DH and I argue about Dubai!

[handwringer82]

DH and I just can't agree on Dubai. I feel I don't want to go there on holiday. I don't want to pay my money to visit, and I have many reasons why, which are complex, and probably shared by some others on this forum, but not everyone I know.

Anyway, DH works in finance where many of his colleagues travel to Dubai, and holiday there. He'd like to go in his lifetime. Whenever he raises it I say I don't want to go, so he can go with work etc but I'd rather not go as a family with our DC, and he gets really cross about it. This topic is like a trigger disagreement which always turns into an argument. It's really annoying. On a wider level we've had marital issues and have been having counselling and been making progress but whenever this topic comes up we argue. I've tried to articulate my feelings but he just doesn't get it and thinks I should set it aside to go with him as it's somewhere he wants to go in his lifetime.

Anyone on here who feels strongly like me and would never want to go there on holiday? I'm struggling to articulate why to him or make him understand. I've said he doesn't even need to understand - just respect - but it's not enough. He says why am I happy going to US since I'm not a fan of their gun laws, buts it's not the same.

Personally I wouldn't go to Dubai. Or India/Pakistan either. In fact I'd not visit anywhere with abysmal woman's rights records. They might be beautiful countries but I wouldn't deign them with my presence.

I don't fancy Dubai. The type of people who go there put me off - the Love Island bunch who all try to out pose each other and are obsessed with designer gear. It would do my head in.

Even if I wasn't keen, if my dh really wanted to go, we'd go one year. But equally if there was somewhere I wanted to go, I'd expect him to support me. Unless it's the one and only time you could afford a holiday of course.

Unless you have some very deep seated ethical reasons you don't want to go, I don't see what the issue is to compromise this once.

I wouldn't go there if you paid me

Don't see the appeal of Dubai at all. Even if it was a more ethical country, I can't imagine a more boring and soulless destination.

However, it's hard to comment on your situation with DH without knowing exactly why you are so strongly opposed to going. He does have a point when he says you would travel to other parts of the world such as US which also have a pretty awful human rights history. So I think to cross Dubai off your list based on ethics would mean also vetoing many other countries for your decision about Dubai to hold any substance.

It's just a holiday if you love him and want a future together just go. DH wants to go to Iceland I prefer 35+ and a nice pool. Planning Iceland for 2025 as its important to him.

I am going next month and I cannot wait!

You'll get people who'll say they wouldn't go, others who would. The question is how you want to deal with the disagreement itself.
You could refuse to compromise and he goes on his own.
You could compromise and go, next time you get to choose the destination.
You could both agree to go to another destination you are both happy with.

Slavery, women's rights, gay rights...I think that's enough reason not to go. I wouldn't go.

Yes, that is just the same.

Not wanting to go somewhere for ethical reasons is comparable to enjoying different activities.

I felt the same, but I also I think the post by @ComtesseDeSpair is really interesting… the UK was also built on slavery, drug trafficking and likely some sex trafficking!

@handwringer82 I never fancied a trip to Dubai, have family working and living there.
Anyway, dc wanted to go- so I agreed. I actually enjoyed it far more than I thought I would and we bumped into Ben Affleck 😂

It's called making sacrifices for the person you love. I expect you'd be quite happy to ask him to go somewhere that meant so much to you, if he didn't have any desire to go there! When you love someone you occasionally do things you don't want to do, but is important to them! Especially when them having you there with them when they go, would also mean a lot to them.

In the case of the UK (and the UK's rampant structural misogyny making women clearly second-hand citizens), this was significantly further in the past than for Dubai, where it's a recent and ongoing issue. If you've got access to a time machine and you're wondering whether you should use it to go to say 1750 UK or 1890 UK, whatever, that's a reasonable point of comparison. Otherwise it's a very different situation to compare to modern UK.

Nobody's claiming that the country of travel need to have a good and decent history. But where these things are in the present, it is a greater concern.

Why can't DH make the sacrifice for OP?

Why does OP have to make the sacrifice, as (probably) a woman who would have to accept going to somewhere where being female makes you a second-class person?

My DH and I were talking about hypothetically if he got offered a job there as he could do and I said I wouldn't want to go live there and he said fair enough he would not go or go on his own which would be fine

Exactly this. The whole place seems so fake and I hate all that glitzy consumerism. I have zero interest in shopping malls.

It's repressive. And a bit naff

I’d go. In the end of the day it’s a just holiday.

I feel the same as you about Dubai. I would only seriously consider it - and I mean consider, not necessarily agree - if he would genuinely be willing to go somewhere he didn’t want to which would appeal to you and was important to you to visit.

I used to live there and loathed it, to the point where I quit my job and left for London. Leaving aside entirely the human rights record and the fact that it’s a dictatorship, it is an environmental disaster, has a horrible climate, and is, frankly, a dull place to live.

It’s a bit weird that a holiday destination is such a trigger. Can’t he go alone? DH loves skiing, but it bores me, so I go somewhere else.

I am fairly well travelled, including to some countries with undemocratic / corrupt / authoritarian governments, but I haven’t been to the UAE and have no plans to go there. Partly because I have concerns about the laws of the various emirates, and partly because it just doesn’t seem to be my sort of place.

However, if DP decided he wanted to go there, I wouldn’t try to stop him or dissuade him or generally be a dick about it, I would simply tell him to go on his own. It isn’t compulsory for couples to go everywhere & do everything together. In fact, it’s rather unadventurous & boring.

You might enjoy next door Oman if you don't want to go to Dubai. It's easy to drive from Oman to Dubai for your DH to spend a day or 2 there. I owned a property in Dubai for 10 years.

What happened to basic respect where no means no. It doesn't even matter why. You don't want to go, you said he can go and thats all that matters and he needs to respect that.

You cant make someone do something.

When's your next holiday to Afghanistan then?