Husband gaslighting me about holiday?

[Ilovemybike88]

My husband and I went out for what was supposed to be a lunch date whilst our son was at a play date. Started nice enough however I casually mentioned that in 3 weeks time we have our short holiday booked & we should start to think about a few things we want to do whilst we are away. We are staying in an air bnb by the coast for 3 nights. This is our first child free holiday in about 9 years as our son is going away that same week on a school residential trip. I was so excited. This was a much needed break for the two of us to reconnect after what has been a very difficult period. Anyway when I brought it up he replied ‘I have got to work that week you know, I’ll have to take my laptop and work for a few hours each day’ When I questioned this his reply was that he had already told me this. He 100% did not tell me, I think i would have remembered. He could tell I was upset but was kept repeating that he had told me. He has not booked the time off, he has only marked it in his diary as ‘working remotely’. I am gutted, I was really really looking forward to this holiday. He has now down played the whole thing & is saying that I shouldn’t have assumed he was booking the time off work & this holiday isn’t a big deal. I am gutted but also furious that he is saying he told me something that he didn’t . The holiday meant a lot to me but it obviously didn’t mean the same thing to him, am I right to be upset? And is him telling me that he told me he would be working gaslighting or am i over reacting?

Never mind whether he told you or not. The important thing is that he isn't interested in going on holiday with you, or in spending time with you. In fact he's looking for ways to get out of having to do that and has found the reliable excuse of work.

That tells me he knows that spending time together, focused upon each other, would be unpleasant for him, one way or another.

That’s not gaslighting. Not even close. It’s an insult to those who truly suffer/have suffered from gaslighting to even say that. Gaslighting is prolonged mental torture to the point where you question your own sanity and it causes severe mental distress to the point of breakdown or even suicidal thoughts or actions.

At worst he’s lying. More likely he forgot to book time off and now can’t get it approved and so he’s having to work. He may have also forgotten to tell you.

It's not nice but it's not (necessarily) gaslighting. It's very possible he remembers things differently. We're human, we're fallible. If he's intentionally misleading you then that's a bigger problem. But if he simply remembers differently then there could be a million reasons for that. He could have phrased it ambiguously, buried it in another piece of news, you could have misheard - it happens.

If you have an otherwise good relationship, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and try to salvage what you can from the holiday. Ask him if he can restrict his working only to what's essential and try and book some time off, get a friend to come instead, see what you can do on your own for some of the time.

What you’re describing can be the result of prolonged gaslighting. But, just as domestic violence includes the first time someone is assaulted as well as the cases where it’s prolonged and results in serious injury or murder, gaslighting includes the first time someone tries to pretend things happened differently. Better to recognise and react before it gets dire than minimize and avoid confronting because other women have it worse.

I wouldn’t want to be on a holiday with someone working much less a pre agreed holiday where I was hoping to reconnect. I’d say you should have said it’a too hard to take time off, I had hoped to have a lovely time together but working remotely is not holiday time with me so my friend x will be coming instead. She’s happy to spend time with me!

Yes, but not on your 1st break away alone with DH in 9 yrs.

Gaslighting is a pattern of behaviour over time. This is not gaslighting. Yes, it’s fun to find a new word. But use it properly. It’ll go the same way as ‘bullying’ on here soon. Someone once claimed that people criticising Johnson on a thread was bullying.

@PingPages

not misogynistic, no (although it’s getting very tiring that MN think this is an insult to be used if someone dares disagree with the OP), I am just sick of gaslighting being used instead of lying. Lying is also bad. It would be completely fine to say her husband is a liar. Clearly he has lied.

do I think he has lied with the intent to make her question her own reality? No. More likely he fucked up and didn’t/couldn’t take the time off and is trying to cover his arse. The intent isn’t there. It’s shit for OP and I would be pissed off if I were her but gaslighting is being used way too frequently on here.

Gosh! This sounds like the dick move my dh did when dd arrived. He didn’t book paternity leave he worked from home 😡
I had to deal with all the night wakings whilst his lordship slept.
Our marriage nearly ended when dds were small through his selfish and thoughtless behaviour.

I would uninvite him and see if a friend can come instead. If he hasn't actually booked time off work, than I'm assuming he's going to be doing pretty close to a 9-5 day and expecting you to run after him and feed him since you're on holiday and have free time. I'd tell him that's not how you want to spend your holiday so he can just stay at home.

He’s unreasonable to say you shouldn’t have assumed he would book the time off. It’s a holiday, of course you would think he’d book the time off.

I would be upset as he clearly isn’t prioritising any time with you.

Doesn't he get any holiday? Surely he has to use his annual leave or lose it ?

Personally I think you are right to be upset, the question is if he notices/cares, also if the work thing was forced on him or of his own making, or if he's tunnel visioned because he's under pressure. I was with the 'go yourself' people, but it's probably better for your relationship that you both go and try to get some lovely moments out of it anyway, which you can easily do IF he wants to. Only you can tell if this is so serious there's no hope or whether it was just a 'it's work that had to be done thing,' or whether he's just clueless and comfortable and didn't realise (which I've done in the past with dh making a special effort and me not totally realising how much it meant to him). I am sorry either way OP but do try to enjoy it and hugs

I would tell him how much it means to you to spend time together.

That said I am going on holiday soon and am bringing device to do a bit if work while DP has a nap ( he naps a lot ) as I'm worried of the amount of work I'll come back to as it builds up when I'm not there with no one else who does my exact role. Bad timing as things randomly got v busy lately.

This is hilariously shitty non-advice. “Just ignore the crap thing your husband has done and relax. Don’t overthink the crap thing your husband has done and spoil your own holiday by being annoyed about your husband’s shitty, holiday-ruining behaviour. Just enjoy your non-break that is now totally different from expectations and then meet up and enjoy spending a scant, allotted amount of time with a man who’s working 8 hours a day and lies to you. Enjoy!”

I may be missing the point but if it’s in 3 weeks time, isn’t there still time to book it off?

I keep reading responses like this and being amazed at how low many women’s expectations are of men.

Agree @SoggyPaper and him saying he was going to be working and had already told her is clearly a lie. I think he forgot to book the dates and is now unable to ask for the time off at short notice, but why not just say that?

I was going to say go without DH and leave baby behind with him, but you've an older Child who's away on residential

And You can't take a friend as you've probably booked one double bedroom air bnb

So It's simple fix with future in mind. Let DH have the holiday he's planned and you have yours. He will regret this if you don't pander

Leave him behind at sue bnb with his laptop , leaving him to sort out his WiFi connection, anytime he talks about his work needs you say 'well you'll have to sort that out, I'm on holiday' .

You take car or Uber to go out to all those lovely activity places. and have lunches out, go swimming, sun bathing on beach or learn surfing, or pay god primavera horse riding lessons, and go out in evening to cinema and meals, all on your own. I do it (am lone parent) and it's liberating.

I take a book with me everywhere and read at dinner, but 6/10 someone chats to me and I make new friends!
Then Make plans with other people if you meet any and dont include DH, so if he's "free later" say "oh that's a shame as I'm not now, I've plans same as you had all day with work. " Do not include DH as that undermines your point

Your DH will remember this as his crap holiday where he worked with annoyingly poor WiFi and no one brought him food or hot drinks, whilst his wife had a lovely time going out , eating out and relaxing and she wasn't available much as he tried to work during holiday.

Bet next time you book a holiday he'll take the time off.

If you’re having difficulties in the relationship perhaps he wants to avoid confronting them and is using work as a shield. He might think a holiday will be an intense period where you’ll argue and issues will be highlighted.
Or perhaps he genuinely wasn’t able to take the time off and handled it badly with you.
Personally I’d be cautious of giving him an ultimatum unless you’re prepared for the worst.
It’s not ideal, but can you agree when he will be working and plan some nice outings for the other times? If things feel relaxed and enjoyable on the first day, you may find he puts a lot less effort into working on the other days and switches his priorities.

Your first child free time away in nine years and instead of booking a few days off work as holiday he's chosen to "work remotely"

Unless he has to do very little throughout the day this will ruin the trip. If I was doing what he is I'd have emails to respond to etc very sharping so I certainly wouldn't be able to go out on any trips with my partner

I cancelled the holiday. Although he has subsequently now backtracked and said it was only 1 call he needs to do whilst we away. Probably cut off my nose to spite my face but I don’t want to go on holiday with him now. That break meant a lot to me but obviously not to him. I can guarantee that if it was a holiday with his mates playing golf he would have made sure to book the time off. He has also now apologised and said ‘sorry i didn’t make it clearer I will have to do some work’. But this was all after I’d cancelled the holiday.
He 100% knew when we were in the restaurant that he hadn’t told me. He was trying to change the subject and couldn’t come up with anything when I asked what the circumstances were when he’d told me. He has now pretty much admitted he didn’t tell me, but for a good 20 mins he adamantly told me to
my face repeatedly that he had. Whether that’s gaslighting is up for debate but it seems like he trying to cover his ass by making me doubt myself which made me furious. I 100% would have remembered if he’d told me, I didn’t forget. The lunch date (and rest of the day) was ruined. And now the focus of the argument shifts and becomes all about my reaction, how I lost my temper and stormed out of the restaurant and cancelled the holiday. I didn’t storm out of the restaurant. I paid the bill and waited outside. Outside he was still lying and saying he told me something we both knew he hadn’t - so yes i did at that point lose my temper and swore at him and walked off. He’s now downplayed the whole working whilst on holiday part and it’s become an argument all about my reaction which has deflected away from
my hurt and upset about being lied to. If he had come to me and said ‘hey I’m really sorry but something with work has come up and it looks like I’m going to have to work for a couple
of hours whilst we are away - would you mind?’ Yeah I would have been annoyed but I would have been reasonable about it. He gets paid a lot of money and at the end of the day it’s his money that pays for any holidays and I can realistically accept that there are inconvenient times when he has to work. I go out running/cycling (and he doesn’t) and would have happily gone out for a run or bike ride whilst he was on his hugely ‘important work call’. I’m not somebody who has to be tied to their other half’s leg for an entire trip, I’m quite happy doing stuff on my own. But he didn’t tell me, he chose not to have that conversation with me. Instead he threw it into the conversation whilst we were supposed to be on a date and lied and told me he’d already told me this. He also said I shouldn’t have assumed he was taking the time off and i was hugely over inflating the importance of this break. We have been going to counselling and we were talking about steps we were taking to increase connection and intimacy and he even brought up this break as an example of the steps we are taking. So he knew the importance of this break. I mean this is a once in a ten year opportunity- a child free week, that doesn’t come up that often! We won’t get this chance again for a long time. But he’s pretending he didn’t realise the significance of it and downplaying the whole thing like it was some regular run of the mill week and we were just going to be working like usual but from an air bnb by the coast.
I think the reality is he’s 1) realised he’s got a work call during our break that he can’t get out of and 2) realised the amount of annual leave we have already used this year. (We have both had to use quite a lot of leave already due to various things).

Fully agree with you on both.

Even if this was a misuse of the word, is this the right thread for multiple posters to make a thing of it? Loads of terms become stretched beyond use on here (I was accused of being in a purity spiral because I said I wouldn’t watch Fox News on another thread, and don’t get me started on how everything is tone deaf now). Why this one?

@Ilovemybike88 I think you did the right thing cancelling the break, anything else would have downplayed what he did. It appears he now realises the implications of lying to you.

But where do you go from here? It's maybe one to discuss with the counsellor, because your DS being away still is happening so is there scope for DH to book something else , even for a night ?

I also agree if he was playing golf with his friends he would have made sure the time off was booked. That's the bit that hurts, the lack of prioritisation.