Has anyone ever not really wanted to go on holiday with their Dp/Dh?

[Noenthusiasmnow]

Surely, this must mean it’s over? I mean what’s the point 🤷🏻‍♀️
Dh has been off since Friday for two weeks and already I feel down, all my enthusiasm for summer and the holidays has gone.
We’d planned to take Dd, 5, camping for a few days next week, but I have zero enthusiasm now. I feel
guilty and sad for my Dd as it should be a lovely family time.
I’m tempted to just work next week and use that money to have a girls trip the week after when Dh is back at work.
So used to our routine in the house when he’s at work and I generally have moments of happiness

Anyone ever had the same thing?

PS Do you still fancy him? Is he fun when it's just the two of you eg when DD is in bed in the evening?

This is how I realised my marriage was over. He worked away all week every week. He did sod all for me and the kids and the house when he was back. I worked full time too. He came home for Christmas and I couldn't tolerate being around him, looking at him or touching him.

I was quite taken aback by how much I suddenly loathed being around him. Ended it. Much happier now and we get on OK as co-parents

Is the idea that your DP will holiday alone with your DD while you work, or that the holiday is cancelled?

I think you're being unfair to DP. You have both arranged a holiday. Now you've decided that you can't face spending time with him, at very short notice. You need to either leave him so that he can orgnaise his own holidays with people who like him, or suck it up and go for the sake of your DD.

I hope that doesn't sound harsh - I'm actually in a similar situation, garbage relationship and we don't like spending time together on holiday. But we get on with it, for the sake of DC, and actually once we're there the fun times outweigh the negative. The trick is to go into it with 0 expectations from DP but with a resolutely cheerful disposition, so that whether you are having a nice time is completely independent of whether he is.

@ManchesterGirl2 No, I said it as though ‘It’s ok, I’m always watching her’ which I always am, I was sat up watching her, she was just a few steps away. This is the thing, it’s either a dig at me or he needs to relax and be less uptight as she was perfectly happy playing with friends, which I didn’t want to interrupt anyway. We could’ve both just sat there happily watching her. There was really no need to say it and to act like that

Don’t blame yourself. Don’t minimise your feelings.

I had a DP like this. What helped me was seeing a counsellor for myself and realising his general misery and constant criticism of me /other people was not a healthy home atmosphere for DCs.

Left him and we were much happier. He has since deteriorated into an extremely grumpy person. Best thing I ever did for our young DCs was to separate from him.

@AmazingSnakeHead Im being unfair to Dh? So I have to suck it up, pretend to be happy and just take all the little remarks and nasty things 🤷🏻‍♀️
If I can manage to do it, it will be for Dd, not it being unfair to Dh, where’s the fairness to me

@Pruneaux Are you kids happier now too?
Dd adores her dad

I don't holiday with my DP anymore and I enjoy my holidays so much more either on my own or with my kids. I just find holidays so stressful with him, I love a beach holiday, he hates heat and the sand. I love sitting on the balcony of an apartment with a lovely view, drinking wine and chilling. He's getting bitten by mozzies, can't settle, gets bored then starts moaning. It's torture. He's out of his comfort zone completely, he hasn't got the right clothes, he looks uncomfortable the whole time. So now I do my own thing.

@AmazingSnakeHead I can decide to work and being in extra money and maybe see if he wants to go with Dd, maybe that would be nice for them both, a nice bonding experience.
Maybe we need to do things separately with her

Op, based on your updates this does sound shit. I agree that it sounds like perhaps your relationship has run its course, it just sounds like you don't get on anymore. I don't think I would want to spend a holiday with someone like that either.

@Noenthusiasmnow I hear you. The snarky remarks and derisive tone are draining. I used to dread the weekends in our home with exDP.

Is he being nasty though? Or are you reading that into his behaviour?

If he parents less often, it makes sense that he has a different style to you, and might be more uptight because he's less in tune with how independent and grown up she is now. I feel like its unfair to expect him to slot in to doing everything the exact same way as you.

Maybe he is doing it in a mean and critical way, it's hard to tell without hearing the tone of the exchanges. It might be that you've got in a pattern of interpretting things as a dig when they aren't meant that way.

I don’t know…I just know that sitting in a beach side cafe in the sun on supposed holidays and crying behind your sunglasses whilst eating an ice cream and trying not to let your 5 year old see, is really sad and possibly not normal.
I don’t know, wanted to see if others ever go through similar

My ex was a joy sucker too. Still is in fact but it’s not my problem anymore! I wasted too many years before ending things. But I had got so used to putting a brave face on that life is AMAZING now. Good luck OP whatever you decide to do.

My dh is a micro manager. It definitely wears you down. We had a big argument where I told him that, instead of complaining continuously, he has to make a list of everything that's wrong and send it in an email at the end of the week!
Surprisingly, that did get the message across and he hasn't sent me any emails 😀.

@Noenthusiasmnow I completely understand where you're coming from. It's the general grumpiness, low level aggression, little digs and just never being happy. And it's the constantness of it. It gets to you!

I'm in exactly the same place. My dc's are a little older, and I've had quite a few panicky moments recently when they're both out, and I realise this is what it will be like when they've both flown the nest.

I'm seriously thinking about separtion.

Please just talk to your husband and tell him how you feel rather than crying behind your sunglasses or passive aggressively cancelling your holiday and pretending to be sick. Don’t bring it up right when you’re upset, but wait until you have a calm moment to tell him how you feel. Don’t expect him to instantaneously go “omg I’m so sorry I’ll change”, expect him to be defensive and just set out your case and say that he might not understand, is probably not doing anything on purpose, but that it makes you feel XYZ.

Then leave it at that.

Then in the coming weeks, look out for signs he is trying - look out for positive comments or clear moments where he is being nice where he might normally not be so nice.

Recognise his effort, praise him and thank him.

Also, this is just an assumption and I could be totally wrong, but it sounds like you’re not having much sex. It’s amazing what some good sex can do for a couple - suddenly all these little grumbles no longer matter to either of you.

But it seems that your DP is oblivious to how it makes you feel? I don't for a minute think that you should put up with this shit from him. I'm saying that it's not fair to cancel a family holiday because you can't stand your DP. It's not fair on your DP for you to cancel your joint holiday only to then go on your own private holiday with DD as soon as he's back to work. If my DP did that to me, I would leave him. Which might be what you want, anyway.

As I see it you have 3 options: leave him, and each live your own lives with your own holidays with your DD. Talk to him and explain how you feel, work on improving your relationship. Suck it up for this one holiday, and then re-evaluate.

It doesn't matter what others do. Life is too short to be this miserable. It also will nto be great for your DD to see such a negative dynamic between her parents. She will be picking up on it for sure.

@AmazingSnakeHead How are you going about your situation? I don’t think I’m being unfair to not to want to feel like crap and down all the time, but yes I’ll tell him the reason I don’t want to go, it’s very hard.

Totally get the christmas/birthday thing too. Ruined by moods & all the joy sucked out of it. Anything I organise is subject to a thousand questions - what made you choose this place for dinner? Even things outwith my control like why did you book this when it's raining? May be an ordinary question but always feels like criticism. Also the inability to sit and enjoy the moment, always wanting to leave. It's no fun whatsoever & I have no idea how he has managed to sustain friendships. I have no expectations now & we bumble along. But not in confined spaces or anywhere I'm meant to relax. Nope. We actually do nothing together anymore as it's not fun for me so I spend free time with friends instead.

"Oh DH, well done, you've done so well at not being an utter dick to me this holiday, thank you so much" 🙄

OP if you want to sort it out with him, talk to him. Suggest couple's therapy. But you have to want to fix it too. Don't feel like you have to be grateful to your H for not being horrible to you though.

And I agree, if you are going to ditch the holiday, talk to him, don't fake illness or whatever you had planned.

@Definitelynotme2022 I’m so sorry, just brings you down doesn’t it, sometimes I can cope with it and brush it off/ignore it, but I was so happy, so in the summer mood, it’s a big shift

It sounds like the marriage is over. You don't communicate well, you are miserable. Life is too short.

I wasn’t going to fake illness, I said in the message to him that I didn’t think I could do it, he has just seemed to assume that. This is the thing, he saw me upset after the beach thing, he knows he’s upsetting me.
Can’t talk with Dd here, but I will say the reason I can’t go, he knows though but never takes responsibility