere is it being said the DH can’t go and visit. He isn’t compromising at all . He’s left Hungary. The OP is compromising in terms of holidays and financial expectation. But by all means resort to personal insult when someone doesn’t agree with you…

So many posters ignoring that he wants to take his DD!

If this was a new mum posting she was living in DH’s country and wanted to go home with her child to her family twice a year, but her DH wanted a different holiday so she could only go once, no way would she receive the same responses. It would be LTB all the way. A man also had the need to see his family, his home country WITH his child. OP can stay at home, but she doesn’t want that.

Where on earth did you get that figure from? According to the Economic Research Institute the average yearly salary for a medical doctor is PLN 311 000 which comes to just under PLN 26 000 (c. £5200). Source:
https://www.erieri.com/salary/job/medical-doctor/poland
For comparison, the median price per square metre in the UK is GBP 8,306/m² https://www.properstar.co.uk/united-kingdom/house-price
Median house price for square metre in Poland is PLN 6,514 (c.£1300) https://www.properstar.co.uk/poland/house-price

That's more spending power than the same salary would give you in the UK. The standard of living in Poland has improved massively in Poland, it is not the poor third world country you're trying to make it out to be.

Some further light reading for you:
https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/04/21/the-polish-miracle-outpacing-japan-in-just-one-generation/

https://think.ing.com/snaps/poland-cee-peers-2024/

https://businessleader.co.uk/content/article/22/The-rise-of-an-underdog:-How-this-European-nation-is-quietly-dominating-the-global-stage

https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/how-poland-became-one-of-europes-biggest-success-stories-q7kq9mrpz

OP apologies for hijacking your thread

If your PIl can't meet you in Budapest or half way from the airport, can't your DH go in the summer on his own and you go with your DD and perhaps a friend somewhere where you would like to go.
I would not be overjoyed by spending every summer holiday in a remote village. It seems a little unfair.

My parents and extended family all live abroad. Since my son was born, I travel alone most of the time to spend time with them and we take a separate family holiday with my husband. I wouldn’t expect my husband to take leave to hang out with my parents and relatives (it’s fun to catch up but pretty full on!) and the fact that it’s abroad doesn’t make it a holiday. I certainly wouldn’t expect him ever to travel to see my family twice in a year. You’re being more than reasonable suggesting you do something else in the years you travel there for Christmas. My husband doesn’t speak the language etc and I recognise it’s really isolating for him when we’re there, even though all my relatives speak good English, there is still a tendency to slip into foreign speak when we all get together. Your husband is clearly super proud of you and your child, and wants your family to spend time with you both. But there is some room for compromise here. My husband’s family are U.K. based but all around 4 hours drive away, so my husband tends to visit them with my son and I stay home. It suits us and it works well for both of us.

@MrsDexterr You're right, I’d missed that.

DP is a brilliant father but I don’t think I could be away from DD so long at this age, I would be on edge. I appreciate that’s my own problem. He says he’d feel sad going on his own as they would all miss DD.

She’d need to compromise sometimes on that, although I don’t always bring my children when I visit. I will say that it becomes much easier as children get older.

Although once they’re teenagers, they sometimes start fussing themselves! I took DS (16) to the UK this spring and he wasn’t the greatest travel companion tbh, he grumbled a lot. He’s better when DD comes too.

And? Settled doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to see his family regularly. He hasn’t somehow dropped all his emotions, and needs in relation to his home.

Ermmm….my response was a reflection of the suggestion somehow being ‘settled’ somehow is less important than the needs of the OP to have a holiday.

this is a two-way thing. Both have a legitimate claim on holiday time and money. They both need to compromise.

If you both work for the NHS would you be able to move to a different, cheaper, part of the UK?

And if you're struggling to afford holidays, please don't have any more children - you can't afford them.

In your place I'd let him go with DD and have a week on holiday on my own!

Sorry I’ve just seen your comments about the location of your in laws. I have family on my side in Hungary and due to money amongst other things they don’t tend to go anywhere. Not even flying to the UK for funerals. I also remember my DF sending money frequently from the UK.
realistically they aren’t going h to travel.
the additional pressure of school holiday prices makes this all challenging for you and your quality of life.
I would suggest the alternate Christmas and summer as you suggested earlier in the thread. In addition your DH can travel on his own at cheaper times to see his family.
fir whatever reason you are the only one having to make sacrifices here. You need to be firm now or it will only get trickier.

OP doesn’t have to go, but what about her child. Surely he can go alone with their child and reading the OP posts she doesn’t want that unless I misunderstand her.

Having a child with someone from another country comes with quite a few compromises.

I agree with you OP. Christmas with his family and that year you do a holiday if your choice and another year when you’re not with his family at Christmas you see them in the summer.
Otherwise all your affordable annual leave/holiday money is spent seeing them.
the language stuff is a red herring as even if you spoke the same first language the time issue would be the same.
we had the same with DHs family. Every Christmas and summer holiday was expected to be spent with them. (Often with the money being saved held over us as a form of control)
you are not being unreasonable. Definitely look to implementing the ‘rota’ you suggest.
also, what’s to stop them visiting?

No one has said he shouldn't visit his family. That doesn't mean he's made some huge sacrifice for OP and that she should repay it by spending all her annual leave and money on his visits. He hasn't done OP a huge favour by being in the UK. He had already settled here.

DH's family is Irish and his dad now lives back there so we go for 2 weeks every summer. It IS NOT a holiday! It's more stressful than being at home. The endless visiting aunties, the expectation to do XYZ. They live in the middle of nowhere so everywhere is a car journey. Family drop in unexpectedly (even though they live hours away) and as the only woman I'm expected to jump to it and make sandwiches and host. We've exhausted all days out within an hour's drive.
Now DH takes the kids himself for a week at the end of the hols and if we can get cheap flights we go for a week at Easter or DH might go with his brother.
We now go away just the 4 of us at least once a year.

He can go alone there once a year if affordable and have a family holidays with you and babe the rest of the time.

His visit should become less of it is a choice between holidays for everyone or just seeing his family. He can’t expect you to want to go there as your sole holidays if you don’t come from there too…it is family meeting, not holidays.

Good luck 🌺

Don't be ridiculous. The OP isn't suggesting cutting her partner and child off from the Hungarian side of the family and is happy for their child to learn the language: she's merely requesting that she be able to spend some of her money on relaxing for a few days.

Her suggestion that they spend part of the time in Budapest as a compromise is entirely reasonable. It's the partner who has knocked that back.

Staying with family all the time isn't a holiday.

The one time that my mum was really able to enjoy a holiday over in Dad's country was the time she was able to book them into hotels. They met family in the capital city and in one of the other cities, but were also able to travel into the village to see folk there.

DH and I did the same the last two times we visited. Staying in hotels meant that we had space to decompress.

I am finding myself increasingly annoyed at those castigating the OP.

At one point, I participated in joint conversation classes for Serbian and I mentioned some of my childhood experiences. The teachers burst out laughing and said "Oh, every child in the Balkans goes through that trauma in their life!"

Other students from different central and eastern European countries shared similar experiences. (One of the students was a middle-aged man from Hungary.)

This was light-hearted - but there was an acknowledgement of how difficult it can be when you're restricted to one little village at the back of beyond. Living conditions have improved over the years, but life there can be very difficult for someone used to living in the west or in central/eastern European cities. I'm not just talking about living conditions, but attitudes - particularly towards women.

If this was expected to be your 'holiday' from your difficult job every year, I imagine that it would be really distressing.

So the fact he settled means he shouldn’t miss or want to spend time with his family? Hat his children shouldn’t know their paternal family, their father’s language and culture?

DP has the driving licence, so rent a 7 seater, drive to the village, rest, get the family members and drive to Balaton? But it’s also reasonable to suggest that, in the circumstances, you have a holiday elsewhere in summer when you go to Hungary for Christmas. Your arguments presented here to us are convincing, does your DH just doesn’t see reason and shuts you down?

There are no winners here but I entirely understand your need for a proper holiday. We visited family in the Middle East for many years but it never, ever felt like a ‘proper’ holiday.
Discuss it with your partner, tell him about your isolation and perhaps try to gain a compromise by having some days out as your own little family. And, as someone else suggested, hire a car and cut out those horrendous journeys on public transport
Your parter etc needs to see his family, your daughter needs to know her roots, and you need a bit of space with your group of three.
By the way, his dad sounds a complete nightmare.

But I assume you are free to visit your home country as much as you like if this is important to you. And take your children.

Doesn’t sound like a holiday to me. They can come and see you, he can go and see them on his own. Also with regards to his dad being an alcoholic, if he’s actually an alcoholic he wouldn’t be coming near my child. I didn’t give my own farther access to our kids when he was drinking and I’d definitely extend that to an in law in a foreign country where no one could drive us to a hospital if something went wrong.

I am in this situation, we live in DHs country. So I understand it would be very unfair for me to demand that DH spends all his holidays visiting my relatives.

@MrsDexterr My take was that they have a joint “holiday pot” that they both put their extra money into. Her partner says that it can only be used for trips to Hungary though.

If the OP doesn’t want to go to Hungary every time, they won’t need as much and she could put some of her money aside for the beach holiday that she wants. It’ll take a while to save up for it, but perhaps she’ll have enough in three years, for example.