Do your holidays always end with tension?

[legoagain]

I think it is being with each other all day every day, the pressure to make the most of the time and facilitating everyone else's enjoyment.

It always seems to get too much on the last day as I realise I've had limited time to myself and not once has anyone asked if I would like to do something.

Now having to deal with the apologies and feeling bad for losing my cool.

Anyone else's holidays end in a similar way?

Why don’t you make your wishes known during the holiday, you are just as important as the rest of the family?

No, they often start that way.

why are you martyring yourself so that you don’t even enjoy your own holiday?

Exactly, when the DC are jumping up and down asking to go to the water park it’s the time to say we will do that on Thursday the day after I’ve had my spa morning and daddy has taken you swimming to the park etc,

I relax once I am there after the train journey and I stay relaxed after that.

Why are you ruining everyone else’s holiday and tainting the memory with the bad vibes because you chose to martyr yourself and failed to be assertive?

No!

Worse one was when DH & I were looking after 5 kids, 3 of whom were somewhat entitled older teens.

No, our holidays are when we are “our best selves”.

No. Not since I became single. I now holiday with friends/adult DC/alone and have a brilliant time.

Depends entirely on who I'm going with.

My ex husband? Getting ready for the holiday, and getting ready for its end, would both be fraught with stress. He'd sort his own stuff out and I'd be left to sort out mine, the kids and general family stuff (like suncream, first aid kit, crockery if camping etc), while ensuring all laundry was done and food was arranged on the way there, and we had enough food and everything safely back in bags while also ensuring the kids were ready for our departure on the way back. In short, I did the work of 3.5 people while he only had himself to worry about.

My current boyfriend and I have just been on our first holiday together, albeit without kids, and it was night and day. We both contributed equally to getting everything packed and ready, are both very organised and punctual, so got up with plenty of time to spare both on arrival and departure, both already pre-packed with all necessities, both knew and checked in with our respective roles, so our arrival and departure days were quite relaxed.

And because we had discussed the itinerary beforehand, we both knew what we'd do and ensured an equal amount of enjoyment from activities we wanted to do. We had even built-in time and plans for alone time if needed (it wasn't).

In short, the person you go with (or the people) makes all the difference.

Usually start with a dust-up. All the stress of acruelly getting away.

No

No, definitely not. Holidays and days out are my absolute favourite.

That was my DH and I before we identified 10 points that could happen during the journey that may contribute to a row. Things like me taking too long to choosing magazines in WH Smith at the airport, DH not eating enough and getting hangry etc etc. Now we’ve identified these 10 trigger points we are aware of them, try and avoid them and all is good.