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.

But it may well be an inconvenience for his father and/or brothers. How do you know this isn't the only date they can manage?

If you try to find a date to suit nine busy people within a relatively short time frame, it's inevitable that it's going to be difficult. You probably need to work it out at least a year in advance, if not more. You and your friends are just going to have to recognise that this project was always over-ambitious and think about alternatives.

I get the feeling from the OP that the DH is quite often asked to be "nice" and rearrange things for her, and this may well be the first time that he has said no.

In other words, even you know it was a pretty shit reason.

'I agree with you, OP. In the same circumstances, (if I were your DH), I would re-arrange my plans and I honestly have no idea why everyone else seems to be so against you.'

So he's never allowed to prioritize his own plans? Does that ever apply to the OP?

Not everyone gets to go on every trip. If this date works for 8 of the 9, the 1 it doesn't work for either doesn't get to go, or you find a new mutually agreeable date. Or find a babysitter.

Is that how you talk to him?

What about his brothers? Do they work and have partners /family/social lives ?

You are unreasonable to expect it or demand it, but would not be unreasonable to ask very nicely and to somehow try to sweeten the pot, so to say. Offer him 2 weeks off if only he would rearrange. Or smth.

If that were true, he wouldn’t have a problem with it.
I think he is justifiably fed up that, once again, you have put your needs first. You sound very selfish and entitled.
Can’t understand why he is still with you, to be honest!

Well done.

Unreal.

All this could have been prevented had you said “no sorry I can’t do that date as husband away” not expect your husband, father in law and brother in laws (and families) to workaround your avoidable situation.

you also have the option to say no to your trip.

Your entitled attitude also comes through, Op, that you think it was fine for your husband to have sacrificed his holiday last time. In no way would I have allowed my partner to miss out on a holiday that he had booked months before - that was so unfair. Maybe if YOU had been going through an emergency but it was your friend! He was so kind.

You owe it to him to not book holidays at the same time as his, already secured, dates.

It is you who can not attend the holiday with friends, Op.
The dates you propose do not suit you. (Husband's holiday was a known fact.)

Finding a date that works for 9 adults will always be difficult, but when this one was suggested you should have pushed back and told people you were not available.

When you add in the fact that he's already cancelled something that was clearly extremely important to him to accommodate your/your friends, you're being very unreasonable.

You say it doesn't matter if he goes a week before/after. It may not matter to you, but it may matter a lot to him. It's not necessarily about the date, it's about him being the one who's plans are seen as secondary.

If I were you, I'd skip this trip.

It’s one thing to mention it to DH and see if he offers to move his holiday, quite another to demand it then allow it to “seep into other areas of your lives” when he declines. Your OH is probably holding his ground here because what if he doesn’t? What might be expected of him next time? I agree with others - that week doesn’t work for you all because it doesn’t work for you. You need to find another suitable date.

YABU why did you even discuss those dates k owing your DH was already going away. Especially after cancelling his last trip. If it’s the only dates your friends can do, I’d personally miss this one out

TBH I'm sure that if OP had numerous examples of her putting her DH first, she would have told us.

She is completely ignoring questions about the friend's 'emergency' and why, out of the eight friends, she was the one to drop everything and rush to her aid even though her DH had a once in a lifetime event that had been booked years earlier which he had to sacrifice to look after the children while she was helping her friend.

She is ignoring questions about whether her DH and his brothers have booked annual leave and made arrangements to be able to go on the camping trip. She has just mentioned that her FIL is retired.

We can only make judgements based on the information that OP has provided and the vast majority of us think that she is being unreasonable.

@thepariscrimefiles

You and the other posters are perfectly entitled to your view point.

I respect that, especially as you have given reasons as to why you think as you do.
do.o.

Your position appears to be the following:

If someone comes on and says "Am I being unreasonable for resenting my sister for not giving me fifity thousand pounds?" what everyone ought to say is "We can't give an answer because for all we know her sister owes her fifty thousand pounds."

It's absolutely reasonable for people to assume that posters are not omitting to mention hugely relevant information, especially when they have updated several times. In fact it's fairly ridiculous to think they might be withholding such information.

I'm giving the OP the benefit of the doubt.

De to personal circumstances I've been on MN quite a bit over the weekend and it seems to have been a particularly bad weekend for people getting stuck into OP's, making accusations of the OP not being genuine, really distressing subjects, unpleasant unempathetic posts and lots of " jokers" giving the laugh emoji to unfunny comments.

So right now I'm sticking to my position of giving this OP the benefit of the doubt and logging out of my account to do something to lighten my mood.

I've just explained why it's foolish to give the OP "the benefit of the doubt" when there isn't any reasonable doubt. She's had plenty of chances to say the things you think she might not be saying, and hasn't said them.
Why not give her husband the benefit of the doubt, a far more reasonable thing to do? Just because he wasn't the one talking? You do understand the problems created by people just assuming the person standing in front of them should be given the benefit of the doubt over the person not there that they are crriticising, don't you?

But you are one of the posters who derailed the thread by an OP with a controlling DH who expected her to wait up until midnight to take his gym clothes out of the washing machine. You were one of a few posters that piled onto her because she referred to her husband as 'hubby'. You said:

'But there are certain words - " hubby" being one of them- that is just so annoying that it prevents a rational response.'

Therefore, your stance of giving the OP the benefit of the doubt doesn't apply to all the threads that you post on.

I posted up thread about my views on her H 's refusal to change his holiday and the needs for give and take in a marriage and my dislike of everything being transactional.

I have given reasons why I'm inclined to think her H should change his holiday with the caveat that no one can give a definitive answer to this without knowledge of how their marriage normally works .

I've not just said she is the OP and so she should be in the right although I have said she appears to be under a lot of pressure regarding arranging the group holiday.

I've not given an unconsidered opinion .

Perhaps you could respect my view point in the same way I'm respecting those of the other posters who hold a different one?

"I've not just said she is the OP and so she should be in the right although I have said she appears to be under a lot of pressure regarding arranging the group holiday."

That's exactly what you have done. Then you've tried to think of reasons to support it, and as there aren't any, you've invented some and said "we can't know this isn't the case".

I've posted multiple times on the thread -I was infact the second poster right back on page 1.
You are being totally selective with what you are chosing to quote back at me.

I'm failing to see what your problem is and why you are determined to pick a fight with me.