To think messing up honeymoon was stupid and not cute or funny?

[LuluNamechangeForHelp]

I was born outside the EU. I have been on several visas and eventually became a permanent resident of the UK.

My fiance knew I had always wanted to visit Berlin. (Long story). He knew one of the hurdles was the time and faff of getting a Schengen visa. A day off work to go to the embassy, travel to the embassy for photos, fingerprints, get bank statements, letters from work etc. You have to show you have booked your return flight and accommodation and that you have enough money in your bank account (not credit card lol) to fund the trip. That's before even saving up for it etc.

Fiance and I are both from immigrant communities and know the difficulty involved in getting visas for travel but he is a British citizen as they changed the rules after he was born. At the time, if you were born here to parents legally present in the country you automatically became a British citizen.

Anyway for honeymoon we had agreed to stay home as we were saving money for a house.

The day after the wedding he said 'surprise! We are going to Berlin!'

No. Because I don't have a fucking visa for Germany.
No, it's ok. You're British now because we got married yesterday.

That's not how it works. You still need a visa. It's just a different type (spouse of EU national: Form XYZ 23)

So we lost the cost of the flights, hotel everything and were only able to afford a holiday several years later.

We called the embassy and tried for an emergency appointment, honeymoon etc. No luck. Even the flight and hotel bookings he had done were fixed and couldn't be changed and insurance would not cover for 'your own stupid for fault.' First day of married life = Begging call centre people to bend the rules just this once please and (naturally) getting no's.

I don't even know how he booked the plane tickets because you have to click 'what visa do you have' if the passport number is not a British passport.

I guess he had been reading too much daily mail. I'm still not a British citizen many years later.

At the time I was in tears. Then I just tried to have a stiff upper lip about it when it was clear all the money was lost. I was like 'never mind, you made a mistake.'

Over the years he has told the story like it's a cute funny story.

I think it either shows you are a complete moron and that you had not been listening me for years about difficulty travelling.

Or that it was a mistake at the time but to tell it as a funny story is hurtful.

I did go to Berlin in the end years later. But it left a bitter taste in my mouth because it was meant to have been my honeymoon.

Aibu to think it is not a funny story.

@SarahAndQuack - you talk a lot of sense. I've had a big parking ticket (a few hundred pounds) by parking somewhere I thought was part of a permit but wasn't and I dropped a £20 between the cash machine and car once but have not made an expensive mistake, touch wood.

I think you know what is next for you @lulunamechangeforhelp

I’m sorry your marriage isn’t happy... but it’s usually how you start is how it goes and ends.

I’d go to Berlin as a divorce present for myself.
Don’t hang around. Life is shorter than we think for us all.

Get your skates on. 💐

I guess then maybe talk to him about how he'd feel if you'd lost that much money when he'd already given you the information so you wouldn't?

I think the bottom line is that he doesn't get to decide you are 'oversensitive'. He did something really, really stupid that was also quite poor in terms of him not listening to you. Even if he and all the world do privately think you are being OTT (and I doubt that most people would), he is wrong to think he's the one who can decide how you should feel.

Like his mummy taught him when he was three: when you're wrong, you say sorry.

Times like this often throw our lives into perspective. Lots of people are finding their relationships are not bearable right now. You don't have to ignore that feeling. He let you down and disappointed you. However, he was trying to give you the thing he thought you wanted most in the world, as a romantic surprise. While the execution went terribly wrong, he was trying to make you happy, and maybe he laughs about it because the gesture came from the heart and he is laughing at himself for his hastiness and naivety at the time.
If you don't feel the same way about the incident, your feelings are not "wrong", you are just two very different people who perhaps aren't well-suited to each other.

If you don't feel the same way about the incident, your feelings are not "wrong", you are just two very different people who perhaps aren't well-suited to each other.

I think that's such an important point.

Well in a happy marriage it would be a funny story.

Would it?

I doubt it!

I suspect in a lot of happy marriages it'd be that difficult time you moved past.

I mean ... you have to be a tiny bit strange to find your partner ignoring your knowledge and wasting money a 'funny story,' surely?

YANBU!
Everyone has sore spots, they may or may not make sense to other people, but they're no less sore because of that. Making light/joking about something you know hurts another person is pretty unpleasant, doing so in front of them is hurtful. To then dismiss their feeling by saying they're oversensitive is plain nasty, it says more about your husband than it does about you OP.

(Shengen visas are a pain in the neck, you have my sympathy)

Unless they'd had a conversation about needing visas when they were married he hasn't ignored her knowledge and experience - he thought it changed once she was married to him. Stupid, yes, but ignoring her, no.

So I really don't see how it's hurtful to her at all. Except for the loss of the money, which applies equally to him. The story is still about how much of an idiot he was and therefore at his expense, thus his to make a joke of. I don't see how that's hard to understand.

He doesnt sound very bright. And I agree this story no matter how many years later is neither cute or funny so YANBU.

However, I am married to an equally stupid man who also happens to be lovely and kind and always does everything for me with the best intention, which I am sure your DH did too. This is exactly the kind of thing he would do. He would find this funny too - and like you I would not be too impressed.

After 30 years happily married I will give you one piece of advice. Move on. Love the man he is. You can't change him nor stop him from thinking it is funny - he just does. Stop dwelling on this. It happened and you can't change that.

Op, it feels like a long time to hold on to something like this. One reason could be you are unhappy with your marriage in general and this is just an issue that helps you anchor your frustration in it. The cheese for the bitch eating cracker. The crunch.

I am familiar with your frustration as am an African and having lived 5 years in the NL as a university lecture doesnt protect me from visa god's here or anywhere in the Western world (admittedly, so far, Schengen has been the easiest for me, and UK the worst despite being married to
Brit. Over 7 kg of documentation!). For us immigrants, the stress never stops. The struggle never ends and so wounds from such episodes as with your hubby might not heal that easily. I suspect that this could be another reason for your anger. If you love this man, I suggest you redirect your anger to where it belongs. The system that continually humiliates us and leaves us permanently uncertain. He laughing this off years later probably entrenches that humiliation. Once you redirect, either deal n forget or better still, channel that energy in joining efforts to reform policies around immigration.
Btw, is your spouse generally a bit dumb/naive in such and other matters?

I’m most concerned by the “its not a happy marriage” statement.
Maybe that’s why you are finding it hard to get past this when it’s brought up.
But why do you stay? Do you feel like you can’t leave or are you choosing to stay in a situation that is familiar (plenty of people do!)

I think that if you where happy in your marriage this wouldn’t be such a problem. When we aren’t happy we tend to find things our partners do anoring and overthink things. Try and find our why you are not happy and improve your marriage or more things will just start to piss you off that he does.

Hey, this happened to me. Non EU national (I am British now). My then bf and now boyfriend was also non EU. Booked a holiday to BERLIN (what’s with Berlin) without checking to see how long it takes to get a Schengen. It wasn’t a honeymoon and we didn’t lose so much money. But man, was I pissed. But it is a funny story now.

(And yes many people from Asia/Africa/ME/Latin America need visas for every border they cross).

You say it's not a happy marriage?

Did you actually see any evidence that he'd booked anything, op, seeing as you say he couldn't have booked plane tickets?

It was a long time ago, let it go.

It was a stupid thing for him to do but consider the intention (a nice surprise for you) and his own experience (his process to citizenship was different and he didn’t realise that things had changed).

Best thing to remember - we all marry idiots.

My DH is wonderful in many ways but he can also be an idiot. I (might be biased) am practically perfect in every way but can also recognise that my husband has also married an idiot.

If you are unhappy in your marriage, move on. But not because of a booking mistake with a honeymoon.

I honestly think it depends whether it was stupidity and he didn't understand versus he really doesn't listen to you.

I am going for duel nationality and my partner said to me, so when we are married I am also going to be xxxx, nop love doesn't work like that.

He seemed to have it in his head that if we married then my nationality would also be his and couldn't seem to understand why that is not the case (and this is a simple nationality, think within the EU)

@sobeyondthehills , out of curiosity, wouldn't he be able to though? Like it wouldn't be automatic but I always assumed that it works both ways? (as in he could apply for your nationality if he wanted to)

I am French but currently live in the US, I always assumed that if I marry an American here, I would get US citizenship but that she would equally be able to apply for a French citizenship and therefore have the same access to European countries as I do. Is that not the case? (off to google!)

OP, to answer your post, it seems like this is deeper than the travel.

I travel a lot and live abroad most of the time, so know a bit about visa procedures etc... (obviously not enough!) but I wouldn't expect most people to. If a friend/partner, gifted me a trip without realizing fully that my visa situation wouldn't make it easy to go, I would feel grateful they thought to surprise me like that and sad they wasted the money.

For Europeans the version of ''non-straightfoward'' traveling , is applying for a visa online or a quick trip to an embassy for a visa (my US visas interview took 5 minutes both times) so someone who is used to quick embassy trips, might not really grasps what other people mean by lenghty procedures and not so straight forward visa.

I think people also easily assume that once you have been delivered a visa to a European country you automatically have access to them all as there is no physical border between them.

I know I invited my stepdad for a trip to Spain a couple of years back (he has a French residency card and has had one for 20 years), he flew there no problem but on the way back they told him he shouldn't have been allowed to travel by plane from France to Spain as his residency card is not enough to travel.

It was shocking to me because my step-father could literally drive to Spain if he wanted to since there is no border so the idea that he wouldn't be allowed to fly there was behind my understanding. ( I guess that enlightens that even if one travels a lot and deals with visas a lot, it's still hard for most to understand how much traveling varies from person to person and specific situation to specific situation and how there is no one rule fits all.)

I would speak to him about it but also try and acknowledge he most likely didn't do it to hurt you.

It would probably be a funny story by now if you loved your husband and had a happy marriage.

Since you say that the marriage is unhappy, this explains why you can't get past a stupid mistake your dh made years ago.

How else is he supposed to recount the story now? Like a Greek tragedy? Wouldn't people think it was weird if he told it as a traumatic event?

I am French but currently live in the US, I always assumed that if I marry an American here, I would get US citizenship but that she would equally be able to apply for a French citizenship and therefore have the same access to European countries as I do. Is that not the case? (off to google!)

It does (sort of) work that way BUT it doesn’t happen immediately or automatically.

So, you get married, you apply, you wait. And wait. And wait. And there is still the possibility of being turned down for various reasons such as having a criminal record.

I realise that he got it wrong but it was done out of kindness and love.... he wanted YOU to have a surprise that he couldn't have cared less about.

You need to be thankful to have a husband who is so kind (if not a little disorganised to get it so wrong) and move on. It would definitely be a look back and laugh moment for me.

I am French but currently live in the US, I always assumed that if I marry an American here, I would get US citizenship but that she would equally be able to apply for a French citizenship and therefore have the same access to European countries as I do. Is that not the case?

No, the difference being you live in the US and your potential future spouse does not live in France.

My husband is Danish I am british, we live in SwitZerland. As I have never lived in Denmark I am not entitled to a danish passport and similarly my husband is not entitled to a Uk one.