Booked a surprise holiday

[reamha]

Me and DP have been together for about 3 years. In that time we have been on lots of holidays and trips, but only ever UK. I've always enjoyed travelling to new places and exploring but whenever we talk about a trip DP always cuts down suggestions of city breaks in favour of places where she can bring her dog.

I have continued to go abroad both for work and with friends but DP will never take up the invitation and I really miss exploring new cities and cultures with my partner. I love the shared experience and think it brings couples closer. Anyway for DPs birthday I have bought her a surprise trip to Venice. I knew it isn't somewhere she would immediately choose herself, but I thought as a nice surprise, with all the admin done she would at least give it a go. But she is flat out refusing to go and suggesting I take a friend instead.

I am really upset, I love her a lot but never thought when we got together I would be giving up foreign holidays totally. She has always said she prefers the UK and would rather holiday here, so I am not surprised. But I do think she should compromise and do the trips I want occassionally?

You don't get to decide what she'd enjoy. I'd be really hurt if someone did that to me. Surely the point of gift giving is knowing what the person likes and buying accordingly.

YABU to book it without her approval. She is also being very unreasonable to never compromise and go abroad once in a while with you. She sounds very set in her ways, completely uncompromising, which is quite unattractive tbh. I wouldn't be able to stay with someone who won't even consider a weekend in Venice with me.

I don’t think you’ve been unreasonable OP - I do think sometimes we need a little help to move out of our comfort zone and I would appreciate the thought. I am also one of those driven crazy by limiting their lives for the dogs - it’s a few days (I hasten to add I’m the same about children).

I’d have a deep dive into what your DP is thinking and whether she’d be prepared to compromise for you and what they way forward is. I might offer to get her something else for her birthday but do the trip together anyway so she feels less ‘ambushed’.

But I’m not sure I’d want to be with someone who didn’t want to share this massive part of my life and who wouldn’t try something for me. Something to think about - not as a threat but what does it say about your relationship?

OP says “She used to travel a lot before we met. Then since covid she has only been in the UK and says that she prefers hill-walking and exploring the countryside with her dog and these are the holidays she most enjoys. “ so whilst she likes history she prefers the countryside

Oh me neither, it is clearly a huge miss.

I wonder if it would have got a different reaction if the OP had actually discussed the option first, and what might be put in place for the dogs, rather than presenting it as a done deal.

AIBU:
My partner loves going abroad but i feel i'm done with doing that now and i enjoy uk breaks with my mutt.

Partner is pushing to make me go abroad and i've told them i'm happy for them to go away with friends/family but i don't want to any more.

Now they've booked my dog into kennels and bought tickets for an abroad holiday ''for my birthday''!

AIBU to tell them to go and enjoy it with someone else as i really don't want to go?

Answer would probably almost unanimously be No, you're not being unreasonable!!

Absolutely this!! 🤣🤣

You booked the holiday for yourself and made out like it’s for her, knowing full well it’s for you.

Get her something you know she actually wants.
You know she enjoys holidays in the UK with her dog, so book one of them.

I also think it's pretty bonkers to allow your life to be ruled by a pet.

But that's like saying 'I think it's pretty bonkers to paint your living room red' on the basis that you, personally, don't like red.

Fine for you to prioritise a city break over a dog, if that's what you prefer, but different things are important to different people.

FWIW, I'd leave a dog with a family member while I went on holiday, but I would never put one in kennels.

I think the OP basically wants to mould their partner into someone she isn't.

Also, I think if you're going to ask a partner to do something they don't like in order to please you, expecting them to do that for their own birthday is absolutely shite. For example, I love Chinese food. DP doesn't. Therefore we don't really eat in Chinese restaurants together. If I was really desperate to eat in a Chinese restaurant with him, I'd ask him to make an exception one time and give it a try. But wouldn't buy him vouchers for a meal in a Chinese restaurant for his birthday so that I could have a Chinese meal, because that would make me a selfish twat.

While I do agree I maybe wasn't the best idea for her birthday present, you do have my sympathies OP.

DH will go abroad but refuses to 'rough it' or go off the beaten track at all. His family holidays as a child were all nice resorts and guided tours or cruises etc and the couple of times we've gone on European city breaks he's spent all his time moaning about the hotel rooms or the area or the public transport or the food. It's so draining. I paid for us to go on safari for his last big birthday (a lifelong dream of his) but he insisted on every last detail being organised by a travel agent, with business class flights, fancy hotels etc. There can never be any spontaneity.

As someone who has always travelled cheaply and independently and sees that as all part of the fun and experience it's really hard to adapt to and i think in future I may just need to holiday alone for the most part ☹️

I do love our life together aside from the travel, so I really don't see this as something to end the relationship over. So I can't see it as a dealbreaker. I just am getting frustrated with her intransigence.

Yes, I do get to go abroad still and travel. She would never outwardly say that she would stop me from travelling by myself, with friends or whatever which I do do as much as I am able, but she does control what I do from the pov that she wont let me use our joint account for trips if it is just me so that does limit me quite a bit compared to when we both holiday as then I can use the household pot. Travelling with friends is very different to a partner and building those memories for when you get back and the future.

You sound incredibly annoying and, frankly, controlling. She’s told you she does not enjoy city breaks and would rather go away with you to places where her dog can come too… so you book a city break and act in this gross, condescending manner ‘oh she’d enjoy it if she tried it’. What a fun present for you on her birthday.
The difference in your opinions on holidays and breaks wouldn’t be a dealbreaker but your attitude would be.

I think you have to decide if you can be with someone who doesn't have the same interests as you and accept that

About 10 years into our marriage my OH decided that he didn't want to travel anymore - and we discussed it at length, as not travelling is a deal breaker for me

So now I travel, with family and friend or sometimes alone, and we holiday in the Uk together

It works for both of us that way

You expect to use joint household funds to pay for your solo trips, am I reading that right? Because that seems fair to me, not controlling at all.

So your OH went on overseas holidays before the pandemic @reamha , right?

You booked a holiday to Venice for you and your OH, you organised a kennel stay for the dog, you checked that they had a passport and that it was still in date.
I think you did everything right here.

Those suggesting that the OH doesn't like flying, they didn't appear to have a dislike of it prior to the pandemic and took holidays abroad.
Those suggesting that the OP got something for themselves as a present, actually they didn't. I've read countless threads on MN over the years where people replying would be saying "Oh that's such a lovely thing to do, such a shame they don't want to go with you".

@reamha - If I were you, I'd be having a long hard think about whether this relationship can continue where you're the one doing all of the compromising when it comes to holidays. Your other half saying that you could go on a holiday to anywhere without them but the holiday was organised as a romantic break away is not a compromise from that side. They aren't compromising there. They are shutting down any possible conversation about the situation.
I think you need to have a chat about whether or not holidays abroad are on the table for you both. You want them, they used to do them. Where is the element of compromise from their side?

Re: the 'household pot' i would also say that that is really for 'both of you' things. Be it holidays or food and gas and elec.

If holidays aren't something you agree on or do togeteher then i think it is more appropriate for both of you to fund your own trips separately from the combined household pot.

Is your partner the higher earner by chance then? It sounds from your last update that you are wanting to open up the household budget for your holidays because you can’t afford to do all the travel you’d like by yourself?

Why didn't you just suggest using ferrys/driving over to Europe for a dog friendly break, would that have not been the first step

No he wouldn't

Has the dog ever been in kennels before? I wouldn't leave a dog in kennels, personally, unless I knew it had already previously thrived in a kennel environment. Some dogs find it incredibly traumatic - I used to look after my sister's dog if she went on holiday abroad, because the one time the dog was taken to kennels, she started physically shaking and drooling and then injured herself trying to get out and lost control of her bowels when she thought she was going to be left there. So unless the dog has experienced kennels and been fine with it, it's not unreasonable that your partner doesn't want to leave it there.

I don't think putting your pet in kennels and spending one or two weeks somewhere you don't want to be is a small compromise which should be expected in a loving relationship at all!

Just because i used to do something i don't want to be held to it for the rest of my life. I used to go out clubbing a lot but i'd rather stick pins in my eyes now.

I would never expect my DH to go on a whole holiday he didn't fancy to please me. Even if he ''used to'' do it/go there. Especially if it involved animals being put into kennels, which is not something they all take to, especially if they've never been left before.

I mean goodness, at the end of the day, in a partnership between reasonable people, if one doesn't want to do something which the other one does, the answer is never force them, guilt trip them or railroad them into it. Is it!

I completely agree!

And obviously you wouldn’t use the joint pot for a holiday just for yourself.
You sound more and more selfish.

Basically you want to go to Venice but don’t want to pay for the whole trip yourself, so you’ve dressed it up as a gift for her even though you’d know she’d hate it.

Are you hoping that she will encourage you to still go?

I used to smoke. I don’t anymore.
If someone bought me a load of fags for my birthday then I’d be annoyed because they know I don’t smoke anymore.

You know she doesn’t go abroad anymore, so in what world did you think that this was a good gift to get her?

apparently the partner said straight away to go with someone else. So OP still gets the trip. It seems like OP just can’t use joint funds when they are there 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is hilarious
So u booked her a holiday,YOU want
for HER birthday
And you booked her dog in kennels,when u KNEW she didn't want to leave it
Right 👍
If you wanted her to have the birthday she wants ,you would of booked a cottage that takes dogs in the UK ,near somewhere new she hasn't been.
Why don't u get a refund,and do exactly that

Oh wow I completely missed that!

Looks like OPs plan worked, apart from the DW not wanting to let them use the joint account, which is fair enough.