DH 'asking permission'

[BettySwoll0cks]

Is anyone else fed up with their DH "asking permission" to do stuff they haven't thought through, that clearly impacts on family life? Mine just asked "can I go cycling across France for 3 weeks next May?" and I was like, I don't know, can you? Can "we" manage it?

We have one DC who is at pre school during term time, so we need childcare solutions over holidays (like most people). DH gets one long leave entitlement per year which he is planning to use for the cycling. I pointed out that we would need to think through how we will manage school hols between us and he just completely shut down and said I was telling him he couldn't go. I said no, it's just that we need to think through what the knock-ons are to the rest of the year and it might be ok, it might not. Massive argument then ensued about who had got angry with whom, raised their voice first, irrelevant blah.

It just feels like I'm always expected to have The Family Plan and if I don't immediately say "yes dear, that's fine I'll work everything else around you" then I'm treated like fun police. AIBU?

Hang on, why will he end of going regardless? How on earth can that work with childcare??? If you both need to take your annual leave to cover the summer and he has already used his I just don’t see what he expects to happen!

This really strikes me as an important time to put your foot down.

My DH was genuinely quite put out that I wasn’t keen on taking all the kids to a town I’ve never heard of in Kazakhstan - to watch him come over the finish line. “All the other wives and families are there,” apparently. “Just come for the weekend and the barbecue.”
I have flatly told him that cycling may be many things, but a spectator sport it is not. As if anyone’s going to take a long distance flight, simply to watch a flash of Lycra whizz by in about two seconds flat. God knows what the locals must think. I want no part if it and I’m certainly not dragging the kids anywhere.

Huge pisstake. Enormous. And to want to spend 3 weeks away from you? Wanker.

Hopefully things are calmer this morning and you can have a discussion with him about this. It’s not as simple as him going for 3 weeks, presumably, in theory, you’d manage the childcare for those 3 weeks. But he can’t think about those 3 weeks in isolation, it’s the other X weeks you need childcare for during the rest of the year that you have to check you can cover.

If you’re happy in principle for him

Posted too soon!

.....to go then make that clear but tell him you have to have a discussion about how he foresees covering the rest of the childcare.

Does it have to be 3 full weeks? Could it be less? What does he see he could compromise on?

He sounds like a massive twat btw!

Have you reminded him that you should get time off as well...
Ask him for X amount to cover childcare.
And that if it costs Y to go you want that amount to as fun money ...
Also go get some glossy brochures for sunny holidays in autumn... Leave for him too see ..

I really get what you mean.
It's not about cycling or the length of time away.
Just the refusal to share the mental load of working out logistics. My dh does this too. I feel equally stabby. Even when it's just "can I have a haircut this weekend" first thing on Sat morning.
It's opting out of adult life and making you mum. It's deeply unsexy.

My husband does this as well, but it never stopped him for doing what he wanted.
He went on a two week holiday to Ecuador when our first DD was 9 months old. He got such a 'ribbing' from his fellow travelers (Exodus Holidays, so mostly singles), he never went on holiday by himself again, lol!
But now DD1 and DD2 are teenagers he won't go on holiday by himself and we can't make the kids go anywhere as they want to stay at home.
But if I wanted to do something special for myself, I can't, because the house would be a tip when I got back.
I would really like to wild camp around Western Scotland by myself, but DH is all 'No, won't be a good idea, who's going to sort out the kids?'

Aarrghh!

Can't wait until both DDs are at least 18 years old and can drive, then I'm FREE!
Well, I can dream...

There’s no way my dh would be going both for the way he’s gone about it and for using all his leave. It’s a big fuck You to your family. I say blanket no to all requests that I will have to them modify to be workable. Nothing assholey like your dhs but why don’t you bring the kids into my work and meet my parents and I there and we can go to the gardens then you take them home, knowing full well I can’t carry the bigger one while pushing the pram and he will be tired and meltdown every few minutes and all I can do is stop and hold him and pram so baby will get miserable and it will take hours to get home (via tube)

I’m so glad you posted this as I am going to show my DH the implications, feelings caused and how we are made to feel by them assuming they can still do everything they like whenever they want.

@Tensixtysix

I would really like to wild camp around Western Scotland by myself, but DH is all 'No, won't be a good idea, who's going to sort out the kids?'

Em why can’t he “ sort out” his teenagers ? Just go - life is too short. Don’t spend it waiting for your kids and your husband to grow up.

No YANBU. 3 weeks is a long time and I can't begin to imagine DW asking to bugger off for a 3 week holiday without us. That's time and money that would impact me and the two kids. IF she did want to go off for 3 weeks I'd d expect it to be a one of and for an exceptional reason, once in a lifetime opportunity type thing. Same goes for me - I'd love to go travelling for 3 weeks/ a month to NZ or but I'd take the fam with me!
Good luck with your twat of a DP!

I would just say 'yes, absolutely-and then obvs I'll be going back packing around Europe for the following three weeks so you will sort the kids out then yes?'
And leave him to work out for himself that he isn't a single man with no responsibilities anymore and clearly can't just fuck off cycling as and when he feels like it.

PregnantSea you've just woken me up to the fact that when I have to go away for work (rare - twice this year) DH expects me to have arranged for someone else to pick our youngest up. DH goes to work later than usual if I'm away in order to see the kids leave for school, so couldn't pick up but he could arrange it!
When he goes away on a jolly (twice per year though for 3 days not weeks) or for work I have to book annual leave because I work shifts which cannot be done without another adult home at all.

@Seeingadistance is right. They ask permission, knowing full well it doesn't work for childcare and is very unreasonable. It's so they can blame you when you have to say "how will this work?"

I'd be booking a few long weekends away for DC and myself, or by yourself if you want to.

DH went away travelling with a childfree mate for three weeks when DS1 was one and his childminder was on maternity leave, and I was absolutely furious but he went anyway. But then it was my turn - and he didn't get to go away on his own till I had been somewhere on my own. Three or four years ago I had 10 days on a yoga and writing holiday in Greece, he looked after the by then two kids (it was coco pops for pudding and iPad on tap from the sound of it) – but it was just fantastic. It was like being me again, doing exactly what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, and not having to take any kids into account. DH went off cycling last year – now it's my turn again, and it's my turn till I've been, no matter how far off that is.

OP you really need not to capitulate and to sit down and talk adulting with him. Otherwise this will keep repeating.

Send him off on his holiday. Having rubbed chilli powder into the inside of his cycling shorts.

How about, no to 3 weeks cycling, but looking into a family holiday somewhere he can take his bike and go off for the odd day cycling.

I'm married to a cyclist, and this is what we do. And, to be honest, this is bad enough. Inevitably, there are many rainy days during a UK summer holiday. When the sun does emerge, guess what the immediate priority is? Clue: it's not doing a walk, going to the beach, or visiting a historical site.

My husband has a dream trip that he talks about- he wants to take his boat out to the Monach Isles, then to Mingulay and camp in both places. He could do it, and I wouldn't mind at all, but he's waiting for the kids to be old enough to go with him. (To be clear, I was invited but he is an expert sailor and I get seasick in the bath!).
This is why I keep him around. That and his ability to sort his own shit out (he only asks me to order parts for his boat because he's a bit scared of the internet). I book and plan our family holidays but that's because he doesn't care of we go away or not.

I'd be saying to him, 'well, that isn't really practicable at this point is it, given that wehave heavy parenting commitments that don't really allow either one of us to just skive off for three months pretending that we don't have children - how's about you postpone that holiday idea for a bit? I reckon about 16 years should do it. . .'

weeks, not months. . .

If he does that will you be able to take a family holiday? Seems a bit selfish if you can't. Also, managing the family holidays will not be easy

My DH wouldn't even consider going away for 3 weeks on holiday without us! He's never been on a lads holiday since we met. He's been on the odd stag weekend but that's it, and work trips obviously. It's not fair of your DH to ask this of you. Quite apart from the cost, it's expecting you to do an awful let to it happen. It seems very selfish IMO.

Tinsel - love it!

OP - Why don't you make the summer holiday childcare planning one of his jobs?

Tell him how much A/L you have available to spend over the summer on childcare, ask him to allocate an additional 1 week of your A/L on a holiday away for you when he'll be looking after the kids single-handed, then if he can work out how to juggle the rest of the childcare for the kids and still spend his 3 weeks A/L on a holiday away, more power to him.

I like the cut of your DH's jib, DontDribbleOnTheCarpet (see what I did there ?)