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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed DH wants to go on a Stag do to Thailand

481 replies

FedupwithDisney · 24/04/2012 20:45

My DH has just announced that one of his best mates (was DH's Best Man) is having his Stag do in Thailand for a week later this year and he will be going.

I am pretty annoyed. Every time I ask him to book time off work to do something as a family I get "it's not a good time at work" "I'm too busy" etc. We do have some family holiday time booked, but it's been a battle to get him to do it. He hasn't even taken all his Paternity leave that he is entitled to as work is "so busy" (DD2 is 12 weeks old). He does have a good job and I understand the pressures but how come he can suddenly take off a week for this?

If he goes I will be at home with a 3yo and a 8 mo. Guess I'll cope, I don't see him much in the week as it is, but I'm annoyed that he'll be away having a ball and I'll be dealing with the kids on my own for a week.

I'm also annoyed about the money. Surely it will cost loads. We're comfortable, but certainly not rolling in it. He gets a bonus in August which he's probably planning on using but I can think of much better things we could spend this money on like trips for the DC's and stuff for the house.

AIBU to be annoyed? He knows I'm pissed off and is sucking up to me big time, making the dinner and tidying up!

OP posts:
MrsTerryPratchett · 26/04/2012 17:28

Are the small minded idiots; the stag party; the people on the thread who have spent lots of time in Thailand, love it and would rather less stag parties were there at the same time; someone else?

pinktrees · 26/04/2012 18:46

Nobody has suggested that Thailand has nothing else to offer than sex. Of course it does. But having a stag do there does imply they are going for the sex. Having a family holiday there is a different matter.

Look at the drug taking and clubbing that goes on in Ibiza. Families with little children (eg the Camerons) take family holidays there.

Hownoobrooncoo · 26/04/2012 19:09

Quite a few posters made it seem like Thailand is nothing but a brothel and all tourists are sex tourist. Quite insulting to the country and the people and any men who go there who want nothing to do with the sex industry.

msrisotto · 26/04/2012 19:13

Quite a few people also made the point that it is a perfectly lovely destination holiday. However, Stag dos are notorious for being about drinking and often strippers and worse.You can go abroad for far cheaper to achieve this, and you'd have more beer money. In the light of this, it did make the prospect of a stag do in this particular location suspect.

Hownoobrooncoo · 26/04/2012 19:19

I don't disagree, I hate the sex trade and that many ordinary, respectable men can leave their morals at the immigration desk. Smacks of it's ok cos these people aren't like us and practically sub human. Just don't like to see the whole country tarred that way.

SodoffBaldrick · 26/04/2012 19:23

Not one single person on this thread has tarred the whole country that way.

456 posts later - we're expressly talking about stag parties going to Thailand.

Hownoobrooncoo · 26/04/2012 19:26

I disagree. There have been some really narrow minded posts and I don't think the posters were just referring to the stag do.

SodoffBaldrick · 26/04/2012 19:31

Care to copy and paste? I didn't see a single one deriding the whole country; just the sex industry.

Hownoobrooncoo · 26/04/2012 19:34

TBH, I can't be bothered to go through such a long thread but of course I'm right.

MrsTerryPratchett · 26/04/2012 19:49

I have prefaced at least one of my posts with "I love Thailand".

HappyMummyOfOne · 26/04/2012 20:07

"WOW Happymummyofone..you really would put up with anything to hang on to your wealthy husband wouldnt you"

I dont have a wealthy husband unless you know something i dont, please point me in the direction that says I do wont you carernotasaint.

I just didnt see why the OP's DH shouldnt spend some of his wages on what he likes and adults can have fun without their partner. Nobody is joined at the hip. I wouldnt be impressed if DH tried to tell me how to spend my wages or my time.

The destination I know little about but thats a side issue.

Hownoobrooncoo · 26/04/2012 20:14

Many people did Mrs T but some were very scathing.

'Thailand = loads of dosh + wall to wall 'ping pong out the vag' strip shows '

'Well I do equate Thailand with sex'

'My dp wanted to take me and the kids there i said NO fucking way.His told me some really sleezy stuff about friends and thailand.My mum and sis were mad when i told them he wanted to take us there.Why would he want to go there when he knows what its about.'

'Malificence - I am so glad it is not only me who wont go there. A friend of mine went and she told me they sell women on the street, never mind in strip joints.'

I get the impression quite a few folk think that Thailand is nothing but a disgusting, filth place. Must be nice for Thai folk to see how folk view their country.

Malificence · 26/04/2012 21:11

Then the Thai people should stop welcoming the scumbag men who go there to pay to rape their women and children. They should be putting them in a filthy Thai jail for 20 years.

bintofbohemia · 26/04/2012 21:40

Quite, Malificence. It's an amazing place but very hard for that side of it not to tinge your whole perception of the place, it's bloody ubiquitous.

SodoffBaldrick · 26/04/2012 22:53

To be honest, I had no idea that parts of it are quite as bad as this thread indicates.

DH spent a fair amount of time there in his gap year and loved it, but he was travelling with a big mixed group of old friends and it was all about the sun, sea and cheap drugs. He has never mentioned the seedier parts of it at all. He really wants to take me there one day. My BF, her DH and DD stopped over there on their way home from the UK and loved it - great for kids, according to them.

Although I do know about the sex trade there (went to uni with two Thai girls who'd got out), I actally didn't realise how bad it was until some of the comments on this thread, which are quite frankly shocking - thinking especially of all the children involved - I almost can't read some of the stories.

A friend of a friend's DH goes there fairly regularly by himself - wrangles a few days there by himself whenever they travel home to visit her family. Pretty much always does this, and always by himself. It's a bit of a standing joke for the rest of us as to why he goes there of all places, but actually, after reading this I'm beginning to wonder if it's really that much of a laughing matter... :(

Minshu · 26/04/2012 23:10

DP reckons the stag is the unreasonable and unrealistic one. I reckon the stag doesn't really want to get married, but couldn't think of another way of getting his mates to go on holiday with him... Feel sorry for the bride.

Glad OP's situation is sorted, and hope that this can morph into a discussion about a good family holiday instead.

MrMiyagi · 26/04/2012 23:58

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet for breaking our Talk Guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

MrMiyagi · 26/04/2012 23:59

"'My dp wanted to take me and the kids there i said NO fucking way.His told me some really sleezy stuff about friends and thailand.My mum and sis were mad when i told them he wanted to take us there.Why would he want to go there when he knows what its about.'"

Bloody hell, do you run crying to your mummy and sister every time your "DP" has a thought you disagree with?

WilsonFrickett · 27/04/2012 00:47

Again.
There is more to Thailand than the sex trade, as practically every poster has pointed out.
That said, the stats quote that something like 70% of lone male tourists visit Thailand to participate in the sex trade and 40% of the tourist income generated in Thailand is linked to the sex trade.

No-one - absolutely no-one suggested that the OPs DH was planning to engage in the sex trade, but many, many people made the point that it was likely that a stag do in Thailand may involve a level of participation in the sex industry.
'Tourist shows' in Patpong are the sex industry.
Drinking in girlie bars is the sex industry.
Organised stag do's that have marketing info that says 'try putting your hands up a girl's skirt to check she isn't a ladyboy' is the sex industry.

So no, MrM we are not agreed that men on stag dos are rapist scum. But we are agreed that men on stag dos in Thailand are likely to be at best colluding in, and at worst directly participating in, the sex industry.

I leave you with a quote from a Thai resident upthread

some of the prostitutes still have their milk teeth

lookingtobuy · 27/04/2012 01:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheBossofMe · 27/04/2012 06:13

Malificence unfortunately use of prostitutes in Thailand is not confined to sexpats. It is rife within the Thai population itself. That, and the fact that it is a multimillion dollar industry that a lot of people make money out of, is why they don't crack down on it.

Malificence · 27/04/2012 08:01

Lets get this clear MrMyagi

men on stag dos - who participate in the sex trade , both here and especially abroad - are rapist scum.

Happy now I've clarified?

springaroundthecorner · 27/04/2012 08:58

Have been following this thread with interest and I am delighted to see that all has ended well for you OP. I hope the same can be said for the bride to be!

Just as an aside -in the last couple of years our local councillor has a heart attack out in Bankok when "holidaying without his wife or adult children". Shock It was all over the local paper. He is still a councillor and I saw him out recently with his wife and two other women of her age being Mr Charming. It quite put me off my dinner. They are all people in their 60's. Very few people seemed to think anything of it round here. What innocents so many people are!

AThingInYourLife · 27/04/2012 10:24

"I wouldnt be impressed if DH tried to tell me how to spend my wages or my time."

Well that's what this DH did to the OP - told her that she'd be spending a week of her time with sole care of their children.

I'd be annoyed by that too.

And I'd still be annoyed if he only realised what a dick he was being because he slagged me off in public and some men pointed it out to him.

And no, I don't whinge about my husband to work colleagues.

1 I love him and don't want other people who don't know him to think badly of him
2 whinging about your spouse in public makes you look like a pathetic dick
3 it doesn't make you look good professionally

thefurryone · 27/04/2012 11:31

Great news OP.

Is it just me laughing at those moaning on an AIBU thread that the OP's husband could only see that he was being unreasonable after talking to his male colleagues?