AIBU to say no to 'holiday'

[niceguy2]

My wife & I are in quite a fortunate position insofar as I earn a good income and have a side income from a business which is doing OK. My wife gave up her job in Feb due to stress of the position. A decision I supported as I could see how unhappy she was but at the same time I warned that whilst we'd be OK financially, until she found a new job that we'd have to cut back on the luxuries.

Last month my DD managed to get into Uni and will go in Sept. Due to my income, she won't be eligible for anything except the minimum loans which won't even cover her rent. The rest we'll be expected to fund. I don't have an issue with that. It's something I realised when she was born that I'd probably have to fund one day.

This morning my wife has put pressure on me by saying she wants to go visit her family who live abroad in the summer. I explained that we'd have to see how money is nearer the time but that doesn't seem to be good enough for her. And that it's all a matter of priorities. She's right. And it's not my priority right now to fund a trip abroad for us all whilst she's not working and we are down 1/3 of our monthly income. Obviously she's not happy about that.

Given we've only just come back from a week's break when her family came to visit us that cost us a fair bit, I'm reeling a bit. I'm just worried right now how we will cope with funding DD through Uni if she is still not working.

All would be OK if she got a job but since Feb my wife has managed to apply for absolutely no jobs. Yesterday she managed to show me her CV which looks great, as it should for 2.5 months work. If she was applying for jobs then I could maybe see that in time she'd get a job and we'd be OK again.

I don't even mind what job it is or how much it pays. My income pays for our usual living expenses and my side income could fund DD through Uni if my wife works. But it can't do that AND go on holidays. Of course she doesn't see it as a holiday but frankly that's exactly what it is.

So AIBU?

wow harshbuttrue - that's an interesting perspective. She has been unemployed for 2.5 months and she is already a lazy scrounger. Are you Iain Duncan Smith in disguise?

And you're not even the first nasty person to suggest it, see upthread. so you're both unoriginal and awful too!

fucks sake, some women just try to be even cuntier than the men, don't they. Women, work every day of your lives our you're a scrounging bitch stealing his cash! Niiiiice.

But in that time she's made no effort to look for a job, unexpsoc, and she's having a holiday when the OP probably won't be able to - I don't think that's fair if she's not working and he is.

I can't believe most of the responses on here. A couple's finances have dropped, they can no longer afford a holiday. It really isn't complicated. If there is enough money for one of them to go away for a break, it should be the person going out to work every day. And I say this as someone that didn't work last year for a number of months due to depression and anxiety. I wouldn't have dreamt of asking DH to fund a holiday that we blatantly couldn't afford.

imperialblether - not disputing the facts but I do find some posters on here (and I can understand why given SOME of the anti-male vitriol you can find on here) look to go to massive extremes from those basic bits of information.

Quick pass me the phone number for Katie Hopkins. I DEMAND to be outraged about this.

I'm clearly reading a different thread from some on here

You in no way sound controlling or unreasonable at all. You actually sound really supportive but practical at the same time.

Yanbu.

It must be really hard to get a foreign wife whos thousands of miles from home, AND to have to support them sometimes to see their own family.

I hope your wife finds a job soon and isnt so reliant on you, but as youve said, thats not even what you really want either. Its a tricky situation

The thing which stands out for me if the wife's apparent complete disinterest in the finances. Granted it's sometimes easier for one person to do the actual paperwork, etc, but to have no real interest at all?

OP can I gently ask if there are specific cultural issues/expectations involved here?

And

I don't earn at the moment, I have holidays. So bollocks to that!

How do you afford them? Someone must be earning the money to pay for them. Are you contributing anything? Perhaps it's part of a SAHM arrangement? Who knows - fact is OPs wife is no longer paying in and still wants to take out. It isn't fair. Should she be kept just because she is a woman?

I think that's a shit compromise OP. So now your wife and her son get a holiday and you and your daughter don't? I think you're getting a raw deal here and I wouldn't have agreed to that.

This sounds a lot like me when I was unemployed from a job I hated (that had done in my mind) and was spiraling into depression about 8 years ago. I hid from reality something awful and would squirm when forced too. I would grab at things in order to drag myself out of it.

As I recall I got out of it by adding constructive things to my life. A two day month job, voluntary work, cheap redecorating. If this is the case for your wife part of me says go even though you can't afford it. I think it would have helped me gain perspective on my on actions. On other hand maybe I would have known it was ridiculous on some level and would have struggled with it.

It's amazing how easy it was to find work once my state of mind had changed.

I would agree that the OP has taken the raw deal if he's working FT and going without the holiday. I'm not quite sure that even fits the definition of 'compromise'!

I don't know why people are taking about JSA, the law (up north) says that a couple need £140(ish) a week to live on, if her partner earns over that she'll get exactly £0

How do you afford them? Someone must be earning the money to pay for them. Are you contributing anything? Perhaps it's part of a SAHM arrangement? Who knows - fact is OPs wife is no longer paying in and still wants to take out. It isn't fair. Should she be kept just because she is a woman?

None of your business how we afford them. None of your business what I contribute, if anything.

Not paying in but taking out? What a mercenary view of relationships! What happened to in sickness and in health, richer and poorer, sharing all our worldly goods etc etc? She should be "kept" (awful way to look at it) because that's what spouses who love each other do.
She left her job just weeks ago, the poor woman, some of you would have her out on the street the day she stopped paying her way!

Are you reading this still OP? Does it please you to see your wife portrayed this way?

Vodka I claimed JSA after taking voluntary redundancy at my old job, while living with my husband who earned 30k-ish. It came through no problem.

Think there are 2 types of JSA - income and contribution based iirc.

And if it's really none of my business then you really shouldn't have offered it as some kind of 'evidence' that my point was incorrect - that's playground level of argument/debate.

Sharing all our worldly goods with someone who thinks it's ok for their other half to work full time and take no holiday but they should still be entitled to one? I'm afraid I didn't choose to marry someone with an attitude like that.

When I was signed off work with stress there is no way I'd have expected to take a holiday from joint finances if we could not properly afford it for all of us. In fact I bought nothing except family groceries until I was back at work. I'm sure everyone would become less stressed if they could all take holidays to recover that they didn't have to pay for. I, however, recognise that the real world doesn't work like that. I respect my DH's contribution to family finances and to supporting me when I had to leave my job due to stress but I didn't expect him to fund holidays we couldn't afford, regardless of my stress levels.

I wish people wouldn't constantly say that advice would be different were the OP a woman. Yes, it probably would. But if he posted on the 90% of the internet dedicated to men, men's interests, porn and kittens, he would get a different answer again.

He CHOSE to ask here, knowing that we are mainly pretty fucking no bullshit women. He CHOSE to listen to advice and work with what he got. And I think I'm right that the OP has been around a while so he's not some sad newb who stumbled on here and is horrified by us vicious women-loving women. He wanted advice from MN and he got it.

FWIW I was going to talk about what it's like to be the person who lives in their partner's country and how hard that is, particularly when you are stressed and unhappy. I won't, in case my ovaries start signalling their distaste.

That doesn't make the difference in advice that men and women get on here OK though. Far from it.

That's exactly why I offered it, because I knew you'd be nosy enough to ask. And then be a dick about it.
Point proved!

But it does. We know the difference in earning potential, the respective value placed on women's labour, the difference in the amount of caring roles women have to do, the socialisation, the power, the fact that women's jobs are paid worse, the expectations on women's time, the extra jobs that school wants from us, the extra work involved in everything. Because we live it.

Unless you think that women and men are really equal they're not then the advice is different. When I get paid as much as DH, and the school don't call me first when DD is ill or hurt (even though his number is first on the sheet) then we'll talk.

I think that's a shit compromise OP. So now your wife and her son get a holiday and you and your daughter don't? I think you're getting a raw deal here and I wouldn't have agreed to that.

It's not that bad a compromise really. Her argument is that it's not really a holiday and that it's to see her family. I can happily skip it since I can't speak the language anyway so I just end up following around. My daughter has already said she doesn't want to go as her priority is to work every hour she can to save money for Uni and my son is going on holiday with his mum.

So the only person who doesn't get a holiday would be me. I can live with that. It's not my priority.

@Harshbuttrue - Ha ha, thanks for the laugh but I hardly think so. I don't mind if she doesn't work at all but she's the one who wants to work which I am also happy to support. I am happy as long as our spending matches our income.

Right now we have a way forward which we're both happy with. Of course it's not ideal but life rarely is.

Talk to me or not, doesn't bother me one jot Terry

Otoh, what I dislike intensely on here is the difference in responses to men posting. Nothing to do with whether or not the school phones me first (it doesn't) or whether DH earns more than I do (he does, I would hate his job)

"When I get paid as much as DH, and the school don't call me first when DD is ill or hurt (even though his number is first on the sheet) then we'll talk."

Bad drills by the school. I am always first called when my psychopath 4 year old is poorly. Although I do earn more - by dint of my profession rather than my gender. Who makes the call from the school?

I think people are either willfully misunderstanding or they genuinely think there is no societal, structural difference in the way men and women experience life. Which is it?