AIBU? (DH hates swimming)

[neighbourhoodwitch]

I am so upset and think I need some perspective. We are going on holiday soon where there is a pool on site.

Me and the DCs love swimming but my DH hates it with a passion. Right now I am on a very heavy period and asked if he could take them swimming if I am still on when we get there and he said no. I got upset, saying it was not about him (couldn't he do it for the DCs?) and he said he felt like he was being badgered by me (like a bear in a cage being stabbed with a stick :-(). I was crying afterwards (he did not know), but I just cannot understand how he could not just commit to helping for my peace of mind & for the DCs enjoyment (on the off-chance I cannot go in the pool).

AIBU? In every other way he is fab (not perfect), but this is the one thing that really upsets me.

I hate going on fairground rides. My husband knows this. If he then tried to morally blackmail me into doing it 'for the children' I would be furious.

Luckily he doesn't, and as he doesn't like rides either we don't do theme parks. I know that swimming is a bit more ubiquitous, but I'm not really understanding why you have chosen a holiday with swimming as a main activity when your dh hates it. If it's not a main activity then doing something else for the first few days doesn't seem like such a bad thing?

My parents never arranged their holidays around our likes, we had I think one beach holiday ever (my father hates sand). Mostly we went on walking holidays in the mountains becasue that's what they liked to do.

However possibly the argument was more about your dh being a bit opted out of the holiday and all the required arrangements.

I'm also a bit puzzled as to why you can't tell your children that you have a period. At 11 your older child presumably knows all about periods from school sex ed if nothing else. Some of their classmates probably have periods already. I used to do the weekly swim with my children and as I don't swim with a period then we didn't go. Neither had an issue with accepting that.

Soon you must have light periods. I struggle to get from the toilet to the bath without dripping on the floor. There is no way I could get from whereever I would need to prepare to a swimming pool without leaving a trail of blood! As the OP describes her period as heavy, her situation is presumably similar.

I hate fairground rides too nooka, but I'd happily go along to a theme park, stand in the queue, make sure DS got on safely and watch out for him at the end if DH was unable to do it.

Like many from the 70s my parents too didn't "do" childrens holidays. Unlike everyone else apparently, I do resent this. I was an only DC and it would have been nice to say go to a beach or when we happened to be in Florida because my GPs lived there go to Disney for one flippin day. I'm not saying everything has to be child centric but balance is a good thing.

I'm a 70s kid too, and I did wish for the beach holidays my classmates talked about. I think that there is a happy medium though. For me that doesn't involve theme parks. I'm a very poor swimmer and the idea of going somewhere for a week and hanging out at a beach does not appeal at all so we don't do that either (doesn't appeal to dh or ds either). Horses for courses. Of course it's tricky when half of the family loves to do something the other half hates. For example I love white water rafting, but dh has major issues with getting his ears wet. So if I want to do that it's for me to organise with the kids.

We semi resolved the problem nooka on our most recent holiday to the Dordogne by letting each member of our 3 person family choose the activities on rotating days.

So DH chose canoeing for both his ( thankfully I was deemed to be such a poor canoer that both DH and DS voted that I didn't go on the second trip and got to spend the day in a lovely town instead), I chose an historic thing for one of my days and a train to cave paintings for the second one and DS chose canoeing for one of his ( so i had to go on the third outing and a lazy day by the pool with some mini golf for the other.

DH was spitting feathers about "wasting a day" doing this, so I had to remind him that he had had his choices and DS was entitled to his.

I guess it's all about compromise. To me it's all very well to say why pick a place with swimming if he hates it, but unfortunately liking pools is a fairly universal thing amongst DCs. Our friends DH has a loathing of Center Parks and in particular the pool, so you could say well then he shouldn't have to go, but their two DCs love it, other families are going so the DW has a good time, so should the entire family never get to go there because 1/4 of them doesn't like it? In this case the DW went ahead and booked it and we said that if DH doesn't want to come we'll make sure that one of the other parents looks after the second DC in the pool, or happy to do it even if he does.

Sorry probably a thread tangental ramble....

Sounds like a good way to go. We don't generally have much of an issue about what we do when we do go on holiday to be honest, but I'd say that it's probably more skewed towards me and dh's preferences as we don't get to go very often and when we do we really need the break/adventure. As emigrants far too many of our holidays are used up visiting family.