Husband won’t rearrange his holiday

[ThisPearlCritic]

My best friend and I had planned a big holiday with 8 of our close friends in the summer to celebrate a number of significant events.

Unfortunately, the only time that is convenient for all of my friends is during the same week that my husband is going away. He could move his holiday forward or backward to accommodate me but has refused, and has become very insistent that he won’t move his dates because he booked his holiday first.

For context, my husband had tickets to very important event, which he has booked years in advanced with his friends, but at the last minute he couldn’t go because my best friend (who I am going on holiday with) had a family emergency and needed my support, and my husband had to remain and look after the children (3 from 3 - 9).

My husband keeps pointing to this and has made it clear it’s my turn to rearrange my holiday. However, he’s effectively asking 9 busy women, with careers and families, to rearrange their summer plans and that’s going to be impossible. I feel he is being intentionally difficult and doing this on purpose, whilst my friend had an unforeseen emergency.

This disagreement has seeped into other areas of my life and we are constantly squabbling and arguing. I am worried where this might lead.
AIBU to ask him to rearrange his leave.

He changed his plans for you last time so now you reverse it and change your plans for him, job done.

But it’s not suitable for you. Why can’t someone else rearrange something to free up a different week? Or why don’t you accept you’ve left it too late and book now for next year?

So YOU need to arrange alternative childcare.

Good. Do that. Although it's not so much changing your plans as not riding roughshod over his.

Good luck with it all.

WHAT WAS THE EMERGENCY ? 🤣

Wow I thought YWBU when I thought it was a solo trip.

Now I think you actually sound quite awful.

Why are your friends more important than your DH and his (also your) family.

You’re not free on those dates and so when you were working it out with your friends then you should of told them so.

I actually think your ‘friends’ don’t like you much and you do whatever you can to keep in with them.
(Including having your DH cancel his first holiday to look after the kids so you could try and come to the rescue one of these women).

I’m guessing they all said the dates that they couldn’t do and wouldn’t go without each other but would happily go without you, which is why you didn’t tell them you couldn’t do that date.

your mistake, aside from your questionable attitude, was to agree with a date when you were not available.

Why should it become your husband's problem? You should have just said that the date did not work for you. Simple.

It’s been said a hundred times but yes, yabu. I can’t believe you made him miss his important trip tbh. It obviously upset him and now he’s decided not to let you put him last again. There are 52 weeks in a year, there will be another time you can go, if it means a belated celebration then that’s what it’ll have to be

@ThisPearlCritic So do you think his brothers should rearrange their holidays or do you think your husband should miss out on his camping trip?

So, you’re not listening to anyone who thinks you are being unreasonable, including your husband, who you have already inconvenienced in the past by making your friends as a higher priority than him. Try and put yourself into his shoes and imagine how you would feel if he put his friends before you.

Sorry, I think YABU. You and your friends will either need to agree to another date or you miss holiday one out.

So you agreed the date with your friends assuming he’d cancel. That’s really off

I mean, if a friend or friend close family member had a brain tumour and the OP is a brain surgeon who needed to operate urgently, you could nearly see why she needed a babysitter for her kids and husband had to stay because he's the only one allowed to watch the kids?

or am I watching too much Grey's Anatomy

But his plans include his father and his brother so are they that easily changed, his brother and father would need to change their plans as well, also will they loose a deposit on the campsite / on other things

This can’t be real…surely?! Incase it is, you absolutely are being unreasonable.

So you’re not just expecting your DH to change his plans, but also his father and brothers (so at least 3 other people)? And you knew it was in the diary before you arranged your trip?

Your friends are taking advantage then and your poor husband is once again being sidelined for them

Honestly, if this was reversed you'd be told to LTB as he clearly doesn't care about your feelings and plans.

He'd booked something YEARS in advanced, that's clearly something hugely big and important to him, and you made him cancel because a friend "needed support". A friend with 7 other close friends apparently. And you couldn't work around that rather than make him miss out?

He's right to dig his heels in

Presumably, also, changing date would be inconvenient for the people he ALREADY booked with?!

Well, that's your problem, not his.

I cannot believe you made him cancel a very long standing booked trip planned around a special event, so that you could support your best friend?? Has she no other support?

Following that I would absolutely dig my heels in if I was your DH. You may be right (or not) that him moving his camping trip isn’t that big a deal but tbh you used up all your “you need to cancel” credits (and then some) when you asked him to cancel the other trip. Maybe you shouldn’t have done that.

You were unreasonable to agree on a date on the assumption that your h would cave again. It’s your fault that you assumed and something tells me that you wouldn’t be so quick to cancel the holiday if your h needed to suddenly support someone.

Time to consider 2 trips as you won’t delay until next year (how old are you not to consider this ?) or to drop out of the holiday.

What was your friend's emergency that meant your DH had to cancel his important event?

I see why you’re disappointed in him. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask. And I would be annoyed if my DH refused to change if it made no difference to him but…

Sounds to me like this is payback for your putting your friend first when he had the big event. I don’t think YABU this time but you may well have been that time, quite possibly a lot more unreasonable than he is being now, and your DH clearly harbors resentment from it. Might be easiest to suck it up this time and accept it. If this is just one of many annoying games played between the two of you, some counseling and a look at whether the marriage really works for you both would be in order.

Edited as just seen the update that the DH’s trip is a trip with others, not solo. In which case asking him to rearrange is unreasonable. It’s not just him you want to adjust so you can be with friends, it’s him and two others who he would have to ask to jump through hoops for you. You can expect some of this sort of flexibility from your spouse, you can’t expect it from others. It’s not reasonable to ask him to mess them around.

If you had a holiday booked you could rearrange it so he could go away? Perfect. Rearrange this holiday so he can go on his.

Oh. And he did it for you once already.

It's also very telling when a MN post has almost 100% YABU in favour of the man being in the right tbh

It speaks volumes about how unreasonable you are being

I know what you said. What would you think of a man who when they heard a story about a man doing something stupid or objectionable said "Seems to me more likely a woman would do that." He'd be an idiot.