Going abroad against DH wishes.

[Expatfamily]

DH is firmly in the camp that we travel together as a family, and if I’m desperate to go abroad to visit family we’ll use every penny of our savings to go. He understands how much I love my family, he does love them too, but it’s slightly unreasonable to be expected to spend every holiday, every year, visiting my family. He feels it’s fair that we go every other year, with alternate years holidaying elsewhere.

Don’t want to be too outing but my family are British but immigrated to the other side of the world. The place where they live does feel like home to me, I’ve spent considerable time over there and have my own friends etc there too. I do love it over there. My family used to visit over here often but not going into too much detail it’s difficult for them to visit due to their kids in school/costs for all them to fly/not many family members over here to visit/we don’t have a big enough house to host for a prolonged time etc.

It’s expensive for us all to visit them, it’s a long-haul flight away and it’s an expensive country. Before living with DH when I’d visit, as I’ve been many times, we wouldn’t bother doing much touristy things, just hanging out really. The same as what you’d do staying with family here: BBQs/cooking in/watching tele/visiting friends/enjoying the local area/running errands/taking the kids to their activities etc. Stuff that doesn’t really cost that much money apart from the odd day out, getting a coffee in town, getting the odd burger at the street food fest etc.

Obviously when I’ve gone with DH we’ve done the expensive tourist attractions/days out/treating it as a holiday. The last time we went we spent ££££s as spending money. On of the days we spent a ‘home’ DH got a taxi into a different local town as he was a bit bored, and that cost him just over a hundred quid.

I’ve gone on bit of a ramble but essentially I do want to go home. I want to watch tele with my family, share DD with them, and just do normal family things. I know they miss me/DD terribly and everyone in my life keeps mentioning it. I’d love DH to be there, but we’re a bit strapped for cash, and really cannot justify ££££s at the moment.

My family have offered to pay for me (which I/we could afford to just pay for my flight) but when I said about DH joining they said (rightly in my opinion) if we can afford for his flight, why can’t we just pay for me to come over (they’re not loaded by any stretch of the imagination).

The very simple solution is that I just go with DD1 (she’s free until she’s 2). But DH really isn’t a fan, and if anything it’s the first time he’s ever dug his heels in. I think it’s wound him up that everyone in my circle keeps expecting me/us to go over. He somewhat snapped the other day (for the first time ever) that if they were so desperate for us to visit this year they could pay for both of our flights, if not, we’ll hopefully visit next year.

The subject is becoming painfully awkward on all sides (and other family members/friends/acquaintances often mention it as chitchat too).

It would be the first time me and DH would have ever had a real disagreement/either of us has plainly vetoed the others feelings/opinions.

Exactly @Simonjt, it's incredulous the wide eyed amazement that a dad would have an emotional attachment to his child and they to him!

I think that the best thing to do would be to all go and use savings for the trip. You have said yourself that once you have a second dc you probably won’t be in a position to go at all in the future. It will also be logistically more difficult anyway due to being limited by school holidays, annual leave from work etc etc. so why not take the opportunity now to all go together?

This sums up the entire issue- the family's about turn when op naturally wanted to bring her dh.
Op - I'm bored
Family- come over
Op - can't afford it - saving for renovations
Family - well pay for your ticket
Op - Great ! Can just about afford to pay for dh ourselves
Family - well if you CAN afford 'one' ticket, buy your own and leave dh at home - we don't really want to / afford to / that bothered about dh being lonely / bore on his own anyway.
At that point Op should have said.
lol I'm not coming without dh.

But if they all went would the DH be happy using his annual leave to visit her family and really just kick about the house and not do much?

It doesn't sound like they can afford to do lots of tourist stuff. And tourist stuff won't be quite so enjoyable with a baby.

I think your parents are being unreasonable withdrawing the offer of money if your husband comes too. It actually sounds quite manipulative, although perhaps they are just not thinking things through. You need to make it clear to them that you come as a pair, or not at all.

They can give you money “towards coming to visit”, if that is what they want to happen. It is then up to you whether you put that money towards one flight, two flights, airport hotels, whatever.

“Mum, dad, DH and I come as a pair. We can’t afford to come until next year, sorry. If you want to contribute towards our travel costs then we might be able to come this year, but no worries if not.”

You use the word 'let' but in a truly equal relationship noone 'lets' anyone do anything. You just do something. My DH didn't 'let' me go to NZ to my aunt's wedding. I went.

If I was you I would go for a month because the flights are the big cost and your accommodation is free and you're doing low key low cost things. Let your family pay and go without him.

Yes. Fuck him because his opinion and emotions as a man and father don't matter. Jfc horrible posts on here

I agree this is key, and since it's been asked several times and OP hasn't repiled it may be safe to assume not

As PPs have said there's also the issue about asking for all of OP's annual leave in one block in order to visit them, so sadly it really does sound as if these visits are being prioritised above whatever he might want

In healthy relationships, you don’t just do something, you agree especially when you share a child, home and finances.

Is this a joke?

No. I just don't believe any man should 'tell' a woman what to do. She wants to go for strong reasons. He doesn't want her to go for the reason he'd miss her. Not strong enough in my opinion.

He's telling her he'd miss her and that's why she shouldn't go. That's not a good enough reason to stop her from seeing her family. He's not going to agree to anything that's involves her going to Australia so she misses out. That's not fair.

No. I just don't believe any man should 'tell' a woman what to do. She wants to go for strong reasons. He doesn't want her to go for the reason he'd miss her. Not strong enough in my opinion.

He's telling her he'd miss her and that's why she shouldn't go. That's not a good enough reason to stop her from seeing her family.

And he doesn't want to miss the baby or her firsts. But that's not strong enough either???

See the threads on MN where OP's mum or MIL has given baby their first ice cream, chocolate or whatever and the OP is either up in arms or really sad.

No it's not. It's how I operate a healthy loving relationship. To you it doesn't matter and that's fair enough. To me your way of thinking is cold and emotionless. Neither of our opinions matter more than the 2 equal parents in this scenario.

He's not dictated anything to her. He's told her that he doesn't want to be separated from his tiny child and miss her firsts. It matters to him. As a loving parent. I'm using extra punctuation as you seem to not understand the ops posts where she said it was the first thing he's got so upset over and he puts them first all the time and is a great father. His opinions and emotions don't matter less because be has a penis.

Ha excellent point

op, this isn’t true. He’s demonstrated he would absolutely refuse to sit watching paint dry, since he couldn’t spend one day quietly at home with you and your family, but needed £100 cab to go out for the day. Without you. Point this out to him and say if this is his preference he obviously doesn’t want to spend time with you and dd THAT much, since the first day you aren’t doing fun things he pisses off expensively on his own, so he agrees on quieter cheaper holidays or he agrees you go without him. One of them.

The OP has said he would agree but he’s feeling very sad about it.

Great post and on the money, literally.
He is not prepared for an inexpensive holiday with your family.
What a convenient way to prevent it.
Lots of people who live very far away do exactly as you describe. Flights and simply hang out, to be physically close to loved ones.
They definitely do not need to be expensive trips.

I don't know what his penis has to do with anything but his penis shouldn't be telling her what she can and can't do.

You're either misunderstanding on purpose or you can't understand. Again, read her posts. No where does it say hes told her 'what she can or cant do'. Literally no where. My point was the ops wants aren't more important because she's the mum or a woman. As plenty have said, there's been loads of threads that had the exact opposite said if it was a man wanting to take their child away from them for weeks

My family have offered to pay for me (which I/we could afford to just pay for my flight) but when I said about DH joining they said (rightly in my opinion) if we can afford for his flight, why can’t we just pay for me to come over (they’re not loaded by any stretch of the imagination)

It's this aspect that your dh probably finds odd.

You are struggling to pay for all 3 of you to go and visit your family - who made the decision to move such a long way away from you.

You've said you can't afford 2 flight, plus DD's smaller flight cost.

Parents offer to pay for just you (and dd maybe)

You suggest that if they can cover one flight, then you could stretch to covering the other flight.

Parents now won't pay for any of it because they would rather just you went alone, but not your partner as well.

Or, at least, that's what it comes across as to your dh.

He just hates being away from us. Which I understand, as if the shoe was on the other foot and his parents offered to take him and DD away on holiday I’d be climbing the walls too.

If the OP would hate to be away from her dc and dh and would be upset that his parents would only pay for him and their child, but not for her - and, worse imo, if she came then not contribute for any of it at all - then surely it's hypocritical to expect her dh to do the same.

I would hate to be away from my baby/young child for any length of time, let alone over a week or two at the other side of the country. Tbh I wouldn't really want to be away from my partner that long either, but missing partners isn't really allowed in MN.

Dh would be the same.

How,would you feel if your dh did the same? Decided that him and your baby were going abroad for a couple of weeks without you? You would be totally happy about that?

I think they were just making the point that if she is saying she can't afford to come because, say, the ticket is £1000, they have said they will pay. OP/DH have then decided they do actually have £1000, but only to spend on his ticket because they have to come together. At which point OPs family have decided they don't want to sub 50% of a £2k trip. Essentially they are offering £1k to OP, not £500 eachntoward OP & DH. That's jow I read this para anyway

My family have offered to pay for me (which I/we could afford to just pay for my flight) but when I said about DH joining they said (rightly in my opinion) if we can afford for his flight, why can’t we just pay for me to come over